THE LEONARD STANLEY FAMILY IN

ADAMS COUNTY, IOWA, 1879-1941

BACK ROW: Alta Mary Stanley, John Gruwell Stanley, Mabel Nellie Stanley, Edgar Verne Stanley, Carrie Ellen Stanley

FRONT ROW: Leonard E. Stanley, Howard Leonard Stanley, Hannah (Hogenkamp) Stanley

STANLEYS IN CORNING, IOWA

Leonard E. Stanley was mostly English. He was not given a middle name at birth but chose E. later in life. His English ancestors had moved to Virginia shortly before the American Revolution, to Ohio shortly thereafter, and finally to Iowa, first to Johnson and then to Adams County. Many of the Stanleys had Quaker backgrounds and frequently gathered at a local meeting house. Some wore the traditional Quaker dress while in Iowa. Leonard came west with his parents, Moses Stanley II and Hannah (Gruell) Stanley before 1858. There were other Stanleys that moved west at about the same time, resulting in many aunts, uncles and cousins in Iowa in the years after the Civil War.

Hannah (Hogenkamp) Stanley's father, Henry, emigrated from Germany to the United States about 1854 and her mother (Mary Keating) Hogenkamp from Ireland. It is thought that Henry emigrated because he was opposed to the wars that were taking place in the German states at the time, and he was against the fighting in the American Civil war which broke out shortly after his arrival. He was one of several family members to first settle in Ohio and then move on to Iowa at a later date. Mary Keating came alone as a refugee from the potato famine that ravaged Ireland in the 1840's and 50's. Hannah was born in Mason, OH in 1858. She always claimed that, as a young child she had seen President Abraham Lincoln, quite likely true.

Both Leonard Stanley and Hannah Hogenkamp came to Adams County with their parents and siblings. It is not known how they first met but it might have been at a Literary Union meeting or at the singing school, two social groups that were available to young persons at the time. They were married in 1879 at the "Hurd place" where the Stanleys resided. After they married they moved to the “Lem Bush place” where Alta and Ed were born, then the “Thomas place” and later a house they built themselves where son John was born.

Leonard and his brother John Long had a dream of operating a business together which they realized in 1884. Called “The Stanley Brothers General Store,“ it was located in Toledo, KS, near Emporia, then a growing community about 230 miles from Corning. Living quarters were in the same building as the store which hosted a large family reunion in 1890. Carrie and Mabel were born in Toledo and the older children attended school. But only two years later when the store failed, brother John and his wife left for the Oklahoma Territory where John became an Indian Agent while Leonard and family returned to Adams County, IA, accompanied by considerable debt from their failed enterprise.

They first lived at “the Mack Parkinson place” where Hannah suffered an unspecified illness and hovered between life and death for 13 terrible weeks, an experience that shook the family and required sixteen-year-old Alta to take over her mother’s duties. When Hannah recovered, they all moved to the “K. David place.”

In 1898, the family again moved, this time into town when Leonard was appointed County Clerk. One year later Howard was born, named for a neighbor who lived next door and was an invalid. This was the only year the parents and all six children lived together. In 1900, Alta married Lon Woodward. The couple farmed for a time and ten years later left for southern Idaho, establishing the Woodward name in that part of the country. The family, now reduced by one, then moved to the “Purdam place” at the edge of town. Finally, in 1903, Leonard was able to accumulate enough money to buy a place of his own, the farm “east of Prescott. ”

In 1910 Leonard became too ill to farm and the family moved in with Alta and Lon who had not yet left for Idaho. In 1915 the family again moved into the “Andrews place” in Corning. At this time Leonard was elected to the State Legislature where he worked to improve local roads and mandate prohibit the sale of alcoholic beverages in the state. It was thought that his enthusiasm for the latter cost him further terms in the legislature.

In 1915 the family moved again, this time to a house at 1005 Washington St. In his later years Leonard was often ill with symptoms of neuritis and heart disease. He died in 1932. The children were scattered by then and came home when they could to help, Hannah with Carrie and Mabel most available. In 1941 Hannah sold the home in Corning and lived first in Idaho with Alta and Lon in Idaho and then Carrie in Iowa City, and finally her last 12 years, with Mabel in the small house that Mabel had purchased in 1943 in Boulder, CO. She died in 1954 at age 96.

The history of this branch of the Stanley family in Adams County stretched 62 years, from 1879 to 1941.

Excerpted by Tom Stanley from Mabel Stanley’s THE ANCESTORS AND DESCENDANTS OF MY PARENTS, LEONARD E. AND HANNAH HOGENKAMP STANLEY OF ADAMS COUNTY, IOWA, unpublished manuscript c. 1981

FAMILY REUNION, BOULDER, COLORADO, SUMMER, 1947

BACK ROW LEFT TO RIGHT: Mabel Stanley, Homer Ralph Woodward, Leslie Woodward Bloxham, Carrie Stanley, Nita Dunham Woodward, Carol Woodward, Alice Thayer Stanley, Edgar Stanley, Lon Woodward, Margaret Barclay Woodward, Frank Woodward.

