[Last updated: 21 June 2021]

Johan Friedrich Stembel (Great-grandfather)

Frederick Stembel (Grandfather)

John Stembel (Father)

Oliver Stembel

OLIVER FREDERICK STEMBEL (1825 - 1887)

Oliver was born on January 17, 1825, in Middletown, Maryland. He was John and Eleanor's 10th child, but because some had died before he was born, Oliver had just three older siblings: a sister 12, a brother, 11, and another sister 5.

When Oliver was about 7, his family loaded their belongings into covered wagons and moved to Urbana, Ohio, where his father operated a store. A few years later, his father bought a farm about 10 miles north of Urbana, but closer to the town of West Liberty. That's where Oliver grew to adulthood.

It appears that as a young adult Oliver remained at home and helped his father on the farm. In 1850, at the age of 25, Oliver married Margaret Sharp. Margaret was 19. According to a granddaughter of Oliver's, both of Margaret's parents had perished in a flood in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, (not the Johnstown flood, however) and Margaret, then an orphan, was taken in by a family that eventually moved to Ohio. Once in Ohio, Margaret may have been employed by Oliver's parents as a servant.⁽¹⁾

After they married, they may have continued to live with Oliver's parents until they had children, then they built a house on Oliver's parent's farm. After Oliver's father died, he probably inherited some of his father's farm, including the land where his house was situated. This is supported by the 1860 and 1870 censuses. By 1870 his farm was valued at $2,600. A 1874 land ownership map show that Oliver owned about 62 acres of farmland. While 62 acres is not a large farm, Oliver probably farmed adjacent land owned by two of his sisters, totaling about 120 acres.

The 1870 census shows Oliver and Margaret had five children at the time, ranging in age from 18 to one-year-old. As far as we know these are the only children they had. In the 1900 census, Margaret reported that she had given birth to a total of eight children, and all are still living. I believe this is a mistake. I believe they may have had three additional children who died in infancy as we've not found any of the missing three as adults.

Sometime after 1880, Oliver, Margaret, and their daughter Eleanor moved west, in hopes that a drier climate would alleviate Oliver's asthma. They moved first to Kansas, but soon moved to western Missouri, near the now defunct town of Valley City (Johnson County). This was the same county that the widow of his late cousin, Rachel Stembel, had moved to 20 years earlier. Rachel was the wife of Jacob Stembel, son of Oliver's uncle Frederick Stembel, Jr. Jacob had died in 1850, leaving Rachel widowed at the age of 38. 18 years later (1868) she bought a farm in Johnson County, and was still living there when Oliver moved there. I assume they chose Johnson County because Rachel was already there.

It appears that Oliver's four adult sons also followed their parents to Missouri (although one returned to Ohio soon after).

Oliver was reportedly an avid outdoorsman who enjoyed hunting and fishing. He passed away February 3, 1887, at the age of 62. Margaret stayed on in Missouri. She died 14 years later. Both are said to be buried in Knob Noster, Missouri, but I was not able to locate their graves on a visit there. I have since been told there are no markers on their graves.

Oliver and Margaret's children:

A. John Bradford (or Benjamin) Stembel (1851- ?). John was born October 20, 1851. He was raised on his parent's farm in Ohio. In 1882, he traveled to Missouri with his brother Marcellus and a cousin, Albert Stembel, son of his uncle Joseph. John was 30 and single. His brother and cousin soon returned to Ohio, but John decided to remain in the area, eventually settling in Kansas City, on the Kansas side of town. At this point, John's life becomes hazy. We know of a marriage to a Mary Hoskins, and we know he fathered three children (Roy, Willard, and John Benjamin, all born in Kansas between 1892 and 1898), but we don't know if Mary was the mother of the three, or if there was another marriage that we are unaware of.

