Winfield Lincoln Sterling 1862 -1936
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Grandpa Winfield Sterling and Bruce Sterling
By Winfield Lincoln Sterling (Jr.)
May 21, 2012
My namesake, Grandpa Winfield Lincoln Sterling, died the year of my birth (1936) so I was unable to enjoy his company or hear stories about his life and his family history. Throughout my life, I have considered it an honor to have inherited his name. At times, I have wondered about the mystical nonsense that I might actually be his reincarnation. After all, we are about the same size, have the exact same name, receding hairlines, similar features. I appeared just after he disappeared and maybe we even shared comparable personalities. And, based on this photo, we both obviously shared a deep affection for my sister, Dorothy.
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| Winfield and sister Dorothy Lee ca. 1934 |
Based on what I heard from family members, Winfield was an honorable, decent and honest man. My father (Charles Sterling) wrote that his father, Winfield was the “best man I ever knew.” His exact quote from a letter is: “I was born in a good home. I think my father was the best man I ever knew, my mother the best mother and nothing much the matter with the rest of the family.” I learned a long time ago, not to question my father. So, until I see some hard evidence to the contrary, that’s the way it is! OK, but maybe it is fair seek a more complete measure of Grandpa’s personality and qualities -- because very little remains in writing about him. Since Winfield, Mary and their daughter Augusta lived only a couple hundred yards from my father’s family in Edinburg, we were all (at least my older siblings and parents) very close. My Mom (Esther Sterling) mentioned in her diaries that she was very fond of Winfield and he apparently treated her with considerable respect and kindness. According to my Sister Peggy, he was a gentle, loving, religious man. Peggy claims that grandpa would pick up Grandma and swing her around in a loving way -- just for the fun of it.
Both Grandma and Grandpa (Mary and Winfield) were born in West Virginia and apparently shared the same grandmother -- my second great grandmother Eleanor Bachman. Of course they both had different grandfathers from separate marriages. Mary’s mom died when she was two, so she was taken to live with the Joseph Sterling family. Joseph had a brother -- Andrew Jackson Sterling -- who was Winfield’s father. So, Winfield and Mary likely knew each other as children and ultimately fell in love and were married in 1886 in Dickenson County, Kansas. Winfield was 24 years old and Mary was 22.
We don’t know for certain the origin of the name Winfield Lincoln, but it seems fairly safe to assume that he was named after General Winfield Scott, a hero of the Mexican and Civil Wars. The middle name likely comes from Abraham Lincoln. Winfield’s father fought for the North in the Civil War and family lore contends that he moved his family from West Virginia to Illinois, in part because he did not wish for his children to grow up in the South.
Based on this photo containing Dad and Grandpa together, Winfield appears to be a few inches shorter than Dad – which would make him approximately six feet tall and weighing maybe about 175 pounds.
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| Winfield and Charles Sterling ca. 1934 |
One of Winfield’s life patterns -- that can be gathered from the family birth records -- was that he found it difficult to settle down. He certainly moved a great deal during his life. From the evidence available, he moved at least 8 times. His first two moves were with his father Andrew Jackson Sterling when he moved his family from West Virginia to Illinois and then from Illinois to Kansas. He spent the first 3 years of his life in the mountains of West Virginia along with his 7 older brothers and sisters. (Interestingly, Winfield was born in Preston County, West Virginia, whereas his older siblings were born in Preston County, Virginia. The reason for this change in states is that West Virginia seceded from the southern state of Virginia during the civil war -- so they all lived in the same place, but only the state name changed.) The family then lived in Whiteside County, IL from 1865 to 1871. They lived not far from Sterling Illinois. So, it seemed logical to me that the town might have been named after Andrew Sterling. Unfortunately, that town was well established before the Sterlings moved there.
