This series is about the Schoonover/Schoonhover/Schoonoven/Van Schoonoven line on my mom's side of the family. My lineage is:

my mom

John Royce – Marjorie Grace Gibbons

La Rue Royce – Winifred Teague Burch

Rousseau Angelus Burch – Clara Louise Teague

Isaac A. Burch – Mary M. Schoonover

Anson Schoonover – Telitha Runyan

James Schoonover – Mary X
(link between James and Peter is assumed, based on analysis of 5 other documents)

Peter Schoonoven – Neeltje Swartwout

Niclaes Schoonoven – Pieternella Westfall

Hendrick Claessen Van Schoonoven – Cornelia Swartwout

Claes Henrickse Van Schoonoven – Neeltje Fredrickse

Mary M. Schoonover

I never learned what the "M." stands for...

Heather’s 3^rd great grandmother

When Mary M Schoonover was born on September 30, 1841, in Ohio, her father, Anson, was 24, and her mother, Telitha, was 21. She married Isaac A Burch on October 14, 1858, in Warren, Indiana. They had two children who survived to adulthood, and three other children who died young. She died on March 2, 1928, at the age of 86, and was buried in Salina, Kansas.

Mary’s exact birth date is shown on her gravestone and also on her death certificate. Gravestone dates and death certificate birth info are often incorrect. In the 1900 census, the census taker reports Mary’s birth month and year as September 1842. So, we have a range.

The earliest record I have for Mary is the 1850 census. We find her in her parents house in Washington Township, Warren County, Indiana. She is reported as 9 years old. The census was taken on October 8 that year, so if her birthday was in September, she would have been born in 1841.

Here is the family. Mary is 9 years old. Father Anson is 33 years old and is working as a farmer. The last column indicates that he was born in New York. Wife Telitha is 30 years old, and she was born in Ohio. Then the 2 oldest children, including Mary M., were also born in Ohio, but 3 children following Mary were born in Indiana. So we can derive that Mary moved from Ohio to Indiana by the time she was 2 years old, around 1843-ish.

Her father died 3 years later, in December 1853, when Mary was 12 years old.

Mary’s mother Telitha remarried in 1855.

Then on 14 October 1858, Mary marries Isaac A. Burch in Warren County, Indiana. I haven’t seen the actual record, but it was indexed.

In the 1860 census, the couple is living with Isaac's father James, in Liberty, Warren County, Indiana.

Her 2 sons who survive to adulthood are Rousseau Angelus Burch, born in 1862, and Charles Wilkes Burch, born in 1869. Both boys are born in Indiana.

We learn later from husband Isaac Burch’s obituary, that the family moves to Kansas in October 1869. They take up farming in Elm Creek, Saline County, Kansas. Mary’s mother and all of her brothers and sisters all move to Lyons, Rice County, Kansas and take up farming as well. This move happens after the 1870 Indiana census, but before the 1875 Kansas state census. I don’t think Mary was the first Schoonover to arrive in Kansas. I think some Schoonover uncles/cousins had arrived a few years before.

In both the 1870 and the 1880 censuses, the Mary Schoonover Burch family is found living Elm Creek, Saline County, Kansas.

Again from Isaac’s obituary we learn that the family moved from Elm Creek to Salina in 1883.

I found this wonderful photo from a user on ancestry.com. It indicates that these are the Schoonover siblings, plus one extra gal that is unknown, taken ca. 1900 in Lyons, Kansas. Mary’s brother William H. Harrison Schoonover dies in 1901, so the date is consistent. Names are listed at the top. Mary is seated with a 4 over her head.

Husband Isaac dies in 1909, but Mary lives on in Salina until 1928. She continues to appear regularly in Federal and Kansas State censuses.

I even find her once in the 1913 Salina City Directory, so we know she lived at 147 N. 8^th (also referenced in Isaac’s obit). And look, there is son Charles W. Burch in the directory as well.

Google Earth image of 147 North 8^th Street, Salina, Kansas. Looks pretty nice.

29 April 1910 – Garnett News Journal (Garnett, Kansas). This news clipping shows us some of the other Schoonovers who located in Kansas. Mrs. William Hopkins is Mary’s sister, Susana Schoonover Hopkins. I think Judge Schoonover is Manford Schoonover (1856-1928), who would be Mary’s cousin or uncle…I’m not sure.

24 June 1915 – The Salina Daily Union newspaper describes a sort of family reunion. All of these people are Schoonovers or related in some way.

6 October 1915 – here’s a clipping from the Salina Evening Journal.

Mrs. T.J. Haxton is Mary’s sister, Telitha Ellen Schoonover Haxton (husband is Thomas Jefferson Haxton). Nell Haxton is Telitha’s daughter. Ike Schoonover is Mary’s brother, Isaac. Mrs. Mary Schoonover is Mary’s sister-in-law, Mary Swisher, who married our Mary’s brother William H. H. Schoonover. (Double-H middle name, one of the H’s stands for Harrison. William died in 1901.) The others are nieces and in-laws.