Anna A Wonch

Note: Commander Justis and Anna were full blooded siblings Deborah Westbrook remarried to John Adams after Enoch passed and a year after uncle Justis was born- Death cert. Shows both parents for Justis Tompkins.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UJojjX0StJ-ZtqqlOtEc_p3w21Lzmv6...

Obituary for Anna Tompkins Wonch Tower
Plateau Voice
Colbran, Mesa County November 29,1918
Gone to her eternal rest as was sadly reported in last weeks news, Mrs. Ann Tower, the aged mother of Mrs. Mary Hawkins died last Friday morning, November 22nd.
Ann Tompkins was born in Nassau, New York, June 26,1830 and at the date of her death her age was 88 years and five months.
When seven years of age she removed with her parents to Canada where, in 1849 she was married to Solomon Wonch. In 1860 they removed to Michigan where the husband died in 1870. After the death of her husband, Mrs. Wonch removed to Iowa, where, in 1875 she married JP Tower who preceded his wife to the world beyond, his death occurring in 1897.
Mrs. Tower was a woman of beauty with constant faith, and died in the total assurance that she was merely passing over, into a brighter world.
The funeral was from the home, on Saturday, November 23, with Reverend James F. Walker in charge of the funeral service and the burial was at Eagalite Cemetery.

Letter written in 1969 from Marion Barnum Hardy to Ruth Barnum Hardy

Your July 15 letter at hand.

Great Aunt Marion was a sister of my Grandmother, Ann Thompkins Wonch Tower, therefore was my Great Aunt Marion (Tompkins-Witherell) Anna Witherell Mason was a cousin of mother (Clarissa Wonch Barnum).

So Great Aunt Marion and Grandmother were both Tompkins. Uncle Jut was an Uncle to mother. The five Witherell boys were brothers to Anna. I am sending some old pictures (labeled) later. I have tried to return old pictures the last few years. Feel free to destroy any you don’t have room to keep. I have destroyed many in the last few years.

I’ll send this as is. I wrote answers as your ?’s were read to me.

Marion

July 8, 1969
Dear Ruth,

I started a letter a few days ago but was interrupted and now I can’t find it. It is very difficult for me to write and I no longer can see to read anything. I’ll get the books together as soon as can have help.

Note: full blooded brother to Anna Wonch,Tower (Tompkins). Uncle Justis born year before Enoch passed Anna is the first born child of Enoch and Deborah and uncle Jus death certificate has both Enoch and Deborah as his parents and birth date. She said this, but was disproven" Uncle Jut was a half brother to Ann Tower and somewhat younger". After Enoch passed Deborah remarried to John Adams and had 1 child.

Transcribers note: Ruth wrote in the margin (no!?)

Uncle Jut would some times take mother to dances and she liked that as h e was tall and she liked that.

Transcribers note: Ruth wrote in the margin grandma was 6’ tall and he was 6’6”

Mother’s sister, Marion was short. She married at 16 to Brisbane (spelling?). Later she married a Mr. Winters. She died of cancer in Colo.

The woman that called on you in Washington was a niece of Rosalie Dahl, therefore my cousin and would be a second cousin of yours. I can’t remember her name. Her mother, my Aunt Margaret ( Barnum) Knudson who died in Iowa from a pregnancy in her tubes. I went to her funeral, I was in HS in R…. Iowa. About 13 or 14 years old.

My father, Harley Wesley Barnum was the oldest in his family. He had Eugene S Barnum, Eljay, Jay and Burt as brothers. And as sisters, Olive, Rosalie, Lynn and Margaret. Then there were the two half sisters, Lura, (Barnum Brand) and Mary (Barnum, Kadesch.)

The Wesley Barnum could be a distant cousin but I do not know anything about it.

I’ll send this as is but I am ashamed of my writing.

Sincerely,

Marion

On scraps of paper also written in the 1960’s by Marion Barnum-Hardy

Dates

Nov.14, 1886
Clara Wonch & Harley W. Barnum married at Milldale, Nebraska

Sept. 2, 1887
First child, Marion M. was born in Spooner, Wisc.

May or June 1888
Parents (Clara and Harley Barnum) moved to Iowa near Milford, Iowa.

March 15, 1890
Second child Harley Wesley was born in Milford, Iowa

??
Clara & Harley Barnum moved to farm because of illness and death of his father Abram Barnum farm near Ackley, Iowa, Hardin County.

May 28, 1892
Third child was born at the farm home in Ackley Iowa Hardin County Eugene S. Barnum.

??
Family moved into the town of Ackley, Iowa.

1893-4
Fathers sisters and he bought a nice house in Ackley. Father had a blacksmith shop.

Panic ? Date
Father lost all. Hard times. Father had trouble getting work-many like him. We moved to Emmetsburg later to Wallingford, Iowa a small town. I went to country school had to walk a mile or more.

