Thursday, May 16, 2019

John Byars Wampler (1843-1885) and Minnie A. Buck's (1864-1896) Children

John Byars Wampler married Minnie A. Buck, daughter of Charles Marquis Buck and Hannah Wellborn, in a double wedding ceremony in August of 1881. (The other couple was W. Armitage and Maud Noyes. John was friends with the couple and also with Maud's brother, Alva(h) Noyes who would later marry Minnie Buck's sister, Hattie. Alva would later write a short book, "Story of Ajax", about his early adult years in Montana in which he would mention John and John's other brothers periodically within it.)

John B. Wampler died, in 1885, as a result of blood poisoning that came about due to infection in his leg. It is said that he was buried somewhere on his Montana homestead. Minnie remarried and died a few years later, in April of 1898, in California. (Her FindAGrave memorial page has Minnie's middle name being Belle, which I don't know where they got that from as in newspapers her middle initial was listed as A, not B.)

The brief 4 year marriage of John B. and Minnie A. (Buck) Wampler resulted in two children. A daughter named Lorene May Wampler, born in 1882, and a son named Walter F. Wampler, born in 1884. Reece Bowen Wampler, John Byars' brother who also lived in Montana at the time, applied and was approved to be guardian of the children.

Lorene May was born 19 Jun 1882, probably in Big Hole - where John B. Wampler had his homestead, but I have seen her birthplace listed as Butte, Silver Bow county, Montana online. She doesn't appear in an available census report with Reece B. Wampler. Sometime after her mother's passing, and before 1900, it appears that she went to Knox county, Indiana. She lived in that area for the rest of her life until her passing on 24 Apr 1976.

Lorene was married Charles D. Steffy, son of Joseph and Mary Purcell Steffy, on 28 Dec 1901 in Bruceville, Knox county, Indiana. This marriage resulted in three children together: Charles Curtis Steffy, who died around the age of 12, Walter E. Steffy, and a daughter, Nellie M. Steffy.

MARRIED.
Charles D. Steffy of Wheatland, and Miss Lovene[sic?] May Wampler of Fritchton, were married Wednesday by Rev. R. H. Hooke at the Upper Indiana parsonage.
Source: Western Sun - 20 December 1901 - Page 7

Walter F. Wampler was born 10 Dec 1884 - reportedly in Knox county, Indiana. I perused the Indiana birth index, on Ancestry, and cannot find a record for him there. Walter is listed in a 1900 US census report in Reece Bowen Wampler's household. On that census his birth information is listed as Dec 1884, which had him being 16 at the time. His obit also shared that he was born in Vincennes, Knox county, Indiana on 10 Dec 1884. (Some people are apparently attaching him to a 2 Mar 1883 birth where the mother's name is listed as Emma, but that date conflicts with the other information about him having a December birth date.)

Walter never married and he died 14 Nov 1905 in Nye county, Nevada, shortly before his 21st birthday, from pneumonia, and he is buried in Tonapah, Nye county, Nevada.

John Byars Wampler and his younger brother, Reece Bowen Wampler, both had sons they gave the first name of Walter to, per their own paper trails, but their sons were each born in different years. Reeece Bowen's son died in Chicago, Illinois in 1881 and was buried in Knox county, Indiana - his headstone has become worn down from weather and age, and apparently they referred to him by his middle name, Audley, versus as Walter.

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