The 1900 census adds some focus to John's life, while raising more questions. The census shows that two of John's children, Roy and Willard, are living with his brother William and his wife on their farm in Johnson County, Missouri. William also has a newborn son of his own. John's youngest son, John Benjamin, 22 months old, was living with an innkeeper and his wife in Bonner Springs, Kansas. John, himself, was also living in Bonner Springs, but was married to a new wife, Nellie Fry. Nellie was just 18 years old, born in January, 1882. She and John have a one-month-old baby, Gladys. Also living with John and Nellie are Nellie's mother, her younger brother, and a 49-year-old widow, who was boarding with them. Even though John was 48 at the time of the 1900 census, his age in the census was given as 35!

Evidently John and Nellie's marriage ended soon after, for Nellie remarried about 1903. She had another child with her new husband. In the 1910 census, John and Nellie's daughter, Gladys is living with Nellie and her new husband in Kansas City. John was working as a farm hand on a farm outside Bonner Springs. His marital status was "M3", which means he's married - for the third time, but no wife was present.

I have not found John in the 1920 census records. According to a family member, John died sometime around 1928. I've found no record of his death or burial

John Stembel's four children:

1. Roy Willis Stembel (1892-1958). Roy was born July 30, 1892, in Kansas. Sometime before 1900, he went to live with his Uncle William (his father's brother), who raised him. Roy never married. He spent most of his adult life living near Bonner Springs, Kansas where he trapped gophers for farmers. According to Mary Stembel Davis, sometime in his life he suffered sunstroke and could not do heavy labor.⁽³⁾

Roy died on Christmas Day, 1958.
2. Willard L. Stembel (1895-1911). Willard was born September 6, 1895, in Kansas. Sometime before 1900 he and his brother Roy went to live with his Uncle William in Johnson County, Missouri. Willard died on March 15, 1911. He was 15 years old.
3. John Benjamin Stembel (1898-1955). John was born on February, 20, 1898. At the time of the 1900 census, he was living with an innkeeper and his wife, Fred and Fanny Ingersoll. They were childless, and may have adopted him, for John's father was living nearby. His father was newly married and had a new one-month-old baby. According to Mary Stembel Davis, John was crippled from a fall as a baby. He was supposedly mistreated by his mother.⁽⁴⁾


At the age of 15 John was living in a special home for wayward boys in Chino, California. When the United States entered World War I, John enlisted. I'm not sure if he served overseas. At the time of the 1930 census, John was back in California, living in Los Angeles, California, and working as a laborer for the city. He was residing in a boarding house with the owner, Ella Westphal, 73, a widow whose relationship with John was recorded as his step-mother.

In the early 1950s John was a watchman at the city's water and power agency. In 1952 he was admitted to the West Los Angeles Veterans Administration Hospital, where he died March 9, 1955. He is buried in their cemetery.
4. Gladys Darlene Stembel Kueck (1900-1995). Gladys was born in April 24, 1900, at Bonner Springs, Kansas. She was the first child born to John's second wife, Nellie. Her mother and father split, and when she was about 3-years-old her mother remarried, and Gladys went to live with them. She appeared in the Kansas City newspapers occasionally attending social events for teenagers, so she it appear she was thriving in her new home. In the 1920 census, Gladys was single and still living with her mother and step-father, Henry Kosmyer. I haven't found Gladys in the 1930 census, but in 1936 she married Marvin Kueck. In 1963 they were living in Rainbow Lakes Estates, outside of Dunnellon, Florida. Gladys died on October 2, 1995, and is buried in Ocala, Florida.

