Janis Cross

NOT MY RELATIVES...photo found in antique shop. Back of postcard says "Mabel Totten and son Kenneth with daughter Oneida." Mabel was the cousin of Hazel Nupp.
People in photo include: Kenneth Totten and Oneida Totten

Marrs family portrait taken in front of N Marr Grocery.

Starting with back row, left to right. Then front row, left to right. Charles Edward Marr, Ray Buc??, Frank McClontock,
Nicholas Hinton Marr, Lillian Mae (Avery) Marr, Helen Marr,
Vera Marr, Bradey True, Louis Kernaghan, J(?) Roundtree, Robert Bas?, unknown Sky , Ruth Marr, John Bridger, Chas P?rson, Frank Larue, and Malcolm Marr
People in photo include: Frank McClontock, Lillian Mae (Avery) Marr, Bradey True, Louis Kernaghan, John Bridger, Charles Parson, and Frank Larue

Kenneth Olen Cross
(b: 6 Dec 1923 Sesser, Franklin Co., Illinois - d: 19 Jul 1994 East China Twp., St. Clair Co., Michigan)

Ogle Olen Cross
20 Oct 1903 Royalton, Franklin Co., Illinois - 7 Jun 1997 Kimberling City, Stone Co., Missouri

Donald Ray "Red" Cross
(b: 26 Jan 1925 Sesser, Franklin Co., Illinois - d: 29 Nov 2003 Kimberling City, Stone Co., Missouri )

Red-headed Evadean Foster Marrs born 16 Mar 1911 in Kentucky, the daughter of James Mulkey Marrs. Married Frank Kuykendall. Died in Berryville Health Care, Berryville, Arkansas and was buried 5 Jul 1995 in McGuire Cemetery, Viola, Barry Co., Missouri.

Dean spent a good deal of her later years in Los angeles Co., California to be close to her daughters.


People in photo include: Sandra Kay Kuykendall and Frank Kuykendall

Husband of Kathleen Mary Cross

Robert Melvin (Bobby) Greene was the son of Isaac and May Jewel (nee Kerrico) Greene.

William Shirely Farmer, the sone of William Henry Farmer and Mary Emily Marrs, was born 28 Aug 1912 in Morganfield, Union Co., Kentucky,died 29 Dec 1999 in Community Hospital, Naples, Collier Co., Florida, and was buried 9 Jan 2000 in Laurel Hill Memorial Gardens, Alachua Co., Florida.

Neal Robinson's wiffe, Ella Brence McGuire is the daughter of John Harry McGuire and Iana Liliian Marrs.

Ivy May Carr is Mabel Vivian Carr's sister. They married Marrs Brothers Herbert Norman and Gerald Brooks.

Ivy was born on 15 May 1915 to Edward Lemuel and Katherine Alcenia Thankful (nee Edmonds) Carr. She married Herbert Norman (Chaney) Marrs on 28 Sep 1934 in Waterloo, Monroe Co., Illinois.

Vaughnie Simmons, his sister Corinne and their cousins Chaney and Carvel Marrs and Ruby Gulley, worked at Grennans Bakery at 3900 Washington, in St. Louis, Missouri. Their cousin, Ray Marrs, applied for work there too, but he was denied employment because he was under eighteen years old. When his under aged brother, Gerald Marrs heard about it, he also applied for the job, but lied about his fourteen years. He got the job! Although Ray groused about it at the time, he did get a job at the bakery when he came of age and actually worked at the bakery longer than any other of the Marrs/Simmons clan. Lenora Clark was working at the bakery too, and dating Carvel Marrs. This is where Vaughnie met her and fell in love.

One of the projects that Vaughnie worked on at the bakery was a huge cake, commemorating the Abraham Linclon; a train engine that ran on the Alton railroad from Chicago to St. Louis. This cake looked tasty, but was in fact merely icing on barrells!

Mary Emily (Mollie) Marrs, daughter of Dockery Jordon Marrs, was born on 17 May 1875 in Webster Co., Kentucky. She married William (Will) Henry Farmer on 10 Dec 1890 in Dixon, Webster Co., Kentucky.

