Preacher Man

My husband and I have been listing the men of the cloth in our families. Some are ancestors and some are cousins. They may be by blood or by marriage. Some I have written short biographies for and they are linked in.  

I have also listed our family faith backgrounds where known. 

This list will be on-going as we identify those men and women in our families who heard and obeyed a calling to serve as ministers or missionaries of God.

HER's
Rev. Millard M. AKERS (1890-1945), Church of God (Anderson, IN)
Elder David BARROWS (1835-1918), Primitive Baptist
Eld. Ira BOONE (1809-1866), Primitive Baptist
Eld. Isaiah H. BOONE (1802-1835), Primitive Baptist
Eld. Thomas BOONE (1785-1855), Primitive Baptist
Rev. Robert ELKIN (1745-1822), Separatist Baptist
Rev. Israel FRANCO, Church of God (Anderson, IN) 
Eld. Jabez HAM (1796-1842), Primitive Baptist
Eld. Stephen Peter HAM (1836-1908), Primitive Baptist
Eld. Abraham HOLLIS (1804-1870), Primitive Baptist
Rev. Arnold E. LARUE (1924-1997), Wesleyan
Rev. James E. LARUE (1903-1981), Wesleyan
Rev. Timothy PUSEY , Nazarene
Miss Edna F. THIMES (1914-1995), Church of God (Anderson, IN) Missionary Nurse
Rev. Ervin C. TIPTON (1900-1977), Methodist
Eld. Martin WHITE (1802-1862), Primitive Baptist


Baptist including Primitive Baptist; Catholic; Church of God (Anderson, IN.); Disciples/Church of Christ (Campbellite, Christian); Methodist; Nazarene; Quaker. 


+ + + + + + + + + +

HIS
Eld. James ASHTON (1641-1705), Primitive Baptist
Rev. Henry LOVEALL (1694-1778), Freewill Baptist
Rev. Morgan MORGAN (1737-1797), Episcopalian
Rev. Thomas MUSICK (1756-1842), Baptist
Rev. Wayne Sawyer, Nazarene 
Rev. James SIBBITT, Presbyterian
Eld. William David SCRIVNER, Jr. (1855-1924), Baptist
Rev. Alexander SULLENS (1830-1905), Disciples of Christ
Rev. Edward E. SULLENS (1865-1942), Methodist
Rev. Enos A. SULLENS (1867-1934), Methodist
Rev. James SULLENS (1860-1908), Methodist



Baptist including Primitive Baptist;  Catholic;  Church of God of Holiness;  Disciples of Christ;  Episcopalian;  Jehovah Witness;  Lutheran;  Methodist;  Nazarene; Presbyterian


Post compiled by Dolores J. Rush. Updated: 9-6-2022. 

Fabric Records

Many ladies got together in quilting bee parties to catch up on the news of the neighborhood while they stitched a quilt top with batting and a backing together. Sometimes the quilts were for the hostess' home or as a gift for a bride and groom, an upcoming baby shower, or as a commemorative memory quilt for a pastor leaving for new fields or somebody moving away. Sometimes the ladies would embroider their signature and the date on a solid  square and sew it into a patterned patchwork block to be donated to a group project and sewn together with others' blocks to make a signature friendship quilt.

 

My mother dug around in her stash of keepsakes awhile back and found this signed bath towel.  She received it at a baby shower the ladies at church gave her when I was about to make my  appearance. While not paper, it is an embroidered record of members of mom's church at the time, some of whom have passed on to their reward in heaven such as Edna Thimes. 

I was able to decipher most of the names embroidered on the towel and they are: Bonnie Alt, Mrs. Alt, Dorothy E., Amy Fagan, Lucille Harvey, Sarah Hite, Mrs. Leicht, Bertie Loomis, Mary Rapsilber, Frances Olson, Kathleen Sager, Edna Thimes, & Jan Tins. They were the Women of the Church of God (Anderson, IN) who attended the First Church of God in Kansas City, Wyandotte County, Kansas during the 1950's. 

