CHRISTIAN WALL
Christian Wall was born
in Germany on November 27, 1779 and lived nearly half his life in
Pennsylvania. He married there and all of his children were
born there. Shortly after his father’s death in 1801 Christian
married Anna Catherine Bachman, daughter of Nicholas Bachman and
Catherina Kindt. The Bachman's were from that part of Northampton
County that later became Lehigh County and were members of a large
clan of Bachman's in Lowhill Township. There is no record
of the marriage of Christian and Catherine, but we can deduce the
year to be about 1804 from the birth date of the oldest son, John.
The Bachman's were founding members of the Lowhill German Reform
Church in Lowhill Township of Northampton (now Lehigh) County and
it is likely that the couple met and married in this church. The
earliest records of Christian and his family, other than his father's
will, are the baptismal records of his eldest son John (February
1805) and his daughter Mary (December 1806) in the Lowhill church.
The first official record of him is the 1808 tax assessment list
of East Penn township. This assessment was made shortly after Penn
was split into East and West Penn townships. That area is
now part of Carbon County, Pennsylvania. Also about this time
Christian is listed on the membership roll of the Ben Salem Lutheran
and German Reformed Church mentioned earlier. This church was still
in existence as the Ben Salem United Church of Christ in Andreas,
Pennsylvania when I did my original research in 1979.
When the Third Census of U.S. was taken in 1810, Christian
Wall and his family were still living in East
Penn Township. By that time there were four
children in the household: John, Mary, Charles
and Rebecca. Sometime during the next ten
years the family moved west of the Alleghenies,
following the pattern migration of the time.
The next census shows they were living near the
banks of the Susquehanna River in Union County.
That area is now Snyder County, Pennsylvania.
By the time the 1820 census was taken five more
youngsters had been added to the family, Catherine,
Isaac, Judith, Abigail and Peter. The two
youngest Wall children, Sarah and Daniel came
along before Christian and Catherine once again
packed up their family and belongings and departed
Pennsylvania for the western frontier of Ohio.
The short trek from the settled counties of eastern Ohio to the
frontier counties was arduous. Peter Waltz,
one of the first pioneers from Pennsylvania to
come to Chippewa Township in Wayne County, Ohio
described his trip years later. His family,
along with the Rasor and Everhard families was
among the very first to settle in that part of
Ohio. The three families started from Mahoning
County in eastern Ohio after purchasing their
land from General Wadsworth in Canfield.
Mahoning County was an established area with a
large population (by the standards of the time).
It is likely, though, that their journey actually
began in Pennsylvania and Mahoning County was
the jumping off place for the western frontier.
The route they took was along what is today Route
224. The first day of the trip they traveled
only six miles to Turkey Creek where they broke
an axle on a wagon. In those days a traveler
was in real trouble if he could not hew a new
axle or wagon tongue from a tree with an ax.
The next day they made it another five or six
miles to west of Deerfield and camped along Yellow
Creek. They were able to travel approximately
thirteen miles to Suffield before breaking another
axle the following day. A day later they
came to Wolf Creek in Norton Township in Medina
County and on west a short ways where they camped.
On the fifth day they cut a trail through the
forest to where John Everhard soon built his cabin.
During the next week they continued the trail
through the forest to Jacob Everhard's land.
Finally, they cut their way through to the site
of the Waltz homestead. The trip encompassed
no more than fifty miles and took three weeks
or more before they set foot on the land where
they made their new home. Along the way
they had to cut new roads, repair broken wagons
and fight off the bears that attacked their hogs.
The Waltz land eventually was the location of
the "Waltz" church on the Medina and
Wayne county lines just south of Wadsworth.
The Waltz family donated the land for the church,
giving it the name it had for several years.
This church later became known as the High Church
and in modern times the Emanuel Church of Christ.
In 1875 Edward Brown, a minister in Wadsworth,
published the "Wadsworth Memorial" a
history of early Wadsworth and the four surrounding
townships. He wrote at a time when some
of Wadsworth's earliest settlers were still living,
and it contains their memories of the people and
conditions in Wadsworth and Chippewa during the
early years. Peter Waltz's account is among them.
The Wall family made this trek a decade later so they
may have made better time with fewer broken axles.
But, it was still no Sunday drive for them and
others who came after the original pioneers had
blazed the trail. Also, Christian and Catherine
probably started their journey from Pennsylvania in Jefferson County
by way of Pittsburgh. The Fords from whom
Christian bought his land in Chippewa in 1824
lived in Jefferson County. In 1824 Christian
and Catherine had one young adult son and ten
younger children ranging in ages from 16 to a
few months. Anyone who has made long trips
with children can sympathize with them.
Wild animals and broken axles were pleasant diversions
compared to entertaining ten children on a long,
difficult trip.
Christian purchased from Stephen Ford and his wife Ruth
approximately 110 acres in the Northwest Quarter,
Section 15, Chippewa Township, Wayne County, Ohio
on June 25, 1824. The Fords had obtained
it from the federal land office in Wooster probably
as an investment when James Monroe was President.
When Christian purchased it from the Fords in
1824 he paid $250 for what was then essentially
wilderness in the northwest quarter of section
fifteen in Chippewa Township. He sold it
sixteen years later to James Metlin for $2300
dollars, a hefty sum in 1840 and not a bad return
on his investment. The site where Christian's
farm lay is just south of Doylestown. The
1897 atlas of Wayne County shows that the land
had been broken up into two parcels. N.
Bittinger owned the northern most 30 acres and
G. Whitman owned the southern 80 acres.
The "Wadsworth Memorial" states that
Christian came to Chippewa in 1823. He may
have come to Wayne County ahead of his family
to find suitable land for a farm. I believe
that the rest of the family, except maybe for
the oldest sons, didn't move to Chippewa until
after Christian purchased his land.
Christian and his older sons must have labored long and
hard after arriving in Ohio to clear the land,
build a suitable house and get in the first crop.
It is unlikely that the previous owners had done
any of this. The Fords, like many original
owners of lands in the Congress District of Ohio,
purchased the land in 1818 from the government
as an investment with no intention of moving there.
In 1824 the Walls were faced with the monumental
task of taming a primeval forest broken only by
Indian trails and animal tracks. I grew
up in this area when it was all farmland with
a bit of woods here and there. It is hard
to imagine a time when it was trackless forest,
but that was the condition for the first few decades
of settlement in the townships around Wadsworth.
In Wayne County, especially Chippewa Township, most
of the settlers were ethnic Germans while Medina
County was being settled largely by New Englanders
from the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts
and Vermont. The Pennsylvania Germans that
did move to Medina County located for the most
part south of Wadsworth. They preferred
this area of the county close to other ethnic
Germans in Chippewa. These Pennsylvania
Germans of Chippewa and Wadsworth formed one community.
They established their own schools and churches
and spoke mainly German for decades to come.
During the early years in Wadsworth the New England Yankees
far outnumbered the Pennsylvania Germans whom
the Yankees referred to as "Pennamites."
That label refers back the "Pennamite Wars"
in the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania during the
early years of settlement there. Connecticut
and Pennsylvania both claimed the area of the
Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania on the basis of
old royal grants. Many citizens of Connecticut
had the opinion that eastern Connecticut was becoming
too crowded. Many moved to the western lands
after they obtained grants in the Wyoming Valley
from the colonial Connecticut government.
Unfortunately, Pennsylvania did the same thing
for its citizens, most of them ethnic Germans
or Dutch. The result was many overlapping
claims that ensured a bloody feud between the
two groups. After the American Revolution,
Connecticut relinquished its claim to parts of
Pennsylvania in return for a large territory stretching
from the western boundary of Pennsylvania to the
western boundary of present day Lorain County
in Ohio known as the Western Reserve of Connecticut.
The southern boundary lay along the same latitude
as the southern boundary of Median County.
Unfortunately, the animosity between Pennamite
and Yankee was not extinguished for many years
to come. Fortunately, in Ohio no blood was
shed between the two groups.
Elinore Schapiro, in her work "Wadsworth Heritage,"
published in 1964 says, "For a few years
at the beginning, considerable antagonism existed
between these two groups in Wadsworth, inspired
by the differences in their eastern backgrounds
and by the smoldering memories of the Pennamite
Wars. At first so-called mixed marriages
between members of these differing groups were
violently condemned by both; but as the years
passed, a gradual and peaceful assimilation took
place. This phenomenon marks the outstanding
difference between Wadsworth and many other townships
of the Western Reserve, whose populations, almost
completely Yankee from the beginning, maintained
the predominance of New England culture until
a much later date, some even until the present
day."
Many Catherine's Baughman relatives preceded her and her
husband to Ohio and they may have been the motivation
for Christian and Catherine to follow. In
Wayne and Medina counties the Bachman name seems
to have changed uniformly to Baughman, probably
for similar reasons that Wahl changed to Wall.
However, in Pennsylvania today, the descendants
of Catherine's grandfather still spell the name
as Bachman. There is another interesting
tradition about names that the Wall and Bachman
family seemed to have followed. It is my
observation that sometimes more than one child
in the family had the same first name but unique
middle names. The first name was used on
formal occasions or in legal documents, and always
with the middle name. Often these individuals
went by their middle names in their day to day
lives. Thus, in the Wall family John Michael
Wahl was known as Michael Wahl. Anna Catherine
was Catherine; Maria Magdalena was Magdalena,
and so forth.
The task of clearing the new land for farms in Wadsworth
and surrounding townships was enormous.
Because the trees were large old growth forests
the labor to cut them down and chop them up was
immense. Most of the big trees were girdled
rather than cut down. The bark of a tree
was removed with an ax in a section (girdle) completely
around it causing the tree to die. There
it stood until it rotted or fell down in a storm.
Peter Cherry, a boy when his family arrived in
Wadsworth Township, wrote, "The usual way
of clearing was to cut down the smaller fry, then
girdle the larger trees, leaving them to rot down.
The moon shining on the bleached trunks of these
trees has scared many a boy. I know from
experience."
For twenty or thirty years this was the condition
in Wadsworth and Chippewa. First a few openings
were made in the forest and cabins built.
In a few years these gave way to larger fields
and the beginnings of a village here and there.
There was a long period of hardship until the
pioneer farmer produced a cash crop, before then
living on subsistence farming from small gardens
and wild game in the forest. In that era
the musket was as valuable as the plow.
Reverend Brown wrote, "The early settlers of Wadsworth
were from the East, and had been accustomed to
farm labor. They were a hardy industrious
class of people, and were very economical.
