Sumner roots

Click on photos for more info.        Steve's Ancestory

Compiled by Wilma G. Sumner Hachler and daughter Sherry L. Hachler Cox

The Sumners came to the New World from England. Their start in Central Missouri was in 1859 when Joel W. Sumner and his wife Eliza Scroggins Sumner homesteaded land in Morgan and Camden County along the Osage River, near Carver, Missouri. Joel W. had been born Sept. 7, 1807 in Tennessee, and died April 13, 1859. Eliza was born Dec. 25, 1821 and died June 22, 1907. To this union was born seven children. Two died in infancy. The others were:

Nancy Jane, born April 21, 1841 and died Oct. 23, 1911. She married Alfred S. King.

Elmira Anne, born Jan. 9, 1848 and died Dec. 18, 1937 at Prairie Home, MO. She first married Christopher Gerlt in 1877. He was killed in 1888 by a man who owed him for a cow. As he walked across a field toward the man, asking for his money, the man, Mr. Hart, shot him. In 1894, Elmira married Wm. McGinnis.

Heriott Defaunt (Kern) was born Jan. 21, 1850 in Iowa. He married Rosa Ambler, born Nov. 2, 1870 and died Oct. 24, 1904. In 1906 Kern married Ida Henderson. He died Oct. 9, 1931.

Joel McGuffey, my Grandfather, was born Feb. 22, 1855 and died April 13, 1932. He married Martha Ash and to this union was born one son, Charles Heriott, born July 31, 1878 and died Oct. 9, 1964, my father.

Ellen F. was born Jan. 16, 1857 and died Aug. 17, 1912. She married Robert B. Lett born May 8, 1856 and died Nov. 9 1926.

On Dec. 29, 1904, Charles Heriott Sumner married Talitha Ann Duffer, my mother, born July 23, 1886 and died Oct. 29, 1944. Her mother was Lucinda Catherine McGinnis born Dec. 15, 1861 in Enon, MO and died Oct. 25, 1926. Her family came from Ireland. Talitha's father was John Thomas Duffer, born Sept. 13, 1854 in Schuyler County, IL and died Feb. 2, 1900. His family was from Scotland. They were married in 1877 in Camden County and lived in Proctor in Morgan County.

As a young woman, Talitha Ann came to the Carver community to help care for Eliza Scroggins Sumner who was ill. Eliza had raised her grandson, Charles Heriot because his mother had died when he was four years old. Charles and Talitha Ann fell in love and were married. After Eliza's death they moved into anther log house on land owned by Charles' father Joel M. Sumner also in the Carver community. Children born to Charles H. and Talitha Ann were:

• Ethel - born Oct. 26, 1908 and died Aug. 16, 1994.
• Wilma - born Oct. 13, 1910 and died Sept 23, 2004.
• Lena - born April 12, 1912 and died Oct.23, 1996.
• Mary - born June 8, 1915 and died Sept, 22, 2005.
• Claude - born July 18, 1917 and died Feb. 27 , 2007.
• Neva - born Oct. 31, 1919.
• Elmer - born March 28, 1922.
• Charles Jr. - born Jan. 17. 1927 and died Dec. 27, 1928 of scarlet fever.
• Baby boy still born March 19, 1931 buried in Green Grove Cemetery in Moniteau County with parents.

From the time the area was settled until 1930 when the dam was built between 20 & 25 families lived in the Carver community. There was a Mennonite church, a school, a grocery store, a post office, a grist mill, a sawmill, a blacksmith shop and two cemeteries, the Carver Cemetery and the Collier Cemetery. The Collier Cemetery is now known as the Wilson Bend Cemetery. It was on land owned by J. L. and Mary Collier who had donated it to the community for a burial ground. When the lake started filling up they moved to Upton, CA. but returned to Missouri in 1934 to deed the cemetery to Camden County.

Joel W. and Eliza Sumner, along with four of their children and several grandchildren, are buried in the Wilson Bend Cemetery. John Thomas and Catherine Dufer along with four of their children were buried in the Proctor Cemetery, however, since it was to be covered by lake water, their remains along with remains of other people had to be moved. The Duffers were brought to the Wilson Bend Cemetery.

For several years there was a question as to ownership of the Wilson Bend Cemetery. In 1988 Wilma G. Sumner Hachler researched this, finding it to be property of Camden County. She was then given authority by the county to have a fence built around the cemetery to protect it. The cemetery is still visited in 1995 by the descendants of those buried there.

In a community like Carver, in those years around the turn of the century the people were very close knit and almost completely self-sufficient. In the early morning hours you could hear the men of my family and those of the Cable family across the river yodeling to each other. The community enjoyed the traveling salesmen paddling their wares - from flavorings and spices to shoe laces, needles and thread. The medicine men would make an occasional appearance and the people always look forward to the arrival of the circuit - riding preacher.

The people spun yarn, made lye soap and sorghum molasses. They grew their own food and preserved it either by drying it or canning it in stone jars and sealing them with wax. They cured their meat, made butter, cheese and cottage cheese.

They were careful to harvest the wild foods that grew in abundance. They know when to pick wild strawberries, blackberries, dewberries, huckleberries, raspberries, sarvis berries, mulberries and wild grapes for jelly. They enjoyed pawpaws, persimmons and black haws. They know a great variety of greens that were safe to eat as well as morel mushrooms. They harvested hickory nuts, walnuts, butternuts and hazel nuts. They grew their own fruit trees, plum, apple, peach, pear and cherry. The men loved to hunt and bring in a variety of wild meat for the table. They also fished the Osage River catching many varieties of fish, some quite large, which they enjoyed eating.

They grew their own corn, wheat and oats and had their corn meal milled at the local grist mill and their flour milled at the flour mill in Gravois Mills.

They sawed their own lumber, made their own furniture, caned chairs and wove baskets. When someone died they made the casket and lined it on the inside with white material, then dug the grave.

My father, Charles Heriot, had a thrashing machine and did all the thrashing in the community as well as surround communities.

It was a life of which I have many fond memories.