FRONT ROW LEFT TO RIGHT: Vera Tilton Stanley, Tom Stanley, Luke Bloxham, Jon Craig Bloxham, Hannah Hogenkamp Stanley, Howard Stanley, Ralph Barclay Woodward.

CHILDREN OF LEONARD AND HANNAH STANLEY

ALTA MARY STANLEY: (1879-1956) Alta married Alonzo (Lon) Woodward in 1900. The couple farmed locally for a short time and then moved west to Idaho where Lon had to learn a whole new style of farming , quite different from Iowa. Their children were Harold Stanley, Frank Leonard, Lois Lucille, Helen Leslie and Homer Ralph who branched out to new homes in California, Colorado, Utah, Minnesota, Washington and other parts of the country. Alta died in 1956 at 75. With their five children, Alta and Lon were most responsible for the continuation of the family line.

EDGAR VERNE STANLEY: (1881-1957) Ed graduated from Corning High School, where he played football, and Simp- son College in Indianola and then to Northwestern Law School where he graduated in 19l0. He married his secretary, Vera Tilton, in 1913. He served in a tank unit in France during WWI and practiced law in Chicago and then worked for the American Appraisal Company for much of his career. He and Vera had no children. He died in 1957 at 76.

JOHN GRUWELL STANLEY: (1883-1919) John also played football and graduated from Corning High School in 1903, taught school for a short time, then attended the University of Iowa Dental School and later the Northwestern Uni- versity Dental School where he graduated in 1908. He then began a practice in Orient, Iowa. He married Mabel Brown and had two children, John Gruwell Jr. and Judith. He had planned to join the army but became sick with the Spanish Flu and died in 1919 at 36.

CARRIE ELLEN STANLEY: (1886-1962) Carrie was born in 1886 during the family’s brief residence in Toledo, KA. She started school at four years old in Corning and, in the words of her sister Mabel, “she never failed to be in school the greater part of every year, either as a student or teacher.” Shortly after graduating from SUI she was to have married Jim Trickey, a fellow student who was also an all-American football tackle, but when he died suddenly Carrie resumed school and graduated again with an M.A. in 1915. She became a noted professor of English at SUI, taking a special interest in poor and minority students. In her retirement, she drove each day to the small community of Lone Tree, where for eight years she introduced her young students to Latin and the classics of literature. She died at 76 in 1962 of cancer. Later, SUI named a dormitory (Carrie Stanley Hall) in her honor. She never married.

MABEL NELLIE STANLEY: (1890-1988) Mabel was born in 1890 in Kansas and graduated from Corning High School and SUI. She was a math whiz and had a remarkable memory which she said she “took no credit for because I was born with it.” Mabel was a secondary teacher in several schools from Indiana to Idaho and , with financial assistance from her siblings, assumed the duties of caring for her mother in her last decade of life. Hannah died at 96 in 1954. Mabel also took on the task of chronicling the family history despite multiple health issues, especially with sight and sound, in her waning years. She died in 1988 at 97. She never married.

HOWARD LEONARD STANLEY: (1899-1968) Howard was the baby of the family, probably unexpected since he was born nearly a decade after his sister, Mabel. Like his two brothers before him, he played football and was proud to have played on an undefeated team in 1917, the year before he graduated from Corning High School. After graduation, he took a long trip by auto to Idaho to visit Alta’s family, returning to join the Army where he served only two months before the armistice was declared.He graduated from SUI with a degree in accounting and moved to Milwaukee where he joined the American Appraisal Company as a traveling accountant and where he met Alice Thayer. The two married in 1935 and eventually settled down in Ashland, WI . He died suddenly in 1968 at 68. They had one son, Thomas Edgar.

                

CHILDREN OF LEONARD STANLEY AND HANNAH STANLEY:

Top: Alta Marie Stanley, Edgar Verne Stanley, John Gruwell Stanley

BOTTOM: Carrie Ellen Stanley, Mabel Nellie Stanley, Howard Leonard Stanley

THE HOGENKAMP FAMILY REUNION

Near Cromwell, Adams County Iowa About 1895

Front row: Maude Bush, Roberta Hogenkamp, Mabel Stanley

Second row: Henry Hogenkamp, Amy Bush, Alma Hogenkamp, Mary Hogenkamp Leaning against railing: Lee Hogenkamp, Carrie Stanley, Ollie Hogenkamp, Mary Bush, Al Bush

On porch:Leonad Stanley, Hannah Stanley, Ed Stanley, Dave Bush, John Stanley, Henry Bush, Alta Stanley, Mary Bush, Tenie Bush

Picture in portrait: Bob Hogenkamp

THE HENRY HOGENKAMP FARM

Cromwell, Adams County, Iowa Late 1890's

The threshing machine belonged to Al Bush and Lee Hogenkamp

Carrie Stanley is the little girl with the bonnet, standing in front of the woman with the bonnet.

Reproduced by permission from Tom Stanley (2022)