Susannah Gourley Thompson, Oldest Rock Grove Resident

JOSEPH GOURLEY > SUSANNA GOURLEY m Daniel Thompson

We don't have a plethora of southern antecedents. Most come originally from the Puritan northeast US, not the more free-wheeling commerce-driven settlers who landed in Virginia and parts south.

Yet, the Gourley's had long been in Loudoun County, Virginia. Their origins are most likely Scottish and their presence in Virginia goes back until at least the mid 1700s. I've found indications that they were Quakers. Waterford, the town in which Susanna's father Joseph was born, was a Quaker settlement started by Pennsylvanian Amos Janney in 1733. Joseph and his wife Grace Morgan's antecedents started from Pennsylvania. I'm slowly chipping away at the story.

The birthday gift giving list looks like
Who's Who of my family tree

Susanna was one of at least eight children born to Joseph Gourley and Grace Morgan. In some of my research of Grace's family, it appears they may have been part of the Keithian Quakers, a group that split from the Friends in 1690 over disagreements on things like water Baptisms, which the Quakers had foregone some time previously. These Keithian Quakers often ended up as Baptists. If you hear the term Baptist Quaker or Primitive Baptists, that's most likely what's being referred to. It walks like a Quaker and talks like a Quaker, but isn't a Quaker. This makes sense as most of the Cooper's who settled in Iowa ended up as Baptists.

This interesting story comes from a Gourley relative, Patty, who shared the information online:

"A letter from Mary Verniece Byrd, one of the descendants of Susannah Gourley Thompson, dated April 18, 1973, to Reeva Decker. Susannah Gourley, born 1801, married Robert Thompson, born 1799, in Louden County, Virginia. She was born in either Pittsylvania County or Spotsylvania County, Virginia. Susannah Thompson had a son Scott who was much younger than her other children and full of the devil. Scott's wife Marietta was alive in 1937 as my little boys and I stopped to visit her a few hours in passing through. It is through her that I got my history about Susannah Gourley Thompson as she knew her well before she died. She told me that Susannah Gourley Thompson said that she well remembered the War of 1812. She had 3 brothers who fought in it. Her father - Joseph Gourley- was too old but he hauled provisions to the soldiers at Point Lookout, Maryland. If you look on your map it is a point south of Washington, D. C. at the edge of the Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River joined. She said she wore a blue dress and stood in a wagon, and waved a flag as the soldiers marched by. She would have been at least 11 years old." 

Susanna married Daniel Thompson about 1819. Daniel was born about 1800 in Virginia. Unfortunately, after having 11 children, he died in his 40s after their arrival in Stephenson County, Illinois.  Susanna's siblings spread out as well, some staying in various parts of Virginia and some moving to Clark and Crawford County (remember, there was a very large contingent of Quakers in the area), and then on to Livingston County or Stephenson County, and one to Champaign County, Ohio.

Susanna's son Daniel, born in 1828 in Virginia, married into the Quaker Cooper family, marrying Ann Cooper on 05 May 1850 in Illinois. They had seven children before he died prematurely at age 37 in Osage, Mitchell County, Iowa in 1864. His will made his wife not only the beneficiary of his estate, but the sole executor of Daniel's will.

Susanna's daughter Margaret Ann, was born 28 Oct 1821 in Virginia. She married a Cooper, as well, marrying Chalkley Jared Cooper on 28 Jul 1840 in Crawford County, Illinois. C J and Margaret had nine children before Margaret's death in 1880 in Rock Grove. CJ survived until 1885.

Susanna eventually became Rock Grove's oldest citizen. She had her 83rd birthday in 1884, but she still had a lot of life left in her. She resided with son-in-law CJ Cooper in some of the last years of her life. "Grandma Thompson," as she was known by all, lived on to the age of  97 and died of complications of age cared for by her daughter Grace. She outlived all but two of her children.

I hope to talk a little more about some of the other Thompson kids in a future post.

Trailblazing Women: The First Woman Methodist Minister in Oregon

WILLIAM COOPER > AMOS COOPER > WILLIAM LLOYD COOPER > ANN COOPER m (1) Daniel Thompson (2) Andrew Hardy > ALMEDA  THOMPSON m Francis "Frank" Herbst > REV ALICE HERBST KEATING m JT Keating

Ann Cooper and her first husband Daniel Thompson had seven children before Daniel died in 1864 while they were living in Osage, Iowa. Ann remarried three years later to Andrew Hardy.

