KESTERSON FAMILY GENEALOGY

Of

GROSS SCRUGGS KESTERSON
and Family
Son of John Henry & Sarah (Davis) Kesterson

AT ODESSA MO - THEY STAYED MARRIED and LIVED LONG
The Remarkable Records of One Family
Of True Vow Keepers & Their Kinsmen in Lafayette County

From the Kansas City Star Sunday March 5, 1939
A Feature Article - Written by Conwell Carlson
From the Estate of Kestie Hammond

The postoffice of Odessa, Mo, in Lafayette County, adjoining Jackson County on the east should find a place in some national guide book or a "Believe It Or Not" chart as being the address of two sons and two daughters of one family who have been married 50 years or more - an octette of golden wedding celebrants. Trying to find their formula for a long and happy wedded life, a member of the Star's staff called on these outstanding True Vow Keepers one day last week. His observations concerning their marital permanence and longevity records, which also seem to embrace a half dozen or more of their kinsmen, follow.

- - -

Now that modern doctors without Van Dyke beards are sagely agree­ing that one's chance for a long life (barring accident and infectious disease) depends mostly on how long one's pappy, grandpappy and great grandpappy lived, is it possible they will some day also lean on the family tree while predicting who is most likely to stay married a long time? Is there something in the germ cell that promotes marital permanence in certain families? Of course, anyone has to live long to be married 50 years, but there are picturesque cases of octogenarians having been bachelors or married and divorced a half dozen times. What concerns us here is families that have produced both long-lived and veteran singly mated members. Such as the Browns, Lewises and Keatersons of La­fayette County, Missouri for example. Since settling before the Civil Mar on farms southwest of Odessa, these families have establish­ed a curious record of protracted Intermarriage and longevity.

Consider the facts as outlined in a letter received from Odessa by W. D. Aurant, 4915 Baltimore Ave. founder in 1925 of the National True Vow Keepers Club of couples wed at least half a century? Four of the children of Mr. & Mrs. W.C. Brown have been married 50 years or more and now live in and around Odessa, two of these four are married to children of Mr. & Mrs. Gross S. Kesterson. Three sons of Mr. & Mrs. Brown married daughters of Mr. & Mrs. T. W. Lewis, Including one married 54 years, another 44 years and the third passed away leaving his widow after thirty years of wedlock. It looks as if there should be some recipe for compatibility in these Lewis and Kesterson lines with the Brown lineage and perhaps some day the biologist will Join with the sociologists in expounding a theory. Heredity, environment and all would be examined minutely and correlated in the attempt to explain the potentials of a golden wedding in your family,

Would the absence or presence of numerous children be a factor? If so it would be a confusing one for in the case of the Odessa couples there are sharp contrasts, the two husbands from the Brown family, for instance come from a prolific strain. One of them Havey I. Brown, 79 years old is the father of eleven children, the other R. Marion Brown, 78, thirteen children. Their father, Wm. C. Brown was blessed with ten and his father had twelve. But the daughters of Wm. C. Brown are wives in the half century wed octett, Mrs. Thomas Dick Kesterson and Mrs, William Schrimsher had only four and one respectively. Yet their wedding voyages have been relatively as long and as agreeable as their brothers. Perhaps the pictures of environments and habits offers easier suggestions, the Brown, Lewis, Kesterson and Schrimsher farms were not far apart south or west of Odessa, All the families were protestant and the settling fathers had come from states where social customs were largely the same - Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia. Their children met at church, school, pie suppers and picnics. All worked busily in farm homes or fields, the girls at cooking and chores the men at clearing the knolls of oak trees and planting the fields and harvesting the corn and small grains.

They were neighbors with similar customs and problems and so when R. Marion Brown married Lucy Kesterson, Harvey N. Brown married Mary Lewis, Thomas Dick Kesterson married Alice Brown and William Schrimsher married Sarah Brown they all quietly established homes with patterns essentially alike. Excepting Harvey Brown who moved into Odessa to operate a canning factory and later to deal in real estate and insurance, they stayed on the farm but the H. N. Brown home remained a farm home with a large kitchen and pantry and both a living room and a parlor. Plenty of outdoor work, plain cooking and "9 o'clock to bed and 5 o'clock to get up" have marked the lives of all four families. Steady work and abstemious Conduct never hurt any marriage all eight husbands and wives agree. Yes, it is a good guess the open air life with its bent for useful work has helped the four teams pull together so long. One gets that impression from a visit with the Kestersons, in their home almost at the top of a hill beside Highway No. 40 west of Odessa. This was the home they moved into 51 years ago last November.

The hugh cedars in the front year were planted by Kesterson. The vines and flowers have been planted and tended by his wife. There children have gone and they have the house to themselves now as when they were first married. Through the east windows the sun streams in early of mornings and there is just enough hilltop on the west to shadow the sun's setting rays. The Kestersons look toward the east down on the valley and a speed inviting slab that supplanted a more leisurly horse and buggy route to town.