Moving to Kansas
The Homestead Act, another vote-buying scheme signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862, likely played a key role in the movement of the Sterling family to Kansas. Free land was available in 160-acre parcels. If a homesteader lived on the 160 acres for five continuous years, built a residence and grew crops, they could then file for their deed for the property. So, in 1871, Andrew Jackson Sterling moved his family onto what may have been one of these homesteads, and began to carve a working farm out of the prairie soil near Hope, Kansas. Many stories have been written about the hardships faced by the homesteaders trying to survive those first five years in a hostile environment, so it seems fair to assume that the Andrew Sterling family faced these same difficulties. Homesteaders and other settlers in Kansas were challenged by drought, scarce natural resources, and economic cycles that threatened their survival. Winter was a particularly difficult time for early Kansas farm families. They often burned corn stalks for cooking and heating. Many built sod houses with a dirt floor. Winfield’s youngest sister Charlotte, survived only 7 months under the conditions they experienced in 1873. (Charlotte is mentioned on Andrew and Elizabeth Sterling’s headstone in the Banner Cemetery near Hope, KS.)
As with so many government programs, there were many unintended consequences of Lincoln’s Homestead Act. The promise of free land lured many families onto 160-acre farms that usually proved to be too small to support a family on the prairie. Too small for a sustainable cattle operation, the prairie was plowed to plant corn and wheat. Droughts and high winds picked up the soil that was no longer protected by grass sod and contributed to the dust bowl (see The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan). So the proximate cause of the dust bowl was the destruction of the grasslands by farmers plowing the sod; the ultimate cause was Lincoln’s Homestead Act.
Trail to Kansas
When the Andrew Sterling family left Illinois, two more children had been born, making a total of 10 children. One can only imagine the adventure these children and their parents had traveling to Kansas in a covered wagon, accompanied by other families from Illinois. Most of them probably walked nearly the entire distance because the wagons usually carried furniture, food, equipment and such, so there was no room for family members -- except small children and a driver. Winfield was about 9 at the time so he likely walked almost all the way. His oldest brother was 21 and his youngest sister was 2, so certainly the older kids helped take care of the younger ones. In the evening when the wagon train stopped for the night, the boys likely started their chores, such as gathering wood, tending the animals, setting up shelters, hunting for game and carrying water -- while the girls helped cook dinner, wash the dishes and clothes, tend the little ones and helped their parents in other ways. They would have crossed the Mississippi River on a ferry -- maybe their only chance to ride instead of walk on the trip.
There must have been some concern about their safety during this trip. There were still reports of Indian raids on the new immigrants into Kansas. Also, the Kansas frontier sometimes suffered from a lack of police and army protection against robbers and other types of illegal activity. But Andrew Jackson Sterling, who was leading the trip, had been in the Union Army and was surely prepared to defend the family. The Sterling family had lived in Kansas 7 years when the last Indian raid in Kansas took place. It was the Cheyenne Raid in 1878 at a cattle camp south of Fort Dodge killing several white men and driving off some cattle.
I have seen no evidence of how Winfield’s future wife arrived in Kansas, but it seems possible that she might have come in this same wagon train. Romantic conjecture might have Winfield and Mary Alice (about 7) walking together the entire 430 miles or so to the homestead in Kansas. But certainly, Winfield must have enjoyed the company of his older brothers and sisters along the way and they must have proved very helpful in starting their new farm in Kansas.
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| Andrew Jackson and Elizabeth Sterling family ca 1883. Back row L to R: Wilson, Waitman, Marion, Winfield, Charles, Archer. Second row: Melissa, Andrew (father), Elizabeth (mother), Mary Jane & Anna. First row: Philip Sheridan. |
Assuming that our family tree is accurate, our Sterling family descended from Samuel Starling (my 8th great-grandfather) from Bedfordshire, England. If my DNA test is dependable, Samuel descended from the Stone Mason line that began 30,000 years ago in Europe. After Samuel, four more generations of Starlings remained in England until Robert and his 2 brothers (Andrew and Roger) came to the USA before the Revolutionary War started in 1773. Robert’s son, Andrew apparently changed the family name from Starling to Sterling. The Sterling family lived in West Virginia for 3 generations until great-grandfather Andrew Jackson Sterling moved to Whiteside County, Illinois in about 1865.