The purpose of this article is to tell you about FAN research. I search for the FAN's of my ancestors. FAN's are friends, associates and neighbors, so I research not only my ancestors, but also their FAN's, hoping to connect the dots (primary doc'uments) between them. You can find FAN's everywhere -- in autograph books and school yearbooks, in census records (look at the people above and below your ancestors' as the people were often neighbors), in their church fundraising cookbook, membership roster, minutes, and telephone directory, from signed greeting cards and postcards,  in history books that mention Old Settlers Club and other social groups like that, sometimes in land records if remaining neighbors purchased their land, lockets containing hair,  paintings or photographs, in letters, or  marriage records, in newspaper articles such as auction ads or who visited whom, on cross-stitched samplers to signed quilts, scrapbooks, and towels.  Hope your ancestors saved such mementoes of their FAN's, because they now become your treasured heirlooms of their friends, associates, and neighbors. Any record, fabric or paper, helps construct your ancestor's story. 

More to Read: 

1. Family Crafting
2. Edna Thimes' biography

3. Quilting in America

4. Antique Quilt History

Written by Dolores J. Rush, Updated: 10/25/2019

Charity Scrivner Holder, New Santa Fe, Missouri

We recently attended the New Santa Fe, Missouri Christian Church Historical Marker Dedication on the Old Santa Fe Trail (f. 1821) and met new-to-us cousins. My guy is the bearded fellow. 

I discovered a couple of years ago that a John and Charity (Scrivner) Holder were buried in the New Santa Fe Christian Church cemetery on Find-a-grave.com and contacted a member of the New Santa Fe Historical Society's Trail Center. I wanted to know if there were any relatives still in the area and sure enough, she introduced me, via email, to one. He's in his 80s and we have communicated via email ever since. He's been undergoing chemo, so we haven't been able to meet until now and what a good time we had getting acquainted in person, along with his wife.

He told us a little about himself and about Doris Collier's Scrivner genealogy which David has since purchased. We figured that Charity and John were my husband's 4th great-aunt and uncle. David is a direct descendant of the Scrivner family of Cole County, MO. through his paternal line [Norman Rush, Nanny Marie (Rush) Rush, Cora Lee (Sullens) Rush,  Nannie Cynthia (Scrivner) Sullens,  William J. Scrivner and so on, back through time]. 

I grew up southeast of New Santa Fe, MO. and attended VBS at the Christian Church there one summer. My mother attended a rummage sale there  also, and bought a big shiny slide for us kids. Dad set it next to our red swing set in the back yard. We had it for many years until mom decided we were too old for it and sold it. 

New Santa Fe on the Santa Fe Trail was usually the first camping stop after leaving Independence, MO. that morning.  Pioneers pulled their wagons up to the 4 o'clock house, got out, made camp, and walked or rode a horse into "town" to purchase the last necessities they needed before crossing the border (present-day State Line Road) into the Kansas territory the next morning. After  1858, the next stop was ten miles across a flat prairie to the Mahaffie Farm (the Stage Coach line didn't officially open until 1863).  

Growing up there, I never knew the area was part of our ancestral family history, more than I ever imagined. For instance, I learned that the 1838 forced removal of the Pottawatomi from Indiana (Trail of Death) crossed just north of the home of my 3rd great-grandparents in Christian County, Illinois when they were living there at the end of a hot and dusty September and that these same trail-weary and cold Indians and their government agents (approximately 1000 people altogether) plus horses, cattle and wagons camped on the western side of the Big Blue River after crossing it at the beginning of November. Today that camping spot is in present-day Minor Park and is south of Red Bridge Road and east of Holmes in Kansas City, MO.  There is a marker on the bluff above the river that marks the spot near their crossing on the Santa Fe Trail and a DAR marker further up the hill, west of the railroad tracks, marking the swales of the Trail. The Trail angled southwest across present-day Minor Park Golf Course, across present-day Holmes Road to the 4-0'clock house situated between present-day St. Thomas More Catholic Church and Avila University.  

I never knew that my 3rd great-grandfather probably camped there one night with a group of militia men on their way to  Miami County, Kansas one hot August night in 1856. Or that the Congregational missionary, Rev. Samuel Adair, was a first cousin to Lucinda (Henderson) Mahaffie and brother-in-law to a man who despised my 3rd great-grandfather because he was a Justice of the Peace in that part of the territory and he couldn't be bought to join his cause nor look the other way. Nor did I ever dream that my future husband's relatives lived in the parsonage across the road from the New Santa Fe Christian church. 

Here's the new marker for the New Santa Fe Christian Church. If you wish to read more about the history of the church, please click here to read Diane's story and here for the video she compiled to play in the narthex of the hosting congregation which had purchased the "new" New Santa Fe Christian Church building to worship in. 

