Tragic Life of Grandpa Salathiel Harold Sterling
March 9, 2011
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| Salathiel Harold Sterling |
If my great-grandfather, Salathiel Sterling had no bad luck, he might have had no luck at all. Yes, Ray Charles once sang about such bad luck blues, but great-grandpa Salathiel experienced it.
When I first heard that he had been married five times, I considered the possibility that he might have been some sort of womanizer. But the evidence for that theory is debatable. We know little of his childhood except that his family lived in the mountains of West Virginia and foods were cooked over a large, smoky fireplace (2). He married his first wife (Mary Kisner) in 1861 (3). His daughter, Ellen was born later that same year. Mary died (December 25, 1861) and Ellen died a short time later.
When I first read this history, I thought about how sad it must have been for Salathiel to lose his young wife and infant daughter. At least it saddens me to read of this event, but for Salathiel, it must have been a major tragedy. The cause of the deaths is unknown to us, but the fact that they both died about the same time suggests that it may have been due to some complication at birth. But this is only speculation, and the cause of deaths may have been due to any number of common diseases or some accident. But whether the deaths occurred after some protracted illness or suddenly in house fires would not have reduced the pain that Salathiel must have felt as he mourned their deaths.
When I first heard that he had been married five times, I considered the possibility that he might have been some sort of womanizer. But the evidence for that theory is debatable. We know little of his childhood except that his family lived in the mountains of West Virginia and foods were cooked over a large, smoky fireplace (2). He married his first wife (Mary Kisner) in 1861 (3). His daughter, Ellen was born later that same year. Mary died (December 25, 1861) and Ellen died a short time later.
When I first read this history, I thought about how sad it must have been for Salathiel to lose his young wife and infant daughter. At least it saddens me to read of this event, but for Salathiel, it must have been a major tragedy. The cause of the deaths is unknown to us, but the fact that they both died about the same time suggests that it may have been due to some complication at birth. But this is only speculation, and the cause of deaths may have been due to any number of common diseases or some accident. But whether the deaths occurred after some protracted illness or suddenly in house fires would not have reduced the pain that Salathiel must have felt as he mourned their deaths.
Salathiel enlisted in the Northern Army of the Civil War on October 14, 1861 (9), and served in Company “O” of the West Virginia Infantry and was stationed some of the time in Oakland, MD(3). The citizens of western Virginia chose not to join with the South, so they seceded from the state of Virginia to establish the new state of West Virginia (1). Salathiel was 20 years old and apparently serving in the army when his wife and daughter died in 1861.
The only things we know about Salathiel’s service in the Union Army is that he served about 3 years (2), enjoyed detached service in Grafton, West Virginia from November 1862 until he was discharged in December 19, 1864 as a private, received $60 mustering out pay, survived the war and lived to the ripe old age of 89. We also know that the Civil War was being fought in West Virginia the year Mary and Ellen died in 1861. Ellen died in November and Mary died in December of 1861, after the battle of Cheat Mountain had been fought during September 1861 in West Virginia -- about 80 miles south of their home in Preston County. Although we cannot rule out the possibility that war-time conditions in West Virginia may have contributed to Mary and Ellen’s premature deaths, it seems unlikely that they were direct casualties of war-time combat. However, feeding the armies can often drain the food supplies of a region, resulting in hunger and stress for local civilians of West Virginia -- where life was hard even in peacetime.
My guess is that when the Southern Army invaded the West Virginia territory, many young “West Virginians” joined the Northern Army to help repel the South. It’s possible that Salathiel may also have joined then and even fought in the Battle of Cheat Mountain to help defeat the Lee Army. According to Eileen Tice Brehm (4), when Salathiel returned from the war, he could not find his family and grieved all his life about his daughter.
By 1863, Salathiel had apparently overcome his grief when he married my great grandmother, Mary Robinette. Mary had been crippled when dropped by a nurse when she was a baby. Times were hard in the coal-mining area of Grafton, West Virginia (which became a state in 1863) so Salathiel decided to travel alone to join his half-brother Andrew Jackson Sterling in Whiteside Co., Illinois.