Their moral character was good and they were mostly
religious. But very few of them had money
to pay for their land, and had to buy on credit.
Some of them had hard work to support their families
till they could raise a crop on their own lands.
A very few had money to pay for improvements,
after paying for their land, and this helped the
poorer class, as it enabled them to get employment
in helping to clear land."
The Wall family may have been accustomed to this condition.
They probably experienced it before when they
first moved west of the Alleghenies from eastern
Pennsylvania. Surviving that experience
possibly provided the courage needed to do it
anew. People from the more civilized East
probably did it because they were ignorant of
the hardships they would face. We don't
know for certain if Christian bought his land
on credit or with cash. The text of the
deed from the Fords lead me to believe it was
the latter perhaps with money left from his father's
estate and from the sale of his Pennsylvania land.
Even so, the Walls faced many of the same hardships
other settlers encountered. Goods were rare
and those that could be bought were extremely
expensive. Salt, a necessity of frontier
life, had to be brought down from Cleveland over
the most primitive roads. Cloth and hard
goods had to be trucked in from more settled areas
of Ohio and even as far east as Philadelphia.
Most of the goods from the east were carried in large
Conestoga wagons, the same kind settlers used
when traveling across the western plains in later
generations. These wagons were almost always
painted blue. The wagon box was about three
feet deep and the wheels were double-tired to
keep the wagon from sinking in mud. They
were covered with canvas stretched across arched
poles. A tar bucket, used to lubricate the
wheels, hung from the rear axle. The team
pulling the wagon consisted of six or eight large
draft horses. The driver rode the animal
nearest a wheel and controlled the team with a
single rein and a large "blacksnake"
whip. The number of animals necessary for
the team was calculated as one span (a pair) of
horses for the wagon and the rest for the load,
depending on the weight of the cargo.
Unlike a few other frontier areas in the early nineteenth century, Indian
attacks in Medina and Wayne counties were never a reality for the
Walls and the other pioneers, possibly because there were no permanent
Indian villages there. But, also because treaties were negotiated
and signed between the government and the Ohio tribes in 1805 and
1806. Early on the Indian hunters had little competition from
the few white hunters in the vast forest. By the time large
game became scarce in northern Ohio the Indians had moved on to
richer areas to the west in the United States and north in Canada.
The Indians probably considered the hunting area around Medina County
to be next to worthless. The Indians that the settlers did
encounter were the Wyandotte and Ottawas. A few Wyandotte
camped around Chippewa Lake on occasion as late as the 1830's.
The white settlers who met them reported that they were polite and
friendly.
There is evidence in Medina County of the pre-historic
Indians commonly called the Mound Builders.
One of their mounds is located on lot 47 east
of Sharon Center near the intersection of State
Road 162 and County Road 44. Not far from
there was my grandfather's farm. Close by it along
Spruce Run, and County Road 126 is an ancient
construction atop a small cave in the side of
the steep slope running down to the creek (or
"crick" as I was brought up to say it).
I always knew it as Indian Cave and it is my guess
that it also belongs to the pre-Columbian Mound
Builders, perhaps used for ceremonial purposes.
It has a small wall of stone about 24 inches tall
enclosing an area of a few square feet of level
plane atop the cave entrance. It is far
too short to be a fortress of any use and the
stones are laid too precise to be a natural formation.
The cave has a "keyhole" opening with
a wider area at the top and a narrow jagged slit
that goes to the floor. As kids we could
crawl through the larger opening and inside was
a room big enough to stand in. I was told
that at one time the cave ran underneath the road
along the edge of the hill. This part collapsed
when workers were blasting for the road in the
early twentieth century, and today only the room
at the entrance remains. If there were ever
any Indian relics in or around the cave they were
long ago, before my time, collected or destroyed
by the white folks who lived in the area.
Other evidence of Indians in Medina County was still
plentiful when I was growing up in Sharon Township.
My grandfather and other farmers found many arrowheads
and spear points in their plowed fields.
My Uncle Bud Shanafelt had a large collection
of these that he displayed in his home near Fixlers
Corner and River Styx.
While Indians were not a threat to the Walls and other
early settlers, disease was. The west part
of Wadsworth was very swampy. Surveyors
named the area the "Infernal Regions"
and the sluggish stream that ran through it the
River Styx, the name it retains today. The
swamps and the River Styx were a great dread to
travelers for many years. Causeways, one
more than 1300 feet long, made of logs crossed
the swamps. The settlers of the time, although
they suspected the swamps as the cause, did not
know they were the breeding grounds of the mosquitoes
that spread malaria and yellow fever through the
population. In some cases entire families
were swept away by the diseases. The years
of 1824 through 1826 were particularly bad along
Wolf Creek and the marshes of the Tuscarawas.
As the land was cleared and the larger swamps
drained when the Erie Canal was built these diseases
all but disappeared. Even so, I remember
those infernal mosquitoes in the swamp along Wolf
Creek near Sharon even when I was growing up.
They were a big deterrent to fishing that stream
or exploring the surrounding woods.
The Walls were religious people, as were their neighbors. The Pennsylvania German community built the first church, the Waltz Church, in Wadsworth Township in 1828. Their log structure was erected on the site of the present day Emanuel United Church of Christ on the Wayne and Medina County Line near where Wayne, Medina and Summit counties meet. For many years this church was also known as the High Church. It predated the New Englanders' log Congregational Church located in the center of Wadsworth by two years. Burials were made in the High Church cemetery even before the log building was constructed, some as early as 1817. The cemetery is preserved today by the congregation of the Church of Christ. Christian and both his wives, Catherine and Magdalena, are buried there as well as other Wall relatives.
In 1830 Christian bought land on Lot 38 in Sharon Township, only two years after the township was brought to market by the minor heirs of original Connecticut Land Company owners. There is no evidence that he and his wives ever lived on the land.
Catherine died some time in 1837 and Christian remarried to Catherine's sister, Maria Magdalena (Baughman) Feller. My Uncle Ira and Aunt Florence Wall located the headstones of Christian and Magdalena in the High Church cemetery and were disappointed that they could not find Catherine's. Ironically, they did locate it and didn't realize it. They photographed some of the headstones that they found. One snap shot was of a badly eroded stone lying flat on the ground next to Christian's headstone. I examined this photo and used some computer software to enhance it. I can make out the word Baughman (Catherine's maiden name) and her date of death, Dec. 15 or 16, the year 1837 and the number 57 (her age at death). There is more inscribed on the stone, probably in German that is unreadable. The letters and numbers on this stone are distinctly German.
Emanuel United Church of Christ - The site of the original "High Church".
This building no longer stands. The new Church of Christ building is next to the pioneer cemetery,
which is across the road from where this building stood.
Christian and Magdalena were married in Wadsworth at the
High Church on October 15, 1837. Catherine
must have passed away only a few months earlier.
In April 1838 Christian and Magdalena signed and
recorded a nuptial agreement. It states
that both had children from previous marriages
and possessed personal and real property of their
own at the time of their marriage. At the
death of one the other would not have claim to
that property. Both Christian's and Magdalena's
signatures appear on this document.
In 1838 Christian purchased 101 acres in Lot 39 of Sharon
Township. The following year he sold his
land in Chippewa to James Metlin. He moved to Wadsworth and he and Magdalena were
living there when the 1850 census was taken. I have found
no record that he and Magdalena ever lived on the land in
Sharon and Christian was one of several absentee
landlords of Sharon farm land. Christian died on
October 24, 1853 in Wadsworth before reaching
his 74th birthday and was buried in
the High Church cemetery next to Catherine.
His son Charles bought the Sharon Township property
from the other heirs of Christian shortly after
the estate was settled.
Christian died without a will. Jonathan Everhard and
Christian's oldest son John were appointed administrators
of his estate. The inventory of Christian's
personal property is interesting in that it gives
us a glimpse into his life. Among the items
sold at auction were one bay horse, a vinegar
barrel, one bushel of potatoes, one iron pot,
a bottle of bitters (no German would be caught
dead without his bottle of bitters), a razor and
"fixings," a powder horn (but no musket),
and a snuff box. The sale of these and a
few other items brought in $242 for the estate. Set aside for the
widow Magdalena were:
1 spinning wheel
1 parlor stove
1 family Bible and family pictures [I'd give my eye teeth for those]
6 chairs
3 pounds of wool
1 lot of clothing
1 chest
12 spoons
1 cow
6 plates
6 cups and saucers
1 sugar dish
1 milk pot
1 tea pot
These items may have been Magdalena's at the time of her marriage to Christian. They are listed as set aside for Magdalena without appraisal as part of the estate. Items excluded from the estate specifically for her support were wheat, oats, corn, an ax, one wood saw, eleven crocks of milk, potatoes, coffee mill and two hogs. The total value of these items was appraised at eighty dollars.
On December 6, 1853 Magdalena received $500 cash from the heirs of her husband's estate and signed a quit claim deed relinquishing any legal claim to the land in Sharon Township. The prenuptial agreement they signed in 1838 may have precluded her from claiming the land, but the money and the quit claim deed were probably meant to remove any doubt about legal ownership. The deed is recorded in the Medina County Court House in Medina. This is an important document because it lists all of Christian's living heirs. Magdalena spent the rest of her days in Wadsworth probably in the home she and Christian shared before his death. Magdalena died on March 28, 1865 in Wadsworth at the age of 77. She is buried in the High Church cemetery next to Christian.
Five years before her death, when the 1860 census was taken, Magdalena, age 72, was living in Wadsworth with her daughter Typhrena Feller, whose age is listed as 38. The younger woman would have been born about 1821 or 1822. This was an important fact that I overlooked for years. It is the piece of the puzzle that identifies Magdalena and her connection to the Wall family before she and Christian were married. I've always had a peculiar hunch that the Magdalena Feller who married Christian Wall in 1837 was the (widowed) wife of Jacob Feller of Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. The evidence is convincing that the wife of Jacob Feller was the sister of Catherine Bachman.
In 1821 Jacob and Magdalena Feller baptized a daughter, Typhrena, in the Lowhill church in Pennsylvania. Typhrena Feller was born on August 29, 1821. This is such an unusual name that I should have made the connection years ago; however, it wasn't until 2010 when I was reviewing the Pennsylvania church records that the light upstairs came on. One of the problems was that when I copied the name from the 1860 census I thought that I had not deciphered it correctly. Since I was so unsure of the name I tried to mimic the handwriting of the census taker. Without knowing it I copied the name exactly as it is spelled on the original baptismal record. The modern compiler of the old church records copied the name incorrectly, but a German linguist later the original handwritten records and corrected misspellings of the names in the translation. Typhrena's name was one of those he corrected, first from Prusena to Brefena and then to Typhrena. As I was reexamining the manuscript, her name leaped off the page at me. I have no doubt that Magdalena and Typhrena were mother and daughter as listed on the old baptismal record.