B. Marcellus Lafayette Stembel. (1855-1934). Marcellus Lafayette, known as "Lafe," was born August 12, 1855, in Champaign County, Ohio. According to family tradition, when Lafe's father, John, moved his family to Ohio, they were accompanied by one or more of the Stembel's slaves from Maryland. Once in Ohio, the former slaves continued to live with or near the Stembel family. When Oliver's second son was born, a former slave who was their nanny, was given the privilege of naming the baby. She chose Marcellus Lafayette Stembel.⁽⁵⁾ This woman figures prominently in another incident in Lafe's life. As a child, Lafe sustained an injury to his arm and developed a severe case of blood poisoning. It spread to the point where the doctor was considering amputating his arm if it didn't improve soon. The nanny appealed to the family not to allow the amputation, but to let her apply a traditional poultice to his arm. Within a day of the application of the poultice, the infection was under control and his arm was saved.⁽⁶⁾

According to family members, the Stembels who moved to Ohio freed their slaves and brought them with them, although they don't show up in the census records (with the exception of the young black girl living in the household of John's brother, Frederick, in the 1830 census).⁽⁷⁾ Though technically free, the former slaves had little opportunity for finding work so they probably continued to live with, or near, the Stembels and work for them. I believe it's likely census takers ignored the free blacks living with the Stembels, or maybe the Stembels didn't volunteer the information to the census takers for whatever reason (even those in Ohio, and elsewhere, who opposed slavery, still had little desire to hire them).

It appears that as a young adult, Lafe continued to live with his parents and help his father on their farm. Sometime after the 1880 census, Lafe's parents moved west. According to the family, Lafe's father and mother moved west, taking Lafe's sister as well. Lafe followed later, along with his brother, and a cousin. We're told that as Lafe was about to leave for Kansas or Missouri (depending on where his parents were living then), his Aunt Maria (Maria Josephine Stembel, Oliver's sister) gave Lafe a Bible with an inscription inside dated March 30, 1882 (the Bible was last in the possession of Lafe's daughter, Mary Stembel Davis).

Evidently Lafe did not remain in the west very long, for just over a year later, he married Emma Ida Clark in Springhills, Ohio (near the Champaign - Logan county border). They were married on Lafe's 28^th birthday. Emma was ten years younger than Lafe. She preferred to go by her middle name, Ida.

Lafe ran a blacksmith shop in the small village of Crayon (Champaign County), Ohio, and farmed an 81-acre farm on shares after he was married. Lafe and Ida had six children, two of whom died in infancy, and one who died when she was 16. Later, Lafe built a two-story building in Crayon, which served as a general store with a post office on the bottom floor, and an I.O.O.F. Hall upstairs. For a time he also had the region's telephone switchboard in a back room (his daughter Mary remembers working in the store and at the switchboard). After that, Lafe worked as a part-time troubleshooter for the phone company to supplement his income.

Lafe and Ida lived in Champaign County until Ida's death in 1913. Lafe eventually moved to suburban Detroit to live with his daughter, Mary. He died there on January 11, 1934. Lafe and Ida are both buried at Spring Grove Cemetery in Millerstown, Ohio.

Lafe and Ida Stembel's six children:

1. Minnie May Stembel (1886-1902). Minnie was born on New Years Day, 1886. She died of scarlet fever on August 27, 1902. She was 16 years old.
2. Goldie Ethel Stembel Hoffman (1887-1971). Goldie was born November 24, 1887. She almost died of scarlet fever during the epidemic that took Minnie's life. On November 29, 1905, she married Charles Hoffman. Goldie and Charles had five children, Franklin, Orrin Clair, Margaret, Shirley, and Marcella. Goldie and Charles moved to Napolean, Ohio. Charles died January 21, 1956, Goldie died April 19, 1971. Both are buried at Forest Hill Cemetery in Napolean.
3. (Son) (1889-1889). Ida gave birth to a son on January 26, 1889, who died five days later.
4. Mary Margaret Stembel Davis (1892-1989). Mary was born December 26, 1892. Mary, too, had scarlet fever like her sisters, but wasn't as sick. Growing up, she worked in her father's store, and later at the phone switchboard. On March 26, 1919, she married William Kenneth Davis. They moved to Ecorse, Michigan, outside of Detroit. Later, her father came to live with them until his death in 1934. Mary and William had no children.


