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Biography
Michigan
Mary was born on August 30th, 1947. She was the daughter of Jeremiah Decker Peters and Mary Ann (Chapman) Peters, probably in Ash Township, Monroe County, Michigan. Jeremiah died before Mary was a year old. On her second birthday, her mother was married to Royal Laroy Potter, who then raised Mary as his own daughter. They had a large farm with a fine country home, which is where Mary grew up. (See photo.) She had a half-brother, Elmer Potter, and an adopted sister, Martha Smith. In September of 1862 her step-father Royal joined the union army, and...
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Biography
Michigan
Mary was born on August 30th, 1947. She was the daughter of Jeremiah Decker Peters and Mary Ann (Chapman) Peters, probably in Ash Township, Monroe County, Michigan. Jeremiah died before Mary was a year old. On her second birthday, her mother was married to Royal Laroy Potter, who then raised Mary as his own daughter. They had a large farm with a fine country home, which is where Mary grew up. (See photo.) She had a half-brother, Elmer Potter, and an adopted sister, Martha Smith. In September of 1862 her step-father Royal joined the union army, and he died that January. Mary lived in the country home with her widowed mother and younger siblings.
On March 10, 1869, Mary was married in the Potter country home to Charles A. McMillen. (See her photo.) They evidently moved to nearby Berlin township, where on July 13, 1870, Mary gave birth to a daughter, Lora E. McMillan.
That marriage ended, and sometime before 1880 Mary married Henry Hudson Drake. Henry had come to Berlin from Missouri, where his first wife had died late in 1872, leaving him with a 6-month old son and two daughters. Given his need for a wife and mother, they might have married as early as 1873. The 1880 census shows them living in Berlin Township, Monroe County, Michigan, with Mary’s daughter Lora and Henry’s three children. But around 1881, Mary’s marriage to Henry Hudson ended, without having children. Henry moved to Texas with the children of his first wife and never remarried. Mary moved to Ohio.
Ohio
In 1882, Mary and her half-brother Elmer Potter, MD, opened a clinic and drug store in Sherwood, Ohio. At that time in history, most physicians learned their trade in part or whole through apprenticeship to an experienced physician, and Elmer seems to have mentored Mary in the practice of medicine. She read also read medical books for a year. Then on August 31, 1883, one day after her 36th birthday, she enrolled at Eclectic Medical Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio. Also enrolling at that time was Gettis E. Starner, age 27. They both graduated in the summer of 1885, and on June 2, 1885, they were married, in Butler County, Ohio, by B. F. Dimmick. At the same time, Mary sold her brother her half of their joint practice in Sherwood, Ohio, presumably because Mary was going to practice medicine with her husband. Polk’s Medical and Surgical Directory for 1886 lists Mary and Gettis working as physicians in Fremont, Sandusky Co, Ohio. But it seems they separated that same year; the Ohio Dept. of Health’s annual Report for the year ending October 31, 1886, lists “Dr. Mary Starner, Fremont, Sandusky County” and “Dr. G. Starner, Blakeslee, Williams County.” The next year Gettis Starner set up practice in Dunkirk, Ohio, where he remarried, and Mary moved with her daughter Lora to Kansas.
Kansas
Mary is listed in the 1887 Topeka city directory as a practicing physician, so she must have moved there in 1886. She’s also mentioned in the Topeka Daily Capital on April 13, 1887. But soon afterwards she moved to the frontier town of Wano, in Cheyenne County, Kansas, in the northwest corner of the state. She posted a classified ad there on March 16, 1888, selling the mules, harness, and wagon she no doubt used to travel there. The ad gives her address at section 4 of township 3S R41W. Evidently the section had been claimed by members of the Joseph Murphy family, and then later she bought the claim for S½NE¼ of the section. (She was granted patent to this land on Sept 9, 1896, along with two adjoining lots.) In 1888, soon after she arrived in Cheyenne County, she registered as an eclectic physician. On March 23, 1888, she posted the first add of her medical services in the Cheyenne County Rustler:
....Dr. Mary Starner
....Section 4, Town 3, Range 41
....Three-quarters mile east of J. J. Armstrong.
....Professional calls attended day or night.
At this time there were only three other physicians in the whole county.