"Santa Fe Christian Church
In 1869, families living in the southwestern part of the county (Jackson County, MO) organized the Santa Fe Christian Church in the town of New Santa Fe. Some pivotal charter members included: William A. McKinney, William Rippeto, Joel Lipscomb, Marcus Gill, John M. Wells, and Isaac Weeks.
The congregation originally met at the schoolhouse in New Santa Fe. A white-framed church was dedicated on the land in 1892.
By the 1960s, the church was one of the last buildings standing in the town of New Santa Fe. In November 1969, a fire damaged part of the church. The newer members held a meeting without including everyone and voted to raze the church. An injunction to stop the demolition was filed in February 1971 and was approved; however, the church was bulldozed before the order could be enforced.
Most of the original church is under the current parking lot on the southeastern edge of the cemetery. A small part of the chimney and the outline of the baptismal font are still visible today inside the cemetery's gates. Santa Fe Christian Church 
Marker placed by the Historical Society of New Santa Fe." 

Update! More to Read: 
1. "Santa Fe Christian Church's Final Homecoming Celebration" By Mary Wilson. Jackson County Advocate Newspaper Blog. Grandview, MO., Friday, October 13, 2017

Here's my contribution to the event -- a coloring sheet of the old church that had been torn down:

Update: Bill Crotty passed away 13 February 2019. His Findagrave memorial 

and Obituary. 

Article written by Dolores J. Rush, Updated: 9/20/2022.

A Moment in Time Ephemera

Some people like to use 3-D decorations in their heritage scrapbooks of the ancestors, but I, personally, don’t like bumpy albums with dented pages. I do like using personal keepsakes, however, that bring my ancestors to life and thought I would compile a list of flat ephemera one could use. Take time to plunder the attics, closets, dressers, hope chests, jewelry boxes, junk drawers, photo albums, recipe boxes, scrapbooks, sewing cabinets, and writing desks of your grand-relatives for mementoes before the estate sale.

Note: Reproduce good quality permanent copies of paper documents at your local printer and archive the originals in a fireproof document box. Ink-jet photocopies are temporary in nature and might fade over time.

address labels, alphabet stencils (new and used), autographs, baseball trading cards, botanical illustrations, bookmarks, calling/business cards, cancelled checks, car keys, certificates (adoption, award, birth, church membership, death, guarantees, marriage, military, prize, stock, Sunday School promotion, warranties) children’s artwork, church bulletins, clothing tags, candy packaging labels (candy bar, crackerjack, gum wrappers, Valentine), dance cards, desk calendar pages, dog tags, flashcards, garden catalogs, garden seed packets, hair ribbons, embroidery thread, favorite poetry (Bible verses, quotes), feathers, flattened spice tin fronts, foreign coins (tokens), funeral leaflets, graduation diploma, handwritten recipes, hankies, images from a favorite book, lace, lacy gloves, ledger, library cards, guest-books (guest check receipts), journal and diary accounts, letters, a lock of hair (hair-nets), locker tag, maps (paper), menus, old-fashioned packaging labels, old greeting cards,  old schoolbook pages, measuring tapes, needle threader, newspaper clippings, old magazine ads, old patterns (envelopes with images and tissue patterns), old typewriter keys, paper doilies, paper dolls, patches, photos of heirlooms (favorite toys), photographs of their homes, perfume bottle labels, pinked swatches of calico and gingham feedsack fabric, playing cards, postcards,  pressed flowers, printed tablecloths,

quilt patterns, receipts, report cards, rickrack, school papers, a sequin from a special dress, sheet metal jewelry (photos of jewelry), sheet music, silhouettes, slides, stereoscopic viewing cards, suitcase stickers, theater programs, ticket stubs, traced hands or feet cut-outs, travel brochures, utility bills/receipts, used envelopes, used postage stamps, vintage Valentines, vintage wrapping paper, wallpaper remnants, watch parts (crystals, faces, hands, gears), wedding invitations, and wedding dress fabric.

Postscript: I stumbled across a Civil War quilt blog and she had an article on Albums: Silk and Paper. Another item to add to the list to look for!

 Compiled by Dolores J. Rush, Updated: 9/29/2019

Note These Dates

Below is a timeline of helpful dates for a family historian to know. To find clues about our ancestor's lives, one must know where to place them in history. 

Beginning of mankind = Walking
Boats on rivers; Ships on the sea
3200 B.C. = wheels on chariots
1347-53 = Bubonic Plague in Europe
=========================
NEW WORLD!