Izaak Walton was a club park named after the 17th-century English angler-conservationist who wrote the literary classic "The Compleat Angler".

It was built at an abandoned strip coal mine that was filled with water. Every so many years the lake would be drained and cleaned of debris. It had a sand beach, a small water raft and a huge structure built in the lake with a high diving board. On the grounds there was a picnic area, playground sets, an open-air dinning hall and a bathhouse.

Pee Wee and a friend, Mr. Stanfield, built the dinning hall and bathhouse in exchange for a membership to the club. They also built one of the three cabins at Izaak Walton Club lake. The two families alternated time spent at the cabin until Claude finally bought his buddy's share.

The club members stocked the lake with fish. When the lake would freeze over, they would cut trees and position them on the ice. When the ice defrosted, the trees would sink to the bottom and provide "homes" for the fish. Small minnows would school around swimmers and nip at moles on their skin.

Claude would seine the shallows of the lake for minnows for fish bait. Whether it was minnows or worms, Claude almost always caught fish. He used a rod and reel when fishing from a boat, which he conned someone into rowing while he fished! Or with a bamboo pole from the dock.

Emma McClaire Gulley tells a story about visiting the lake at Aunt Nannie's. Emma and Almeta were in the rowboat, with Uncle Claude who was "teaching" her how to row the boat. In the course of the long day she got sunburn all down the front of her. During the night she woke up with a severe burn and blisters and Aunt Nannie poured canned cream all over her. Because it was too painful to sit in a car, they had to get the hearse from town to take Emma back to her house.

Uncle Claude used to tell Emma that he was going to get a bunch of crawdads and let them loose in her bedroom. When she was healing from the sunburn and was itching, she thought he did it and they'd crawled up in her bed.

Janis Cross recalls that Izaac Walton had a lot more critters than just fish! Across the lake, to the right of the cabin was Cotton Silkwood's, the caretaker, house. Janis recalls a time when playing in his backyard, watching a praying mantis catch food and groom herself. One day Claude was hoeing dirt in a cornfield next to Cotton's yard (digging for worms?) and Janis was playing near by, when a Blue Racer snake chased after her. Claude killed it with a hoe. At the beach, Janis stepped on a nest of sand bees and was stung on the bottom of her foot. Another time she stuck her toe in a sand pile that was propping the bathouse door open and a leech attached itself to her big toe.

Small lizards were always seen sunning themselves on the wood walkway from the cabin. Nannie used to warn not to go into the woods because there were lizards as big as logs! Her way of making sure the children didn't wander too far. Or was it?

At a family reunion, Janis recounted a childhood story of catching a pink-fleshed colored creature on a hook while fishing at the dock. It so frightened her that she shook it off the hook and ran away. When Claude heard the tale from his eleven year old "granddaughter", he dimissed the critter as a turtle. Janis was sure that it was not a turtle but never mentioned the incident again. Almeta, listening to the story blanched, and begain to tell a story of her own.

To the right of the cabin was a farm. Almeta recalls that, as a child of about eleven, she saw a pink-fleshed colored creature in the mud banks at the edge of the farm property. Because she was playing in an area that she was told not to, she never mentioned what she had seen. Twenty years later, mother and daughter shared a story of the Monster of Izaak Walton!!!

Cecil Jordon (CJ) Kerrico born to Chirstopher Columbus Kerrico and Sybil Jane Marrs on 6 Jul 1916 in Evansville, Indiana. He died 15 Dec 1986 in Lancaster, California.

Ella Brence (Brencie) McGuire is the daughter of John harry McGuire and Ina Lillian Marrs and the wife of Neal Robinson (Robertson?). She was born around 1916 and recently died on 7 May 2007

Mary Elzada Hammond, widow of Charles Jasper Lafayette Cross, and her second hushand Jefferson Monroe Harrison

Janis Anne, Kenneth Olen, Ogle Olen, Charles Reuben, Mrs.(nee Mary Hammond)Charles Jasper Lafayette Cross

Daughters of Dockery Jordon and Cynthia Barthena McClaire (nee Price) Marrs