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Claude Vance and Eli Neff at the Mt. Ayr depot about 1914.
BY MIKE AVITT
I got a request from Richard Hogue of Colorado. He is writing a book about his genealogy and I want to share his Ringgold County connection.
Richard’s father was Charles Hogue who graduated from Kellerton High School in 1927. Charles went to work near Schaller, Iowa after high school and spent the rest of his life there. Charles’s brother was Carl Hogue, a carpenter, and Carl built many things including the barn at Lesanville in 1928. Lyle Hogue of Mount Ayr is a cousin to Richard.
Richard’s grandmother was Clara (Vance) Hogue and that’s where this week’s picture comes in. Claude Vance, seen on the left in this week’s photo, was the brother of Clara (Vance) Hogue. I don’t know much about Claude other than he lived in Blockton after 1920.
Clara’s sister, Frances Ethel (Vance) Neptune, married Dave Neptune, Mount Ayr’s first auto mechanic.
I just got back from a trip and didn’t have time to research George and Jennie (Lesan) Vance, who once owned the land Lesanville is on now, but if there is a connection to George Vance, this would give Richard two ties to Lesanville; one on his grandfather’s side (Hogue) and one on his grandmother’s side (Vance).
I’ve never had an interest in genealogy, maybe because I don’t have children. Genealogy is easy to do these days with everything being on the internet. The Ringgold County Genealogical Society ended when Betty Ruby passed away. There was a time when most of my relatives lived in Gentry County Missouri and Ringgold County Iowa. There are none today.
I read the old newspapers regularly and I see surnames that aren’t common today. Names like Skinner, Saltzman, Moore, Holland, Long, Lesan, Shay, Todd, and Davis are names that are far less common today and there are others.
Avitt is an uncommon name so we are probably all related. In the Clearfield Cemetery is buried Haskell Avitt, Jr. with his wife Emma and two infant daughters. I’ve never found Haskell’s obituary but I have the date of his death so I’ll find it someday.