CHILDREN OF CHRISTIAN WALL
JOHN WALL, the eldest son was born on December 24, 1804 in Penn Township, Northampton County (now Carbon County). He was christened Johannes and baptized on February 17, 1805 in the Lowhill German Reformed (Lutheran) Church. He was twenty years old when his father purchased the land in Wayne County. He married Mary "Polly" Baughman about 1828 probably in Wadsworth, although that is not certain since I've not located a marriage record for them. Polly was the daughter of Paul and Anna Barbara Bachman from Northampton County, Pennsylvania and John's second or third cousin. She was also the sister of Joel Baughman who married John's younger sister Abigail. Polly was born on September 24, 1804 and was baptized in the Lowhill Reformed Church in Northampton County, Pennsylvania. She was christened Maria Magdalena Bachman. Polly died some time between when the 1870 and 1880 censuses were taken. John remarried to Catherine, maiden name unknown, before 1880. John was a prosperous farmer in Wadsworth Township and somewhat the head of the Wall clan after the death of Christian. He was responsible for obtaining the quit claim deed from his stepmother Magdalena and was the administrator of his father's estate along with his brother-in-law Jonathan Everhard. In 1874 he was a member of the committee that put together the reunion of pioneers for the sixtieth anniversary celebration of the founding of Wadsworth.
- Paul Wall born August 6, 1830, married first Kitty A. (maiden name unknown) probably about 1853. Kitty died on September 1, 1854 and is buried in the pioneer cemetery of the Emanuel United Church of Christ (the High Church) where Paul's grandfather Christian is buried. I suspect that Kitty died as a result of the birth of her first child and the child, Alice Wall, survived. Paul next married Isabella Ruthaker in Chippewa Township on December 24, 1857. Paul and Isabel are listed on the 1860 census in Wadsworth Township. In the household is Alice, age five. Also in the household is a John Wall, age 48 listed as a border and farm hand. The identity of this John Wall is a mystery. I have been unable to locate Paul and his family after 1860; however, an 1897 atlas of Wayne County lists Paul Wall with 105 acres in the Northeast Quarter of Section 4, Chippewa Township.
- Daniel B. Wall born November 3, 1835, married Abigail Geiger probably about 1863. He appears on the 1860 census still in the home of his mother and father. He and his family are listed in all of the census returns for Wadsworth between 1860 and 1900. The children identified from the census returns were: Russel S., born in August 1864; Mary M., born in March 1866; twins Carrie and Anna, born in March 1870; John J. Wall, born in 1874. Daniel died on April 15, 1908 at the age of sixty-two. Abigail died in 1922. Both are buried in the Wadsworth cemetery as is their daughter Carrie Rohn Stevenson (1870-1960). I have a picture of Russel Wall taken at a family reunion in 1946. He is a distinguished looking gentleman and very tall.
MARY WALL was christened Maria Magdalena when she was baptized in the Lowhill Reformed German church in Northampton County, Pennsylvania. She was born on November 22, 1806. She married Jonathan Everhard in Wooster, Ohio on August 15, 1826 when she was nineteen years old. Apparently she bore no children and she probably died in 1829 in Chippewa. I have not found a record of her death or place of burial but very likely it is in the Emanuel Church of Christ cemetery. Her husband remarried to Mary's sister Catherine.
CATHERINE WALL was born in Northampton County, Pennsylvania in 1811. She married Jonathan Everhard on June 11, 1829 in Baughman Township, Wayne County, Ohio. She was about eighteen years old in 1829 when she married Jonathan Everhard. The Reverend Henry Weygandt, the pastor of the High Church, performed the ceremony. Jonathan and Catherine were among the earliest pioneers to purchase land and move to Sharon. They bought land on lot 68 on August 31, 1831 and apparently spent the rest of their lives on their farm in the southeastern part of the township. In 1853 Jonathan was one of the administrators of father-in-law Christian Wall's estate. Jonathan and Catherine are listed on the 1840, 1850 and 1870 censuses of Sharon Township. From those census returns we identified the following children:
- Mary Everhard, born 1830
- Sarah Everhard, born 1833
- Sophia Everhard, born 1835
- Isaac Everhard, born 1837
- Elizabeth Everhard, born 1840
- Daniel W. Everhard, born 1842
- Fietta (spelling questionable) Everhard, born 1849
- Edwin Everhard, born 1851
There is a large gap in years between Daniel and Fietta so it is possible there were one or two Everhard children who died for whom we have no record.
REBECCA WALL was born on January 21, 1810 and baptized in the Ben Salem Union Church on March 11, 1810. She married Curtis Brouse on February 1, 1830 in Baughman Township also by Rev. Weygandt. Rebecca was twenty years old at the time of her wedding. There is a bit of a mystery about Rebecca's name. She was christened "Rebecca" shortly after her birth in Pennsylvania and she is listed as Rebecca on the marriage record in Wayne County. Rebecca appears with her husband and family on the 1850 census in Lorain County, Ohio. Also, the Compendium of American Genealogy gives her name as Rebecca. However, on the quit claim deed from her stepmother her name is given as Margaret Brouse. And, the sketch on the Wall family in the "Wadsworth Memorial" gives her name as Margaret. Was she named Rebecca Margaret or Margaret Rebecca? I suppose we will never know. Curtis and Rebecca removed to Indiana some time after 1850 and one of their grandchildren, Ulysses Chester Brouse son of Curtis, Jr. became mayor of Kendalville, Indiana and a member of the Indiana State Board of Agriculture in 1917. The Brouse children we know of were:
- Mary Brouse, born about 1833
- David Brouse, born about 1836
- Peter Brouse, born about 1838
- Curtis, born in 1840 in the Civil War he was a member of the 30th Indiana Volunteers.
- Henry Brouse, born about 1845
- Jeremiah Brouse, born about 1847
SARAH WALL was born probably in Pennsylvania, probably in Union County, in 1820. She married Abraham Keller on November 17, 1838 by a justice of the peace in Chippewa Township. Abraham was born in Hagerstown, Maryland in 1812. Sarah was about seventeen years of age and her new husband was twenty-six. In 1831 the Kellers purchased land on lot 68 in Sharon Township next to brother-in-law Jonathan Everhard. They were also among the first pioneers in Sharon. The 1850 and 1870 censuses of Sharon Township lists the Keller family. Abraham gave the census taker his occupation as "carpenter" on the 1850 census and "carpenter and farmer" on the 1870. Abraham Keller died on January 23, 1884 in Sharon. Sarah died in Sharon on February 13, 1900. Sarah and Abraham Keller are buried in the Sharon Cemetery a mile south of the Center. The Keller children we know of from those two census returns are:
- John Keller, born about 1839
- Barbara Keller, born about 1840
- Catherine Keller, born about 1841
- Christian Keller, born about 1843
- Solomon Keller, born about 1847
- Mary Ellen Keller, born about 1848
- Fanny [Frances?] Keller, born about 1849
- Ann Keller, born about 1850
- Charles Keller, born about 1856.
ABIGAIL WALL was born in 1817 possibly in Union County, Pennsylvania. On November 7, 1839 she married Joel Bachman (Baughman) in Baughman Township, Wayne County, Ohio. Abigail and her husband were twenty-two years of age. Joel was Abigail's second cousin. They appear on the 1840 census in Chippewa Township in Wayne County. Abigail died in Wayne County on October 29, 1840 at the age of 23. I have not located Joel or any children on censuses after 1840. The 1853 quit claim deed from Christian's widow lists his living heirs. All of the children except Mary, Judith and Abigail are named on the document. Instead, Catherine Bower, Eli Hartman and Barbara Baughman appear on the deed. We know for certain that Eli was Christian's grandson and the son of Judith Wall Hartman who died shortly after Eli's birth. Barbara Baughman must have been Christian's granddaughter and the daughter of Abigail and Joel. The identity of Catherine Bower is a mystery but her name on the deed would indicate she was also a granddaughter. I thought perhaps she was also the daughter of Joel and Abigail but if she was she and Barbara had to have been twins. Also, I can't account for the name "Bower." Catherine is the square peg I can't fit into any round hole.
PETER WALL was probably born in Pennsylvania in Penn Township of Union County, in February 1819. He married Sybella Everhard on June 17, 1841 in Baughman Township. The Reverend Weygandt performed the ceremony. Sybella was probably closely related to Jonathan Everhard, the husband of Catherine Wall. Peter was twenty-two and Sybella was nineteen. Peter and family appear on the census returns of 1850, 1860 and 1870. During those years he was living in Spenser Township where he probably spent all of his adult life. In 1900 he was living in the home of his son, Reuben. Peter and Sybella's children were:
- Reuben S. Wall born in December 1842. Reuben served in the Civil War in Company B, 42nd Ohio Volunteers. He married Mary A. Hartman on July 3, 1865 and had two children, son William J. Wall born in November 1870 and daughter Jessie Wall born in July 1884. It is likely there were other children we know nothing about.
- Jacob James Wall born in May 1849. His wife's name was Matilda and they had three children that we know of: Edith A. Wall born in July 1877; Lillian G. Wall born in November 1888; Harrison B. Wall born in May 1891.
- Harrison E. Wall born in October 1853 and married Harriet Lance.
ISAAC D. WALL was born on April 13, 1813. He was baptized in the Zilgels Lutheran and Reformed Church in Weisenberg Township, Lehigh Co., Pennsylvania.35 He married Susannah Brouse about 1838 probably in Sharon Township. Susannah was probably closely related to the large Brouse family of Chippewa, perhaps a sister of Curtis Brouse who married Isaac's sister Rebecca. She was born on October 10, 1812 in Ohio.36 Isaac purchased land on lot 66 in Sharon in 1833. He later purchased land in lots 21 and 22, probably about 1838. Isaac and Susannah lived in a log cabin on this lot, then built a frame house which was still standing in 1981 when "Early Sharon Township" was published. Jacob Derr, who became the mayor of Wadsworth occupied the house when the great cyclone of 1890 struck Sharon. Isaac died on September 11, 1870 and is buried in the Wadsworth cemetery. Susannah died on May 10, 1912. Their children were:
- Sarah A. Wall born about 1839, married Uriah Wearstler; Sarah died in 1928. Sarah and Uriah apparently inherited the Isaac Wall farm or purchased it from the other heirs.