They are a lively pair, busy with chores, cooking, stoking the kitchen store with wood and the parlor stove with coal, No time to quarrel? Don't they ever grow tired of each other and want to call it quite? Mrs. Kesterson seemingly had an­ticipated those questions for one of her first remarks was: "Its not so hard to be good natured if you've got things to keep your mind and hands busy. Not too much work but enough. Sure we have them, When the preacher of our golden wedding said "Married 50 years and never a cross word", he was being polite but I had to tell him, "No it is not true and that goes for you and your wife, too." Anybody who has been married any length of time makes adjustments for disagreements. If they don't the marriage isn't a marriage long,"

Dick Keaterson's pale blue eyes were smiling over his spectacles, "She makes good buttermilk biscuits, That's why I am still here*, he said, "Biscuits, honey and a small piece of ham. If I can't eat these for breakfast, I go back to bed because I know I am sick," From the side porch he looked out upon the rolling hills, once covered with trees, now mostly fields and remarked, "I've helped clear a right smart of ground around here - oaks, elms and hickorys. From the Kestersons, the Browns and Schrirashers almost any observer could catch one other attribute of their long cemented marriages. Besides their mutual work, mutual tastes and general good health they exhibit independence of opinion. Their lives reflect an abundance of will power as it is needed to conform their routines to the hard facts. They have obviously lived within their means, pinched though at times these have been. Pride in their families has been a binding tie. At the old farm home where William C. Brown died in 1897, after 40 years of married life and with ten children surviving him, Mr. and Mrs. R. Marion Brown now carry on. They are to celebrate their 55 wedding anniversary today with manyof their 13 children present. And in a neighboring farm home, Mr. andMrs. Wm. Schrimsher will celebrate their 50 anniversary tomorrow.

Perhaps it is something in the air around Odessa. The married folks there have seen a lot of life and a lot of each other and flourish on it.



Concord Cemetery, Lafayette Co MO
Photo courtesy of David Kesterson

Gross Scruggs Kesterson
11 October 1823 - 22 June 1905
Son of John Henry & Sarah (Davis) Kesterson
Husband of Narcissa Easterly
Husband of Kate Salmon

Narcissus (Easterly) Kesterson
23 March 1823 - 27 May 1880
Wife of Gross Scruggs Kesterson

Kate (Salmon) Kesterson
18 May 1838 - 7 September 1915
2nd wife of Gross Scruggs Kesterson
Buried in Bates City Cemetery Lafayette Co MO

Obituary:
G. S. Kesterson was born in Green County, Tenn, October. 11, 1823. Remaining in his native state until he was about 25 years of age. At about 21 years of age he professed faith in Jesus and joined a Baptist church. He was married to Miss Narcissa Easterly. Three years later they moved to Missouri to make this state their future home , rearing here their family of eight children to be grown, burying three babies in infancy. Seven of the children survive their father, five sons and two daughters all of whom were with him in the last days of his life. Brother Kesterson was ordained to the ministry at Old Concord Church about 1860 and devoted much of his time to preaching the gospel. He never gave up secular work to enter fully into the work of the ministry but held meetings and filled appointments in connection with his secular work, doing much good and leading many people to believe in Jesus and to follow him. When the church at Bates City was organized he was a charter member of that organization and on moving to Odessa united with the church here in 1886, remaining a faithful member until his death. In 1880 his wife died and her remains were laid to rest in Concord Cemetery. In 1885 he was married to Mrs Kate Salmon who remains to mourn his loss in her lowly widowhood. In his early life he taught a number of terms in the public schools being a very successful teacher, dearly beloved by his pupils. He ever loved children and delighted to be with them. He was a devoted Bible student and was a faithful attendant at Sunday School and church services until confied to his bed in his last illness. His wise councils and ripe scholarship in the Scriptures were very greatly helpful in the Men's Bible Class of which he was a member. In his wisdom and wide experience he was always a geat help to his pastor. Death came at 8:25 PM June 22, 1905. He suffered a great deal in his last illness but bore it all with firm patience. A few hours before death his sufferings became less intense and death came very gently, even like one falling asleep. After funeral services conducted by the pastor in the Baptist Church, the remains were laid to rest in Concord Cemetery with those of his wife and children. "Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of grain cometh in its season." * Job 5:26

Written by Rev. J L Downing, Pastor Odessa Baptist Church, From an Odessa MO Newspaper

Children of Gross Scruggs & Narcissa (Easterly Kesterson

Abram Kesterson 1846 - died young

John Wesley Kesterson08 May 1848

Sarah Kesterson 1850 - died young

David Kesterson 1852 - died young

Mary Emaline Kesterson 16 August 1853

Millard F. Kesterson 13 May 1855

Francis M. Kesterson 13 April 1857

Isaac Easterly Kesterson 05 June 1858

Rosa Kesterson 08 February 1860 married Sam Byerly

Thomas Dick Kesterson 20 March 1862

Lucy Jane Kesterson 26 September 1863




Rosa Kesterson 8 February 1860 - 17 November 1899 married Sam Byerly
Daughter of Gross & Narcissus (Easterly) Kesterson
She had one daughter Rosa Byerly 17 November 1897- 22 August 1898



Kate Salmon Kesterson - 2nd wife of Gross Scruggs Kesterson



Daughters of Kate Salmon Kesterson - stepdaughters of Gross Scruggs Kesterson



Willie Salmon son of Kate Salmon Kesterson - stepson of Gross Scruggs Kesterson
Willie was killed in a railroad accident in Texas.