Origins

I was born in 1963 in San Antonio, Texas. My mother, Ann, died of cancer on December 26, 1978. My parents married in 1957, I think. They met at the University of Arizona in the mid-1950s. My father, Worthy Clark, received a degree in Agronomy from the University of Arizona. My mother didn't graduate from college. My mother and father divorced in about 1973, and my mother married Les Elgart, a well-known big band leader. Ann and Les divorced in May 1977. My mother, Mara Ann Landry (maiden name) was born November 29, 1936 in Lake Charles, Louisiana. My father lives in Converse, Texas with his wife Barbara.

Clark

The Clarks

My father, Worthy L. ("Buddy") Clark, was born in 1931 in Duluth, Minnesota and died in 2021. He had two sisters--Margaret Maynard Clark Croteau (1927-2016) and Janet Clark Cox (1929-). Margaret was married to Leo Croteau, and Janet was married to Dennis Cox.

My paternal grandfather was Horace Lucas Clark (b. 1899), and my paternal grandmother was Mildred Maynard Clark (b. 1897). Mildred died of cancer in Tucson, Arizona in 1952, and Horace married his second wife, Alice, in 1952, very soon after Mildred's death. Horace died in Tucson in 1977. Horace served in the US military in Germany in 1920. Horace had one brother, William S. Clark, who lived in the Florida Keys.

Horace Clark worked for Western Electric as a radio operator/technician. He also worked for a radio station in Cleveland. The family lived in Brecksville, Ohio during Margaret and Janet's high school years. Horace was transferred to Davis Monthan AFB in Tucson, AZ to work on the B52's that were stationed there. According to my aunt Margaret, my grandmother never liked Arizona and would love to have moved back to Ohio. My father graduated from Tucson High and the University of Arizonz.

Horace and William Clark's father was Harry W. Clark (b. 1872). Harry was married to Carrie Bell Clark (born about 1872, possibly in Buffalo, NY), a Daughter of the American Revolution. Her father may have been Edwin Bell. Harry W. Clark was a partner in the Clark and Dunnigan law firm, Cleveland, Ohio. According to his granddaughter Janet, he was known for being generous with his time and often not charging clients. He died in Clifton Springs, New York in 1935. Harry's siblings were Charles G., (b. 1869); Katherine, (b. 1874); Ernest, (b. 1878); Fannie, (b. 1878); Ralph, (b. 1880); and Jessie, (b. 1885).

Harry W. Clark's father was Worthy L. Clark (1846-1914), and his mother was Lenna Clark. Worthy immigrated from Malmesbury, Wiltshire, England--the town where Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) lived. Worthy followed his older brother Mourice B. Clark (1827-1901), who had immigrated in 1847. Mourice, the first business partner of John D, Rockefeller, became a prominent citizen of Cleveland, Ohio. At age 19, Worthy joined his older brothers Mourice and James (1832-1905) in the oil business in Cleveland, and he discovered a process for refining petroleum. The company was bought out by Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and Worthy retired to a farm. The Clarks lived in and around Cleveland, Ohio, including the village of Chardon, Ohio (Geauga County). Worthy is buried in Chardon Municipal Cemetery (Mausoleum Sec C Lot 15), as is his son Harry (Sec C Lot 13). 

Worthy Clark's wife was named Mary Francis (Fanny) Park Clark.

The father of Worthy, Mourice, and James Henry Clark, along with seven other siblings, was Robert Clark (1802-1887) of Malmsebury, England. Robert Clark's wife was Elizabeth Neat (or Neate) (1803-1890). Mourice was the second eldest, two years younger than Charles Clark (1822-). (Note: My son's name is Charles [born 2005]). James and his brothers brought their parents to Cleveland in 1860. Robert and Eliza Clark are buried in Woodland Cemetery, Cleveland, along with their son James H. Clark, James's wife Harriet, and James' sister Fanny.

