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The Lemuel Churchill Family
Sarah Jane Churchill Beagley
Fern
(1849-1934)
This is the earliest known photograph
of a descendant of Lemuel Churchill. As she is
not wearing a wedding ring, we
presume it was taken before 1881.
Sarah Jane Churchill was born on January 29, 1849 in
Frankfort Township, Illinois. Her father was Lemuel Churchill (b. July
18, 1808) and her mother Sarah Jane Burditt (b. September 9,
1811). Lemuel and Sarah Jane were married in 1833 and moved from their
home in Rutland County, Vermont to Frankfort in the late 1840's, not long
before their daughter Sarah Jane was born.
Jane's siblings were Orson Churchill (b. June 5, 1834) a
Civil War casualty, Lucy Rose
Churchill Wilcox (b. February 9, 1837), John Churchill (1839-1840), Mary
Churchill Unruh (b. July 11, 1841), Jane Churchill (1844-1847), John
Churchill (1846-1850), Angeline Churchill (1852), Ruth Churchill (1853),
and Lemuel, Jr., (b. July 2, 1855).
Sarah Jane Churchill married John Beagley in 1881. Their children were
Edith (1881-??), Betsy (1883-??) and the father of our Aunt Betty Jane,
Howard Lemuel Beagley (1885-1973). A stone mason by profession, John
died in 1885 shortly before Howard was born. Later, in 1892, Sarah
(who preferred to be know as Jane) married Charles Fern, also a stone
mason and apparently a longtime family friend as the Ferns and Churchills
were neighbors in Frankfort Township, Illinois.
Jane's brother Lemuel is mentioned in
the following obituary of his daughter Grace. Both the obituary and
Jane's photo above were submitted by fellow researcher, Elizabeth Maxwell,
and we are grateful for the opportunity to publish this information on
River of
Time.
From left
to right, back to front, Albert, Alice, Sarah, Grace, Ernest, Mary
Churchill, children of Lemuel and Alida
Churchill.
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Obituary of Grace Churchill Stahl
(1891-1980)
Grace Churchill
Stahl was born 23 October 1891 on a homestead near Rockwell City in Sac
County, Iowa. She was the third daughter of eleven children of Alida
Elizabeth Hyde and Lemuel Scott Churchill, Jr. of whom two, Robert
Churchill of Illinois and Susan Townsend of Arizona, still
survive.
Her Grandfather, Lemuel Scott Churchill,Sr.,
born in 1808 in Rutland County,Vermont, moved his
large family to Will County (near Frankfort and Peoria) probably
in the late 1830s(sic)1, where they located on a section of
land. Grace's father later moved to Iowa to try his hand
at homesteading. Her mother, Alida, was born of Phebe and Henry Hyde
in Tioga County, New York, where she was orphaned at an
early age.and was sent to Iowa to live with her Grandparents.
Alida's Grandfather, William McCrady, established the first Methodist
Church in Sac County, Iowa where Grace was born. Later, her
family returned to the Churchill farm in Illinois.
On
7 September 1911 Grace married Fred Enoch Stahl at Niagara Falls, New
York. Her first two children were born in New York, Dorothy at
Lockport and Norman at Hannibal. The family moved to Kansas City
about 1916 and established on a small farm north of Kansas City,
Missouri. Her third child, Lillian, was born there.
Grace's son, Norman Charles Stahl (Sr), was killed in action on
Okinawa on 5 June 1945.
With both daughters married
and feeling the first effects of arthritis, Grace determined to move
to a warmer climate and finally settled in Beaumont, California in
1946.
While living in Beaumont, there was a contest
to name the new "drive-in" theatre. Grace submitted the winning
name (Cherry Valley Drive-In). Shortly after she retired at age
65 she was in a serious automobile accident which was to plague her
the remaining years of her life. But in spite of this handicap,
she insisted on remaining active and maintaining her
independence.
Grace sold her home and moved to the
Gold Star Mothers Home (Long Beach) for a while and then to the
Mayflower Gardens at Lancaster, California. At Lancaster, she found an
absorbing activity in managing the Doll Bank, which made "yo-yo"dolls for
hospitalized children. The dolls were made by volunteers at
Mayflower Gardens and distributed regularly to the children at the
Antelope Valley Hospital. In the fall of 1979 at the annual
fundraising banquet, the doll bank was honored for having made their
10,000th doll for the children. She will be long remembered by
the recipients of the yo-yo dolls who now live in many parts of the world.
1The author of this obituary seems a bit
ignorant of Illinois geography. Frankfort and Peoria are more than
100 miles apart and it is probably more useful to describe the
former as being south of Chicago and east of Joliet. The timing
of the family's migration to Illinois is also a bit off - The 1840
U.S. Census lists Lemuel Churchill, his wife, and his first 3
children as living in Rutland, Vermont. Lemuel first starts to show
up in the Will County, Illinois land records in 1847 with a purchase of 40
acres in section 34 of Frankfort Township.
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