Memoirs by Roma "Daisy" Stanley Douglas

Now some of my family are wondering, (if they don't know) who this is. Roma "Daisy" Stanley was the child of Eva Stanley (Vaughn) when she was 18 years old and was my Great Aunt and a half sister to my grandfather Alfred Tennyson Vaughn and his siblings. I have been told by Aunt Eveleen's daughter, that before her death, Eva intentionally burned many letters. Since it was well known that Eva and Daisy wrote letters up until Eva's death in 1940, I am convinced that some if not all of those letters were the correspondence between Eva and Daisy. Thanks to Larry Robinson, a Stanley descendant, he has provided me with memoirs of "Aunt Roma Daisy". Hope you enjoy!

Roma E. Stanley Douglas wrote the followings history of the John Stanley Sr. family and immediate relations as she remembered and could gather at different times. She apologized in her memoirs for the lack of dates and other facts about John Stanley Sr. because the old family Bible was destroyed by fire many years ago. Ironically she was the daughter not of the John Stanley side, but of the Hiram Stanley branch. But Eveline Stanley, daughter of William Lindley Stanley who was the son of Old Hiram Stanley, gave her child up to William D. Stanley, a cousin.

Roma said that John and a brother and sister came to this country from England when they were young. However, other information would seem to indicate that John was born right here in the USA, probably in Virginia since he was born in 1793, a year after his father Isaac married Elizabeth Brooks around Goochland VA it is believed. It was also in 1793 that Isaac set out for the Ohio Territory to establish a farm and send for his wife once the homestead was set up.

Roma wrote the following:
"The brother Archelaus lived at Marietta, Ohio for a while. Then married Jane Bowers and they located in Athens County, OH. There may have been more brothers and sisters. Eventually John Stanley Sr. located on Irvin Creek. I have been told that he lived for a time in the trunk of a large tree. I can remember the immense tee stump that I was told that he lived in, It was a Sycamore tree and stood on the bank of Irvin Creek near the Ford where people crossed to go to the Jackson Stanley Home.

Jackson Stanley was one of John Stanley Sr.'s boys. The hollow tree was large enough for three or four yearling steers to get into out of the storms. I remember where two log houses used to stand near where he later built a very nice large brick house. And he may have built the log houses and lived in one before he built the Brickhouse. There was two log barns there, one larger than the other.

The smaller barn had sides built across one end and side. John dug a very deep well and walled it up with rock, it had an abundance of clear cold water. The water was always salty. All live stock loved the water.

John built a small one room stone house there out of hewed sand stone. It had a loft in it where the men slept sometimes. It was roofed with clapboards, and the roof extended out over the wall.

I have been told that John Stanley Sr. got the clay to make his brick some where on the farm. I do not know where at. But I do know where the kilns stood, where they burned the brick. There were two kilns between the house and the road. The house had four large rooms, and a double hallway through the middle of the house. It was two story, with an open stairway going up from east side of hallway.

The stairway had a heavy banister, and children always loved to slide down it. Each room was 32x36 feet and the hallway must have been ten feet wide. Three steps down from top of stairway was a landing about four feet square. Turn left three steps into upper hallway which was large enough to set in a bed when needed.

Each of the four brick rooms had a large brick fireplace at the outside wall for burning logs, and each had iron cranes built in for cooking or heating water. The cranes could be swung in or out of a fireplace. Sometime later a frame kitchen and woodshed was built across back of the brick house, with a screened in porch. The woodshed did not have a floor in it. Wood and logs were used for heating and cooking. On this large screened in porch stood a big octagonal cupboard covered outside with perforated tin and had wide doors. It had four large shelves which was on a swivel and could be turned easily. The whole cupboard could be turned also. It must have been seven and a half feet tall. It almost reached the ceiling and about six or six and a half feet across. It was used to set milk and butter in, also for storing food in. A large porch was built across the front of the house. It did not go all the way across the front. A Virginia Creeper was planted at east end of porch and grew all over end of porch and end of house. The basement and foundation of the house were of large hewed sandrock. The basement had seven or eight rooms. It helped hold up the house. I only remember one room that had a door and it was used to store vegetables and fruits in. Most of the other rooms did not have doors. A stairway went up into the big hall. There was also a wide outside opening that had big steps hewed out of of sand rock, big enough to roll barrels of cider in. The basement was higher on one side (east side) and never had good drainage. So as far back as I can remember some water was always there. Several cisterns have been dug there at different times..But none were satisfactory so very long. I never knew why. Most of the drinking water was carried from a never failing spring under a big rock up the hollow.