- Lavina Wall, born about 1842, married William Rhodes.
- David Wall, born about 1848; married Nettie Briggs in October 1869.
- Ella Wall, born about 1856, married Tom Duley
JULIA WALL, christened Judith was born in late 1814 or early 1815. She was baptized in the Zilgels Lutheran and Reformed Church in Weisenberg Township of Lehigh County, Pennsylvania.38 She married Joshua Hartman probably in Wadsworth or Sharon in 1834. Joshua was the son of Peter Hartman and Catharine Zollner and was born in Northampton County, Pennsylvania on January 9, 1813.39 The Walls and Hartmans were acquainted in Northampton County. Christian and Catherine Wall were the sponsors for the baptism of Joshua's sister Catherine in the Ben Salem Church in Northampton County in 1807.40 Julia died on May 1, 1835 at the age of twenty after the birth of one son, Eli Hartman born on October 31, 1834. Joshua married twice more and had sixteen children. He was a successful farmer in Sharon and died sometime after the cyclone of 1890.
DANIEL WALL, the youngest of the Christian Wall children was born on November 3, 1823 in Union County, Pennsylvania. He was still a baby when his parents brought him to Ohio. Daniel married Lydia Fry in 1843 in Wadsworth. Lydia died on November 17, 1853 after the birth of three children. Daniel remarried to Sarah whose last name was probably Neff. They had at least six children I've identified from census records. Daniel worked as a peddler and farmer and lived most of his life in Wadsworth. He was still living in 1900. Daniel and Lydia's children were:
- Catherine Wall, born in 1844.
- Isaac Wall, born in 1846.
- Abigail Wall, born in 1848.
Daniel and Sarah's children were:
- Emma Wall, born March 1855, married Henry Geiger.
- Alice Wall, born in 1857.
- Ameda Wall, born in 1859.
- Amanda Wall, born in 1862.
- Charles Wall, date of birth unknown.
- Carl Wall, date of birth unknown.
CHARLES WALL
Our ancestor Charles Wall was born in Northampton County, Pennsylvania on September 13, 1808. He was christened "Carl" (the German form of Charles) when he was baptized in the Ben Salem Church on October 9, 1808. He was about sixteen years old when his family left Pennsylvania for Wayne County, Ohio. On December 17, 1829, Charles married Sophia Frederick in Baughman Township of Wayne County. The Reverend G. Henry Weygandt, pastor of the "Waltz" or "High" Church performed the ceremony. Both Charles and Sophia were about twenty-one years of age. Sophia was the daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth (Shank) Frederick, neighbors to the Walls. Charles Wall is closely connected to the early history of Sharon Township. Sophia died on August 23, 1886 at the age of 78. Charles died on January 10, 1893 in the flu epidemic of that winter. He was 83 years of age. He is buried in the Sharon Cemetery next to Sophia and their three young children, Charles, jr., William and Margaret. Charles made a will on May 4, 1886 shortly before the death of Sophia. After Sophia died, Charles remarried Harriet Luke, a widow with four children of her own. His son Christian F. Wall presented the document in probate court immediately after his death. The application to admit the will to probate lists the living heirs of Charles as:
Harriet Wall, his widow
John his son living in Sharon
C. F. Wall, son living in Sharon [Christian]
Saloma Waltz, his daughter living in Sharon
Thomas Wall, son living in Grangerburg
Reason Wall of Sharon
Franklin Wall of Akron in Summit County
William N. Wall, grandson living in Akron [son of Reason]
Lusetta Rasor, grand daughter living in Golden Corners, Wayne County
Grandchildren are named as heirs on probate documents only when specifically mentioned in the will or when their parent is deceased. William and Lusetta had to have been the adult children of Jonas who died in 1887. In his will Charles is very specific about how the debts of his children to him should be repaid to the estate. Any money left unpaid was to be deducted from the amount that heir received when the estate was settled. The will appoints his sons Christian and Reason as administrators of the estate. Christian died the same year as his father and before the estate was settled. The other heirs then asked the court to increase the bond of Reason Wall due to the amount of money he was handling. Christian F. Wall
Charles and Sophia had ten children. All except the oldest were born in Sharon.
- Jonas Wall
- John Wall
- Christian F. Wall of Sharon is buried in the cemetery of the Emanuel Church of Christ, the same cemetery where his grandparents are buried.
- Saloma Wall
- Thomas Wall
- Reason Wall (our ancestor)
- Charles Wall who died a month after his birth
- William Wall who died when he was three years old
- Margaret Wall who died before reaching her first birthday
- Franklin Wall.
REASON WALL, Sr.
Reason was the sixth child born to Charles Wall and Sophis Frederick on May 19, 1840 in Sharon Township. At the age of twenty-one he married seventeen year old ABIGAIL KUDER, daughter of JACOB KUDER and MARY M. KIME of Sharon. Abby was born on January 4, 1844 probably in Sharon. The Reverend Hamilton married the couple
in Wadsworth on December 12, 1861. Between 1861 and 1870 Reason and Abby lived
in Montville Township just west of Sharon and in Granger Township north of Sharon. In April 1872 Reason and Abby purchased
approximately 94 acres in section 32 and 33 of Sharon Township from James H. Stoop. They were living there when the cyclone
of 1890 hit their farm. Sometime later they purchased a farm just east of Sharon Center and lived there until their deaths. This property passed to the Stauffer family. The original farm passed down to their
son and my grandfather, Reason Deforest Wall. It is located on Hatch Road, once known
as Wall Road, just north of the intersection of Hatch and Burdett roads. This is the farm I knew as I was growing
up in Sharon. Reason and Abby had five children:
- Charles Jacob Wall was born in Sharon or Montville Township on February
9, 1863. He was married twice, first to Flora A. Houglan probably in the mid 1880's. Flora was
born on June 13, 1863 and died on May 12, 1913. Charles then married Belle Daniels, about whom
I have no other information. Charles died on October
31, 1944 probably in Sharon and apparently left
no descendants.
- William Lorenzo Wall was born on January 31, 1865 in Montville Township
of Medina County.He married Ida C. Hazon probably about 1890. Ida
was born on August 4, 1863. The couple moved to Copley Township
in Summit County where William raised hogs. Ida and William had
two daughters, Martha and Luella. Ida died in Copley on June 16,
1917 at the age of 53. William retired from farming in 1940 and
lived the rest of his life with his daughter Luella who never married.
In 1956 on the occasion of his ninety-first birthday he was interviewed
by the Akron Beacon Journal. He claimed to have never "smoked,
drank or chewed." He also recalled the days of horse drawn
streetcars in Akron and the Main Street canal. It is possible that
the Henry Wall mentioned in the story of the cyclone that struck Sharon township and Copley in 1890 was
in fact William and the name was reported incorrectly
- Albert Allen Wall was born in August 12, 1868 in Granger Township. He married Mary Wagoner
on April 20, 1890 in Wadsworth. Mary was born on May 20, 1871 in
Allentown, Pennsylvania. Albert and Mary had three children, Kleber,
Natina and George. Albert and Mary lived and farmed in Sharon from
about 1895 until their deaths. In April 1940 the Akron Beacon Journal
published a notice of their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Albert
died sometime between 1940 and 1957. Mary died on November 3, 1957
in Sharon. They are buried in the Copley Cemetery, Copley, Summit County.
- Mary Sophia Wall was born on May 20, 1871 in Sharon. She married Charles Stauffer of Sharon probably about 1880. Mary died on November 2, 1957 in Wadsworth. Mary and Charles had three children: (1) Roy O. Stauffer who married Mae Worth. Roy was living in Ottawa, Illinois in 1978 and died there probably around 1990. (2) ELNO R. STAUFFER was born in 1882 in Sharon. Elno married Jessie D. Daniels and had a son, Blake
E. Stauffer. Elno owned and operated with Blake the Stauffer's Country Store
located on the southwest corner of Sharon Center town center. He served for six years on the Republican Central Committee
and in 1938 ran for County Commissioner, losing by a few votes. He ran again in 1940 and won handily and served in
that capacity for eight years. He was Director and President of the Medina County
Agricultural Society and served as Medina County Fair Board
President from 1960 through 1968. He spent six years in the 1920's as the Sharon Postmaster
and the Sharon Post Office was located in his store as I was growing up in Sharon Center. Elno passed away at the age of 85 on March 6, 1978 at the Crestview Nursing Home in Medina after a lengthy illness; (3) Florence S. Stauffer was born on October 9, 1894 in Sharon. She married Howard Caskey and had three sons, Myron, Boyd and Clark. Florence died on January 30, 1993 at the age of 98. She is buried in the Copley cemetery.
- Reason Deforest Wall, my grandfather.
Abigail died on April 7, 1910. Her obituary appeared in the Akron Beacon Journal.
"A devoted
husband, five children, fifteen grandchildren,
one brother and many relatives and friends remain
to mourn her death. Death came to her Thursday morning, April
7, after a week of intense suffering at the age
of 66 years, 3 months and 2 days. In her disposition as friend, neighbor,
mother and wife, her life gives evidence of a
rare genuineness. As a friend, she was faithful and sympathetic,
though quiet by nature, nevertheless her influence
was effective. As a neighbor, she was interested in her
community and always ready to sacrifice her comfort."
Less than a year later Reason died, on
March 24, 1911. Both he and Abby are buried in the Copley
cemetery on State Route 162 not far from their
old farm. A few months before his death Reason made
his last will and testament. It is a hand written document dated December
31, 1910 and filed in the Medina County Courthouse. Paraphrased, it states in part:
It is my will that the farm owned by me and containing about ninety
four acres of land situated in Sharon township, Medina County,
Ohio, shall be deeded by my executors to my son R. D. Wall upon
my son R. D. Wall paying to my executors the sum of four thousand
dollars. It is my
will that my other farm on which I now reside shall be deeded
by my Executors to my daughter Mary Sophia Stauffer upon my daughter
paying my executors the sum of three thousand dollars. I hereby give to my son R. D. Wall my cook stove and my
wolf robe. I give
to my son William Wall my lap robe. I give to my son Charles Wall my two horse blankets. I give my son Albert Wall my bath robe which was a present
to me from Jimmie Hollinger. I direct my executors to sell my three watches at auction
to the highest bidder, but no person shall be allowed to bid except
my four sons.
