OLDn’NEWS FROM AROUND THE COUNTY
Saturday we had a joyous first meeting of some of the Staley/Staehly relatives at the History Center. It happens quite often. Sharon Egler of Belleville, IL has been tracking her Staehley family for quite some time. It is a common practice in doing research to try and find collateral lines of family, since they might have the unknown family information that you are looking for. Sharon found out in an old obituary that a brother of her great grandfather had moved to Randolph County in the 1800’s. The brother’s name was Fred Staehly. So two weeks ago she came here to Moberly to find out what she could about him. She started in the Little Dixie Library and found a reference to a Fred ‘Staley’ in the cemetery index. She also found that he was buried at Antioch Cemetery. So a search there gave her more family names. She returned to Belleville. The next weekend took her to the Bureau of Vital Statistics in Jefferson City, where she obtained the death certificate of Fred Staley. From the death certificate, she found that his father had spelled his name Staehly. She knew then that the name had changed and that she had the correct Fred. Her next move was a long shot. She called the only Staley in the Moberly phone book, Louie Staley. And sure enough she found not only her cousin Louie, but his son Norman and his wife Carolyn too. Louie Staley is the son of John Dell Staley and Lizzie Stadler Staley. He was married to Norene Staley. Louie retired from the Wabash railroad after working in the Moberly yards as a car man for over 30 years.
Last Saturday at the History Center, Sharon met her cousin, Norman Staley, for the first time. Norman’s wife, Carolyn, is the real family hunter at their house, so she and Sharon had a real picnic there sharing family history notes. Norman enjoyed visiting and taking his time looking at the museum displays in detail. Sharon and Carolyn are hoping to find other Staley’s/Staehly’s that might help in their family hunt. Let us know if you might be related and know some of the Staley history.
It’s one of the happenings at the History Center. Come by. We’ll help you get started with your genealogy or help you with roadblocks in your family tree research.
QUICK NOTES
Election day has come and gone now. I just wonder how much money was spent by all of the candidates in total? The papers, radios and television stations and the printing companies had a real windfall I’m sure. But it was expensive in the olden days of Randolph County, too. Just read what George W Dameron says in his book, Early Recollections, written in the late 1800’s. “I remember the first time I run for office of constable of Silver Creek Township at the August election of 1838. I “set ‘em up” to the boys to the tune of $20 and got beat by one vote. I bought the whiskey from Uncle Billy at 50 cents per gallon; all this amount was not spent for whiskey but the biggest portion of it was. My opponent, J. F. Goodman, spent more for whiskey than I did, so the reader can get an idea of how much whiskey was consumed at one precinct in those days by about 300 voters.”
Women were not allowed to vote in 1838. George had several county offices over the years and was never the loser after 1838. By the way, did you ever wonder why taverns closed on election day for so many years?
Lloyd Deierling is hard at work at the History Center organizing the wealth of old stock certificates, checks and notes that we have collected over the years. Each one is being preserved in archival quality mylar sheets. We expect them to be open for public view in 2003. Stock certificates are collected for their fine graphics as well as for their historical value. Many are from old obsolete railroad companies. Others are now defunct gold mine stocks. Some of the borrower notes go back as far as 1857.
The museum has never been as clean as it has been since Nadine Brown volunteered for that job. Not only does she keep the place clean as a whistle she also helps Ingrid Jones with filing. John Stufflebean has a county schools project going that includes newspaper clipping files for every school in the county. Nadine helps with that as well.
Come by and join us. We have over 250 members from Randolph County, from about 21 other states.