1492 = Christopher Columbus

1582 =  The Gregorian Calendar was implemented by His Holiness, Pope Gregory XIII in October.
1585 = Roanoke Colony settled (N.C.)
1607 = Jamestown settled (VA.)
1620 = Mayflower ship landed (MA.)
1704 = First U.S. Newspaper
1749 = Calendar standardized; Conestoga wagon (PA). 

1751 = Law changed end of year to Dec 31. 
1752 = Sept. The United States finally switched from the old Julien calendar to Gregorian calendar with 11 days difference. Jan 1 began the year.
1755-1763 = French and Indian War
1775-1783 = War of Independence
1776 = July 4. USA Birthday!
1790 = First USA Census
1792 = Kentucky Statehood (15th)
1803 = Louisiana Purchase 
1812-1815 = War of 1812.

1817-1818 = 1^st Seminole War
1818 = Illinois Statehood (21st)

1820 = Missouri Compromise
1821 = Missouri Statehood (24th); Santa Fe Trail  
1830 = Oregon Trail
1831 =  McCormick's reaper
1832 = Black Hawk War  
1835 = Telegraph;

1835-1842 = 2^nd Seminole War

1837 = Osage River Steamboat; Miller County, MO.
1838 = Trail of Death
1839 = Daguerreotype photos
1843 = Typewriter
1845 = The New England Historic Genealogical Society
1846-1848 = Mexican War
1849 = California Gold Rush
1849 = Cholera Epidemic
1850 = Family Names in Census
1854 = Ambrotype photos
1856 = tintype or ferreotype photos
1858 = Colorado Gold Rush
1859 = Paper Photographs
1861 = Kansas Statehood (34th); Color Photography
1861-1865 = Civil War.
1862 = Homestead Act; Tax Act
1862-1870 = Missouri's Oath of Loyalty Law
1865 = Black marriages legalized in MO.
1869 = First Transcontinental Railroad
1879 = Edison's light bulb
1884 = Flash photography
1885 = Fingerprints
1886 = horse-less carriage
1888 = Eastman’s Kodak Camera
1889-1899 = Spanish-American War
1890 = American Frontier closed.
1892 = Ellis Island; Dalton's Raid on the Banks, Coffeyville, KS. 
1893 = First concrete paved street
1897 = Alaska Gold Rush
1899 = Philippine American War
1903 = Airplane  
1910 = Registry of Births and Deaths in Missouri.
1914-1918 = World War I.
1918-20: "Spanish" Flu 
1921 = Fire destroys most of 1890 Census
1929 - 1941 = American Depression
1933 = State Birth Certificates
 1935 = MO. Sales Tax
1939-1945 = WWII.
1950-1953 = Korean War
1950 = Atomic clock
1953 = DNA Structure Discovery
1954 = International Confederation of Genealogy and Heraldry.
1961 = First manned rocket
1961-1975 = Vietnam War 
1976 = Roots! By Alex Haley; United States of America Bicentennial; O'Neal's Golden Wedding Anniversary
1977 = Dad's 50th birthday 
1980s = Human Genome Mapping
1981 = Church of God (Anderson, IN) Centennial;  Ullom's Golden Wedding Anniversary
1983 = Ancestry.com;
1984 = Family Tree Maker software
1988 = Mom and Dad's last wedding anniversary. 
1991 = Persian Gulf War
1992 = Dalton Defender's Centennial 
1994 = GPS (Global Positioning System)
1996 = Memory Makers Magazine; Google Search Engine launched
2003 = My in-law's Golden Wedding Anniversary
2008 = Nazarene denomination Centennial
2019-2020 = Worldwide Coronavirus Pandemic
2020 = Eldon Church of the Nazarene Centennial, Eldon, MO. 

Timeline compiled by Dolores J. Rush, Updated: 2/5/2021

____ = First Church of God, Kansas City, KS 50th Anniversary
____ = Metropolitan Nazarene, Kansas City, KS. 50th Anniversary
____ = Grandview Nazarene, Grandview, MO 50th Anniversary 

I recommend this website to convert dates and times. Say you have a tombstone with a death date and age, but no birth date. Use this website's handy date calculator to figure an approximate birth date. Time and Date.com

Church Records and Christian History

Recently, our church cleared out some closets. The matter of what to do with old church documents such as address directories, baby dedication records, baptismal records, board minutes, old Sunday church bulletins, death records, membership transfer records, old newsletters, and so forth came up for discussion. To my knowledge, the collection hasn’t been cataloged since our 50th anniversary celebration several years ago and boxes, photograph scrapbooks, and filing cabinets have been stashed away in various available cubbyholes in our church.