My grandmother (Mary Alice Sterling) was born in 1864. She was about 11 months old when tragedy again struck the Salathiel Sterling family – Mary Robinette died. We might guess that she did not die alone, however, because her father (Moses Robinette) was a Hotel Keeper in Pruntytown, Virginia, just five miles from Grafton (9) so she likely had family members at her bedside. There was an epidemic of diphtheria that swept through Preston County and may have been the cause of her death. Mary Alice was taken to live with her half-uncle Joseph Sterling and her grandmother, Eleanor (6). She worked in the house and received a minimal education. Apparently, Salathiel never returned to West Virginia to claim his daughter. Mary Alice later complained that her father had abandoned her (8).
My grandmother (Mary Alice Sterling) was born in 1864. She was about 11 months old when tragedy again struck the Salathiel Sterling family – Mary Robinette died. We might guess that she did not die alone, however, because her father (Moses Robinette) was a Hotel Keeper in Pruntytown, Virginia, just five miles from Grafton (9) so she likely had family members at her bedside. There was an epidemic of diphtheria that swept through Preston County and may have been the cause of her death. Mary Alice was taken to live with her half-uncle Joseph Sterling and her grandmother, Eleanor (6). She worked in the house and received a minimal education. Apparently, Salathiel never returned to West Virginia to claim his daughter. Mary Alice later complained that her father had abandoned her (8).
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| Mary Alice Sterling |
In 1869, Salathiel married Margaret “Maggie” Laird McCalmont. A son, Harry Sterling, was born in 1871 in Morrison, Whiteside Co. IL. It was here that it was discovered that Salathiel could write, so he was made the School District Clerk.
Harry Sterling wrote a fascinating account of his early life with Salathiel (2) from which the following was excerpted:
“Mother was a native of Pennsylvania, born near Lock Haven, came to visit her sister, Mrs. Andrew Miller, who lived on a farm five miles from Morrison. Father, who had been discharged from the Federal Army after three years service, had come west to grow up with the country and went to work for Uncle Andrew as a farm hand. Living with the family the two fell in love and soon were married and moved to Morrison where father teamed, and then became agent for the new Wilson Sewing Machine Co. of Chicago, Illinois. He sold a great many machines, finally became jobber for the machines and had several agents working for him when the panic of 1876 struck the country. The machines were returned, only partially paid for and the company near bankruptcy refused to take them back, demanded full payment for all the machines. Father could not sell them for any price; borrowed money to pay for them and was not able to repay for the time. We lost our beautiful home, mother began making hair switches, watch chains, etc. while father buying a big team of horses and a farm wagon started overland for Kansas. He drove it in six weeks, took up a homestead and timber claim, 320 acres, in Dickinson County, twenty miles from Abilene, which was the nearest town, built a house and a shed barn. In the spring of 1880 mother and I came to him by railroad. I can still remember many things about that trip, among others the little houses built in cutout places in the hill above the Union Station in Kansas City, the long ride across the prairie, the farm wagon, no roads - just grass as far as I could see, with a few little homes along our route. I was to see that same scenery for many years, dry hot winds seared it in the summer, winter snow covered it in the cold weather, racing fires carried death and danger in the spring, and many homes were burned each spring, and some lives lost. Want faced the victims who were burned out, but the neighbors who were in many cases near to starvation came to their aid with food, clothing, lumber, and help to rebuild homes, because the family, in most cases could not leave the land, as nearly all of them were homesteaders and would lose the land if they did not live a stated time on the land. There is no more horrifying sight than a racing prairie fire in a new settlement. Later in my life there I had several near escapes from the fires; only the speed of my horse and my knowledge of the lay of the land saved me. Later, also, the farmers plowed several furrows around their farms and kept them plowed which were called fire guards. Properly kept up they were some protection. After all the only safety was in eternal vigilance”.
A few months after Margaret and Harry arrived in Kansas, Margaret became sick and after many months of illness, tragedy struck again. Margaret died on May 11, 1881. “After that we were by ourselves, father and I. Drouths took our crops, blizzards killed our stock, and we lived the hard way. At the age of 10, I began herding cattle for Uncle Andrew Sterling---$1.00 per week and board.”(2)
In 1882, Salathiel married for the fourth time. This time to a Mrs. Marie Crandall who had two grown sons. They all moved in with Salathiel and Harry on their farm in Dickinson Co. KS. Harry was unhappy with the arrangement, so he left to live in neighboring Marion Co. with Uncle Andrew Miller to work and attend school. Later, Salathiel also left and relocated to Jasper Co. MO and obtained a divorce.
