Stephenson

In late November 2020, the gravestone of little Martha F. Stephenson was located as a previously unknown burial by our volunteer restoration team during the cemetery restoration 2020-2021.  The inscription on the head stone reads,  “MARTHA F. Dau. of N. D. & M. J.STEPHENSON
DIED Aug. 17, 1865 Aged 5 yr’s. 5 mo’s. & 2 d’s.”

The team also located the base and foot stone, so they were able to pinpoint her burial plot.

 

Volunteer researcher Gary Simpkins worked on the Stephenson family tree with some success, tracing the children of Nathan and Matilda Windsor Stephenson and located their burial locations.

 

Little Martha’s brother John Thomas Stephenson followed his father as a physician and druggist. Unfortunately his life ended in suicide in 1913 in Carroll County, MO, leaving behind a wife and a son and two daughters who moved to California. Martha’s sister Mary Lee married John Chrisman and they had six children and remained in Missouri. We are tracing the families of the those children who reached adulthood.

 

In the photos you can see a close-up of the family tree of Nathan and Matilda and then an expanded photo with their parents and grandchildren. Matilda died in 1870 and Nathan remarried Emily Jane Withers and had 8 more children. So we have additional opportunities for research among Martha’s half-siblings if we cannot locate living descendants of her full-siblings.