My uncle Ira Wall once remarked he remembered his
Dad saying he was promised a gold watch that was
passed down to his mother from his grandfather,
Jacob Kuder. After the death of Reason, he was unable
to bid on the watch because he was the executor
of the estate. The watches went to his three brothers, Charles, William and Albert.
REASON DEFOREST WALL
Reason D. WALL, my grandfather, was the
youngest child of Reason and Abigail, born on
his parents' farm in Sharon on November 25, 1875.
He married Winifred Pearl Tyler in Wadsworth on
Christmas day, December 25, 1895. Reason
was twenty and Winnie was nineteen years of age.
She was the daughter of Rush Sebastian Tyler and
Laura T. Stannard of Wadsworth.
As a young
man Reason taught school in Sharon, Granger and
Valley City drawing a salary of thirty dollars
a month. In about 1905 he gave up teaching
and took up farming. When his father passed
away he came in possession of the 94-acre family
farm on Hatch Road in Sharon Township (County
Road 126). Grandfather actively engaged
in farming until about 1960. His son Herbert helped with most of the hard work on the
farm for several years until his death in 1960 from liver cancer. For more than fifty years Reason was a volunteer
crop reporter for the Ohio Crop Reporting Service,
an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
In the 1930's he served as a Medina County Committeeman
for the old Agricultural Adjustment Administration
under Franklin D. Roosevelt. Party affiliation
was not a prerequisite for this post but he was
an ardent Democrat and took an active interest
in Democratic politics. My first exposure
to politics came at his house watching the Democratic
National Convention on his new television in 1952
and listening to him and my Uncle Del Bridgman,
a republican, argue.
After Uncle Herbert died from cancer in 1960 my grandfather
retired from farming. He paid me the greatest
compliment he could in 1961 when he asked me if
I thought with his brains and my brawn (which
I had little of) we could keep the farm going.
I knew that was unrealistic but I was greatly
flattered.
The farm was located on one of the highest hills
in the township about a mile west of the Medina
and Summit county line and commanded a panoramic
view of the southeastern part of the township.
The original house on the farm burned down in
1927 and a new one was built the next year.
I remember the "new" house from the
1950's as a large white frame building surrounded
by windbreak of large cedar trees and shrubbery
on three sides. In the front yard were a
large elm and maple tree and a windmill with trumpet
vine growing up it. Near the house were
orchards of cherries, pears, peaches and apples.
There were several beehives in the field east
of the house. Behind the house by the kitchen
Grandma had a small goldfish pond made from an
old bathtub. Out by the road was a garage
and just across the road a large oak tree.
When the Hatch road was put through east of the
farm Grandpa prevented the workmen from cutting
down the oak tree. It still lives (in 1998)
and the last time I saw it the trunk was a good
twelve to fifteen feet in circumference.
The house still stands on Hatch road, now paved,
and for some reason the house looks much smaller
now than it did forty years ago.
A short distance to the west was the large red
bank barn (a barn with a ramp of dirt up to the
upper level on one side). A driveway made
a loop around the garden just west of the house
and by the barn with a chicken coop and corncrib
near by. Just to the rear of the house was
a woodshed with a belfry; the bell was once used
to call the men in from the fields at dinnertime.
Behind the woodshed was the outdoor john, not
used much when I was growing up. Just south
of the barn and along the dirt road was a small
blacksmith and machine shop. West of the
barn surrounding the barnyard (an area used to
corral the livestock near the barn) was an ell-shaped
building containing old farm equipment and feed.
I remember seeing a couple old buggies in those
buildings when I was young. In the lower
level of the barn were the stanchions for the
cows and stables enough for two or three large
horses. For awhile when I was growing up
Grandpa had two large draft horses and a few milk
cows. Also, on the lower level were some
small pens for pigs or other small livestock.
On each end of the barn was a chute, the one on
the north for hay from the loft above and the
other on the south for fodder. The upper level
of the barn contained the tractors, wagons, plows,
combine and other equipment. The hayloft
was on the north end of the barn.
The lane from the barn to the back of the farm
ran a short ways along Hatch road before turning
north and was lined with black walnut trees.
Grandpa had about twenty-five or thirty acres
planted in corn, wheat, oats, hay and potatoes.
As kids we were very fond of running through the
cornfield when the corn was taller than we were.
I also remember Grandpa saying that the corn should
be knee high by the forth of July (or the crop
would be small). The rest of the land was
orchard, pasture and, for kids, the best little
woods in the country. Spruce Run, a small creek,
had its source in a spring just north of the farm
and trickled through the woods to the Bramley
farm next to Grandpa's. On the Bramley property
were ledges and a waterfalls we called Devil's
Hole and a small cave to explore. As kids
we had a small paradise to romp in and didn't
know it. But it wasn't all fun and games.
Grandpa believed in work. One of my earliest
memories was a time when Art and I were probably
about seven and eight years old. Grandpa
had us steering the tractor pulling a wagon while
he and my Uncle Herbert were digging potatoes.
The north end of the field had a long slope to
it and the tractor started to roll out of control.
We were too small to reach the brake pedal and
steer at the same time. Uncle Herbert ran
to the front of the tractor and pulled the brake
on by hand. That afternoon my grandmother
put her foot down and told my grandfather that
he was not to put us on a tractor again until
we were much bigger. We also had the job
of shoveling grain from the front of the grain
bins to the back when it was dumped from the wagons.
I didn't mind this with wheat, but oats have tiny
hairs that make you itch like the devil.
I hated the oats. Other chores we had on
the farm were feeding the livestock, shucking
and grinding corn and gathering the eggs.
Grandpa showed us how to use the separator to
separate the milk from the cream. He tried
to teach me how to milk a cow, but I never learned the
art well enough to amount to anything.
The R. D. Wall farm in 1974. This is much the way it looked when I was growing up in Wadsworth and Sharon in the late 1940's and 1950's. From right to left in the picture is the old windmill that no longer pumped water; the house; the woodshed back of and between the house and the cedar trees; the chicken coop is the long building; the small building used as a dog house when we were little; the corn crib next to the barn; the dirt bank barn common in Medina County in that era; between the telephone poles is the old blacksmith shop that was Grandpa's workshop, it still had the bellows and anvil from the days when farmers did their own blacksmithing; the building behind the tree is part of the old buildings surrounding the barnyard where the remainders of buggies and old farm equipment came to their final resting places. Except for the house and the woodshed (converted to a garage) these buildings, including the barn, were all gone by 1996. The large oak beams that spanned the barn from front to back were sold to Menonites who used them in the construction of a Amish restaurant near Rittman in Wayne County.
Grandma was struck with a crippling illness in
the early 1950's that kept her confined to a wheelchair
and bed. She died in the farmhouse on June
4, 1958. Two years later Grandpa retired
from farming. After Herbert died in 1960
there was no one young and strong enough to take
over the work. He bought a small house in
Wadsworth and lived there for a few years.
He died in the Wadsworth hospital on April 14,
1965 at the age of 89. Reason and Winifred
are buried in the Wall plot in the front row of Sharon Cemetery
just south of Sharon Center. Reason Deforest
Wall maintained membership in the Lutheran Church
in Sharon Center, the church of his parents and
grandparents, but he was not a religious man and
I never knew him to attended services. He was a man of
the earth and his philosophy of life reflected
that. Reason Deforest Wall and Winifred Pearl Tyler had eleven children.
- LAURA LAVONE WALL was born on August 9, 1896
and was the eldest of the children of Reason and
Winnie. She married Howard Ebert of Sharon
about 1920. Laura died of cancer on April
23, 1928 and left no descendants.
- HAROLD MELVILLE WALL was born on May 1, 1898.
He married Dorothy Seiford and they had one child
that was still born. Harold and Dorothy
were divorced and on December 24, 1936 he married
Eva Marie Kuder, in Vicksburg, Michigan.
Marie was the daughter of Hiram M. Kuder and Bessie
Lee Ward. Hiram was the son of Hiram and
Delina Mason Kuder. Hiram, Sr. was the brother
of Abigail Kuder wife of Reason Wall, Sr.
Marie was born on May 2, 1905 in Kalamazoo, Michigan
and was previously married to Clyde K. Leonard.
She had one son, Clyde K. "Bud" Leonard.
Harold and Marie had two daughters, Carol and
Margo. Harold and Marie lived in Kalamazoo
most of their lives. For a short time they lived
on the Wall family farm in Sharon but moved back
to Michigan in the 1940's. They were charter
members of the Lake Center Bible Church in Portage,
Michigan. In the 1960's they helped establish
the Berean Baptist Church in Portage. Harold
passed away on August 28, 1988 in Portage at the
age of 90. Marie died on May 4, 1999 in
Kalamazoo, Michigan shortly after reaching her
ninety-forth birthday. They are buried at the
Mount Ever-Rest Cemetery in Portage.
- HASEL MAE WALL was born in Sharon Township on
October 5, 1900. She married Elbert Edgell
on May 23, 1932. Elbert was born on April
11, 1896 in West Virginia. Hazel and Elbert
lived for many years on a small farm in southern
Ohio near Longbottom in Meigs County. As
kids Arthur and I spent some summers on their
place there. Their house was a small one-story
frame house with no indoor plumbing. It
sat on the side of a hill and below it was a dirt
road that separated the house and the barn.
A short distance below the barn was a small stream
that was always nearly ice cold. There was
a small pond on the place and we used to take
a leaky rowboat out on it. The Ohio River
flowed not far from the farm and there was a large
forest between their place and the river.
Once, Art and I got lost in the forest and Art
climbed the tallest tree we could locate to find
our way out. Elbert was known as a teller
of tall tales. I always enjoyed my time
around them because they seemed always cheerful
and easy going. Elbert died on November
23, 1972 and Hasel returned to Wadsworth to live
for awhile with her sister Clara. Hasel
suffered from cerebral palsy. Near the end of her life she reached
a state where she needed constant care.
She was placed in a home for the aged in Medina County
and died there in about 1975. Hasel and
Elbert had no children.
- HERBERT SPENCER WALL was born on July 11, 1903
in Sharon. He married RUTH NAOMI HACKETT on May 15, 1928.
Herbert and Ruth lived
in Sherman, Ohio near Barberton in Summit County
until about 1953 when they moved back to the family
farm to help my grandfather run it and care for
my grandmother. Herbert and Ruth had five
children: Leonard; Maynard; Charlotte; Winifred;
and Paulette. Herbert died of liver cancer
on January 20, 1960 at the age of 56 and Ruth
returned to their home in Sherman. Later in life
she lived with her daughter and son-in-law, Paulette
(Jean) and Rev. Clifford Smith. Ruth died in Columbus,
Ohio on July 27, 2005. I remember Uncle
Herbert as a hard-working, by appearances a serious
man but underneath lay a sense of humor.
