I was so sorry to hear about Minnie Adams Lavender's passing earlier this month. She, along with her sisters Marie (also deceased) and Mayvonne, are a part of some of my earliest memories of going to revivals and suppers in Chestnut Ridge with my grandma. At the Branstetter Reunion last September, Minnie looked so good and was her energetic self -- it was certainly hard to believe that she was 92 years old!
What I was told of her passing is that she had been staying with a grand-daughter in Monterey. The grand-daughter happened to have a friend with an airplane, and Minnie said she would like to go for an airplane ride before she died. She was getting ready to go, and slipped in the bathtub, and then did not fully recover in the weeks that followed....
Well, the morning was a wet one, with the rain coming down fairly steadily. As we drove from Crossville toward Chestnut Ridge we were wondering how in the world we were going to have our family reunion and picnic at the normal location outside High Point church - which is a beautiful place to have it in good weather but doesn't offer much shelter from the rain....
Leave it to John and Gail Adkins Hammond, who had made several phone calls that Sunday morning, got the reunion moved to the Fire Hall, and absolutely saved the day! It seems that there are more Branstetters there every year, and this year was no exception. This is a photo of Mabel Branstetter Adkins with those at the reunion who had been her students (she taught school in Morgan County for 38 years). You can Click Here to see some more photos.
I was especially glad to meet Mr. Walten Branstetter and family this year, who came all the way from Manchester, Tennessee. Walten is the only remaining child of William Eli and Ruth Branstetter. His daughter Susan has been researching the family history -- Susan, if you happen to read this, please e-mail me at - I have been trying to e-mail you, but without any luck. Or call me at 615-504-6845. The same to Becky from Smithville, who is a descendant of Lenora "Nora" Branstetter - please get in touch, I'd love to talk to you!!
Back in the late 1700's and early 1800's a lot of Branstetters were living in Sullivan County, Tennessee, up in the northeast corner of the state. That's where our own Eli S. Branstetter was born, and many of his cousins were born there, too, though many of them moved on later to parts of Kentucky or Missouri.
One of these Branstetter cousins was named Simon, the son of Johann Peter (who by most accounts was the first Branstetter born in America). Simon moved out to Pike County, Missouri in the early 1830's, married, and had a son named Simon Uriel Branstetter, born December 19, 1840 - and that's who this story is about.
When the Civil War broke out, Missouri had soldiers and sympathizers on both sides of the conflict. Simon Uriel, who was in his early twenties, joined the Union army and in September, 1864 found himself in a town named Doniphan, Missouri. What follows is a quotation from the book, "Pilot Knob The Thermopylae of the West" – By Cyrus A. Peterson and Joseph Mills Hanson – copyright 1914 by The Neale Publishing Company.
(Sergeant J. C. Steakley, Company K, 3rd Missouri State Militia recounts in the book how the Union army ran the Confederates out of the town of Doniphan, Missouri, on the morning of Monday, September 19, 1864, then camped out that night at Vandiver farm on Little Black River. They awoke Tuesday morning to gunfire)
Sometimes I come across some really amazing stories about Branstetters - sometimes it's Branstetters who are closely related to our Tennessee line and sometimes about more distant Branstetter cousins. I've been sent some great information in the past few days by ace Branstetter researcher Wendell Branstetter (who is part of the "Missouri branch" of Branstetters and currently resides in Illinois).
The information concerns a man named Peter Lancaster Branstetter (1825-1890), who was born and died in Pike County, Missouri and lived there most of his life. (To get some perspective - Peter was a grandson of Johann Peter Branstetter, who was an original Branstetter immigrant in 1764 on the ship Sarah, and was the youngest brother of our own ancestor Johann Friedrich, Jr.). So, seeing as how we are distant cousins with Peter Lancaster Branstetter, and seeing as how back in 1850 Peter, along with his brothers Adam and Simon, decided to embark on a more than 2000 mile journey to go digging for gold in California... AND seeing as how Peter decided to record the trip in a diary, I figured some of you might want to read it. Just follow this link!