When the railroad was built nearby, the people of Wano built a new town beside the railroad, called “St. Francis,” and the townspeople moved there in 1889. On Jan 8, 1890, Mary’s daughter Lora McMillan was married in Mary’s home to a retail merchant named Peter Kreuscher. They lived the rest of their lives in Saint Francis.
On July 3rd, 1890, Mary was married at her home to Rev. Benjamin Franklin Williams. This was even noted in The Medical Gleaner, Vol. 2, p. 29. Benjamin had been born on Nov 27, 1836, in Hancock, Illinois, and subsequently lived in Missouri. He had four children by his first wife, but they were grown. His second wife had died the year before, in 1889, when they were living in Missouri, and Benjamin had moved away to this far corner of Kansas. He was first mentioned in a St. Francis newspaper in January of 1890, seven months before the wedding. After the wedding, he is mentioned as preaching various places, accompanied by his wife. In September the newspaper reported the couple together “have been holding meetings nightly the past two weeks at the Mt. Zion school house.” Rev Williams itinerated his preaching among different schools. In January of 1891, Benjamin was granted a pension as a (now) disabled veteran of the Civil War. On June 5, 1891, Mary gave birth in St. Francis to their son, named Carl Decker Williams. His middle name is that of Mary’s birth father, Jeremiah Decker Peters.
On November 23, 1892, Mary’s daughter Lora gave birth to a son as well, Dale Chapman Kreuscher. His middle name ‘Chapman’ is the maiden name of Mary’s mother, Mary Ann Burnap, who by this time had been widowed three times and was married to her fourth husband.
In November of 1893, Mary Williams ran for county coroner on the Peoples Party ticket, but evidently lost the election.
In April of 1894, Mary was one of forty founding members of a Knights of Columbia Lodge. The next month she began advertising her services as “Physician and Surgeon.” The next month she and her husband appear in the newspaper as some of the organizers of a two-day county conference on the woman’s suffrage amendment. (Suffrage was not passed in Kansas until 1912, and in the US in 1920.)
Mary’s last ad for her services was in October of 1894. Sometime after that she took her son Carl and went to Milan, Michigan, to be with her mother. The 1895 Kansas State census records the whole family residing in St Francis as of March 1, but that does not mean that Mary was physically present. In September, the Populist Party nominates her again for Cheyenne County, and the newspaper notes that they did so while she was still away. Evidently she came back soon after that, because from October 3, 1895, her name was regularly mentioned as president of the local Women's Relief Corps, and on October 10 the county commissioners reimbursed her for treating a poor family.
On September 9, 1896, Mary Williams received a patent for her homestead. It notes she was formerly Mary Starner, which suggests she made the initial homestead claim before she was married in 1890.
According to the newspaper, on June 28, 1897, Mary left St. Francis again for a two-month visit to her friends and family in Milan, MI. The Relief Corps continued to list Mary as their president until March, 1898, but which time Mary must have notified them that she was not returning. She did, however, visit her daughter there in 1910, and perhaps at other times as well. As for her husband Rev Benjamin Williams, after Mary left town, he visited his brother in Philips County, KS, and was mentioned in the newspaper in May simply to say he had returned from there. He then returned to Kirksville, Missouri, where he had lived previously, as shown by his presence there in the 1900 census. He did not come back to St. Francis except to do a preaching tour in the Spiring of 1901. The last mention of him in any St. Francis newspaper was on May 30, 1901.
Michigan
In the spring of 1895 Mary and her son Carl left St. Francis to be with her mother in Milan, Michigan. A studio photograph was made of her dated June 16, 1895. (see photos). Mary returned to Kansas in October. Then on June 28, 1897, she came again to her mother in Milan. This visit might have been at the request of her mother, whose husband Job was seriously ill, as was her son-in-law Oscar Newcomb. On July 2, 1897, the Ann Arbor Angu noted that Mary was “the guest of her mother Mrs. Burnap for a few weeks.” Then on July 2nd, her step-father Job passed away. Eventually Mary decided to stay in Milan with her mother. By January of 1898 she was operating a medical practice in her mother’s home on Hurd Street. Her practice increased, and in October she moved it to offices on Main Street in Milan. She took up residence in a separate cottage, while her adopted sister Mattie and Mattie’s ailing husband Oscar moved in with her mother. In 1899, Mary’s half-brother Elmer Potter moved back to Michigan with his family and took up residence with his father’s homestead, which was not far from Milan. The 1900 US census reports Mary working in Milan as a physician, as do the newspapers and the 1902 Polk's Medical Register and Directory. Mary’s ailing brother-in-law Oscar died on September 7, 1902, and sometime after November, Mary and her son Carl left Milan.