Aunt Ruth was one of the kindest women I have known.
- CLARA MARIE WALL, my foster mother was born on April 20, 1905
in Sharon. When she was nineteen years old
she married Platt Coolman in Wadsworth on November
7, 1924. Platt was a carpenter and the couple
lived in Wadsworth at 187 Gordon Avenue until
his sudden death of a heart attack on October
11, 1949. Clara never had any children but
in 1947 she took to raise my brother and me, the young sons
of her youngest brother, Vivian who was killed
the year before in an auto and train accident.
She raised Art and I as if we were her own and
we always called her "Mom". After Platt's death
we moved to our grandfather's farm and lived there
for over a year. He had remodeled the upstairs
of the farmhouse into an apartment with its own
kitchen and bathrooms. Clara worked at the Ohio
Match Company to support us during this time and
met Delsworth Worthy Bridgman of Sharon there.
Clara and Del were married on January 5, 1951
and we moved to his house in Sharon Center.
Del died on November 12, 1967 in a hospital in
Akron, Ohio and for several years Clara maintained
the home in Sharon Center. In about 1973
she sold that house and moved to Wadsworth where
she lived for three years with her sister Hasel.
In 1976 she moved to Apache Junction, Arizona
to be near Arthur who had opened a business there.
She purchased a home in Apache Junction and lived
there until about 1984 when she sold her house
and moved into an apartment attached to Arthur's
house in Mesa, Arizona. In about 1990 she
was diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer.
Even so, she maintained an active life style until
the last couple of years of her life. She
died on September 2, 1997 at the age of 92.
When she died there were six grandchildren and
eight great grandchildren who knew her as Grandma.
She died in her home with her family at her side.
She is buried next to Platt in the Acme Lutheran
Cemetery west of Wadsworth, Ohio. She was
a devout Christian and belonged to the Nazarene
Church for many years.
- RALPH ALAN WALL was born on May 26, 1907 in
Sharon and married Esther Fitch. Ralph enlisted
in the Army Air Corps about a month after Pearl
harbor, serving from January 15, 1942 until September
15, 1945. He was stationed in Tucson, Arizona
for some of that time as an aircraft ground
crew working on B-17 bombers. After the
war Ralph and Esther settled in Topeka, Kansas
where he worked at various agricultural businesses.
He managed a poultry breeding farm and hatchery
from 1947 through 1955. From that time until
1969, when he retired, he worked as a feed and
seed salesman and assistant manager of a feed
business. Esther worked as an auditor for
the State of Kansas Income Tax Division for twenty-seven
years until she retired in 1973. After their
retirement Ralph and Esther kept busy with volunteer
work for their church. They traveled extensively
and visited forty states, Canada and Nova Scotia.
We visited them in Kansas at least twice while
Art and I were growing up. I learned what
chiggers were at his farm in Kansas. Esther
passed away in April 1999 in Topeka. Ralph
died on July 5, 2001 in Topeka. They had no children.
- NECIA IRENE WALL was born on June 4, 1909 in
Sharon. She married George Faust Arnold
on December 18, 1930 in Medina or Summit County. George was born on
March 20, 1901 in Summit County, Ohio. George
and Necia moved to Washington State after World
War II where they lived Yakima in Selah, Washington.
They experienced the direct effects of the Mt.
Saint Helens eruption in 1980 when the noonday
sky turned dark as night and Yakima and surrounding
areas were covered with several inches of volcanic
dust. George and Necia had seven children:
George who died as an infant the day after his
birth; Victor Eldo; Donna Mae; Alletia Irene;
Marvin Lee; and Loretta Beele Arnold. George
died on March 13, 1988 in Selah, Washington.
Necia passed away on November 9, 1995 at the Edgewood
Nursing Home in Montesano, Washington at the age
of 86. When she died Necia had twenty grandchildren
and twenty-nine great grandchildren.
- JESSIE RHEA WALL was born on March 25, 1911 in Sharon Center
and died in Wadsworth on May 13, 2012 at 101 years of age.
She married twice, first to Kenneth Mullet and second
to Willie Powers. Kenneth was born on June
2, 1906 and is now deceased. Jessie and
Kenneth were married on November 9, 1928 and had
six children: Betty Lou, Elsie Mae, Alice Jean,
Lois Ann, Stephen Deforest and Clara Jane Mullet.
Jessie married Willie Powers on March 27, 1953
in Wadsworth. Willie died in Wadsworth on
November 11, 1989 and Jessie died on May 13, Wadsworth at the age of 101.
- IRA DEFOREST WALL was born on August 16, 1914.
He graduated from Sharon Center High School in
June 1933. In December 1942 he enlisted
in the Army and served in World War II as a radio
operator with Army Engineer Combat Battalion 246,
Company C. He received combat stars for
campaigns in Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland,
Ardennes and Central Europe. Among his decorations
are the WWII Victory Medal, Good Conduct Medal,
Distinguished Unit Badge, European African Middle
Eastern Campaign, American Campaign Medal, and
five Bronze Stars. He was discharged on
November 30, 1945 and returned home to Ohio.
On July 7, 1948 he married Florence Matty Smedley
in Madisonburg, Ohio. Ira was an employee
of the Ohio Injector Company of Wadsworth for
forty-two years. After his retirement from
the Injector Company Ira and Florence opened an
antiques business in their home in Smithville
where they lived for many years. In later
years they moved to Wooster. Ira and Florence
are responsible for much of the documentation
of Christian Wall and family in Wayne and Medina
Counties. Their help in this research was
invaluable. Ira died at the age of 83 on
January 23, 1996 in Wooster after a long battle
with colon cancer. He is buried in the Sherwood
Memorial Gardens in Wooster. Ira and Florence
had three children, James D., Linda J. and Susan
D. Wall.
- GRACE WINIFRED WALL was born in Sharon on August 30, 1918. She married Herman Francis "Bud"
Shanafelt on June 22, 1940 in Wadsworth.
Bud was born on March 2, 1914 and died in his
sleep at the age of 84 on June 29, 1998.
Grace and Bud lived on Fixler Road near River
Styx for many years. Aunt Grace still lives (2017)
there in the house that was their home for many
decades. Bud was an employee of Permold and retired
from there. He was also a woodcarver and
belonged to the Wadsworth Woodcarvers club.
Uncle Bud was also an avid collector of native
American artifacts found on his farm and the areas
surrounding his home. Grace retired from Dress
Brothers in Wadsworth and is a member of the Alcyone
Rebekah Lodge. Grace and Bud had five children:
Peggy, Vivian, Shirley, Dennis and Laurel.
- VIVIAN ARLIE WALL, my father was born on November 11, 1921.
VIVIAN ARLIE WALL
My dad was the youngest child of Reason and Winnie Wall and was
born in Sharon on November 11, 1921. He grew up on my grandfather Reason Deforest Wall's farm and graduated from Sharon
High School in June 1939. He attended Stuart Business College in Akron for eight months
in 1940 and 1941 studying accounting and bookkeeping. On June 22, 1941 he married my mother Clara Luvenia Corbett of Copley
Township in Summit County. In 1941 and 1942 Dad worked for the Firestone Steel Products
Company in Akron as a turret lathe operator until he was drafted
into the Army on September 10, 1942. He completed basic training at Fort Hayes, Columbus, Ohio and advanced training
at Mineral Wells, Texas. He was then transferred to Massachusetts to
await shipment to the European Theater of Operations. He departed the United States in April 1943 for Libya, North
Africa and saw action there, Morocco and in Sicily and Italy before World
War II ended.
During the war he was an intelligence scout and ambulance and light truck
driver. In November 1945 he returned to the U.S. and was discharged at Indiantown Gap
Military Reservation, Pennsylvania during the general demobilization.
His medals included the Good Conduct Medal, Europe, Africa,
Middle East Service ribbons with one Bronze Star. Early on the morning of March 31, 1946 Vivian was killed
in an auto accident. He was twenty-four years of age. The following article appeared in a newspaper shortly after
his death.
VETERAN IS KILED BY CRESTON TRAIN
Dies in Hospital After Sunday Crash - Third Fatality of Year. CRESTON
- Vivian Wall, 23, of Sharon Center, war veteran, died at the Lodi
hospital about 11 a.m., Sunday from injuries received about 4 a.m.,
that day when his automobile was struck by a light engine at the
main Street crossing here
It was the second serious accident at the crossing in three days,
two other youths being seriously injured Friday night.
In Sunday's accident Wall was traveling north and apparently
alone in his car when he was struck by the engine without a train. The engine was traveling west.
Dr. B. M. Foster of Creston gave the youth first aid and sent him to
the hospital in the Murray ambulance. It was found that the youth had a fractured skull and other
injuries. He had been discharged from the army in November. His car was badly damaged and there was no information available
here today as to where he had been but it was presumed from the
direction of his travel that he was en route home.
Wall is survived by his father and mother, Mr. And Mrs. R. D. Wall, of
Sharon Center; his wife; two young sons, aged four and two years;
and nine brothers and sisters.
Funeral services will be held on Wednesday afternoon at 2 o'clock from the
Hilliard Funeral Home in Wadsworth with Rev. A. G. Lansberry, of
Sharon Center, officiating. Burial will be made in the Sharon Center cemetery.
The youths injured at the crossing in a similar accident Friday night were Harold Totten
of Creston R. D., and Dale Young of Coshocton. The former is reported as improved at the Lodi hospital but
Young is reported as remaining in a serious condition.
The death of the Sharon Center youth is the third from motor vehicle traffic in Wayne County
this year and the first since February
My father and mother were separated and in the process of a divorce when he was killed.
Custody of my younger brother Arthur and me passed to
our grandparents Reason and Winnie Wall. Our Aunt Clara Wall Coolman assumed custody
in about 1948. Our mother lived for many years in Arkansas and
moved to Show Low, Arizona in 1990. She, like Dad was killed in an auto accident
in Wagon Wheel, near Show Low, Arizona
on November 26, 1990. Her car was broadsided by an Apache Indian
Reservation vehicle. It appears the accident occurred in poor visibility with
rain and sleet and she was hit when she attempted a U-turn in the
path of the on-coming truck. The accident occurred only a few hundred yards of the emergency
medical center, but she was trapped in the car
for more than an hour. Like Dad, she died in the hospital from a massive skull
fracture and other internal injuries. According to her wishes her body was cremated.