Grandview Church of the Nazarene

These papers are not only important to document our church family history, but are also important to family historians/genealogists as well as to Christian university students and seminarians for various research papers and projects. American civic vital records only go so far back, so then, one may find information on ancestors in church records if they still exist.

David has always been interested in Christian history since his student days at Mid-America Nazarene University in Olathe, KS., particularly the Reformation period. I only became recently interested in church history when we began to homeschool our son in his fifth grade year of elementary school. We looked for a Christian-based history curriculum beginning in our home states since we live close to many important US history sites we could visit on field trips to supplement the curriculum. Not finding any, I began my own little research project which has since "blossomed” into a bigger project than I realized, namely, a timeline of Missouri and Kansas Christian history and two family history-related blogs, this one and the History Nut. 

Some time ago, David and I went to a genealogy lecture at our local Genealogy library. Angela N. Stiffler, former director of William Jewell University's Partee Center at Liberty, MO. was one speaker and the other was Barbara Bueller, herself a Lutheran. Both spoke of the importance of Christian and family research in Missouri which has been gleaned from church, ministerial, and district accounts. Since that time, I’ve gotten acquainted with Nancy Erhlich, a Heartland Presbyterian Church Historian and Stan Ingersol, the Nazarene Archivist. They all say the same, either keep your collection together (some churches now have a heritage room), transcribe it into a church history book (send a copy to your local genealogy library) or donate it to your local denominational archivist before you toss the records in the trash bin. Paper copies are best as technology changes way too fast. Family historians will thank you.

A Transcribed Example of Church Minutes:
Lulbegrud Primitive Baptist Church Minutes: 1793-1804. 

Example: a copy of my husband's church membership transfer document. Click on image to enlarge if you wish to view details.

More Repositories and Archives: 
Allen County, Indiana Public Genealogy Library Bible Records 
Bible Records Online

Primitive Baptist Library, Carthage, Illinois. Head Librarian: Eld. Robert Webb.

Compiled by Dolores J. Rush. Updated: 2/17/2020

Odd Bits of RUSH Trivia

Did You Know? There is a RUSH Hill and a RUSHville, MO. and also, a RUSH Center & RUSH County, KS.? Dr. Marcus Whitman (1802-1847), a missionary to the Indians in Oregon, was born in RUSHville, NY. There is a RUSH River in Virginia & a RUSH Creek in Missouri!
There is a famous signer of the Declaration of Independence, one Dr. Benjamin RUSH, however, my husband cannot find a link with our RUSH family to old Ben. And did you know that there is a RUSH Chapel United Methodist church in northern Missouri? My husband plans on being buried in the RUSH Chapel cemetery, the one located on RUSH Road in Mary’s Home, south of the Mo. capital, where many of his ancestors have already been laid to rest.

RUSH is even found in the Bible as RUSH, RUSHed, RUSHes, and RUSHing (37 times). And according to my computer dictionary, “RUSH” means = haste, reeds, dash, attack. My husband believes the American RUSH surname is derived from the Gaelic (Irish) “O’Luachrua” which means bullRUSHes or reeds.
There is also a RUSH Medical College, Chicago, IL. and a town named RUSHbrook chartered in Logan County, IL in 1834. It is a ghost town now. There is a RUSH Street in Osawatomie, KS. and a TV commercial featured RUSHCard.com
I looked in my atlas and found all these other RUSH related place names: RUSHville, IL; RUSH County and RUSHville, IN; RUSH City, RUSH River, RUSHford Village, RUSHford, and RUSHmore, MN; RUSHville, NE; RUSHville, OH; RUSH Springs, OK; RUSHton, TN; and RUSHmere, VA.
The head detective on the TV show "Cold Case" is named Lily RUSH.

In 2011, this poem was on my paternal aunt & uncle’s Christmas card. I couldn’t resist adding it to this collection of other RUSH’s. ;)

Christmas Hush
By Kay L. Halliwill.

May the quietness of Christmas,
The calm and holy hush
Of that first advent season,
Still our Christmas RUSH.

May our memories of the manger
Reassure us, ease the stress
Of troubled hearts in troubled times
With His peace and quietness.

If you know of any other bits of RUSH Trivia, such as how the RUSH band got its name, we’d love to hear it. RUSH it into the comments below.

Illustration by Mary Engelbreit.

A girlfriend found this Valentine for me at a church rummage sale!