Chasing History: Exploring My Ancestral Roots - Blog Post #47
By Tonya McQuade
Over the last six weeks in my blog posts, I have described the wedding and adventurous honeymoon my great-grandparents Frank and Nora Traughber enjoyed in August and September of 1905. I started by describing their wedding in San Jose at the Petree House, then moved on to their honeymoon adventures in Del Monte (Monterey), Pacific Grove, and Santa Cruz (Part I); Catalina Island (Part II); San Francisco (Part III), the Pacific Northwest (Part IV), and finally Yellowstone National Park (Part V).
They also visited Missoula, Montana, and Salt Lake City, Utah. However, since I have no photos or details from those stops, I have decided to skip ahead to their ultimate destination: Mexico, Missouri, where they planned to begin their married life together. That is where their photo album next picks up. Frank and Nora arrived in Mexico in mid-September of 1905 after their four-week honeymoon trek. What stories they must have had to tell!
Wedding Announcement in the Mexico Weekly Ledger, dated 15 July 1905
As seen above, the local newspaper announced their wedding in July since Frank - aka. Dr. W. F. Traughber - already had an established medical practice and residence in town. He had traveled to California for the wedding, there to join Nora who had been living in the Bay Area since she had been attending (and recently graduated from) Stanford University. The journey to Mexico was a return trip for him, to a place with which he was familiar, but this was to be a new life for Nora. I wonder how she felt about the move after experiencing life in California.
Since Mexico is just fourteen miles from Centralia and offered more hotel selections, Mike and I stayed there for two nights during our recent visit to Missouri since I had two book talks scheduled in Centralia. I was anxious to visit the history museums in both cities since we had not been able to see either on our earlier visit to the area. So, our first stop in Mexico was at the Audrain County Historical Society/Graceland Museum Complex. We arrived just in time for a tour of the Graceland Mansion, which now houses the historical society. Below is a page from the scrapbook I have been working on for our trip.
The house was built in 1857 by John P. Clark, who lived in the house until 1867. He then sold it to Colby T. Quisenberry, who renamed it “Graceland.” In was Quinsenberry who brought purebred saddle horses to Mexico (more on that later). In 1874, Quisenberry sold the house to James E. Ross, whose family lived in it for the next half century. It was the Ross family who owned the house in 1905 when Frank and Nora were in Mexico, though James Ross died in 1900. As described on the museum website, the house is a two-story, frame dwelling with Italianate style decorative features, topped by a hipped roof with widow's walk and featuring an imposing Classical Revival style two-story front portico.
Graceland Mansion, aka. the Ross House
The original owner, Clark, hosted Colonel Ulysses S. Grant for dinner on several occasions when Grant was stationed in Mexico. I'll be writing more about Mexico's Civil War connections in a post for the Emerging Civil War website. That, however, was long before Frank and Nora lived there.
Mexico, as explained on the sign below, “was laid out by Robert C. Mansfield and James H. Smith not long before Audrain County was organized, 1836. Named for legislator James H. Audrain and settled mainly by Southerners, the county lies in the Little Dixie Region of Missouri.” The city is “internationally known for its firebrick industry and famed for its saddle horses,” and we learned more about both of these at the museum.
Sign describing Mexico’s history in front of the Audrain County Historical Society
Back side of the informational sign about Mexico
As explained on the back side of the sign, Mexico is “a commercial and industrial hub, served by 3 railroads … [and] lies in the glacial plains region of Missouri, a highly fertile area of rich grain and livestock farms…. In the Civil War, Mexico, mainly Southern in sympathy, was early occupied by Union troops. U.S. Grant, while stationed here, July 1861, learned of his commission as a general.”
While no battles occurred in Mexico during the war, such was not the case in nearby Centralia. I already wrote about the Centralia Massacre and the Battle of Centralia in previous blog posts, including my Traughber and Bryson family connections. Both the massacre and battle also come up in my book A State Divided: The Civil War Letters of James Calaway Hale and Benjamin Petree of Andrew County, Missouri – which includes a letter from Hale saying he had a “lucky escape” by not getting the furlough he had requested, or he would have been on the massacred train. That’s a key reason Centralia was on the line-up for my Book Tour.
At the museum, we viewed photos of more early buildings that Frank and Nora likely saw in Mexico (shown above), and learned more about the Saddlebred Horses that played a large role in Mexico’s history (shown below). According to the book Images in America: Mexico (2010), by Vicki Berger Erwin, "Mexico was home not only to great horses, but to great trainers as well. The door to George and Will Lee's Lee Brother Stable on Western Boulevard is said to have had more champion show horses (and trainers) pass through it than any other barn in the country." The stables were eventually purchased by Art Simmons, who had a 60-year career in horses, and became known as Simmons Stables.