After 1902, editions of Polk’s Medical Register make no mention of Mary, nor do any city directories list her as a physician, so it appears she retired, at age 55. It’s possible that her brother Elmer bought her share of the Royal Potter homestead, providing her with additional funds.
Missouri
During this period Mary’s husband Benjamin Williams moved from Kansas back to Kirksville, in Adair County, Missouri, where the 1900 census reports he was working as a minister. Mary evidently reconciled with him, because the 1908-09 Kirksville directory shows that they and their son Carl were living together in Kirksville at 508 South Ely. It describes Benjamin as a clergyman, and Carl as a student, but no profession is mentioned for Mary. The 1910 census is similar, except that Carl is listed as a laborer, although afterwards he may have joined the army for four years. The local history society has found no record that Mary worked there as a physician.
Missouri
During this period Benjamin Williams moved from Kansas back to Kirksville, in Adair County, Missouri, where the 1900 census reports he was working as a minister. Mary evidently reconciled with him, because the 1908-09 Kirksville directory shows that they and their son Carl were living together in Kirksville at 508 South Ely. It describes Benjamin as a clergyman, and Carl as a student, but no profession is mentioned for Mary. The 1910 census is similar, except that Carl is listed as a laborer, although afterwards he joined the army for four years. Kirksville newspapers and records provide no evidence that Mary worked there as a physician.
Colorado
In 1914 the family moved to the Kirk district of southern Yuma County, Colorado. On October 2, 1914, Benjamin applied for residence in the Homelake Veterans’ Home in Monte Vista, Colorado. At that time he gave Kirk as his address and reported that his wife Mary and their son Carl were living there. He was admitted to Homelake a year later, on November 1, 1915, shortly before he turned 79. On June 5, 1917, their son Carl registered for the draft at Yuma, as a single man, but later that year he married a woman named Mary Belle Gimer, born 1889 in Missouri. She was previously married in 1908 to Hugh Hamblin and had a daughter named Lila Agnes Hamblin. The records at Homelake show that in March, 1921, Carl was living in Otis, Colorado, which is not far from Kirk.
Kansas
In 1919 Mary applied for admission to the Homelake Women’s Cottage so she could help care for her aging husband, who was 83. But Benjamin moved to the Sawtelle Veterans’ Home in Los Angeles and also spent some time in the home of his daughter Mary Howell in Patterson, Iowa. So Mary moved back to St. Francis, Kansas, where she lived in a house near her daughter Lora and family. Homelake records show she was still living in St. Francis in 1921. In 1923 her son-in-law Peter Kreuscher died in St. Francis, presumably while Mary was living there.
Colorado
Benjamin’s mental abilities were declining, and on July 9, 1924, he was readmitted to Homelake Veteran’s Home in Monte Vista, Colorado. On September 10, 1924, Mary was admitted as well, presumably to the Women’s Cottage so she could help care for Benjamin. She was only the fourth wife ever admitted to the home. Perhaps it counted in her favor that she was a physician. In 1925 Benjamin was ruled to be legally incompetent, and his affairs were put under the authority of a conservator. A further blow came in January, 1926, when Mary's daughter Lora died while visiting in Boulder, Colorado. Lora’s son, Dale Chapman Kreuscher, was living in Nebraska with his family, and Mary’s own son, Carl Decker Williams, had moved to California, so Mary was left practically alone.
In the summer of 1927 Mary took a furlough from the Home to visit friends in St. Francis, Kansas. On the way back, while visiting friends in Joes, near Kirk in Yuma County, Colorado, she took ill, and she died there on August 11, 1927. Her body was taken back to St. Francis, where services were held and where she was buried, near the grave of her daughter Lora. There is no marker on her grave.
Lora’s one child, Dale Chapman Kreuscher, married Lillian “Lillie” Mina Damkroger. They had three children: Paul, William, and Verna, all of whom died without issue. The last was Verna Jean (Kreuscher) Erickson, who died April 19, 2014, in Omaha, Nebraska.