Until Great-Grandpa Salathiel finally settled down in Duenweg, MO, he had developed a habit of leaving his family behind to search for greener pastures. First, he left his wife Mary and daughter Ellen to fight in the Civil War. Then, he left Mary Robinette and daughter Mary Alice to begin working in Illinois. Next, he left Margaret and Harry in Illinois to homestead a farm in Kansas. And finally, he left Marie, her boys and Harry in Kansas so that he could start again in Duenweg, Missouri. Throughout his adult life, Salathiel lost three of his five wives, two of his children, fought in the Civil war, lost his sewing machine business and beautiful home in Illinois during the panic of 1876 and a homestead in Kansas to droughts that killed his crops and blizzards that killed his livestock. I think that is about enough tragedy for one man.
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| Margaret and Harry Sterling ca. 1879 |
It is not my purpose here to be judgmental of Salathiel’s habits because I do not know his reasons for moving. It seems possible that he experience traumatic situations while serving during the Civil War that could have affected his behavior after the war. It would be difficult to blame him for wishing to improve his condition in life, but it would be interesting to hear his explanations. Salathiel was certainly an adventurous and industrious fellow. He played a role in the settling of the country west of the Mississippi River and contributed to the development of the United States as the greatest nation in history.
Harry later found his father in Duenweg where they lived and sold firewood together. It was there that Salathiel met and married Sarah Francis “Fanny” Johnson Boyd in 1890. (3) Fanny had 3 children from a previous marriage and Salathiel fathered 3 more. Salathiel experienced his final tragedy when Roy, born in1891, died in 1895. But, Ralph was born in1896 and Hugh in 1898 and both lived to produce families of their own.
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| Sterling Chapel in Duenweg |
Salathiel ultimately owned considerable property around Duenweg and donated 2 acres of land for the Sterling Cemetery. He also donated land for the Sterling Chapel that was build beside the cemetery. Consequently, both the cemetery and the chapel carried his name. (8) Salathiel died in 1932 after 42 years of marriage to Fanny and they are both buried in the Sterling Cemetery about a mile east and north of Duenweg in the Atlas Community. In recent years, Rex Sterling (one of his descendants) had a new headstone placed between the two old ones. (8)
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| Leola, Creola, Salathiel, Ralph, Sarah, and Hugh Sterling |
Harry taught school in Duenweg, then owned a drug store there. (5) Both he and his father were important and respected pillars of the Duenweg community.
Salathiel died from cancer and is buried beside Sarah (Fanny) in the Sterling Cemetery in Duenweg, Missouri.
After having visited this cemetery a couple of times, it gives me a better sense of our history. And, it makes me realize that there is no such thing as a "perfect" human. We all have events in our lives that do not make us proud. But, I am proud to say that I am a Sterling.
References:
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| Sterling Drugs |
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After having visited this cemetery a couple of times, it gives me a better sense of our history. And, it makes me realize that there is no such thing as a "perfect" human. We all have events in our lives that do not make us proud. But, I am proud to say that I am a Sterling.
References:
1. I find it fascinating to realize that West Virginia seceded from the state of Virginia so that they could fight for the North to prevent Southern States from seceding from the Union. Hmmm. About 618,000 young American men died in a war designed to preserve the Union and prevent the South from seceding.
2. Harry Sterling, Story of His Early Life. Typed manuscript. (fascinating story)
3. Kathryn Sterling Herrmann, personal communication.
4. Eileen Tice Brehm. 1977. Letter to Charles and Esther Sterling, December 1977.
5. Billie June Ingram. 2004. The History of Duenweg, Missouri. Published by Billie June Bartlet Ingram. 46 pp.
6. Kathrine Sterling Heermann , photo of Salathiel alone and Margaret/Harry photo.
7. Peggy Sterling Miller, photo of young Mary Alice Sterling, personal communication
8. Dona Cupp, photos of chapel and Harry’s drug store, personal communication
9. Marian Lowe, personal communication.
Directions to the Sterling Cemetery. Go east from downtown Duenweg on hwy. 66/44 about 1/2 mile, then turn left (north) on CR 80, after another 1/2 mile, turn left (west) on Cedar Road. Sterling Cemetery is on the corner of CR 80 and Cedar Road.
Table of Contents: https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6813612681836200616/3382423676443906063?hl=en