Since the brick house was built the Public Road was changed and put on other side of Irvin Creek. Then the road up to the house was on low ground. It was never a good road, rutty and some quicksand in it. Never much shade tress around the buildings since the virgin timber was taken off. East of the Brick house down near the well house was na old log house and east of log house was a log barn. John Stanley Sr. may have used these buildings for a time. Over to left of brick house was another log house ((small)) and below that was a run. Across the run was a fair sized garden, and a wooden foot bridge across the run, which often washed out during heavy rains. These tow log houses and log barn were nearly rotted down as far back as I can remember. But the foundations were there and the logs where they had rotted and feel in. I do not know the size of the farm originally but it was several hundred acres. In those days he was considered a very wealthy man. (See Roma's scrapbook for picture of the old brick before a cyclone tore off the roof and second story).

John Stanley Sr. was married four or five times, and was the father of nineteen children. Some died in infancy. I do not know who John Stanley Sr. married for his first and second wives. As far as I know these are the children by his first or second wife. -- Isaac, Jackson, Gordon, Mazie, Catherine, and Nancy. (Nancy may have been a half sister to these other children, or a step-sister). After these wives died he married Julia Grimes of Rutland, Ohio. To them were born - Archelaus Archer, William D, Felix A, Rebecca, Mary A, and Elizabeth, There were more children, but I do not know to which wife they belonged. When Gordon was a small boy he fell off top of a fence post and broke his neck. They always said he was a very pretty child. Jackson Stanley married Sarah Gooden and they raised these children - John and Washington. They had a little girl that only lived a few years.

John Stanley married Mary Bolin. There children were Earl Jackson, William Culbert, Charles Allen, Eugene, Virgil, Hobert, Roma Amanda, Robert, and Edward. Washingotn Stanely married Esse Rumfield of near Oak Ridge in Gallia County, Ohio and there children were - Willima Archie, Henry, Little Lyman Lish, Alvin, Sarah, Samuel and Dora. Isaac Stanley married Jane Hewett. There children were - Willima, Thomas, Julia and Mary. I do not know who Willima married. Thomas married Icebinda Hundell. I do not know names or how many children they had. They lived around Jeffersonville, Illinois. Mary married a man named Everett. They had a son Cephus and a baby girl that died in infancy. Mary later married William Porter.

Mazie married a McDonald (name may have been Kennard) I do not know how many children they had. I do know they had two boys. Mazie later married Joe Abbott and raised Stanley and Samantha who married a Brooks. Joe Abbott died. Mazie then married Daniel Brickles and raised Johiel, William and Elizabth (who married Byron Welch). There may have been more children. After Mazie got sick with cancer, Brickles was so mean to her that she left him and went to her half brother William where she died and Willima buried her on his lot at Burlingham, Ohio cemetery in Meigs County.

Sally Stanley married Floyd Davis. They raised Elizabeth (Bettty) who married Frank Adkins. They had twin girls and a son Franklin. Girls names were Made and Madge. One of them married Will Wyatt and the other twin lived with them. They lived at Albany, OH and had no children. Wyatt's father owned the Flour Mill near the Depot. Mill burned down several years ago. Sally and Floyd Davis had other children. I do not know how many others or there names. Most of them located in the West somewhere. Cathrine Stanley married Jacson Gilkey when she was 14 and he 19 years old. There children wee - John, Floyd, William, Andrew, Allie, Jesse, Janie, Annie, Nancy and Mazie.

Nancy Stanley married a man name of Saltz. They had children I do not know how many or there names. Archelaus Archer Stanley was a doctor. He married Aneliza Brooks. They lived at Rutland, Ohio. they never had any children, but adopted George Prall when he was four years old. They also raised a girl Arizona Pullins. They did not like the name, so had it changed to Roma Stanley. She married Royal Grimes.

William D. Stanley married Amanda Ruth Blackwood and had these children -- Willima Blackwood, Amanda Rachel, Clara Eva (Katie), Ray and Roma Ethyl (author of this document and adopted). Felix A .Stanely married Mary Elizabeth Sapp and raised these children -- Nora, Edgar, Beatrice and Bernice.

Rebeca Stanley married Johiel Alkire and raised these children -- Jackson, Archelaus, Johiel, Scott, Selim, Felix, Julie, Mary, and Jenny.

Mary Stanley married William Isaac Blackwood and had Willima (Little Will) and a girl that died. Isaac Willima Blackwood died in Andersonville Prison during the Civil War. Then Mary married Abbott Castle. He died and she then married Janas Castle. After his death she married Elias Story.

Aneliza Stanley married John Alkire, a cousin of Johiel Alkire. There children were Emma, who married Andrew Dye, Howard and Ray.

Up on the hill a little to the east at the Old Brick farmstead stand the family cemetery. Several people other than the family are buried up there. About all the grave stones have fallen over or broken up and covered over with dirt or vines and briers. The Stanley Sr. place was one of the very first settlements and is very much of a landmark.

