Person Page 2,900

Lillie was born to Martin S. Ayars and Sarah Taylor Meredith. She was raised by her paternal grandparents, John Ayars and Margaret Carter after her mother died.

In the 1920 Census, Lillie is living with her daughter Pansie and Pansie's family. Lillie's occupation is shown as "nurse - private family."

OBITUARY - Find-A-Grave:

Tryphena Brooks, daughter of Josiah Wright Brooks, a native of Georgia, and Martha Damarias Selby, a native of Kentucky, was born February 29, 1860, on a farm near Moweaqua, Illinois. Her father and mother were members of the Moweaqua Methodist Church, to which they took their children and in which they took an active part.

Her father died when she was 14 years old, and she and her brothers and sisters early learned to take the responsibilities of the home in helping their mother to provide a living and care for the family. Tryphena loved housework, gardening, nursing, and millinery.

She married James Stewart, a native of Pennsylvania and a former soldier in the 76th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. They operated the Round Grove Farm, three miles east of Moweaqua, Illinois and to them was born four children, James Franklin, Malcolm Wayne, Eltha, and Charles Leslie. James died on February 3, 1895 and in 1899, she moved to Moweaqua. In 1903, she wed Martin Duncan, father of her daughter in-law Gwendolyn.

She was a member of the Order of the Eastern Star of Moweaqua and of the Shelby County (Kuilka) chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Friendships in Moweaqua, Shelbyville, Saint Louis, and Urbana were important in her life.

For nearly a year in her failing health she lived with her daughter-in-law Gwendolin Stewart in Moweaqua and with her grandson and his wife, Wayne and Vera Stewart of Monticello. Her sickness was not accompanied with a great deal of pain and she was able to have lively conversation with her brothers and other family members to within a few hours of her death, which occurred March 31, 1948.

The immediate members of her family, Charles Leslie, her son, and family of Urbana, Illinois; Gwendolin Stewart, her daughter-in-law and her family of Moweaqua; Mrs. John Middlesworth, Alameda, California, sister; Barkley Brooks, a brother, Decatur; Stephen Brooks, a brother, Decatur; Charles Brooks, a brother, Stonington; Mrs. Alberta B. Latch, a niece, Decatur; Mrs. Joseph W. Franke, a niece; Shirley D. Body, a nephew, Bement; and their families will cherish her memory, along with her six grandchildren, ten great-grandchildren and a host of other relatives and friends.

Myrna (Brooks) Hood wrote (given to me by Valerie M. Hudson):

Mary Sanders Duncan, who lived into the 1940s, (she died on 18 Dec., 1947) of course I did know --- as did most of my cousins, I'm sure. I remember "Cousin Mary" as an exceedingly prim and proper old lady, whose Victorian sensibilities I was forever being warned not to offend with my tom-boyish ways. As a result, I seemed to always be terminally tongue-tied in her presence. I seem to recall that I never saw her dressed other than in elegant black, usually an ankle-length gown with a white lace collar. Her legs, what one could see of them (and she would have called them "limbs" if she called them anything at all!) were always encased in black silk stockings. She had a rather mournful way of speaking and her accent that of pure New England. She had one stock comment in her conversation which inevitable came out in response to anybody's relating any kind of negative news --- from a cut finger to a total crop loss for the year: "Wa-al," she would drawl -- "Thaht's tooo bahd," in tones as sadly melancholy as a mourning dove's. There's no question but that she was the "grande dame" of the neighborhood; to commit even the slightest impropriety in her presence was unthinkable.

As mentioned elsewhere, Mary did have a husband, rather briefly. She married Robert Duncan (said to have been a minister) on 15 October, 1890. Robert died of typhoid fever on their wedding anniversary four years later. Some nine years after Robert's death, Mary took into her home a nine-year-old niece of Robert's, Donna Duncan. Donna was born on 9 Aug., 1894, in Findlay, Ill. Her father, Martin K. Duncan, had separated from her mother when the couple's four children were young. Lillie, her mother, had gone to California with the two youngest --- Donna and her sister, Pansie. By 1903, the mother's health failed and she sent Donna back to Illinois to live with her relatives. Donna's father was remarried by this time, so Mary Duncan, his sister-in-law, kindly took charge of Donna. Gwen Duncan, who married my father's first cousin, Malcolm Stewart of Moweaqua, was an older sister of Donna's. Malcolm Stewart's mother, born Tryphena Brooks -- a sister to my grandfather Charles Brooks -- married as her second husband (and his second wife) the same Martin K. Duncan who was the father of Donna as well as Gwen Duncan, who became Tryphena's daughter-in-law after being her stepdaughter! I know I shouldn't try to describe relationships of this complicated nature - on paper, they never seem to come out right. Suffice it to say, this Martin K. Duncan, brother of Mary Sanders' husband Robert Duncan, father of Gwen and Donna, and second husband of my great-aunt "Pheenie", has been described to me by my father as an utterly despicable character -- "A mean old buzzard", I believe is how he described Duncan. When I inquired as to why Aunt Phennie ever married him, my dad said he didn't know and added, "Anyway, she got rid of him --- divorced him, you know!" [Chalk up two more 19th Century divorces!]