Some of her ashes were buried in three locations she loved during her life, on her property in Show
Low, on the property of sister Elinor Stockton in Winslow,
Arkansas and at her request the rest were put into the Pacific Ocean off a pier in San Diego. My brother and I were the only children of Vivian and Clara Corbett Wall
- Ronald Nevin Wall, born on May 6, 1942; married Carolyn Sue Whitsett.
- Arthur Arlie Wall, born on October 12, 1943; married Florence Denise Greer.
RONALD NEVIN WALL
I was the oldest son of Vivian and Clara Luvenia (Corbett) Wall and was born in the old hospital in Wadsworth, Ohio when my parents lived in Copley, Summit County, Ohio. After the separation of my parents and the death of my father in March 1946, grandfather obtained legal guardianship of Arthur and me and we lived on the farm in Sharon.
At some point in the late 1940's Grandpa bought two Allis-Charmers tractors, a large one and a smaller one. The small one was used to pull a wagon to catch the grain while the larger one pulled the combine. The throttles were mounted on the steering wheel and rotated along a metal arc that containing notches to set different speeds. The throttle latched into a notch and you could forget about it and the tractor would maintain a steady speed. In the late 1940's when we were still very small, too small to be alone on a tractor, Grandpa put us on the seat to steer the tractor while he, a couple of my aunts and ny uncle Herbert picked potatoes. At the first throttle notch the tractor would go very slow, slow enough for them to pull the potatoes and toss them into the wagon. Unfortunately, the back of the field had a fair slope down to the fence and woods at the end. The tractor was in the crawl gear, but it started to pick up speed as it rolled down the slope. Our legs were far too short to reach the clutch and brake pedals from the tractor seat. When Uncle Herbert realized what was happening, with no thought of his own safety, he ran in front of the tractor's large right rear wheel, between the fender and the nose of the tractor, reached for the gear lever and brake pedal and stopped the impending disaster. When our grandmother learned of it she gave my grandfather a verbal licking I don't think he ever forgot. We we not put on a tractor again until we could actually control it.
In the summer of 1948 we were sent to live with our aunt Clara and uncle Platt Coolman in Wadsworth, although grandfather retain legal guardianship. We lived at 187 Gordon Avenue in Wadsworth. As of 2014 the house and garage still stood, the only change being the closed-in front porch. Uncle Platt had his carpentry workshop on the top floor of the garage. He owned a black 1930-31 automobile (Chevy, I think) that had a hardtop, but the center was cutout and covered with a waterproof fabric. That's the way it was manufactured and sold. The roof leaked badly when it rained, which Uncle Platt tried to patch with tar. On summer weekends Uncle Platt would occasionally take all of us to outdoor movies in Seville. The movies were shown against the wall of a building on a corner of Main Street, which was painted white and had a small grassy area off Main Street with folding chairs. The 16mm sound projector stood on a wood platform in the middle of this tiny park. The building has since been torn down sometime after the early 1970's. Art and I walked to the old Lincoln Elementary School, now replaced with a newer building north of the original site. One evening in October 1949 Uncle Platt came home from work suffering from chest pains. He had been to the doctor and was told that it was simply indigestion. Sometime that night Aunt Clara woke us to tell us that Uncle Platt had died, the result of a massive heart attack. I can still remember that day.
After school let out in the summer of 1950, Aunt Clara rented out the house and we moved back to the farm in Sharon. In 1952 she remarried to Delsworth "Del" Bridgman and we moved to his house south of Sharon Center on Ridge Road (Highway 94). Our grandfather had remodeled the second story into an apartment, turning the large front bedroom into a living room and the large room at the opposite end into a kitchen and dinning area. In the bedroom off the hallway were the stairs to the attic. Grandpa stored copies of old magazines in the attic dating back to the 1930's up through WWII, among them National Geographic, Colliers and Life Magazine. Our favorite playground during this time was the old dirt bank barn situated north/south about 50 yards west facing the house. There were two large oak beams that spanned the barn east/west and on the north and south ends about 10 feet above the floor were floors that covered the grain bins. The hay was tossed down the north chute to feed the horses. When we were little grandpa had two large draft horses, one bay and one speckled gray, which he sold when we were a bit older. Art and I would climb on their backs when they were in their stalls and our legs were not long enough to span their backs. After the horses were gone Grandpa sold the hay we harvested. At the very back of the farm, north of the house and barn, was a small "crick" named Spruce Run flowing through the woods that covered the back few acres of the farm. The fields south of the woods were fenced in with barbwire, but the wooded acres at the back of the farm were bordered by old split rail fences. A rutted and very old lane ran west from the barn along Hatch road, then turned north along the east side of the potato field, into the woods where it ended. At the end was stacked, like a giant teepee, a large pile of old, gray split rails. Spruce run sprang up in the woods at the north end of the potato field and ran east through the woods. The water was cold, clear spring water pure enough to drink. It was also loaded with crayfish that we loved to catch and release. Old glacial bolders reminded us of a fairy land was located at the eastern border of the farm. Near it stood a tree where my dad had, in 1941, carved his and my mother's initials. Spuce Run crossed onto the neighbor's property, owned by Keith Burdett, and turned south. Most of the Burdett property consisted of woodland, several large glacial bolders and a swamp feed by the stream. One large bolder was flat on top, separated by a couple of feet from the bedrock to the north and with a sharp drop of twenty feet or so to the stream bed below. This was known, and still is as far as I know, as Table Rock; it very much resembled a giant table. There were a couple of other large bolders deposited by glaciers milleniums ago near Table Rock and the area was a fascinating playground for us. The Spruce Run waterfall was also near Table Rock. Thousands of years of water falling over the ledge had carved a deep hole in the bed rock, forming a pool. It was named Devil's Hole, a common name for such geologic features. The area was surronded by steep ledges on the west side and a steep hill on the east side forming a narrow valley. Near the road and by the swamp was a small cave everyone called Indian Cave, although in my time no one seemed to know why; but, along the flat ledge over the mouth of the cave were piled small rocks making a wall about a foot tall. Who built this tiny, rather useless wall, has always been unanswered. I was told by one of my relatives that before Hatch road was blasted over the side of the west ridge and up the steep hill to the east the cave extended much further south.
In the summer of 1959 I left Sharon Center and went with my mother to live with my Grandpa and Grandma Arthur and Osa Corbett in Van Buren, Arkansas (not my choice at the time). I graduated from Van Buren High School in the summer of 1960. That autumn I moved to Oklahoma City where I attended Draughon's Business College and studied drafting and commercial art. After completing the course in the summer of 1961 I returned to Sharon Center and purchased my first car, a copper and tan 1956 Chevy Bel Air. In September 1961 two friends and I drove up to Cleveland intending to enlist in the Air Force. My two buddies were unable to pass the physical but I enlisted. My very first airplane ride was in the Boeing 707 airliner that took me to basic training at Lackland AFB. After finishing eight weeks of training I was selected as a "Radio Intercept Analyst" for the U.S. Air Force Security Service (later it was renamed the Electronic Security Command). This was the Air Force component of the National Security Agency. I was held at Lackland until the FBI completed my background checks for a top secret security clearance. Just before Christmas 1961 I was given leave and I went to my mother's home in Van Buren to see her, my little brother Loy Michael "Mike", and other relatives. In January 1962 I went to Goodfellow AFB, San Angelo, Texas for my advanced communications intelligence training.
After graduating I flew back to Arkansas on thirty days leave before shipping out for my next assignment at Wakkanai Air Station, 6986 Radio Group Mobile, Wakkanai, Japan located at the northern tip of Japan. My mother picked me up at the Fort Smith Airport and we drove to her house in Van Buren. Mom lived in a little two room shanty with my brother Mike and next door in an identical dwelling lived "Grannie" Hessie Whitsett. Mom had told her about me and as soon as we drove up to the house Grannie ran out of her house, grabbed me by the arm and dragged me into her house. I'm thinking, "Who the hell is this woman?" She told me she wanted me to meet her granddaughter, Carolyn Sue. She phoned Sue's mom, asked for Sue and handed the phone to me. Neither Sue or I knew what to say, but somehow a meeting was arranged at Sue's house that very evening. Before my leave was up, in August 1962 we were engaged. My cousin Linda Stockton was determined we get hitched and found a piece of string on the ground to use as a temporary engagement ring. That next day I bought a real one at a jewelry store in Van Buren.
A few days after our engagement I went by Greyhound bus from Fort Smith to Travis Air Force Base in Sacramento, California for my flight to Tokyo, Japan. The bus traveled through Denver, the Rockies and Reno, Nevada finally reaching Travis AFB on the third day. The following day a large group of military men boarded a Military Air Transport Command Super Constellation C-121 for a thirty-six hour flight to Tokyo. There was no such thing as GPS in the 1960's and the plane's navigator used LORAN (Long-range Radio Navigation) and a sextant for celestial navigation to find the tiny atoll of Wake Island in the middle of a very large Pacific Ocean. He did a good job, thank goodness. Wake was the site of an early WWII battle with the Japanese fought by a few Marines, sailors and civilian contractors. Wake was also the home of "Goonie Birds", the large albatros sea birds that became the nickname for the Army Air Force's C-47 transport. These birds are so big and heavy they must run along the ground to gain enough speed to take to the air. Very awkward on the ground, their large wings allow them to soar gracefully for very long distances in the air with little effort. Before an aircraft can land on Wake Island the one runway must be cleared of the hundreds of birds that nest there. This was usually done by men stationed there firing a gun or flares over the runway. We were on the ground at Wake for an hour as the plane was refueled.
After arriving at Tokyo I took a Japanese Airlines civilian flight to Sapporo on the Japanese northern island of Hokkaido. From there I had to take a train to Wakkanai. This was rather stressful for a Ohio farm boy, the first time he was ever in a foreign country and who did not speak or understand a word of Japanese. I had asked the Army sergeant who had picked me up at the Sapporo airport took me to the train station how I would know when to get off. He told me, "Don't worry, it's the last stop." What he did not tell me was that Wakkanai was some miles from Wakkanai Soyamisaki where the U.S. airbase was located on Soya Point. At all of the many stops in small villages along the route Japanese men and women would sell food and drinks through the windows of the passenger cars. I had no idea what the food was, but I recognized soft drinks when I saw them. I arrived in Wakkanai hungry but well hydrated. I had some Japanese money, but I had no idea of its value. I had to assume the Japanese folk were honest and only took what they needed from my hand. After I did gain the knowledge of the value of Yen I was pleased to know that I was treated fairly. To my great relief, a few miles out from Wakkanai an Air Force sergeant boarded the train and he could speak Japanese. When we arrived in the town of Wakkanai, some fifteen miles west of the air base very late that night. The sergeant phoned the base and they sent a car for us. If he had not been with me I would have had to spend the rest of the night on a bench at the train station hoping someone would show up from the base to pick me up. Today the city of Wakkanai has a modern airport. It was now early September 1962.