In the 1851 census, Robert Clark's occupation is given as labourer, and four of his children, including Worthy (age 5), are listed as "scholars." In addition to Worthy, the children living in the home in 1851 were James (age 19), Eliza (age 14), Richard (age 12), Fanny (age 10), Titus (age 7). There was also a nephew named Robert Fullaway (age 25) and a visitor named Mary Comas (age 20).

More Malmsebury Links: BBC , wikipedia

Maynard

The Maynards
My paternal grandmother, Mildred Maynard Clark (1897-1952), was born in Chardon, Ohio. Her father was Charles S. Maynard (b. 1868) and her mother was Myrta (or Mertie) Taylor Maynard (b. 1867). Mildred's siblings were John, Malcolm, and Jane.

My great-grandfather Charles S. Maynard was born in Hambden, Ohio (Geauga County) . He contracted Polio as a child and walked on crutches the rest of his life. He worked for the B&O railroad. My Aunt Janet says, "I can still see him with the headphones on talking into some kind of microphone while he was working out of the house. His hobby was restoring old clocks and repairing their wooden works."

Charles S. Maynard's father was Milton Lewis Maynard (b. 1835), and his mother was named Mary A. McNaughton Maynard.
 
Milton Lewis Maynard's father was Lewis Gould Maynard, b. 1808 in Massachusetts. (Note: My middle name, as well as my father's, is Lewis.)

I've traced the Maynard family line back to John Maynard, born 1575 in England. The Maynard family immigrated to Massachusetts sometime before 1669, when David Maynard was born in Marlborough, Middlesex Co, Mass. Lewis Gould Maynard seems to have been the first Maynard to move to Geauga County, Ohio sometime before 1835. Here is a list of "begats."

Milton Lewis Maynard, born 1835, Geauga County, OH
his father--Lewis Gould Maynard, born 1808, Hampshire Co., MA
his father--Jonathan Maynard, born 1778, Worcester Co, MA
his father--Jonathan Maynard, born 1752, same town as above
his father--Ebenezer Maynard, born 1716, same town as above. Wife--Amy Dodge Maynard
his father--David Maynard, born 1669, Middlesex Co. MA
his father--John Maynard III, born 1630, Kent, England
his father--John Maynard, Jr., born 1598, Cambridgshire, England
his father--John Maynard, born 1575, England

In 1660, John Maynard III received a land grant for 26 acres in Marlborough Plantation, MA.

Landry

MATERNAL LINE
The Landrys
My maternal grandfather, Edwin John ("Jack") Landry (b. 1909) worked as an engineer in Sulfur, LA. Jack and Mara Stewart married on August 22, 1933. Jack died of pneumonia at age 27 in Lake Charles, Louisiana on December 24, 1936, when my mother was three weeks old. Mara remarried Lawrence Oscar Drachman, who was a good friend of Jack Landry. Their son, my uncle Daniel Ogden Drachman, was born in 1940. I believe my mother went by the name Ann Drachman, although her last name was actually Landry, until her marriage to my father. My grandmother reclaimed the last name Landry after her divorce from Oscar Drachman in the 1960s, and for the rest of her life she went by the name Mrs. E.J. Landry.

John Edwin Landry's father was named Oscar J. Landry, and his mother's first name was Edna--Edna Babin(?) Landry. Oscar J. Landry was born about 1881 in Louisiana. He may have been initiated as as a mason in 1912. I believe Jack Landry had a brother named Jim. The family lived at 610 Cleveland St, Lake Charles, LA.

My great-great-grandfather, also named Oscar Landry, was born about 1861 in Louisiana.

My great-great-great-grandfather, also named Oscar Landry, was born about 1833 in Louisiana.

According to one source, the patriarch of the Landrys of Acadia (modern Nova Scotia) was René Landry (René, l'Aine) (b. 1618) of Port Royal. He was born in France in the the region of Loudon. Through the Acadian diaspora, several branches of the Landry family made their way to Louisiana, my mother's birthplace.

