The Rest of the Story

For some time we have been stuck in the mire of the Sweets and Lowrys. Today, we finally get back to the Tapscotts—sort of.

On 1 Mar 1884, at the Clark County, Illinois, office of Justice of the Peace John G. Towell, Cora Isabelle Tapscott (often called “Bell”) married Richard Morgan Sweet (who usually went by just “Morgan”). Morgan was a grandson of Nathaniel and Elizabeth (Maddox) Sweet. His father was Austin Sweet, a brother of Eliza Ann (Sweet) Lowry, about whom we have heard so much. Cora was a granddaughter of Henry and Susan Bass Tapscott.

In 1880, there were only sixteen Sweets in all of Clark County, most living near Martinsville, a few miles west of the Tapscott farms in Anderson township. The union of Richard and Cora eventually added thirteen descendants to this number—Ithamar, William, Robert, Charles, Emma, Murl, Faris, Ruth, Ruby, Leslie, Eugene, Harold, and Nila. My uncle Clarence Benson Tapscott claimed that there was a fourteenth Sweet, Thomas, but if so Thomas must have died as an infant. No documentation of his existence has been found.

With the many children in the family of Morgan and Bell Sweet and the rather common surname, tracing them down for a book on the Tapscotts of the Wabash Valley has been an onerous task.  One person who was particularly difficult to track was Leslie Morgan Sweet.

Leslie was born to Cora and Richard on 14 Oct 1903. Sometime in the early 1920s, after working on the family farm, he moved to Michigan City, Indiana, and then on to Detroit. There Leslie worked as grinder in an automobile factory, married Agnes May Ford (the ceremony actually occurred across the state line in Ohio), and was divorced in 1952. He next appeared in the 21 July 1957 edition of The Marshall Herald, in which it was reported that the Sweet clan had been called together by the “by the sudden death of their brother and uncle, Leslie Sweet, of Effingham, Ill.” Leslie was buried near Martinsville in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, the resting place of a multitude of Sweets.

Leslie’s life appeared nicely wrapped up until I saw a 24 Jul 1959 Marshall Herald article about a reunion of “Morgan and Bell Tapscott Sweet” descendants held in Covington, Indiana. Among those attending was “Mrs. Leslie Sweet of Effingham, Ill.” Unless Leslie’s ex-wife decided to attend a reunion of her in-laws, which seemed unlikely, Leslie’s life was not “wrapped up.” Moreover, the earlier report that he had died suddenly was a bother. Thus when Mary Frances and I headed for Illinois to do family history research this summer, we set aside a day in Effingham in attempt to put together the rest of Leslie’s tale. (And to eat at an outstanding Effingham restaurant, the Firefly Grill, just down the street from our hotel.) The records collected from the courthouse and the Helen Matthes library have been reviewed, and with the provision of some detailed information by Michael L. Hébert, we can complete the story of Leslie's life.

Leslie Sweet death certificate.

Around 1950, Leslie moved from Detroit to Effingham, where he apparently met Cora Katherine Campbell, to whom he was wedded sometime between 1952, when his first marriage was dissolved, and 1954, when Cora was designated “Cora Sweet” in an obituary for her father. Raised by John and Susan (Hilton) Campbell in the town of Montrose in Effingham County, Cora was first married to Oakley Earl (“Jack”) Hargrave on 15 May 1926. The marriage produced one child, but ended in an acrimonious divorce on 4 Nov 1935, with Jack Hargrave later arrested for nonpayment of alimony.

Cora’s marriage to Leslie Sweet was short. On 9 Jun 1957, at 8:15 in the evening, Leslie stepped in front of a car while crossing a busy street in the city of Effingham and was struck by a driver who may have been blinded by oncoming traffic. He died instantly. Leslie left no descendants.  Less than a year earlier, on 3 Aug 1956, Leslie had been involved in an automobile accident near Mattoon in which he hit the rear end of an automobile. The accident injured five people with one dying.

Two years later, Cora married Gerald E. Lockart, a widowed funeral home owner and operator from Shelby County, Illinois. Dying on 24 Aug 1983, Cora is interred in Montrose Cemetery in Effingham County.

From the 1950s through the 1990s, ABC radio broadcaster Paul Harvey would present little-known or forgotten facts on events and people, concluding his broadcast with the phrase "And now you know the rest of the story." Here, for Leslie Sweet, was the “Rest of the Story.”

All genealogical data reported in these posts are from primary and/or reputable secondary sources, or reliable transcriptions thereof, and never from unsourced online trees. Contact the author to request sources, which have been omitted here to improve readability.

The Pipe-Smoking Dragon

“If Whistler’s Mother had smoked a small clay pipe which she always carried in her reticule or in the deep side pocket of her black silk dress, she would have been very much like Grandmother Lowry.” “Grandmother Lowry” was Eliza Ann (Sweet) Lowry as described by her granddaughter Mary Elizabeth (Lowry) Johansen. Eliza was one of twelve children of Nathaniel and Elizabeth (Maddox) Sweet (9 Sep 2015 blog) and she was my great great grandmother.

Eliza was a real Clark County, Illinois, character. Mary Johansen continued her description as “somewhat of a spoiled old darling who had all the endearing softness of a rip-snorting dragon, a tiny one weighing less than a hundred pounds and standing only for feet ten inches high…” The Marshall Herald described her as a “genuine pioneer.”