1897
Family moved to Osgood, Iowa where father had a shop.

1897 Sept. 21
Sherwood Alonzo Barnum was born. 4th child.

Apr. 1898
Father was killed in the accident.

Transcribers note: The accident referred to here is as follows. He was kicked in the intestines by a horse he was shoeing and died of peritonitis.

1898
Mother moved to R…, Iowa. We lived in the back room of a Millenary Shop. Small town did not support a shop.

1899
Mother had eye trouble- ulceration of the optic nerve- eye strain from making black hats of braided crepe paper decorated with a paper flower that sold for $1.00. She also baked bread and rolls to sell. Boys sold popcorn I earned eats staying with the Dr. Bliss family.

?1900-01
Mother and three boys moved to Wallingford, Iowa. I went home for the summers but during the school year was at Dr. Bliss home for the 8th and 9th grade in Ruthven, Iowa.

1903-04
I was sent to Hampton, Iowa to High School.

1904-05
I went to Seblig, Iowa where I worked for my board and tuition.

1905 Sept.
I started teaching in the country school.

1906-07
Same school at $32 per month.

1907-08
Dolliver, Iowa country school at $45.

1907-08
Pomeroy, Iowa 8th grade and two class HS small town ? Salary. That was the year mother and boys moved to Cedar Falls, Iowa where I had five summer terms at the Teacher’s Normal. Mother ran a boarding house.

1910
Mother, Sherwood & I went to San Francisco by train to Portland by boat and back to Idaho by train. We lived that year on the Field Ranch near Modins and Wrights. I taught 7th and 8th grades. Then we moved into the town of Emmett, Idaho. Your mother and Dad were married at that house. Gene and I had proved up on Carey act Land 40 acres near Bliss, Idaho. Your Dad and mother went there to live for a few months. Later they went to Bryn Mawr, Washington. Mother, Gene and Sherwood moved to Wendell, Idaho. I had gone to Los Angeles Calif. My memory is a little hazy.