Stewart

The Stewarts

Mara Berta Stewart Landry, Jack Landry's wife, died in Atlanta, Georgia at age 91 on September 20, 2002. Mara was born on 29 May 1911 in San Antonio, Texas. She later moved to Atlanta, GA, where she graduated in 1928 from Girls High School. She attended the University of Texas at Austin in the early 1930s but did not graduate. Mara had a fraternal twin sister named Madge Anna Stewart, who became Madge Keeton when she married Page Keeton, the longtime Dean of the University of Texas Law School. Mara had an older sister named Kathleen (Siddie) and an older brother named Norris (Bubba). Siddie was married several times, and she had a son named Clyde "Bobby" Cheek. Norris/Bubba Vancil Stewart (1899-1972) married Katherine Jane Bake (1903-1986). Norris and Katherine Jane (Bake) Stewart had a son named Donald Bake Stewart (1927-2006), Norris Merrill Stewart (1921-1996), and a daughter named Katherine Jane (Stewart) Perry (1929-2019).

Katherine Jane (Bake) Stewart had a sister named Frances Gertrude Bake (1907-97), who was living in a state institution for the mentally disabled when I met her with my mother and grandmother. I mention this only because the institution left a deep impression on me.

Mara's mother, my great-grandmother Mary Katherine (Mollie) Vancil Stewart (known as "Bam" to me), was born on 24 October 1875 and died on 27 March 1971. I remember seeing Bam twice--once at the home of her daughter Madge and later in an Austin nursing home, not long before her death at age 96. Mollie is buried in a family plot in Belton, Texas--a site my mother took me to visit in about 1975 or 76 and to which I have returned a few times.

Mara Stewart's father was named Daniel Norris Stewart, but he went by his middle name, his mother's maiden name. Norris Stewart (b. 29 April 1874) owned several hardware stores in South Texas (Harlingen) but had to give up all but one during the Great Depression. That stress, along with his being overweight, contributed to his death on 10 October 1933.

Daniel Norris Stewart and Mollie Vancil were married 6 March 1897. Daniel Norris Stewart quit school after the eighth grade, probably about 1886. Norris's father, John Aaron Stewart, had wanted his children to be well educated, and Daniel was no longer welcome at home after he dropped out after the eighth grade, and probably lived in a boarding house. He then took Norris as his first name. Norris Stewart invented a cotton harvester and some kind of planter and sold the designs for very little to his employer, John Deere Farm Implements. John Aaron Stewart may also have worked for John Deere, and he is said to have invented some kind of plow.

John Aaron Stewart was born 13 August 1843 in North Carolina? (,) and he fought for the losing side in the Civil War. He died 15 February 1905. (It's possible that John A. Stewart--son of George Stewart--was born in Kilbirnie, Ayrshire County, Scotland. John's eldest son was named George, which leads me to suspect that John's father may have been named George. But this is all conjecture. I am pretty certain that the Stewarts did immigrate from Scotland, however.)

John Aaron Stewart resided in Greene County County, Alabama in 1870 with his first wife, Anna, who died about 1871, and their two children, Mary and George. He later married Mary Tennessee Norris and had seven more children. They were married in Hunt, Texas. In the 1880 census, John A. Stewart, along with his wife Tennie and five children, is listed as residing in Sherman, Texas, and employed as a store clerk. After John Stewart's death in 1905, Mary Tennessee Norris Stewart took her unmarried daughters (Annie? and Isabelle) and moved to Magenta Plantation, Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, where the family had planned to retire. Tennie ran the sugar and rice plantation, which had its own train depot to transport the crop, and where Norris and Molly Stewart's family visited.

Magenta Plantation was once owned by the Alexandre E. DeClouet family. Alexandre Etienne DeClouet (1812-1890) was a sugar planter, Confederate Congressman and State Senator from St. Martin Parish, Louisiana. In the 1870s, Alexandre E. DeClouet was active in local politics, making speeches and writing resolutions for the White League, which was a semi-military body, organized to oppose the development of political and economic power of the black freedmen. The DeClouet family owned the Magenta, St. Claire, and Lizima Plantations. While these people are no relation, I find the facts interesting.