William died March 16, 1949. After his death, Mary went to work for a coal dealer. She ran the office and handled sales. After the owner died, Mary ran the company for a few months until a buyer could be found. Then she quit working for good. I corresponded with Mary from 1986 to 1988; she provided much information about her branch of the family. She died November 18, 1989. Her ashes were placed next to her husband in the Michigan Memorial Cemetery.

5. Bertha Stembel (1895-1895). Bertha was born January 30, 1895, and died August 8 of the same year.
6. Cora Ann Stembel Scott (1896-1984). Cora was born May 3, 1896. She grew up in Crayon. She married Walter R. Scott. Walter grew up in Pike County, Ohio. They had no children. Cora died November 14, 1984, Walter died February 7, 1988. Both are buried in Spring Grove Cemetery, St. Paris, Ohio.

C. William C. Stembel (1859-1938). William was born February 2, 1859 in West Liberty, Ohio. According to his granddaughter, Peggy Taylor Palmer, sometime after 1880 William moved to Valley City, a small village in Johnson County, Missouri. I assume he followed his parents out west. He was in his early twenties and single at the time of his move. We believe he was a farm laborer, probably working on his father's farm until he married. In 1896, at the age of 37, he married Ida Caldwell, a 23-year-old native of Missouri. Over the next 10 years they had four children. In addition, two of his brother John's children came to live with them as well (see John Bradford above).

William died in 1938 at the age of 79; Ida died in 1960 at the age of 87. Both are buried at Sunset Hill Cemetery in nearby Warrensburg.

William and Ida Stembel's children:

1. James C. Stembel (1899-1900). James was born July 11, 1899, and died August 28, 1900.
2. Hazel Stembel Taylor (1900-1972). Hazel was born March 15, 1900 at Valley City, Missouri. On Christmas Day, 1927, she married Jesse Earl Taylor in Kansas City, Missouri. They lived in Kansas City all their life. Jesse served in WW I. He was an auditor for the Kansas City Terminal Railroad. They had one child, a daughter, Peggy.


Jesse died December 13, 1955, in Kansas City. After his death, their house was purchased by the state for the Crosstown Freeway, so Hazel moved in with her sister, Gladys in 1971. Hazel died soon after, on April 6, 1972, in Warrensburg, Missouri. Hazel and Jesse are buried in Kansas City's Memorial Park Cemetery.

Hazel and Jesse Taylor's child:

a. Peggy June Taylor Palmer (1930- ). Peggy was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on June 3, 1930. She married Charles Palmer on August 24, 1952, in her parent's home in Kansas City. Peggy and Charles had one child, a son, Jesse Charles, but he died when he was six years old. Peggy and Charles live outside of Clinton, Missouri.


3. Gladys Stembel Harness (1903-1983). Gladys was born November 26, 1903, at Valley City, Missouri. After she finished her schooling, Gladys moved to nearby Warrensburg where she worked in a garment factory. On November 1, 1930, she married Lawrence Lee Harness in Sedalia, Missouri. They continued to live in Warrensburg where Lawrence worked as a fabric cutter. They had no children.

Lawrence died at Warrensburg, Missouri, on August 19, 1969. After her husband's death, Gladys lived alone until 1971 when her sister, Hazel moved in with her. Hazel died soon after. Later, Gladys had to move when her house was purchased by Central Missouri State University as part of their expansion program. She moved to a small house in town where she lived until shortly before her death September 25, 1983. She died in Shawnee Mission, Kansas. Gladys and Lawrence are buried together in Warrensburg's Sunset Hill Cemetery.
4. Jesse Harlow Stembel (1906-1986). Jesse was born October 6, 1906, at Valley City, Missouri. In the 1930 census, Jesse worked for the Pullman company, who serviced the railroad. He married Juanita (surname unknown) around 1932. The marriage ended in divorce in 1940. Jesse married Ruth Hodges around 1942. This marriage also ended in divorce in 1949. Jesse married twice more, the last time to Edna Erhart Brenner, a widow with four children, two who were still in school. Jesse loved to spend time with his step-children. Edna died in 1975. Jesse died June 5, 1986, at Warrensburg. He had no children from his marriages.