Felix A. Stanley being the youngest son got the Home Place where the house stood. HE went heavily in debt for it and never go it all paid for. Felix was sick and not able to work for about four years before he died. While he was able to work he set out a large orchard apples, peaches, cherries, plums and pears. Also set out blackberries raspberries, and strawberries. Also grape vines. They have all been gone for several years. Felix had one son and three daughters. At Felix's death his son Edgar Stanely took over the farm and tried to pay off the debts. He had to quit school, but kept his three sisters in school. HE never got it all paid for. After the girls were married Edgar bout out their shares of the estate, going still farther in debt. He died before he got clear out of debt, leaving his wife and children. Gladys, Edgar's wife, stayed on farm with the children and waned their son Paul E. Stanley to have the farm. Paul was not very interested for a while but after he was married he decided to buy his sisters share of the place. Gladys and the girls have nearly paid out the indebtedness by this time, but the buildings are all badly in need of repair. Most of the fields grown up to weeds and briers. Nearly all cross fences gone and line fences badly in need of repair.

While Felix A. Stanley was still living he took the old frame part off the back of the brick house. He put in its place a Kitchen and dining room and two bed rooms up over kitchen and dining room made of frame. Edgar E. Stanley added a screened in back porch, and dug out a spring on hillside above house and put in some tile and piped water to house into a kitchen sink. The water was god, but very warm in summer as there was no shade tress or other shelter over the spring. Edgar worked hard, kept up his fences, and buildings best he could. After Edgar Eid the fences went down, place grew up to brush and weeds. The buildings and fences all needed repairs. Both girls were married and at that Paul was young and not much help to his mother.

About the middle of July in 1956 (some say the 14th and some the 17th) a terrible cyclone swept through Snowville. The worst that was ever known come down Irvin Creek. Blew roofs off several buildings and blew over a lot of trees and telephone lines. The Old Stanley Homestead was hit hardest of any place around Snowville. The two storms seen to meet there. One coming down Irvin Creek and the other coming down Flint Fork. A great deal of the roof and down nearly to the first floor was blown off the Brick house. The house seemed to have been twisted as almost all the rest of plastering fell off. A sheet of tin roofing blew through a power line pole that set in the yard cutting the pole in two. Blew roof of large grainery off. Some of the roof looked like it had been rolled up and dropped down at the side of the grainery. Most of the upper side of barn roof was blown off and scattered all over hillside clear down to Flint Fork Bridge.

A large Sycamore Tree down across the road looked like the limbs had been twisted off and lay all around the tree pointing in most all directions. As the storm went on it blew roof off the Mr. Harry Douglas (Ella) home near Darwin, Ohio. Also blew her garage clear of the hill and unroofed and damaged a lot of other places in the Darwin vicinity.

Paul E. Stanley now owns the John Stanley Sr. farm. And has remodeled the house. Ne took the rest of the top of the house and made it into a modern ranch type house. Paul added on a few rooms and a bath room and drained the basement and cements it. He also put in gas furnace. By adding on another room or two to the large brick room down creek Paul made a nice little apartment for his mother, Gladys Stanley. When Paul bought out his sisters his mother left in her share of farm, so she makes her home there. In 1954 a new bridge was put across Irvin Creek in front of the house and the road was widened and straightened a lot at that time.

The Willima D. Stanley homestead suffered a lot of damage to roofs blown off and windows broken and other damage. I was spending the night that this all took place at the home of my niece may Mason and her husband Rev. Headly and sons Paul and Russell. The two Mason boys had gone to a tent meeting at Athens, Ohio and were coming home when the storm struck.. I had gone upstairs to bed when the wind commenced so hard. The boys stopped car down at road. Paul Mason came on up in the rain. Just behind him a big maple tree blew over right behind him, blocking the gate to the house. When Russell came a little later he had to climb over the yard fence to get in as the tree had blocked the gate.

I had gone to my nieces the day before to pick some blackberries. Next morning May and I went up on the hill back of there house to see how much damage the storm had done there. Several large trees had been blown out by the roots, and a lot of smaller ones. While up there I showed May a cemetery there that she did not know was there. The tombs stones were all gone just a few hewed sand-stone markers left there. This cemetery has been forgotten for years, not fence around it. It is out in pasture field up on top of till above May Mason's House.

When I was a little girl I have been up there with the Hon Green girls (see photos in FTM scrapbook for Roma). At that time the Greens owned the farm and built the two story house. The cemetery is fairly large, and used to have a lot of tombstones there. I do n ot remember any of the names or the name of cemetery.

Mr. John Green used to have a large Apple orchard close to cemetery.. There could have been a hundred or more graves there. A great many years ago there was a public road up the hill near where the cemetery is and on out farther there was a schoolhouse. I didn't know name of Schoolhouse, but I have seen it.