I was about 15 when I began piecing together my family history and gathering names of my ancestors. I learned that I had a great great grandmother named Clementine Bodenhamer and I was smitten. Who could resist such a fine name?

Clementine “Clemmie” Esther Bodenhamer was born in Marshfield, Webster County, Missouri on January 30, 1854 and probably died in Coffeyville, Kansas on January 13, 1925, 100 years ago this week. She was the only child of Elizabeth Jane Goldsberry (1833-1888) and (probably) John Bodenhamer (1836-1862).

In 1860 Clementine (6) and Elizabeth Bodenhamer (26) were living in Greene County on the 1,000 acre farm of John’s newly deceased father, Jacob (1790-1860) with his widowed mother, Fernita “Neaty” (Goss) Bodenhamer (1795-1863) and three of his brothers. I have not found a record of Elizabeth’s marriage, but John is the most likely Bodenhamer son to have been Clemmie’s father. He is said to have fought in the Civil War for the Confederacy and died in 1862, although I am not aware of a record of his service or death (yes, there’s lots of conjecture and research to be done!)

Jacob Bodenhamer’s death was followed by Neaty’s in 1863. Clemmie’s childhood circumstances on the large Bodenhamer farm must have changed significantly during those years. Jacob and Neaty had somewhere between 17 and 20 children. They were slaveholders, with eight individuals enslaved by Jacob at the time of his death. (More on this in a post yet to come). Seven of their sons served during the Civil War—five for the Union and two for the Confederacy.

As the farm property was broken up and John died or disappeared, it is unclear where Clemmie and Elizabeth went until about 1868 when Elizabeth married Joshua Hamilton (1810-1889), a farmer 23 years her senior from Marshfield, Missouri. Joshua was twice widowed with ten children.

On Christmas Eve, 1871, Clemmie (17) and James Washington Owen (23) were married in Marshfield. Like many of Clemmie’s relatives, James was born in Rowan County, North Carolina, and moved west to Greene County, Missouri with his family as a child. At the time of their marriage James and five younger siblings were living on the family farm, where he was a farm hand.

Between the 1873 and 1875 births of their first two children, Clemmie and James moved from Greene County to Webster County. The 1880 Census lists James as “keeping a wagon yard.” By the time Clemmie was 32 in 1886 she had given birth to four sons and three daughters. Clyde, Daisy, John, Maud, and Stella (my great grandmother), all lived to adulthood, but Clemmie and James lost their last two sons very young.

The late 1880s must have been particularly difficult for the Owen family. Babies Oscar and Bertie died in 1885 and 1887; Clemmie’s mother, Elizabeth, died in 1888; and then James died in 1889 at age 41. James’ death seems to have been expected. His will, written three months before his death, states that he is “weak in body but strong and vigorous in mind.” He authorizes Clemmie to dispose of personal property and real estate in order to reinvest the proceeds for the care of herself and the children. He stipulates that their 320 acre farm on Derrick Prairie be retained until their youngest child comes of age “so that my family can be sure of a house…or can get the proceeds of the rents.” James also asks that Clemmie sell his interest in a lumber company.

Clemmie remained on the farm until at least 1900, when the census lists her as a farmer, sons Clyde (27) and John (23) as farm laborers, and daughter Maud (20) also in residence. Daughters Daisy and Stella had married and moved away. In 1901 Maud married Alvin Jackson, an order clerk at a wholesale house. Clemmie was living with them and their two young sons in Springfield, Missouri in 1910.

Sadly, by 1920 Maud was a patient at Missouri State Hospital No. 3, a psychiatric hospital in Nevada, Missouri, where she remained for many years. Perhaps for this reason, Clemmie moved by 1920 to the Coffeyville, Kansas home of her daughter, Stella (Owen) Miller and her husband Frank. Three granddaughters, Marjorie, Thelma, and Esther Jane (my grandmother), must have made a lively household. I don’t know the details of Clemmie’s last years, whether she stayed in Coffeyville until her death in January 1925 at age 70. She is buried in Marshfield, Missouri with her husband and two of their children.

In The Marshfield Mail on February 9, 1933, a chatty society columnist wrote nearly ten years after Clemmie’s death, “At her death she left a fine memorial behind. That of a kind, good mother and a loyal Christian woman. Today we heard a friend of hers remark, ‘I believe Clemmie Owen was one among the best women I ever knew.’” She is remembered.

Relationships

Jacob and Fernita “Neaty” (Goss) Bodenhamer, 4th great grandparents

John (probably) and Elizabeth (Goldsberry) Bodenhamer, 3rd great grandparents

James Washington and Clementine Esther (Bodenhamer) Owen, 2nd great grandparents

Stella (Owen) Miller, great grandmother

William Edward Stephenson, Jr., father

Me