At any rate, Donna Duncan grew up into a spirited and beautiful young lady; no doubt she found the atmosphere of the Garwood-Duncan establishment a bit of a "gilded cage"; it must have been thick with Victorian repression, as well as overstuffed elegance. Perhaps she was happier during her teen years, when she was sent away to school at Monticello Lady's Seminary. Donna died rather suddenly on the 19th of December, 1915, allegedly from and undiagnosed brain tumor. My father, Carl Brooks, who knew Donna very well (they were close to the same age), states that Donna had developed a severe infection of the sinuses in the fall of 1915 --- an infection that quickly worsened, apparently spreading to the lining of the brain, and proved to be incurable in those days before antibiotics. A specialist was called in from Decatur, but he, too, was helpless to find a solution; the solution was still 30 years in the future in the form of penicillin. It's said that the two attending doctors operated on the dying patient as the she lay on her little bed in the downstairs bedroom, as a last desperate measure to locate the suspected brain tumor. As eyewitness, (as I have heard the story, a girl who was hired live-in help at the time) later described the scene as "Blood everywhere -- the mattress was entirely soaked with blood and we later took it out and burned it. It was terrible!" This same young lady was later to hint darkly that Donna's death was a suicide, but I believe she may have been letting her imagination run away with her. My father remembers the occasion very well, and it certainly does appear that Donna died from a raging infection. The death-bed operation, of course, was not only futile, but barbaric when viewed from a present-day perspective.

Although such scenes of horror were not uncommon in those days, I suppose, it must have been nothing short of ghastly for the dying girl and her anxiety-stricken family. Such a sudden and tragic end to her beautiful young niece must have been a cruel blow to the aunt who had raised her. Small wonder I remember as always speaking in melancholy tones.

Roger and Mary's oldest son, Jake Vangeison, now age 12, confided in me during my latest visit to this house (which, of course is his home) that he doesn't like to be in the "front part of the house". "Have you seen ghosts?" I asked him. "Well --- I don't think so," he said, "but I got this creepy feeling when I'm near that bedroom where she died." I have to agree with the lad --- that small front bedroom where Donna Duncan died, which still contains the same little painted bedstead that was hers, is quite capable of eliciting a very strong emotional response from anyone who is more than usually sensitive to such things. If ever an old house was tailor-made to harbor ghosts, this one surely must answer the description.

Note: Lydia (Ayars) Duncan took three of her daughters to California: Gwen, Donna and Pansie. Gwen and Donna returned to Illinois shortly after the 1900 Census was taken. Gwen married Malcolm Stewart and Donna went to live with Mary Elizabeth (Sanders) Duncan. Pansie remained in California where she lived and died.

OBITUARY - Decatur, IL Herald-Review, 5 Sep 2001

MOWEAQUA - James Gale Stewart, 85, of Moweaqua died 2:34 p.m. Monday (Sept. 3, 2001) in Moweaqua Nursing & Retirement Home.

Services will be 10:30 a.m. Saturday in Seitz Funeral Home, Moweaqua. Visitation will be 5 to 8 p.m. Friday with 8 p.m. Masonic services. Burial will be in Westside Cemetery with military rites by American Legion Post 370, Moweaqua. Memorials: First United Methodist Church of Moweaqua Elevator Fund.

Mr. Stewart was born Aug. 10, 1916, in Moweaqua, the son of Malcolm Wayne and Gwendolin Duncan Stewart. He was a local businessman and retired rural postal worker. He was a member of American Legion Post 370 and Moweaqua Masonic Lodge 180, where he was master in 1947. He served in the Army Air Corps during World War II and was a member of First United Methodist Church of Moweaqua. He married Eloise Gregory in 1941.

Surviving are his wife; son, James Gregory Stewart and wife Nancy of Florence, S.C.; daughter, Janis Gale Mahone and husband James of Moweaqua; sister, Gwendolin Adams and husband Kyle of Moweaqua; grandchildren, Emily Stewart Pace and husband David of Columbia, S.C.; Jessica Stewart of Charleston, S.C.; Kate Elizabeth Mahone of Chicago; Gregory Stewart Mahone of Moweaqua.

He was preceded in death by his parents and two brothers.