1652100

"THE MURPHYS ACCORDING TO FANNIE GRAFFIS"
EARLY HISTORY
BY
HAZEL KERK MURPHY WIESJAHN
DAUGHTER OF NATHAN ARCHIBALD "ARCH" MURPHY & MARY E. "MOLLIE" VENARD
GREAT-GRANDDAUGHTER OF MARTHA BARBARA KERR

MARY

A M was a very pious person. Her husband had died shortly after the war and left her with L L F E, four small children. She packed them up and came back to G Grandmother. G[randfather] gave her 40 acres beside his she built a cabin and raised her family with the aid of a pension.

After G Gfather died she let one of her girls stay with G Gmother until she died.
A. M. was very much interested in politics and what the govt was doing. How Congress was going to do this or that. She took a daily paper and read a great deal. About twice a year she would come to our house and explain it all to mother. Father read all those things but didn’t take time to explain them to the family and mother was so busy cooking 3 meals a day, doing all the sewing and mending, washing and ironing for 5 and sometimes 6 that she didn’t have any time left for the ups & downs problems [of the nation] ups & downs of the nation. The country church and school were all the farther she she was could vitally interested in give time for. Anyway Washington and Congress seemed a long way off.

When Grandfathers first wife died A. M. brought her family united it with Gfs 3 and kept house for him for a couple of years. She wasn’t too good a cook and father used to say A. M. always burned something when she cooked a meal, and if she was only cooking one thing she would burn that!

The children had a fine time and often talked of the things they did together. One of the big achievements of my father and Ed Graffis was to make a little wagon wheels and all. How they prized that wagon. I wonder if the boys of today would have as much engunity as that. Sometimes I doubt it.

[A. M.] Loved her church and was a faithful attendant until rheumatism crippled her until so she was not able to get there. She took her R very seriously and felt a deep interest in the spiritual life of the community. She favored new things to bring interest into the meetings like -- The organ piano and music and thought it quite a joke when Charly Dunn played a Solo on a horn coronet and oone of the oldest trustees got up in meeting and said "It was time to dehorn the church".

The pioneers were sturdy strong and God fearing and instilled that into their children and hoped they would hand it on down to each generation as they came along.

AUNT MARY -- WHO’S WHO

The Author - Hazel Kerk Murphy, b. 1891; m. Henry Wiesjahn 1915; d. 1954; sister of Clancy Kerr and Chase Murphy; Grand Aunt of Allan, Marilyn, Dave, and Sue Murphy; Great Grand Aunt of Ben & Clancy Murphy and Carmen Schlatter

Great Grandmother - Martha Barbara Kerr, b. 1807 in Virginia; d. 1887 in Indiana

Great Grandfather - Nathan Hunt Murphy, b. 1804 in Michigan; d. 1860 in Indiana

Grandmother - Sarah Caraline "Callie" Smith (actually Hazel’s step-grandmother)

Grandfather - William Kerr Murphy, b. 1835 in Ohio; d. 1901 in Indiana

Grandfather’s First Wife - Sarah Elizabeth Slane, b. 1835; d. 1873 (the real grandmother Hazel never knew)

Father - Nathan Archibald "Arch" Murphy, b. 1859; d. 1929

Mother - Mary E. Venard, b. 1865; d. 1955

A. M. - Aunt Mary (actually Hazel’s grand aunt); Mary A. Murphy, b. 1837; m. John Graffis, , 1865; William Kerr Murphy’s sister; mother of Mary Elizabeth "Lizzie," Lucy Jane, Fannie, and maybe an Edward Graffis

A. M.’s husband - John Graffis, Civil War Veteran, b. 1839; d. between 1871 - 1880. His regiment was at the Battle of Vicksburg in June of 1863 and was defeated at Sterling’s Plantation near Morganza in September of 1863. Half of its forces were captured and the prisoners were held for many months at Tyler, Texas. John mustered out on 21 September 1864. The Civil War widow’s pension was filed in 1877.

L, L, F, and E - "Lizzie," Lucy, Fannie, and Ed (?)

The Girl Who Stayed with Great Grandmother - Fannie Graffis was twelve years old in 1880 where she is listed on the Census in the same household as her grandmother, Martha Barbara Kerr.

Ed Graffis - speculating that this is "Lizzie," Lucy, and Fannie’s brother Edward of whom there is no record ... yet

Charly Dunn - perhaps this is a brother to William Dunn, William (b. 1860) is the son of Martha E. Murphy (Aunt Martha in Hazel’s reminiscences, Mary’s sister) and James Dunn. William is Hazel’s first cousin one time removed.