Marion Barnum Hardy

I am ashamed of my scribble In a letter dated June 27, 1969 Marion Barnum-Hardy writes to Ruth Barnum-Hardy:
Answers to your questions:
Anna Mason was a first cousin of your grandmother Clarissa Josephine Wonch Barnum.
Great Aunt Marion (Witherell) was the mother of Anna Mason and the Witherell boys.
Yes, Horace and Will Wonch were your Grandmother’s brothers, But Joe was Horace’s son. But your grandmother did have a brother Ike.
Cousins:
Uncle Horace had a daughter Nettie and 2 or 3 sons. Joe & Willard are the only ones I remember. O yes there was Jesse.
Cousins:
Myrtie Lovell was my father’s cousin. My father’s half sister, Mary Barnum Kadesch, therefore my half Aunt. She is two years younger than I therefore is 80 years old. She lives near the University of Utah where she still mounts specimens of all plant life. Her son Robert Kadesch is a science teacher but has been made Administrator. He will soon be home after a year in Washington DC working on programs for the young people. He like his father has written a book. I have copies of each of the books. I have been wondering where to place them. Would you be interested? Or do you have room?
I am looking through my materials on the Cliff Dwellings and the Wetherill Family. Maybe bill will take some of this up to you. That is if you want it. I’ll send this as is.
Sincerely Marion
PS I am happy there is some one interested as I have always been in family connections.
My eyes are so bad I have to use a strong magnifying glass to read my own writing. I had to have my good neighbor read your letter to me. No operation advised partly because of a heart condition.
Marion
Extra:
After writing about mother’s brothers it came to me that mother did have a brother, Joe Wonch. I never saw him but I know he was the father of Aunt Nellie, Uncle Horace (Shorty) Wonch wife. I was about 13 when mother told me they were Uncle & Niece. The family were very ashamed of this but arranged ( I don’t know how) to have them married as their son, Jesse, was born out of wedlock.
They had Willard, Joe, and Nettie after they were married. I remember Aunt Nellie was always nice to me. She was a neat housekeeper and a good cook, I knew them in Wallingford, Iowa. O yes, Aunt Nellies mother died when Nellie was quite young, She (Aunt Nellie) came to live with Grandma Ann Tower. That is how Uncle Horace met her. Uncle Horace was the youngest and he and Nellie were about the same age. Their children never had children except Nettie and I believe the child died young. Perhaps you better just burn this information.
Typers (Lisa Brake) note: This following page was in a different section than the other part of this letter and is almost word for word, but let me repeat a totally different section of notes and letters.
A correction on the fact of Joe. Mother did have a brother Joe. I remember he was the father of Aunt Nellie. After her mother’s early death she lived with Grandmother Ann Tower.
Nellie was about the same age of Uncle Horace. They fell in love and their son Jesse was born out of wedlock. Later after moving away to other parts the family arranged to have them married in spite of the fact they were Uncle and Niece. Mother explained it to me when I was about 13 years old.
Aunt Nellie was always very nice to me. I remember her as a very neat housekeeper and a good cook. Uncle Horace was always true to her in spite of his many bad traits. It seems none of their boys had any children. It seems Nettie did have a baby but I don’t believe it lived very long. Nettie died young, Aunt Nellie was quite young when she died.
Uncle Will, the cripple, was a mail carrier and helped to support the family. Jesse and wife took care of Uncle Will at the time of his death.
Written by Marion Barnum-Hardy 1969
A Wonch Legend
When I was about 10 or 11 years old I remember this about the Wonches.
Mother had a cousin__2nd or 3rd who was a bank official. He had business in the Philadelphia bank and discovered while there that there was a large deposit in the name of Wonch. So he had written Grandmother, Ann Tower, about it . She wrote to Canada to get her marriage license only to learn that the record of her first marriage was destroyed in a fire. The record was kept in the church in those days and the church burned down and all records destroyed. More attempts were made to prove it but nothing ever came of it.
Mother told me this, the Wonch family came from Germany. (They had lots of money) They came on a boat that went to Canada first as it had a Governor of Canada and family on it. With them was a cute little French Maid. A young son of the Wonch family fell in love with the French maid and insisted on marrying her to the disgust of the Wonch parents. However they gave him money and he remained in Canada. ( Grandma Clara Barnum was their Great-Grand child)
The Wonch family went on to Philadelphia where they lived till their death. It seems all their other children also died. They had deposited their gold in the Philadelphia bank for their heirs. This Canadian son and wife were the parents of mother’s father therefore the grandparents of mother and the rest of her brothers and sister Marion.
Mother was born in Canada and came to the United States when just a little girl. I believe into Michigan first she only became a US citizen by marrying my father who was born in Iowa.
Mother remembered a little French Aunt who could dance beautifully.
This is a long story and I am not a good story teller. I called this legend because of my poor memory and have no one to check on the facts.
Later after Grandmother had several of the younger children born in US-Iowa mother’s father became very ill. Mother was sure he had cancer but it was not called that in those days. After suffering for some time he died. Grandmother was a poor manager and the family were very poor.
Many years later Grandmother married-Towers-an army man. He did not live long but he left Grandmother with a very small pension, it helped.
There is more to the story of the Wonch family. O yes, Wonch is not a common name and it belonged to what they called the high Germans.
Written by Marion Barnum-Hardy 1969
There may be many mistakes. I’ve had so many interruptions. My eyes are getting worse and I hardly can read my own writing with my strongest glass. I am lucky to have kind friends here. The medical center is only five minutes away.
Marion
About short waited. Mother was very short waited. Your Dad was short waited but his legs were the same length of Genes. They wore the same length. Gene was very long waited. He could only ride in certain cars. His 6’ 3 ½ made it hard to get shirts.
About magazine. It is the one about Peru S. America. I know Gene Markley will be pleased to get it. He is truly a very shy person. You may have noticed he has a slight impediment of speech. I found him to be very well informed.
Quakers
It seems cousins of mothers were a colony of Quakers. And the Barnums also had some Quaker cousins.
About McDowell. I believe the mother of Mrs. McDowell was a cousin of mothers. She was a very nice person. She looked up mother when mother was with me in Los Angeles.
PS About Ann Tower
She was from New York I am sure. But I do not know how she got into Canada. But I do know for sure she was married there. Mother had a German Grandfather and a French Grandmother.
There is a Tompkins County in New York sate. O yes Grandmother was what they called Pennsylvania Dutch. She was of Quaker faith.
About Wonches it seems the family that came from Germany were rather odd though very rich. The Wonch Sr. had two trained dogs who would bring in wood and do other chores on command. He named them Jesus and Christ. They would come when he called their names. When they came to this country they had put their gold pieces in a black silk double petticoat and put it in a chest. It was so heavy one man could not lift it. O yes the petticoat was stitched to hold coins in place. I do not know if the dogs were here in Philadelphia or were over in Germany. So be it.
In a letter dated 11-15-1969 written by Marion Barnum-Hardy to Ruth Barnum-Hardy
Hi!
Home at long last. I hope to feel stronger soon.
About Gene. He has had a lot of things happen to him. His wife has had quite a burden. She is a heart case and needs more rest. She has been too good to me.
About Uncle Jut. He is sure he was a full brother. But I know mother told me something different about it but I am not sure.
Did we tell you that there was a Wynne Thompkins a full brother who lived at Clear Lake Iowa and had a lumber yard there? And he married a school teacher (Aunt Jean) They had a son they educated as a doctor.
When Great Aunt Marion visited mother in Wallingford, Iowa they came to visit. I was brought home for one night to meet them all. I was teaching so that was all I saw of them. Mother told me later that they approved of me.
Marion
Thanks for all the nice cards.