Norris

The Norrises

Norris Stewart's mother, my great-great-grandmother, was Mary Tennessee Norris--known as Tennie; she died in 1923 and was born in about 1853. It looks like Mary Tennessee Norris Stewart inherited Magenta Plantation from her father, Daniel Trevilien Norris (born 1832), a planter.

Daniel Trevilien Norris's father was Daniel Francis Norris, born 1800. His mother was Erasie Derouen Norris (1811-1899), who was a Cajun, just like the Landrys.

Daniel Francis Norris's father was William Norris of Pennsylvania, born 1766. His mother was Marie Magdalen Semer of Havre de Grace, France (born 1776).

The parents of William Norris were William Norris, Sr. (born about 1746 in London, England; resided in Redston, Penn. before moving to Carencro, LA) and Marie Melis of Pennsylvania (born about 1746). The parents of Marie Magdalen Semer Norris were Germain Semer and Marie Trahan of Acadia.

"Widow Daniel Norris" (born about 1811) lived in St Martin's Parish, where the plantation was, and it looks like she had an estate of $5,000. I need to research the connection with the DeClouet family.

Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, the site of the Magenta Plantation, lies along I-10, about 81 miles east of Lake Charles, LA, where my mother, Mara Ann Landry was born in 1936.

Vancil

The Vancils

The Vancil family is of German origin, the maternal ancestry being of Irish descent. The name was originally spelled "Wentzel," afterwards "Wensel," and finally "Vancil."

Mollie Vancil's father was named John W. Vancil (born 1849), and her mother was Annie Fones Vancil (born about 1859). According to Mollie's daughter Kathleen, "Annie [Fones Vancil] eloped on horseback on her 16th birthday [about 1875] and headed straight for the Hill Country near Johnson City (Blanco County). LBJ's parents and grandparents lived nearby and were very good to the young bride and new baby when the Indians would attack and when John Vancil was away---horse trading or whatever it was he did on his long trips away from home." Annie Fones Vancil was known as Gammy to her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

John W. Vancil died June 2, 1878 in a gunfight with a neighbor. It was called "A Sad Affair " by the newspaper which reprinted the original news story in its 100th anniversary edition. Kathleen Stewart said the incident illustrated John Vancil's temper. It was reported the argument degenerated from throwing rocks to going home to get guns. "John W. Vancil was killed in a shoot-out with James Talley. Mr. Talley shot first, hitting Mr. Vancil in the stomach. Mr. Vancil returned fire hitting Mr. Talley. John Vancil died as a result of his wounds. According to a report in the Gonzales newspaper, Mr. Talley was expected to recover" (source). John is buried in Dickinson Cemetery (off CR 90B, near Dozier Road between Belmont and Gonzales), along with his father, Peter Vancil and other family members.

Mollie Vancil was born in 1875, probably born in Blanco County. In the 1880 census Annie (or Anna) Fones Vancil is listed as a widow with a four-year daughter Mollie; they lived in Gonzales County, Texas. Annie Fones Vancil, at about age 21, apparently moved to Gonzales County after the death of John W. Vancil to live with her 25 year-old brother Charles E. Fones, his wife Sally and their child, and also Annie and Charles' 67 year-old mother Elizabeth Fones (born about 1813). Annie Fones Vancil married her late husband's younger brother Silas (born 1860). Silas was about 11 years younger than John Vancil, and has been described as a religious fanatic. According to the 1880 census, Silas was living in Gonzales County with his older brother David E. Vancil and his wife (Rachel) and child.

Mollie Vancil Stewart, Norris Stewart, Annie Fones Vancil, and Silas Vancil are buried in the same plot in Belton, (Bell County) TX. Norris Stewart died and was buried in Harlingen, but some time later Mollie had his body moved to Belton.

