Harry Stair & Lillie Beyler Family Bible, Wells County, Indiana
Harry Stair & Lillie Beyler Family Bible

Contributed by Tom Stair,

This Bible belonged to my grandmother, Lillie Aurora Beyler Stair.  Jacob Stair and Susannah Poorman Stair's youngest son was Rueben Stair.  Rueben married Emma Funk and they had two sons, Clarence and Harry Cyrus Stair.  Harry Stair was my grandfather, Lillie Stair's husband.  Both Harry and Lillie had lived in Marshall Co., IN most of their lives where they farmed.  Their oldest daughter, Rose Amelia Stair went to college at the Wesleyan Methodist college in Marion, IN called Marion College.  Rose met Watson Goodman at college and they married a year after graduation.  One of Rose's roommates at Marion College was Thelma Irene Bennett (my mother.)  Thelma was from Wells Co., IN.  She was the fifth generation inhabitant from three lines of her family (Thomas, Turner, and Miller) and a third generation inhabitant in the Bennett line.  Watson Goodman, Rose Stair, and Thelma Bennett all graduated together from Marion College in 1942.  At Watson and Rose's wedding in 1943 my parents met for the first time.  It was a deliberate set up on the part of my Aunt Rose hoping that her old roommate and older brother, Victor Stair, would take an interest in one another.  After graduation from Marion college Thelma returned to Bluffton and took a teaching job at Columbian School living with her grandparents, Fred and Margery Crosby, at 923 W. Washington.  Thelma and Victor did take an interest in each other, but my dad was in the Army Air Corp at the time stationed at various bases in the south. They corresponded by mail along with seeing each other on rare occasions, finally getting married in Bluffton on 1 April 1945.  Dad was still in the military stationed in Miss. so after a short honeymoon he had to return to Mississippi until his discharge late in 1945.  They continued to make their home in Bluffton and Mom continued to teach at Columbian.  Dad got a job working for Central Gerber Dairy as a driver.  Rose and Victor had a younger sister, Vida Stair who graduated from Marion College in 1949.  Right after graduation she took a teaching job at the newly constructed Poplar Grove Elem. School on south hwy 1.  When Harry Stair was diagnosed with liver cancer in 1949 he and Lillie made plans to sell their farm in Marshall Co. and move into town.  Since they now had two children living in Bluffton and Bluffton had a clinic they decided to move to Bluffton in 1950.  Watson and Rose Stair Goodman were by now missionaries to South Africa.  In 1950 they came back to the United States on furlow and moved into the upstairs apartment at my grandparents house in Bluffton.  They lived there for the year they were home on furlow and my two cousins went to Central School for that year. On Jan 15, 1951 Harry Stair died, but my grandmother remained in their house until her death in 1982.  After Grandpa died Aunt Vida and the youngest of the children, Tressie Stair, moved into the same house with Grandma Stair.  After Grandma Stair died in 1982 Vida and Tressie continued to live in the house at 227 E. Horton, and they are still there today.  Mom and Dad ended up having four children, Charles, Roger, Rose, and myself, Tom.  We first lived at 627 W Silver, and then around 1957 we moved to 1017 Ranch Road.  In May 1960 my mother died from brain cancer and is burried there in Bluffton in Fairview Cemetery.  One of my uncles introduced my father to a woman from Oklahoma whose husband had also died from brain cancer.  In November 1960 my dad married Betty Jo Maddox Stevens there in Bluffton.  We continued to live in Bluffton until the end of that school year.  In the summer of 1961 we all moved to Enid, OK where my step-mother's family lived and where she had grown up.


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