Almeda Hannah Thompson was born in Feb 1856 in Osage. She married Franklin "Frank" Herbst, son of Andre and Maria Herbst in 1872. The elder Herbst's had come from Guewenheim, Haut-Rhin, Alsace, France originally around 1845 during an influx of German/French immigrants escaping political chaos and conscription in Europe. They first arrived in Wisconsin, then moved to Chickasaw County, Iowa.

Frank in back

Frank and Almeda would move on to Burwell, Nebraska, where a number of Cooper relatives settled, and then moved on to South Dakota. In late 1908, Frank had decided to move on to Oregon, which they did, eventually ending up in Portland. Not long after they got settled in, Frank died at age 56 on 24 Aug 1910.  He left his widow and three daughters.

Garibaldi

Alice Ellen was born 14 Sep 1876 in a log cabin in Bremer County. She married Rev Joseph Thomas "JT" Keating. Alice was very involved in her husband's ministry and was also deeply involved in the Salvation Army and became a captain. In 1919, she then herself became a licensed Methodist minister - the first woman to ever do so in Oregon.

Soon after, she was appointed to her first posting in the Salem district at a new church in the town of Garibaldi, a port town that sprung up out of the lumber industry. Her husband had a church in Bay City, located nearby.

The couple had two daughters:

Almeda E Keating, born 07 Dec 1907 in Nebraska. She married John Klerk of the Netherlands. Almeda worked for many years as a clerk at the Portland Visiting Nurse Association. She died 04 Aug 1992 in San Diego County, California. John died 23 Sep 2000.

Miriam Alice Keating was born 15 Mar 1910 in Seattle. She married Rev Ralph Kleen in Washington in 1932. She graduated from the Cascade Bible College in 1932 and served as organist, pianist, soloist, and as children's choir director and bell choir director in her husband's ministries in Oregon, Arizona, California, and Alaska. One of the churches he served in Oregon was Forest Grove United Methodist Church. She died 27 May 1997 in Los Angeles County. The couple had two children.

They also had a foster son, Rev Walter Stamm, who served in the Salem area.

Scandal Sheet: The End of the Frank & Grace Noble Marriage

William Cooper > Amos Cooper > William Lloyd Cooper > Ann Cooper Thompson > Omar Hazzard Thompson > Grace Lorene Thompson & Frank Noble 

Ann Cooper Thompson Hardy lost her first husband, Daniel Thompson after 14 years of marriage in 1864. They had seven children, including Omar Hazzard Thompson, the second born. Ann remarried Andrew Hardy and had two more children, one of whom died in infancy.

Omar and his wife, Mary Louisa Herbst married in Chickasaw County, Iowa on 25 Sep 1872. They moved west and by 1880, were living in Wheeling, Nebraska. They had six girls and finally a boy, Grace being the third child, born in October 1882 in Burwell, Garfield County, Nebraska.

Grace Lorene Thompson met and married Frank Noble of Illinois on an unknown date. They moved around a bit in Nebraska, then moved Haxtun, Phillips County, Colorado, where they were found in 1920. By this time, they had four children and owned a small hotel. Also noted in the 1920 census, was the fact that they also housed four lodgers: John Dill, Michael Burn, Charles Kester, and Hugh McLane.

1933 Billings MT City Directory

Frank and Grace were then divorced some time prior to 1929 when Mr. Hugh McLane, bachelor, married the divorcee, Grace Lorene Noble, in Livingston, Park County, Montana on 03 Sep 1929. They had been residents of Dillon, Montana. There is no indication that Grace kept the by-then teenage children, with her. They are all found in Nebraska on their own or married in 1930.

1933 found Hugh and Grace living in Billings, Montana. After this, no record is found, but I did find a grave marker for a "Grace L. McLane" located at Crown Hill Cemetery, in Park County, Wyoming which may be hers. No trace of Hugh exists either...except he may have gone to Colorado and worked as a woodcutter as of 1940, living with his business partner. I can't confirm this either.

Frank Noble reportedly died in 1958, though I've not been able to confirm. Three of their four children survived, Frank Jr. dying at age 53 in 1966 while living in Grand Island, Nebraska, after he was hit by a car while driving his son's motorcycle. Daughter Hilda died in Minnesota in 1995 after a long marriage to a railroad man and subsequent remarriage after his death. Daughter Helen married as well, dying in Nebraska in 2001.