Benjamin died October 22, 1929, and was buried in the Colorado State Soldiers & Sailors Cemetery in Monte Vista. Curiously, notice of his death made the front page of the Monte Vista Tribune on October 24, saying that “Williams was well known here because he had held many religious services on the streets of Monte Vista.”
Sometime before 1929 Carl and his wife Mary Belle and her daughter Lila Agnes Hamblin moved to Los Angeles, to the suburb of Artesia. Around 1929 Lila was married to Nova Aten, and they lived in Norwalk, Los Angeles. The next year they had a daughter, Lila Marie Aten, but the marriage ended, and the girl was raised by her grandparents, Carl and Mary Belle Williams, in Downey, Los Angeles. Carl died there in 1948. In 1953, their granddaughter Lila Marie Aten was married to Roy W Sandage in Los Angeles, and they set up home in Florida.
Note from Memoirs of Doctor Lucille Carman-Stephenson, by the same, (W.D. Ellis, 1993), page 4:
Cheyenne County has enjoyed the services of many good and devoted doctors. Until about 1900, most doctors came to the area to homestead. Some ran drugstores. All compounded medicines. Two women were among the much-loved doctors with long tenures. Dr. Mary Starner homesteaded, in 1887, four miles northwest of St. Francis. She lived alone and went by horseback, buggy, wagon, or sleigh, "night or day" to tend the sick or injured. In 1890, at age 42, Dr. Starner married Ben Williams and moved her practice into St. Francis. Later she practiced at Monte Vista, Colorado.
From the article “Williams, Dr. Mary Starner” in The History of Cheyenne County, Kansas, by the Cheyenne County Historical Society (Dallas, TX: Curtis Media Corp, 1987), pp. 86, 703–704:
The Cheyenne County Rustler of 17 Jun 1887 and of 20 Jan 1888 each carried a front page ad reading, “Dr. Mary Starner - Sec.4-3-41, three-quarter miles east of J.J. Armstrong. Professional calls attended day or night.”
Dr. Mary was the mother of Mrs. Pete (Laura) Kreuscher, who lived in St. Francis. Dr. Mary lived alone on the quarter Sec. 4-3-41, where she was homesteading about four miles northwest of St. Francis. The doctor made calls night or day, often going alone by horseback, or by wagon — sometimes by buggy or sleigh.
Dr. Mary ran for coroner and for health officer several times but was wont to suffer defeat.
The 4 Apr 1889 Cheyenne County Rustler states that “Dr. Starner has leased the building of Mr. Anderson just across the street from the Rustler office, and will be prepared in a few days to hold her office in the same place at least a portion of the time of each week.” The Cheyenne County Rustler frequently carried her ads, and on October 31, 1889, it carried a news item saying, “Dr. Starner is preparing to move to town, and has leased the Penland building in the north part of town, where she will hereafter have her office and residence.”
Wano Woman's Relief Corps, an auxiliary of the G.A.R. was instituted on April 5, 1890 … the Senior Vice President was Dr. Mary Starner. The object of this group was a noble one — one of fraternity, charity and loyalty. [from p. 86]
The book, Index of Marriages, in the office of the Clerk of District Court of Cheyenne County page 83 #166 reads: "Starner, Dr. Mary, age 42, Williams, Benjamin F. age 52, married July 3, 1890 at St. Francis, KS by H.H. Avery, Pastor of Congregational Church." A news item in the McDonald Times of 17 July 1890 states that Williams and Starner were married at the home of the bride in St. Francis, KS and also "The groom is credited with being a Rawlins County man, but we cannot learn what quarter he hails from."
The People's Defender of 10 May 1894 carried the ad, "Dr. Mary Williams, Physician and Surgeon calls answered promptly. Office and residence, two blocks north of Armstrong's store, St. Francis, KS."
At the time of her death she lived at Monte Vista, CO. In 1927 Dr. Mary was in St. Francis visiting relatives and friends. The Raths, Mansons, and Kreuschers are among her relatives. On her way home to Monte Vista, she took sick at the home of friends at Joes, CO where she died 11 Aug 1927. Her services were held at St. Francis, KS where she is buried. |
