My grandmother, Clema (Myers) Starr never really knew her father I’m told. I never talked to her about it personally, but it’s my understanding he abandoned the family when she was very young. After I joined ancestry.com and learned how to investigate such things I began researching what happened to her father, Raymond Jasper Myers. It took some digging, but my cousin David had also laid some groundwork and so I was able to put together Ray’s life after he left Illinois and moved to New York. It took quite a bit more work to piece together the origin of his father, Sam. You see Sam consistently reported the same birth date and the same birth location, but there was absolutely no record of his birth. It was maddening. To make things more complicated, Sam Myers is a fairly common name, and in Indiana at that time there were multiple Sam Myers. Eventually I narrowed it down to the correct Sam via a draft card that listed his wife Ida Belle and his description as having red hair and blue eyes. As I dug into his life in Palmer, Illinois it seemed every activity was reported in the local newspaper, the Taylorville Daily Breeze Courier.
The first article, dated Thursday, June 26, 1913 mentions Palmer Officer Sam Myers catching a 14 year old that escaped from the Taylorville jail. “Lads Picked Up by Chief of Police Link Pry Lock Off, Jump from Window and Then Hike
Nick 0’Brien and John Bucke, two 14-year-old “Micks” who claimed St. Louis as their home Wednesday and Chicago today, have given the authorities more trouble in the past 24 hours than the six yeggs mixed up in the opera house saloon killing did in the weeks they spent here.
The lads Wednesday gave Chief of Police Link a foot race and after they were turned over to Deputy Sheriff Rucker, escaped again and caused Rucker to do a marathon in order to recapture them.
After being jailed they consigned Jailer Bone Funderbuck to the hottest place in the infernal regions many times, using the choicest line of cuss-words that ever fell on Bone’s ears. One of the lads picked up a big piece of gas pipe in the corridor and slipped it down of his pant’s legs unnoticed, his intention no doubt being to land on the jailer’s head at the first favorable opportunity.
To cap the climax of the indignities they heaped on the city and county officers, the boys broke the lock on their cell door about seven o’clock this morning, jumped out of the fire escape window on the second floor to the ground below and escaped.
O’Brien was recaptured about 8:30 o’clock by Chief of Police Link in an empty coal car near the new coal mine. The Burke boy slipped under a Pullman car on the 7:32 west bound passenger train this morning and was off at Clarksdale. At 1:30 this afternoon Burke was caught at Palmer by Officer Sam Myers and Sheriff Brents went there this afternoon after him…”
The next article in November of the same year recounts the tale of Palmer Village Marshall Sam Myers missing penny thieves.
“BURGLARS OPERATED
Last Night at Palmer and Clarksdale
Burglars operated in Palmer and Clarksdale last night. At Palmer they entered the Wabash depot by forcing the lock and carried away $1.44 in pennies from the cash drawer. Entering Logsdon’s grocery store by breaking the glass in the front door, and unlocking it, they carried away 53 pennies. Hamel’s saloon was entered by the rear door and nothing but a few pennies are missing. Here they overlooked $10 in change in a cigar box and a pistol. Going to the drug store of A. Starkweather they entered the rear door by breaking the glass and the proprietor misses nothing.
No clues have been found to track the burglars. The work was done after midnight, because Village Marshal Sam Myers retires at that time and when he did so everything was in apple pie order. “
In October of 1921 the Daily Breeze reported “Mrs. Raymond Myers and children and Mrs Sam Myers spent Wednesday with Mrs. Lloyd Nash. “
On 4 Feb 1922 they reported Sam Myers was busy butchering. The next week a note about Sam and Ray Myers visiting Harvel for business. There were notes about Sam being chosen for jury duty and the pair visiting various friends. I was most drawn to the entries about Margaret and the kids visiting, like the one on 14 Aug 1923. “Mrs. Raymond Myers of Danville and children and Garnita have arrived for a visit with Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Myers.”
All told I found twenty mentions of Sam Myers in the Palmer notes section the Taylor Breeze newspaper. But it was this one that solved the mystery of where Sam came from :
“Mrs. Samuel Myers left Tuesday evening for Vincennes, Ind., to see his mother, Mrs. David Qualls who was operated on for gall stones and is in critical condition in the hospital.”
I finally had a name and location for his mother! I actually let out a little scream when I found this clue. The hours of going through these newspaper clipping had finally paid off. I was able to find a David Qualls who lived near Vincennes, Indiana – Bicknell, IN to be precise. His marriage certificate showed his wife to be one Laura B Swick. A little more digging found Laura Swick was born Laura B Byars and her first marriage was to one William C Myers. But there was an inconsistency. Laura married William C Myers in October of 1883. Sam was born in April of 1880. Laura and William had six children listed on census records. Sam was not there. You see the census records from 1890 were largely destroyed by a fire in the Commerce Department building in Washington DC in 1921. And by the 1900 census Sam was 20 years old and married to Ida.
Now I had to really dig into the life of Laura Byars. I found her parents, George J and Mary Steele Byars. George was born in Washington County Virginia in 1818. He was a farmer and moved to Knox County Indiana about 1840. In 1844 he married eighteen year old Mary Steele, a woman 8 years younger than himself. Mary’s origins are as yet unknown. Laura was their third child and when Laura was just 5 years old her mother died. Then seven years later, when she was just twelve years old, in 1873 her father died too. I found her in the 1880 census, an eighteen year old domestic servant living and working in Palmyra Indiana in the household of Martin and Mary Johnson. A closer look at the actual census document finally solved the puzzle. There, listed under Laura’s name was John Ray Byers a 2 month old child born that April. This was my Sam. It’s unclear when Sam stopped being John Ray Byers and took the name Sam Myers, but it can be assumed it was after his mother married William Myers.
But now we have another mystery. Who was Sam’s biological father? That I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure. The census lists another farm laborer living in the household when Sam was born, a man named Barney Roney. And William did live in Palmyra in 1880. Cemetery records show his wife had died in 1867 but the census listed Mary as living with William in 1870, so that timing may be a bit off. William’s second oldest daughter is the same age as Laura. Were Laura and Rose friends and William come to “know” Laura after his wife died? It’s all conjecture. We don’t know who William’s parents are so there’s no DNA thru lines there, but I do have DNA connections through Laura and William’s son Charles which verifies Laura is Sam’s mother.
We do know that in 1898, at 17, Sam married Ida (Addie) Godfrey the week after she gave birth to his son, Raymond Jasper Meyers. Addie was the next to youngest child of Eleazar and Cordelia Hatton Godfrey who farmed in Knox County Indiana.
Sam worked various jobs in Knox County Indiana and around 1910 moved to Bear Creek in Christian County, Illinois. He later became the village Marshall of nearby Palmer IL until about 1925. His son Ray and his young wife Margaret and 3 children often stayed with him and Addie while they lived in Illinois.
At only 46 Sam died of pneumonia shortly after moving to New York State in 1926. Again, the Taylorville newpaper was the source for discovering Sam’s death details.
Just four years later Addie also died at 51 years of age.
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