Other members of the Vancil family lived in Bell County. The town of Moffat, Texas, in Bell County, was founded by Amelia Vancil Moffet (1839- ) and Dr. Chauncey Warren Moffet in February 1857. I think Amelia Vancil was a first cousin of John W. Vancil. She was the daughter of Isaac C. Vancil (1810-1892), who was an older brother of Peter Vancil. Isaac C. Vancil was born in Grayson County, Virginia but moved to Illinois, which is where Amelia was born.

Nora E. Vancil (1860-1876) is also buried in the South Belton Cemetery. She must have been the cousin of John W. and Silas Vancil. John W. Vancil must have taken Annie Fones Vancil to live with or near relatives in Bell County.

John William Vancil (1849-78) was the son of Peter Vancil, a farmer (born 1819) and Mary Mitchell Vancil (born either 1830 or 1824--hard to read census). Peter Vancil reportedly buried money and gold all over ranch, but nothing has been recovered. Peter and Mary Vancil had seven children. John Vancil was the second eldest, and Silas was the youngest.


Peter Vancil was born July 3, 1819 in Union County, Illinois. He died Jan 25, 1873 in Gonzales, Texas, and is buried in Dickinson Cemetery in Gonzales.

Other Vancils buried in Dickinson Cemetery:

David Ellis Vancil (1855-1932)
Rachel Vancil (1862-1889)  (wife of David E. Vancil)
Emma M. Vancil (1861-1912)
Homer D. Vancil(1894-1957)
Collis D. Vancil (1892-1893)
Emma H. Vancil (b. Nov. 25, 1877, d. Jan. 15, 1878)
Mary J. Fitzgerald Vancil (1850-1879) (wife of Wade Hampton Vancil, Peter Vancil's son.)

The Vancils are buried under a huge ash juniper in the same plot as Rachel Hemmingner Dickinson Booth (1823-1906), a Citizen of the Republic of Texas. The cemetery is apparently located on on her land, which was granted to her first husband Edward Dickinson--(1107 acres) located on the east bank of the Guadalupe River eleven miles west of Gonzales between plots granted to Eliza and Green DeWitt. The Vancils probably lived in this area west of the town of Gonzalez.

Apparently John Vancil moved from Fayette to Gonzalez to live near his older sister Naomi Catherine (Kate) Vancil Dickinson (1848-1927 or 1934?). Kate was the wife of Edward Dickinson, Jr. So Rachel Hemmingner Dickinson Booth would have been Kate's mother-in-law. Edward Dickinson, Sr. fought with Sam Houston in the Texas Revolution. Edward, Jr. fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War; he died in 1927 in San Antonio and was buried with his father in the Gonzales Masonic Cemetery.

Peter Vancil's siblings were Sarah Jane Vancil, Adam Vancil, and John Vancil, Jr. Peter was the youngest.

Peter married Mary Mitchell in Austin, Texas (12 Jan. 1847). They then settled in Fayette County. Mary Mitchell Vancil was born 13 Sept. 1823 in Tennessee. She died 22 Jan 1868 in Fayette County TX. Her father was John Tarpley Mitchell (1783 (Virginia)-1865 (Missouri); her mother was Polly Cotten Read (1786 (Virginia)-1881 (Missouri).

Peter Vancil was the son of Isaac Vancil (1787-1850) and Katherine Putmaster (1791-1829). Isaac was born in Somerset County, Pennsylvania and died in Morgan County, Illinois.

Isaac Vancil was the son of John Vancil, Sr. and Mary Penrod. John Vancil (or Wensel), Sr. was born in 1747 in Patrick County, Virginia and died in 1817 in the same county. Mary Penrod was born in 1750 in Somerset Country, Penn. They married 17 May 1768 in Frederick Co., Maryland. They had twelve children. Isaac was the second to the youngest.

The parents of John Vancil, Sr. were Maria Brerathin Wentzel (about 1725 (Prussia)-1815 (Montgomery, Co, Virginia) married Johann Adam Wentzel in 1743. Children were Jonathan (John Sr.), Mary, Edmund, Susannah.