Winfield the Farmer
Sister Peggy Miller recently changed my perception of my Grandpa Winfield. I never really thought about it in any depth, but my superficial view of him was that he was a poor, country, dirt-farmer of no special importance. Maybe my view was prejudiced by the fact that after he died, his daughter, Augusta and his wife, Mary Alice were left to scratch out a living on their 10-acre, irrigated farm in Edinburg, Texas and their wealth was in family, not money. Mary Alice was apparently more interested in growing flowers than crops and of course, she was hampered with severe arthritic feet and suffered a broken hip that placed her in a wheel chair for her last years. Sister Peggy said that Mary tripped over a wire in her yard in Edinburg, fell and broke her hip. Anyway, she was largely incapable of helping on the farm after the accident. However, even with her severely arthritic hands, she could still pluck a chicken in her wheel chair (according to Peggy Sterling.) But, most of the work fell on Aunt Augusta. She milked the cows, churned the butter, raised chickens, sold eggs, cooked, cleaned, harvested citrus, nursed Grandma Alice, helped raise the older Charles Sterling girls, took us to church, taught Sunday school and whatever else was required.
Before Grandpa Winfield died, he was a community leader in Edinburg. No, he did not run for any public office, but he did serve as Secretary for Water District #1 and his name can be found on the cornerstone of the First Methodist Church in Edinburg as one of the founders -- along with my grandma, Fanny Heacock.
My father (Charles Sterling) once expressed doubt that Grandma Mary Alice could read or write. I have no hard evidence that Grandpa Winfield could write either. However, to function as he did as a community leader, I must assume that he had learned to read and write – maybe in a sod schoolhouse near Hope, Kansas. However, he was certainly not a man of letters or more evidence would be available. We may find that he sent birthday cards to his offspring back in Kansas – or something.
It Was Augusta’s Job
Communicating with the children of a family often falls heavily on the mother. But, if the mother can neither read nor write, who inherits this job? Well, in Winfield’s family, the job was assumed primarily by Aunt Augusta Sterling -- Winfield’s daughter. Remember that there were eight children born to Winfield and Mary. From oldest to youngest: Stella, Chester, Alma, Josephine, Mary, Charles, Augusta and Marion. I faintly remember Stella from her visit with her parents in Edinburg. She died at the age of 66. And Uncle Chet and his second wife Gretchen were more regular visitors to Edinburg so we knew them reasonably well. Chet died when he was 75. Alma was born in Dickenson County, KS and died at the age of 19 in Topeka where she is buried. Josephine died at the age of 6 months and Mary at the age of six. Losing one child would be traumatic. Losing 3 girls would have been triple traumatic for Mary and Winfield. Dad (Charles Winfield) lived to the ripe old age of 91 and Augusta disappeared during her morning walk in Edinburg when she was 84. Fowl play was suspected, but never proved. She was never found. Uncle Marion died at the age of 77.
But, I digress. The point I was gonna make was that over time, communications among family members can deteriorate when distance separates them. It happened between the Texas Sterlings and the Kansas Sterlings. When Winfield moved to Edinburg, TX in 1920, Stella Sterling Tice was married and had 3 kids so was not interested in moving. Chet Sterling was also married to Lois Tice and had one daughter. Uncle Marion moved to Edinburg with his parents and attended High School there for a while before moving back to Kansas. Anyway, we -- the children of Charles Sterling in Edinburg -- did not grow up knowing many of our cousins back in Kansas. It’s a bloody shame! Marion’s son Terry spent some time with our family during a summer and I cannot remember ever meeting Chet’s daughter, Charlene. Aunt Stella had 7 children -- five girls and two boys -- Eileen, Marie, Donald, Dana, Alice, Marjorie and Isabell. Eileen was fairly well known to our family through reunions and such. I met Marie and her family in California when I was in the Marine Corps. We have also enjoyed communications with Marian Lowe (cousin Alice’s daughter) about family geneology. And Marie’s daughter Connie Sue Whitegon Smith has been a member of our Sterling/Heacock MyFamily.com site.
