| Larry Wilson shared this about the photo: "The people in the photo were identified for me by Dick Williams of Muldrow, OK. He is descended from John Davenport "Jockey" Williams, a brother of my Isham Hall Williams. In Virginia, the Williams' were neighbors to the Hilton family. When the Hiltons migrated to Missouri, three Williams brothers came along. A handed down story in the family says that John and Isham made trips to Texas to round up wild Mustangs and take them back to MO for sale. It is said they introduced wild Mustangs into Missouri. If this fact is documented, I have been unable to locate the source. The first two ladies on the left are unidentified. Next is Vinnie Feaster (born 1884), Candace Kingery Feaster (mother of Vinnie), Ann Feaster, and Sarah Howell Feaster (wife of Ike and mother of the two children). She appears to be pregnant in the photo - she had a third child in August 1892. Jay Trace shared this information and so with permission from Kari Northup it is listed below: "The children were identified as Clem (born 1887) and Everett (born 1889). This is the part that raises my doubt. When I started gathering data on this family, I discovered that "Clem" was actually Clema Ethel Feaster. The "Clem" in the photo definitely appears to be a little boy." Excerpts from Phillips Family book written by Ken & Lucille Phillips ([email protected]): EASTER P. PHILLIPS was born in North Carolina about 1820 and migrated with her parents to Indiana. When her parents split up about 1830, she went west with her father. She probably never saw her mother again. On December 17, 1835, when she was about 15 or 16, she married Robert Reed Feaster in Cole County, Missouri, Robert was 22. He had been born June 23, 1813, probably in Washington County, Tennessee. His father Levi had been born in 1786 in Maryland and had married Elizabeth Reed in Washington County, Tennessee, in 1807. Levi died near Bentonville in Benton County, Missouri, where most of his children remained. (Bentonville is on Highway 83, south of Warsaw.) Although the name "Easter Feaster" reads rather humorously to us nowadays, her given name probably was pronounced "Esther" and twisted by bad spellers. Mary Easter Phillips, daughter of John, was named for Easter, according to Mary's daughter. And Mary Easter pronounced her name "Ester." To confuse things more, some of Easter Feaster's cousins in Indiana thought her name was "Esther Fester." About 1836, Easter and Robert moved to Greene County, Missouri, apparently with Easter's father and his new family. Easter and Robert had Sarah Elizabeth in 1836, James Andrew in 1838, Martha A. in 1840, Thomas Jefferson in 1842, Levi in 1844, John in 1846, William Henry in 1848, Mary Jane in 1851, Malinda C. in 1853 and Isaac Coleman in 1855. On December 3, 1839, Robert entered land in township 29 range 24, near whitam settled. Tom had entered two tracts there, one three months earlier and another a day earlier. Robert, his wife and two children were listed adjacent to Tom and his family in the 1840 census of Greene County. Eventually the family moved to adjacent Lawrence County, where they farmed in Buck Prairie township. When Feaster died in his early 40s in 1856, nine of their 10 children still lived at home. Only eldest-child Sarah had married. Judging by the various censuses, Easter kept running the farm and kept her family together with the help of her teenagers. James was 18 and Thomas 14, so probably could manage planting and harvesting as well as their late father. Daughter Martha was 16 and presumably could help care for baby Ike and the other toddlers. Easter may have kept in contact with brothdohn back in Indiana through occasional letters. About 1977, one of John's descendants. Hazel Wright, found an old photo tucked away in her Indiana home. On the back was written: "Aunt Easter, John Phillips' sister." Hazel's sister Bernice Parker examined the photo and said she had written the identification on the back. Presumably Bernice's mother Mary Easter had identified the photo for her. Most of John Phillips' descendants in the Deputy area know of Easter and have a vague idea of where in Missouri she lived. Yet most of those same people had never heard of John's full brother Green Berry, who lived in Missouri, too, or even of full brother Isaac, who stayed in Indiana. For these reasons, it's likely that, when John decided to find his father, he knew where to look because Easter had written him and told him. Easter was counted in the 1880 census of Buck Prairie township. No one seems to remember what happened to her after that. Descendant Ruth Browning says Easter is buried with son Isaac in Osa Cemetery on the Barry - Lawrence county line and that her grave is marked only by uninscribed limestone rocks at the head and foot. Some descendents think Easter might have died about 1897. (See page 67.) Easter's brother John and her sister Betsy and Martha in Indiana named children Easter or Esther. But none other brothers, half-brothers, sisters or half-sisters in Missouri are known to have done that. Brother Green Berry did name a daughter Delila E., whose middle name is unknown. It might be erroneous, though, to assume that all younger Easters and Esthers were named for Easter Feaster. Apparently there was at least one older Esther Phillips in the family. She was born in North Carolina about 1798, then turned up in Montgomery County, Kentucky in 1814, where she married William Rayburn, a neighbor of old Philemon Phillips' sons John and William. Esther Rayburn later surfaced in Decatur County, Indiana, where she was a neighbor of Ezekiel Phillips' son Reuben. So if Ezekiel was Thomas H. Phillips' father, Esther Rayburn likely was Easter Feaster's aunt. From the following website - http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~knorthup/Webpage/William/Dyer/Notes/EasterPhillips.htm Kari said that the will Easter' father was written in 1852 and died in 1854 - and made a correction to the posted data. |
 |
| Resource Larry Wilson's photos |
| Submitted by: Larry Wilson and Kari Northup |
Return to |
Return to |
|