(quoted) "I was recently going thru some literature on immigration, time 1635, by boat from England. It must have been a risky trip because the Shepherds were with a Leake..."
Contents
Genealogy by Betty
A Family Story
Charles Sumner Fait also fathered a Benjamin and a Roxana (Uncle Ben and Aunt Roxie), named for his adored grandparents. He had lost his father age 2, and was very close and dependent on the elder Brokaws). Newscaster Tom Brokaw is our 7th cousin, once removed. Our common ancestor is John Brokaw 1680-1740. Born in Flatbush, Long Island, New York, M. Somerset Co., New Jersey, D. Millstone, Somerset Co., New Jersey, Wife: Sarah Teunis Van Middlesward B. Feb 1, 1684/85 D. 1742. Born and died in Six Mile Run, New Jersey, and on and on it goes, my information is infinite due to the Internet and a very determined secretary who has a passion for geneology. She sends out queries and we get back reams of information.
We have proved and been accepted in DAR through Grandfather Walter Leake line. Have found at least 20 Revolution War veteran ancestors, but haven't taken time to prove...
Frances "Fanny" Jane Fait marries Walter Absalom Leake.
From Betty Leake Bouris:
Grandpa Walter Absolem Leake, a young very handsome rancher and rail
clerk, was her beau. They had met at the local Baptist Church in
Douglas, Arizona. (Cochise Territory as Ariz. wasn't a state yet.) Young
Walter was with her at the station in Douglas, when she prepared to
board the train for that long, hot, lonesome, but exciting trip to
Silver City. "Please, Fannie, stay and marry me", he said. "I am
sorry, Walter," she said, "I must go and get my education". She left
behind her family, Mother, Sarah J. Gilliland Fait, Father, Charles
Sumner Fait, Sisters Pearl, Mary, Roxanna, and little brother Ben.
You can only imagine how many times I heard that story when I was in my
teens, and dating Herk. Fanny and Walter Leake have three children:
Fanny Fait Leake marries William Everitt Rowbotham on November 3, 1913. Their son William Everitt Rowbotham, Jr. is born October 4, 1914.
From Margaret Shepherd Hedrick:
Walter Charles ("Charlie") Leake marries Vivian Vera Wardlow on 15 June 1929 in Florence, Arizona and Betty and Charles are born.
Charles dies in a drowning accident.
Betty marries Herk Bouris and Mike and Mary Jane are born. Clyttie Lucinda Leake marries Henry McGowen, who dies on their honeymoon.
From Margaret Shepherd Hedrick:
Brothers Aura and Auta Shepherd marry the "Conner" sisters, making their children "double cousins."
From Conner Shepherd, Jr.:
Aura & Maud's oldest son Raymond and wife Esther also had a son named Conner and when we get together there was always the question as to how we were related. We finally worked out a short answer, "We are double cousins twice removed." From Margaret Shepherd Hedrick:
From Conner Shepherd, Jr.:
Clayton Conner Shepherd marries Ruth Boomer, and Clayton Conner Jr. is born.
From Margaret Shepherd Hedrick:
From Conner Shepherd, Jr.:
Clayton Conner Shepherd marries Clyttie Lucinda Leake and Lois Abigail, Bertha Margaret and Walter Everitt are born.
From Margaret Shepherd Hedrick:
Conner was eight years old when Clayton and Clyttie got married. He remembers them, in Chicago, teasing each other, and riding their bicycles to the tennis courts, where they loved to play tennis. From Conner Shepherd, Jr.:
We lived about 3 blocks from Lincoln Park in Chicago and I remember there being only one bike. I remember one time where Mom was pedaling, Lois in the basket on the front, me riding on the back and the dog (Pal) running alongside. A car came alongside and a voice hollered, "where's the old man?"
Lois and Pal were buddies. When Pal found a fire plug, Lois would imitate him. One time we were in Lincoln Park and lost the two of them. They were found behind a bush, sharing an old bone that Pal had found. As I recall, it took a few days for Mom to clear up Lois's halitosis to the extent that she again became 'kissable.'