October 16, 1962 was the beginning of the Cuban Missle Crisis, which lasted until November 20th. Wakkanai Air Station was located about thirty miles south of the 590 mile long, 70 mile wide Russian Island of Sakhalin in Russia's Sea of Okhotsk. On a clear day from our base we could see the Soviet radar domes on the southern most tip of Sahkalin. We also watched Soviet trawlers and submarines from the Soviet naval base at Vladivostok traverse the La Perouse Strait from the Sea of Japan to the Pacific Ocean. On October 22nd President Kennedy gave his famous address to the American (and world) audience on the crisis. It was broadcast at about 6 pm eastern time (about 7 am Japan time) and we listened to the broadcast by Armed Forces Radio in the conference room of our operations building. We all worried that we might never see our families again. For the next four weeks we were assigned guard duty after completing our normal duty shift. It was the first time in my career I was issued a firearm (M-1 carbine) and live ammunition when not on a gun range. The only other time was after my tour in Thailand when me and another airman were given side arms to guard our plane carrying classified Vietnam War documents when we landed at Wheeler AFB in Hawaii. In Wakkanai we all knew that if it came to repelling soviet paratroops, we were hopelessly out numbered and out gunned. Thankfully, it never came to that.
My tour at Wakkanai was over in November 1963. A friend of mine, who Japanese kids at Wakkanai called "Circus" because he would ride his unicycle through the village, was returning to the states at the same time. We flew back to Travis AFB via Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage, Alaska. When we left Tokyo the temperature was in the 70's and we were in our summer blue uniforms. It was minus 40 degrees in Anchorage. Needless to say, it was a very fast dash to the terminal building from the airplane (no such thing as jet-ways back then). We arrived at Travis in Sacramento, California on November 22, 1963. My buddy's family picked us up at Travis and took us to a restruant in Sacramento. While eating we learned of President Kennedy's death. The next day, November 23rd, I flew out of San Francisco with a stop at Love Field in Dallas where I was to transfer to another flight. While waiting for my plane, I talked to a Red Cap who had witnessed Air Force One land at Love Field on November 22nd with the President and Mrs. Kennedy, and sadly the President's body loaded back on to Air Force One. Jackie Kennedy was still wearing her famous pink outfit covered in the Presiident's blood. A few hours later I caught my Frontier Airlines flight from Love Field to Fort Smith.
The thirty-day leave in November and December was a strange one with the all the TV news channels covering the assignation, presidential funeral and the capture of Oswald and subsequent murder by Jack Ruby. But, on December 6, 1963 Sue and I were married in a small church in Fort Smith. Just after Christmas we left Arkansas for Kelly AFB in San Antonio. For the first month there we rented a grungy small one bedroom "house", which was a converted garage. Thankfully, we were able to get an apartment in enlisted housing on Kelly AFB after about a month. I was assigned to HQ USAF Security Service at Kelly. During this time I had one of the more fascinating jobs, evaluating air crew UFO reports before they were forwarded to Project Blue Book at Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio. Our job was to weed out reports with an obvious or reasonable explanation and forward only those that were unexplainable. Those were reports that did not have enough information to make a determination. Our mission was to determine if UFO's appeared to be a threat to National Security, not to decide whether or not they alien space ships; nothing I analyzed convinced me they were anything but an earth-bound phenomena.
In January 1965 our son Bruce was born in Willford Hall Hospital on Lackland AFB. We purchased a small house near Kelly AFB, which we sold when I received my orders to Tan Son Nhut AB in Vietnam in late summer 1965. Before I shipped out, these orders were rescinded and I received new orders to Clark AFB, Phillipines to await further orders. After a week or two at Clark I received orders to proceed to Khorat RTAFB (Royal Thai Air Force Base) in Thailand. At the time the fact the U.S. had bases in Thailand was considered classified. It was the world's worst kept secret. During my year in Thailand I was sent TDY from Khorat to every other U.S. air base in Thailand: U-Tapao (now U-Tapao Rayong Pattaya Airport) southeast of Bangkok; Takhli RTAFB north west of Bangkok, Udon RTAFB (now Udon Thani Airport) south of Vientiane, Laos where Air America/CIA had their headquarters; Nakhon Phanom RTAB on the Mekong across from Laos a few miles west of the Ho Chi Min trail; Ubon RTAFB about 180 miles due east of Khorat and 40 miles from the Laotian border.
ARTHUR ARLIE WALL
Brother Art was born in Wadsworth, Ohio. He graduated from Highland High School in Granger, Ohio then
attended DeVry Technical School in Chicago studying electronics.
He moved for a short time to Van Buren, Arkansas and worked as an
electronics repairman in Fort Smith until he returned to Ohio. In
1964 he and a friend made a tour of the United States and Mexico.
After returning to Ohio he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and received
basic training at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center near Chicago.
While stationed in Ireland at a navy communications site he met
Florence Denise Greer of Londonderry, Northern Ireland. They were
married in Londonderry. Art and Denise spent subsequent tours with
the navy in Rota, Spain, Keflavik, Iceland and Norfolk, Virginia.
While in Ireland and Spain Art participated in several cross-country
automobile races and usually finished in the prize money.
After Arthur was discharged from the Navy he and the family moved to Apache
Junction, Arizona. For several years he owned and operated a TV
sales and service business in Apache Junction. Under his management
the single store and shop soon evolved into three stores including
a Radio Shack. After a series of break-ins at his stores, he sold the business and took a job in Phoenix, Arizona
as an electronics engineer with an aviation electronics firm. He
also conducted a sideline business in the manufacture and assembly
of electronics components and had several contractors working for
him. Art and Denise have four children:
- Stephanie Mary Wall, married twice, (1) Lewis Burnham, and (2) James Weigold. Stephanie had two children by Lewis, Phillip and Chelsea.
- Jennifer Denise Wall, married Tracy Mazeik in Laguna Beach, California; Jennifer and Tracy have two children, Trevor and Kira. Jennifer attended the University of Arizona in Tucson where she earned a degree in biology. She moved to the Los Angeles area and worked for the Muscular Dystrophy Association and then Saddleback Hospital in Los Angeles.
- Jeffery Arthur Wall, Jeff and Heather are twins. Jeff graduated from the University
of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff; he married ______.
- Heather Marie Wall, also graduated from the University of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff; Heather married Cody Young and they have two children, Conner and Claire.
CHILDREN OF RONALD WALL and CAROLYN SUE WHITSETT
BRUCE EDWARD WALL was born at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. He completed high school in Mesa, Arizona and attended Al Collins School of Design in Tempe, Arizona and also a course in
personal computers with a business college in Phoenix. He married LAURA MARIE CROWE in Mesa and they had two children,
Michael and Ashley. they were divorced. Second, Bruce married NANCY ANN JOHNSON in Phoenix, Arizona. Bruce and Nancy had two children, Jessica and Dana. Bruce and Nancy divorced. Bruce and Denise Weihe were married in Mesa. They have a
daughter, Nichole. He was married for the forth time in Mesa to Terri Lou Davis. Bruce is an excellent musician and since
he was a teenager has played guitar with various bands in the Phoenix
area. He worked for several years in the retail battery business
and has managed stores for two different companies that specialize
in batteries. Bruce built a web site dedicated to the Southern Rock and the Lynard Skynard band. In 2005 Bruce and his family moved to Carthage, near Nashville, Tennessee to be closer to the music scene. Bruce is personally acquainted
with members of the Lynard Synard band and members of several other southern rock bands.
He was a personal friend of George McCorkle, the founder of the Marshal Tucker Band. For several years Bruce held an outdoor event called JAMAQUE in his specious back yard, where many Southern Rock recording stars came for an annual jam session. Children of Bruce Wall are:
- Michael Wade Wall, has one young son, Stone Jackson Wall.
- Ashley Lillian Sue Wall, married Roger Nanhoo and has one daughter, Arya Nanhoo.
- Jessica Sue Wall, married Marine Kris Schmidt currently serving on active duty in the far east.
- Dana Louise Wall, engaged to Daryn Vinton and has one child, Joyce LeAnn Vinton.
- Nichole Adrianna Wall, currently unmarried.
TONYA MICHELLE WALL was born at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas She completed high school in Mesa, Arizona. She married first Darren Earl Wills. They were divorced. She then married Joseph Anthony Madia in Mesa. Tonya was an apartment rental manager in Mesa, Chandler and Gilbert, Arizona. She also worked
for State Farm and Liberty Mutual as an insurance agent. In about 1994 she was approached by a talent agency to perform
as a model in various locations in the Phoenix area. She won a first place prize as a beauty contestant. She had small roles in Tom Cruise's movie "Jerry McGuire" filmed largely in Tempe, Arizona, and a Luke Perry
movie "Lethal Invasion" filmed entirely in Mesa and shown
on ABC TV. A few months later she had a small part in a Martin and Charlie Sheen movie. After she began acting in theater, the leading entertainment critic in Phoenix gave her an excellent review for her staring role
as Bella in "Lost in Yonkers" at the Desert Stages Theater
in Scottsdale, Arizona. Tonya met her husband Joey through their work at Desert Stages. In 1998 Joey and Tonya collaborated on writing and producing
the "Think It Through Review" for the State of Arizona
dealing with teenage pregnancy. It played in theaters and schools
throughout the state of Arizona and West Virginia. Tonya and Joey ran a theatrical school for kids. Joey is
a book editor for a New York publishing firm, and a published author, playwrite, director
and actor. He is a native of New Jersey and was born in Rota, Spain while his father
was stationed with the U.S. Navy at Rota. The family currently
lives in Beaufort, North Carolina and are deeply involved in theater, local history presentations and other activities. Tonya is the author of, Living The Intuitive Life and WATCH OUT for the HALLWAY, Our Two-Year Investigation of the Most Haunted Library in North Carolina, co-authored with her husband Joey Madia, both published by Visionary Living Publishing, New Milford, Connecticut. They continue to act, write and produce podcasts. Tonya has three children, now all adults:
- Daniel Ryan Wills, unmarried.
- Jeremy Nevin Madia, unmarried.
- Jolie Anne Madia, unmarried.
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