Eliza Ann (Sweet) Lowry on right, daughter Elizabeth

J. (Lowry) Wright at left. At the back may be her
granddaughter Mary Elizabeth Wright (c1915).

And a pioneer she certainly was. Born in Kentucky or Ohio (even Eliza seemed unsure) on 14 Jul 1822, she came to Illinois with her parents and siblings in 1836. In Danville on 28 Feb 1839 she married Jackson Lowry and the two had twelve children, several dying young. In Clark County the family lived in Auburn Township near the Tapscotts, Sweets, and Wrights. There, according to another granddaughter, Hattie (Lowry) Chick, “they lived in one room for a while then built two more rooms.… She and the girls farmed and raised sheep and spun yarn to make their own clothes.” And once Eliza encountered “A big bear [that] came out of the woods and took a blackberry pie which was cooling on the window sill.”

Jackson, who briefly fought with the Union Army, died young, in 1871 at age 51, leaving his feisty widow to fend for herself. She fended well, living for a while in Martinsville, and eventually moving to Marshall to live with her unmarried daughter, Rachel, whose life she commandeered. According to Mary Johansen “Rachel developed that thin, harried look that women sometimes wear when their lives are devoted to waiting on elderly female dragons.” When Eliza badgered her daughter to trade her house in Marshall for small farm, the two went to live near Hog Thief Church. The move turned out to be Rachel’s liberation, allowing her to meet the next door farmer, Albert Huston, and marry him. At age 44, she was an “old maid” no longer.

After living with Rachel and her husband for several years, a situation calling for disaster, Eliza eventually moved in with her son and daughter-in-law Lewis and Mahala (Sweet) Lowry in Martinsville Township. There she had a log cabin in the family’s backyard, where she would roast corn and potatoes in the fireplace with her grandkids and where she would go to smoke her pipe, a lifelong friend. The 21 Jul 1915 edition of the Marshall Herald described her 93rd birthday.

Last Wednesday [14 July] was the 93rd birthday of Mrs. Eliza Lowery of Martinsville Township. Aunt Eliza as she is known to the people of the community was born in Ohio, July 14, 1822, and came to Clark County in 1836---a genuine pioneer. She was married to Jackson Lowery and reared a family of nine children, five daughters and four sons. Two sons and one daughter are living. They are Lewis Lowry of Martinsville Township, Frank Lowry of Oklahoma, and Mrs. Elizabeth Wright of Anderson Township. Mrs. Lowry's mental condition is good and also her hearing and sight. She smokes her pipe and has done so for 80 years. She makes her home with her son Lewis where a dinner was given Wednesday in her honor. There was quite a number of her old acquaintances present including Howard Norman, W.F. Romines and wife, Thomas Kinderdine and wife, Robert Hurst and wife, Austin Sweet and wife, Morgan Sweet and wife, Charles Sweet and wife, Robert Sweet and wife, Bert Mitchell and wife, Mrs. W.H. Cunningham, Doc Cunningham, John A. Sweet, Mrs. Jane Sweet and daughter, Mrs. Belle Sweet, Mrs. J. Reasor and Mrs. Elizabeth Wright and her daughter, Mary. Old time songs were sung, violin music was furnished by Howard Norman and there was much conversation relating to early times in this county, of deer hunting, log rolling, etc. And old time love songs were sung by W.F. Romines.

Eliza died three years later, on Apr 1918 at the advanced age of 95. She is buried alongside her husband in Auburn Cemetery, a fire-breathing dragon no more. But one must acknowledge that some “dragonality” was needed to bear twelve children, raise a family, and survive as a widow in the backwoods.

As a final comment, the death year and probably the birth year are incorrect on Eliza’s grave marker, and the number of children differs greatly between sources. Twelve is the number given by Eliza.

All genealogical data reported in these blogs are from primary and/or reputable secondary sources, or reliable transcriptions thereof, and never from unsourced online trees. Contact the author to request sources, which have been omitted here to improve readability.

A Very Sweet Family

Nathaniel's marker (photo
 by Shirley I. Shawver Nees).

In 1834 Henry and Susan (Bass) Tapscott left Kentucky and headed for Illinois with their kids, and with more born on the way. A few years earlier another couple had done the same. But Nathaniel and Elizabeth (Maddox) Sweet of Fleming County, Kentucky, detoured through Ohio, rather than Indiana, arriving in Vermilion County, Illinois, in 1836. In the 1840s the Sweets pulled up stakes again and traveled to Clark County, where at first they scattered - Auburn, Cumberland (later Casey), and Melrose townships. Later many congregated in Martinsville Township, just a few miles west of Henry and Susan Tapscott’s newly established farm. Descendants claim that the Sweets broke the virgin prairie soil with a primitive plow and six yoke of oxen, not unlikely though they probably would have had to borrow some cattle from neighbors. But true or not, they started a collection of Sweet farms in the Martinsville area. And they had sufficient descendants to populate that community, for like Henry and Susan Tapscott, Nathaniel and Elizabeth had twelve offspring.

Nathaniel died 3 Jun 1874 at the age of “73y. 8m. 27d.” according to his cemetery marker; Elizabeth passed away on 15 Sep 1878, aged “76y. 2m. 19d.”. Nathaniel and Elizabeth are interred in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery in Martinsville township, today the resting place of over seventy Sweets and innumerable other descendants lacking the Sweet name (as well as four Tapscotts).

The last several weeks have been spent doing a final unraveling of the Sweet family, which married into the Tapscotts and has thus earned a chapter in The Tapscotts of the Wabash Valley, possibly a very large chapter since it was a very large family. And, of course, we shall hear about some of these Sweets in the days and weeks to come.

P.S.: Nathaniel and Elizabeth Sweet are my great great great grandparents, but through my grandmother Edna Earl Wright, not through my grandfather John Wesley Tapscott

All genealogical data reported in these blogs are based on primary and/or reputable secondary sources, or transcriptions thereof, and never on online trees. Contact the author to request sources, which have been omitted here to improve readability.