Mom took on the challenge of teaching me to play the piano and her background conditioned her to believe this should be easy for anyone. We went through a long trying period that we could, in later years, laugh about as being the time of the immovable object and the irresistible force! Fortunately, her kids inherited her musical talents and really took the heat away from me. Clayton and Clyttie's children:
Lois Evelyn Leake
Lois Leake marries Clifton Warren Miller and Sarah Maud Miller is born.
From Bud Morehead:
Lois Leake marries Fred Rees and Wallace Everitt Rees is born.
From Bud Morehead:
Sarah Maud Miller marries Charles Pascal "Bud" Morehead, Jr. in Yuma, Arizona in 1951.
From Bud Morehead:
Betty and Herk stood up with us (when we married). I was on a 12 hour pass from the Navy and had to hurry to get back before midnight. (Just like Cinderella.) We had six children. The first daughter died from SIDS as an infant and both she and Sally are buried at Ft Rosecrans in San Diego. Rebecca (Becky) was the third child. Biff and Scott are both older. After Lois retired from teaching, she moved to Tucson and bought a house just across the street from Sally and me. Just what any man wants, his mother-in-law across the street. Actually we got along very well, sometimes better than she and Sally. And it was nice to have a built in baby sitter across the street.
When we were naming kids, Sally picked out nicknames for them as soon as names, in fact sometimes first. (Our first child), Biff is really Charles III. "Biff" is a name that Sally had heard and liked. Robert Scott was going to be Scotty but it got shortened to Scott. Rusty is actually David Russell. Lory is actually Lorayne Elizabeth Diane (wow 2 middle names). Ed is Edward Everitt.
My father had moved to Hayden in the early 1940's and was the pharmacist there. We had been living in Benson, AZ and my father had to go to Mayo Clinic for an operation. When he was able to work again, the job he found was in Hayden. My mother had been workng at the post-office in Benson. We moved to Hayden and then my mother was recalled (she was drafted!) to Benson to become the postmaster when the man who was postmaster was drafted. So she and I moved back to Benson. Then at the end of the war, she was released and she and I moved back to Hayden.
My sister Laura (Lollie) was 13 years older than I, so we were more or less raised as only children although at times it seemed as though I had two mothers. I didn't want to be junior. I knew and liked a couple of people who went by the name Buddy, so I also began to use that name.
I was in the Navy from Jan 1951 to Nov 1954. Spent most of the time in San Diego. Went to Hospital Corps school and then Laboratory Science school then was assigned to the Amphibious part of the fleet and served aboard two different cargo ships. Made it to Hawaii for dry dock on one of them. Played war games off Southern California a lot, but when it came time for them to go back to Korea, I was transferred off. Worked for 4 years as a lab chemist in a chemical engineering plant in San Diego after I got out of the service. Developed t.b. and came to Tucson to the VA Hospital to be close to both our families. After getting out of the hospital, went to pharmacy school here in Tucson. More, much more coming....individual remembrances and reminiscences are in italics.
Updated April 16, 1998
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Genealogy
(submitted by Betty Bouris):
Just got back pictures from our May trip. Pictures of cemetary and headstone great, great, greeat grandfather Benjamin Brokaw Dec. 10, 1809-Mar. 10, 1895 and ggggrandmother Roxana Ellis June 25, 1817-August 1889. The location is Brown's Creek Cemetary, Glen Elder, Mitchell County, KS. It is out in the middle of a wheat field 5 miles out of town. They parent of Martha Jane Brokaw Fait Speakman, She mother of GGrandfather Charles Sumner Fait, He father of Frances Jane Fait Leake Rowbotham, She mother of Walter Charles Leake, Clyttie Lucinda Leake Shepherd, Lois Evelyn leake Miller Rees, and William Everitt Rowbotham, and I think you can take it from there.
A Family Story
I came across Grandmother's diploma from "NORMAL SCHOOL of NEW MEXICO" (Silver City, New Mexico) where
'FANNIE FAIT' received the degree of BACHELOR OF ELEMENTS on JUNE 2, 1904. She had completed two years of study to become a school teacher.
Walter Absalom Leake dies three weeks after Lois is born.
Uncle Everitt was magnetic and charming. He died in World War II. He was a pilot, captured in the South Pacific by the Japanese, after his plane was shot down. They were flying him to a prisoner of war camp in Japan, and he attacked his captors. During the fight he was stabbed, and thrown out of the plane.