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| Mary Alice and Winfield ca 1929 |
After Winfield and Mary Alice were married, they decided to strike off on their own. They homesteaded property in Rush County, Kansas in 1886. Their first daughter, Stella, was born in their sod house. There was a saying back in those days, that the “rains followed the plow.” Of course, it was nonsense, but it likely lured families out onto the dryer parts of Kansas – that turned into the dust bowl in the early 1900's. Apparently, Winfield and Mary Alice found life too difficult there, so they gave up their homestead and their sod house and moved to Carlton, Kansas – about 12 miles west of Hope where his father and mother lived. They apparently interrupted their tenure in Carlton because Uncle Chet was born near Topeka in Shawnee County in 1889. Then they moved back into Dickinson County, in the Dayton-Carleton area where the remainder of the children were born. Then (according the cousin Eileen Brehm) they moved to Manhattan, KS, then to Topeka, KS in 1908. My dad wrote about living in Mission Center near Kansas City and going to school there in a one room schoolhouse. This may be the last place they lived in Kansas before moving to Edinburg in 1920.
Move to Edinburg
Edinburg was advertised to folks through the mid-west as a sort of agricultural Eden where irrigation out of the Rio Grande River could help produce many different crops and fruits throughout most of the year. Developers brought train-loads of folks to view irrigated farms growing bumper crops of citrus, sugar cane, tomatoes, beans, carrots, cabbage and several other crops. Winfield must have been convinced, so he packed up his family in Topeka, Kansas and moved to Edinburg. My grandfather J.W. Heacock paid $13,500 for 20 acres of land near Edinburg in 1913. Consequently, we can guess that Winfield paid somewhat near this amount for his 20 acres 4.5 miles northwest of Edinburg in 1920). This time they likely migrated on a train instead of walking the entire distance -- as they did during their move from Illinois to Kansas.
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| Deed to 19.24 acres of land in Edinburg, Texas |
When he arrived in Edinburg, Winfield found that the 20 acres he had bought did not yet have irrigation water as had been promised. Later, when the canal to his property was completed, and he had water, he and my Dad irrigated the newly-cleared brush country for the first time. Dad later remembered something like: “many rattlesnakes were forced out of their holes and we had rattlesnakes everywhere.” Dad, Marion and Augusta started attending Edinburg High School. So, most of the hard field work was left to Winfield, and Mary Alice washed (worshed) clothes by hand, kept house and did a few jillion other chores. They build a one-bedroom house with a large, screened-in porch on the east side, a kitchen and living room. Augusta and my sisters lived on that porch year around. Winfield also built a barn, chicken coop, corral, fences and whatever else was needed. By this time, he had lots of experience in homesteading.
Conclusion
On September 9, 1936, Winfield came in the house from the field, drank a glass of cold water, likely had a heart attack and died. He was 74. In a way he was lucky because he experienced no long, lingering pain in a hospital or nursing home. Mary died in 1957 at the age of 92. They are buried side by side in Edinburg, Texas at the Hillcrest Memorial Park.
Before they moved from Topeka to Edinburg, Winfield bought a cemetery plot in the Fairlawn Cemetery in Topeka. His daughter, Alma Elizabeth Sterling, who died of pneumonia at the age of 18, is buried there. A cement marker in the corner of the plot contains the initials WLS for Winfield Lincoln Sterling. Apparently, these plots were never filled except for Alma’s. Eileen Brehm took us there and showed the plots to us.
Yes, Winfield and Mary experience tragedy when they lost 3 of their girls and suffered considerable disappointment when they lost their homestead in Rush County. But losing 3 out of 8 children was probably considered somewhat normal for a frontier family. Considering everything, we may conclude that they both had very successful and productive lives. They were good people.
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Note: Much of the information concerning dates, places and people in this story were obtained by using the Family Tree Maker program that uses a file containing over 1800 of our relatives – going back many, many generations. Many family members have helped provide the data for this family tree, especially Patti Ross, Dorothy Cavanaugh and Eileen Brehm. As long as I am able, I will update, correct and add new information to the master copy. Using the Family Tree Maker program it is also possible to print out a book of the information. However, I have not tried this option so cannot vouch for it – and there is a charge for their service. Finally, if you use this program and the Sterling/Heacock file, please let me know if you find any errors in fact, typos, etc. and I will correct them. Of course you are free to use this program to add members or your own family if you wish. But once you have this program and the Sterling/Heacock file, you may be surprised how often you will find it useful. It is especially useful for finding birth dates, relationships between relatives, other facts, family photos, brief histories and much other information. Enjoy!
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