Hide Article Text (OCR)
ffudy CLillyTkmokv cValley_Boots_Eight Worley sons fought in Civil WarIn the early months of 1861, the nation was bracing itself for war, Although Americans were apprehensive, they perhaps did not fully realize the effect the next few years would have on their families. Separation, illness and death would change the direction of people’s lives, leaving physical and emotional scars.Valentine and Elizabeth (Arnold) Worley were living in Davis County, Iowa, at the beginning of the Civil War. The nature of their family made it somewhat unique. Of the 10 living Worley children, eight were sons of fighting age and all eight went to war.When the Confederates fired on Ft. Sumter on April 12,1861, the Worley brothers were living In either Davis County or Hunter County, Kansas, an area that became Butler and Cowley Counties. Two of them, Henry and Andrew, served with the 9th Kansas Calvary. Both were mustered out on March 22, 1866, at DeVaUs Bluff, Arkansas. The other six brothers, James, Michael, John, Felix, David and Jacob joined the 3rd Iowa Calvaiy. David and Felix were given disability discharges in 1863. Felix died a short time later of typhoid fever. The rest served until the war ended.According to a letter written by John Worley in 1902 from Council Grove, Ks., Michael and Jacob were wounded at the “Battle of Moors Mill, northeast of Jefferson City, Mo.” Their regiment fought in the battles of Pea Ridge, Little Rock and the Siege of Vicksburg.By the end of 1865, seven of the eight brothers were ready to resume their lives. They returned to Kansas where several of them had been living prior to 1861. John, David and Henry later became ministers of the Gospel for the Methodist Church.For a period of time following the war, people were not immune to the upheaval of the past five years. On April 9, 1865, the day Lee surrendered at Appomattox, David Worley, who had been discharged two years earlier because of an eye disease, married a woman named Margaret Ellen (Oria) Longfellow. Ellen Longfellow had two children by her first husband, who was believed to have been killed during the war. Worley family tradition states that she had not heard from him for the duration of the war.After their marriage, David and Ellen settled In Jackson County, Kansas, where they had two children, Amon Arthur and Catharine Elizabeth. Sometime in 1869, Ellen’s first husband arrived at the Worley door and convinced her to return with him by train to Davis County, Iowa. She took all four children with her. While on the trip, during a temporary stop, Longfellow got off the train and did not return. His wife and the children, thinking he had simply missed the departure, went on to Iowa. However, Ellen never saw the man again and on March 17,1870, according to tradition, she died “of a broken heart.”A family member then wrote to David asking him to retrieve Ms children. The Longfellow family kept the older two. The 1870 census of Kansas lists only David, Arthur and Catharine as living in Jackson county.The record keeper for this interesting family is Wilber Davis, 317 W. Jewell. Davis has a double dose of Worley blood in his veins since he descends from two of the eight Civil War soldiers, John and David. His collection of military/pension records for all eight brothers, census records, vital records and family stories fill a good-sized file box. An impressive pedigree chart, secured on one wall of his study, traces the family from its first-known progenitors, Michael Worgele and his wife Anna Reichert, who were living in Wythe County, Virginia, in 1790.Davis’ double relationship came about when Amon Arthur Worley, oldest son of David and the unfortunate Ellen, married Sara Martha Worley, daughter of John and his second wife, Sara Martha Gilbert. Possibly to avoid family objections and because Kansas did not allow first cousin marriages, the couple hopped a train to the first out-of-state county that would overlook theirkinsMp. Family records did not record this marriage location and Davis had to play the genealogy sleuth. He wrote to the first county across the western Kansas line that was along a train route. Sure enough! The county clerk in Kiowa County, Colorado, produced the verification of his maternal grandparents’ marriage on Oct. 31,1900.Because of this dual affection for the Worley family, it’s no wonder he has devoted several years to this research, enlisting the help of relatives, with whom he had to be “overly aggressive” at times, writing to historical societies and gathering vital records from numerous counties. To find the marriage record of David and Ellen Worley, he wrote to at least five counties before locating it in Schuyler County, Missouri.Davis suffers from a brain stem lesion caused by carbon monoxide poisoning and is unable to work or drive a car. His long days at home allow him to concentrate on his genealogy, a hobby his doctor advised him to become involved in to keep himself mentally alert. It has certainly done that. File folders, neatly labeled with name and birth and death dates and color-coded by generations for easy reference, indicate his organizational ability. Gathering material takes hours of work; organizing it takes even more time. But the end product is a complete and fascinating story of his Worley family.QUERYSharon Leah Thorne, 5581 Branciforte Drive, Santa Cruz, CA. 95065, needs information on Sylvester Stough, whose daughter, Harriet Adeline, married David Funk, son of Abraham Funk and Anna Miller. David was born in 1842 in Ohio; Harriet and David had four children and lived in Kansas since 1880.Please send queries on Kansas ancestry and all correspondence to Smoky Valley Roots, 223 W. Prescott, Sa-lina, Ks. 67401.
Newspaper Details
Salina Journal
Salina, Kansas, US
Sun, Nov 14, 1982
Page 53
Full Page
Clipped by
Salina P.
KS, USA 18 Apr 2022
Other Publications Near Salina, Kansas
Saline County Journal
Salina Svenska Harolden
Salina Journal