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"Mr and Mrs. McGowen were back from Arizona for a visit with his parents...at the time of the accident were visiting relatives near Hazelton (Missouri). Mrs. McGowen was in the (Piney) river swimming and sank. Her husband jumped in the river and went to her rescue and both sank in the deep water. They were both taken from the water by others present and Mrs. McGowen was revived, but all efforts to revive Mr. McGowen failed."(From The Houston newspaper, dated Thursday, August 15, 1929.)
Clyttie went back to Arizona, where she became a missionary with the Hopi and Navajo Indians. The other missionaries were so impressed with her musical abilities (she never had any lessons) that they got together and paid to send her to Moody Bible Institute to study music.
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Auta and Bertha Conner Shepherd had 6 children, a group of 4 and later a group of two. The first group was: Clayton, Clifton, Ethyl and Maud - then Edith and Erlin. There was 18 years difference between Clayton and Erlin and when I lived with them, Edith & Erlin were more like brother and sister than aunt & uncle.
...they had always heard that double cousins are closer genetically than brothers and sisters. They all lived in the same area (farmers) and all of the brothers and sisters, and the double cousins were very close as they grew up.
Aura and Maud lost two children when the two families moved west by horse and wagon and homesteaded adjacent properties. One time Grandma Bertha (in Delhi) was serving coffee and cookies to a number of her women friends and I was small enough that they ignored me during their conversations. They started going around the circle stating how many children they had and how many they had lost. Grandma stated she had had six and hadn't lost a one and there was total awesome silence of the group. And those were the "good old days."
Ruth Boomer was the daughter of the local doctor, and Clayton and Ruth were high school sweethearts. When their son, Clayton Jr. was about 2 years old, Ruth developed (some kind of) blood disease. Clayton, Sr., was devastated, and took her everywhere, including the Mayo Clinic, looking for a cure. She died, and facing her death, Clayton looked at his life in a new way. He had a degree from an agricultural Jr. College, which he needed as a farmer, but decided he wanted to study religion to "get some answers" to life problems. Clayton left his son with his mother and father (Aura and Bertha) and his younger brothers and sisters, who adored Clayton Jr., on the farm in Delhi, Iowa. Clayton Sr. went to Chicago , to the Moody Bible Institute. He finished a degree there, and then went on to Northwestern Seminary and trained as a minister. He finished his degree, but stayed another year, because he did not think that a single man should go out to pastor a church.
I was born in 1925 and Ruth died in mid December 1926. Edith tells a story of when Dad left me with Grandma Bertha and she held me in her arms and rocked me for a very long time. This was still on the homestead, but then Grandpa lost the farm in the depression and my oldest Boomer aunt made the Delhi property available to them. One of my very earliest memories is the move from Dakota to Iowa. I still also remember Grandpa describing how they lost the farm and the tears he shed while telling.
I was 7 years old when Clayton and Clyttie were married and 8 when Lois was born. They sent me to Delhi for the summer of Lois's arrival and when she showed up, Mom wrote me a letter (in Delhi) describing what a cute little sister I had acquired. I still have the letter in a scrap book.
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Lois's middle name was Evelyn. Clifton Miller must have had something for the name Evelyn because all three of his wives were named Evelyn. Lois was the second one. They divorced and he wound up in Sweetwater, Texas and had two daughters and one son there. Sarah and I went there and she met her father and step-family. Also there was a daughter by his first marrage and she was able to locate and meet with her. Lois was a schoolteacher and taught in some different schools in Arizona. Sally (Sarah) was born in Mesa, Az in 1931. I'm not sure where Lois was living at that time. Lois retired from teaching from Hayden-Winkelman area.
She married Fred Rees in Lordsburg, NM, then moved to Hayden after the marriage. Fred worked in the powerhouse at Kennecott Copper. Wally (Butch) was raised in Hayden. Fred died of a heart attack in Hayden and is buried in Winkelman. Lois continued to live in Hayden and teach in the Hayden-Winkelman school, until she retired.
Sarah thought her name was too formal. I called her "Sally." (Her brother) Butch called her "Tato." The Miller people knew her as "Bobbi." She did not like her middle name (Maud) which was some kind of a family name from somewhere. She died in January 1985.
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