D. Joseph Van Swearingen Stembel (1862-1930). Joseph was born on May 4, 1862, on the family farm in Champaign County, Ohio. In the 1880 census 18-year-old Joseph was living at home, attending school and helping on the family farm. Sometime after that census Joseph moved out. According to Mary Stembel Davis, Joseph's niece, one day Joseph just left his family's home with little notice. In the beginning he wrote home occasionally, but the letters tapered off, and the last anyone heard from him was in 1896. His family was always haunted by his absence, never knowing what happened to him.

With the tools now available to family researchers, I was able to locate him in the 1900 census. He was living in Thomas County, Kansas, a sparsely populated county in western Kansas. Joseph was a farm laborer living with the family of John Crawford. He was 38 and single. Later, I found Joseph in the 1910 and 1920 censuses. In 1910 he had moved to north-central California, working as a farm laborer in Yuba County's East Bear River Township. At the time, Yuba County had just 10,000 people living there. It was a county of many small settlements. Today Yuba County counts about two dozen ghost towns in the county. In the 1920 census, Joseph was still living in East Bear River Township, living with another family and working as a hired hand.

Recently I learned that Joseph died in 1930. It appears that sometime after 1920 Joseph became severely ill and was admitted to an "asylum", possibly in Madiera County, where he died in 1930. He was buried in the asylum's cemetery, but when the asylum closed sometime before 1970, those who were buried there were re-interred in Oakhill Cemetery, in the town of Ahwahnee, Madeira County.

E. Elenor Josephine Stembel Lanham. (1869-1958). Ella, as she was known, was born January 9, 1869, in Ohio. Her family moved west when she was in her early teens, eventually settling on a farm near Valley City (Johnson County), Missouri. On September 14, 1890, Ella married Frank P. Lanham, in Warrensburg. Elenor was 21, Franklin was 27. We believe Frank and Ella farmed near Warrensburg. During this time, Ella gave birth to five children, four boys and a girl.

Sometime around 1898, they moved from Johnson County to a farm near Tulsa, Oklahoma. Frank and Ella had four more children after the move. Of their nine children, eight were boys. All but one of their children remained in the Tulsa area their entire life, and are buried there.

Ella and Frank's only daughter, Sadie, married William Bratton in 1918. William was an Osage Indian and lived on the Osage Indian Reservation near Tulsa. Sadie moved onto the reservation with William. Their seven children were 25% Native American. They owned a large homestead which they called Turkey Creek, named for the creek that ran through their property. This homestead is still in the family as of my last contact with the family about 2010.

William Bratton's Native American heritage is thus: William's father, Isaac Tell Bratton, was a white man born in Ohio in 1862. He moved west as an adult and was living in Oklahoma in 1898 when he married a 16 year old Osage Indian, Josephine "Pah Skah" Long⁽⁸⁾. William was their first born child. For more about his Osage family, click here..

Sadie Lanham's marriage to an Osage came with benefits, for all registered Osage Indians received an allocation of 657 acres in 1907 when Oklahoma became a state. Registered Osages also received "headrights" to a share of all royalties paid to the tribe for oil pumped from reservation lands. Oil had been discovered on the reservation in 1896, but it wasn't until the 1920s and the popularity of the automobile, that the demand for oil exploded. Suddenly, the royalties from the oil on Osage land resulted in many Osage becoming some of the richest people in the state. It also resulted in the reservation being overrun with scammers and grifters - and worse, much worse - determined to get their money.

Franklin died on August 7, 1934, in Tulsa. Ella died on June 24, 1958, just months after her son, Theodore, died. Both Franklin and Elenor are buried in Tulsa's Memorial Park Cemetery.