I know from their honeymoon photos that Frank and Nora enjoyed riding horses, as they rode them in both Seattle’s Washington Park and at Yellowstone National Park. So, perhaps they enjoyed riding in Mexico – or, perhaps they enjoyed watching the horse competitions that were a popular attraction. The American Saddlebred Horse Museum is another part of the Graceland Museum Complex. Mexico was once noted as the Saddlebred Horse Capital of the World. Museum exhibits include an extensive range of equestrian memorabilia as well as displays about Tom Bass (a famous black horseman), Art Simmons (a local trainer), the Callaway Hills stallion Will Shriver, and more.
While I cannot be sure whether Frank and Nora had anything to do with saddlebred horses, I do know that after graduating from A.T. Still University’s College of Osteopathy in Kirksville, Missouri (see Blog Post #3), Frank set up his medical office and residence at 120 W. Promenade in downtown Mexico. So, why not return to Centralia, where most of his family lived? Mostly likely due to his potential clientele - Mexico’s population was significantly larger than Centralia’s at the time he was starting his medical practice – 5,099 vs. 1,722 (according to the 1900 Census). He must have been successful, for by 1903, he was serving as president of the Missouri Association of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons.
My father's printing appears on this photo, with identifying info about Dr. T
In the above photo, you can see “Doctor Traughber - Osteopath” written on the side of the building. I’m not sure who the two women and the four children are in the photo, but that’s Dr. Traughber standing on the right. He had three older and two younger sisters living in the area, as well as quite a few nieces and nephews, so it is likely some of them can be seen here. Mike and I went looking for the office, but all we could see at that address was a warehouse and an area under construction. It looks like his office building no longer exists, but across the street many old buildings do still exist, so it's likely his office/residence looked something like the ones seen in this photo.
Older buildings in downtown Mexico, near where Dr. Traughber’s office was located
From the photos in their album, it is clear Frank and Nora spent time visiting the Centralia relatives. One sad event I noticed in looking more closely at the Traughber family tree is that Frank’s brother Leslie died in November 1905 - just two months after he and Nora arrived in Mexico. Perhaps the woman in black in the office photo above is Leslie’s wife, Blanche. His death likely contributed to Frank and Nora’s decision to name their first son, born in July 1906, Francis “Frank” Leslie Traughber. Interestingly, Leslie and Blanche named one of their daughters (born in 1903) Nora - perhaps their future sister-in-law had already won their hearts! Little Nora may be one of the small girls sitting on the right in the office photo, and perhaps her brother Lowell (born in 1898) is seated second from the left.
The album page at the top of this post includes photos of Frank’s parents (my great-great grandparents), as well as his sisters, though I don’t see any of his brothers or brothers-in-law. Some of the photos can be viewed more closer up below. I especially like the one of Frank and his mother. Frank’s siblings included:
Sisters:
- Stella Lee Traughber (1869-1919) + William A. Johnson
- Hattie Belle Traughber (1870-1941) + John Lewis Skaggs
- Elizabeth “Lizzie” Traughber (1873-1943)
- Ida Lou Traughber (1880-1969)
- Myrtle Francis “Fannie” Traughber (1882-1981) + Dr. Charles William Bryson
Brothers:
- Leslie Bryson Traughber (1877-1905) + Lola Blanche Rowland
- Charles Weaver “Carl” Traughber (1886-1965) + Georgia Alice Powell
- George Burnett “Bernie” Traughber (1889-1966) + Hallie Glenn McCabe
My great-great grandparents, Francis Marion Traughber (1848-1931)
and Mariah “Marnie” Agnes Bryson Traughber (1849-1927)
Frank with his mother in front of the Hathaway Seed & Produce Co.
Nora (on the right) showing a book to one of the Traughber sisters
The two of them smiling for the camera
A group of the Traughber women (Nora is seated second from left)
While in Mexico, I also learned that Frank sometimes helped out his father at the Centralia Mill, which his father partially owned. I found the following photo of father and son in a book titled History of Centralia, Missouri, written by Edgar T. Rodemyre and published in 1936. It said the photo was taken about thirty years earlier.
A page from the 1936 book History of Centralia, Missouri
That seems, though, like a story for another day - not really related to this series on Frank and Nora's historic honeymoon trek. In a future post, I will share more of what I learned during our recent visit about the Traughbers' lives in Centralia. In the meantime, thanks for following along on their amazing adventure!
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