As many folks may know, I have a deep affection for unusual names. The person at the center of today’s post possesses my all-time favorite unusual name - beating out the likes of “Gladimere Schreck” and “Thor Glyde Day” for the honor.
But before we get to our honoree, some background:
Frances Campbell was born on 30 March 1842. She was the fourth of five children born to Henry Campbell and Ann Callin. Ann was a granddaughter of James Callin, the Revolutionary War soldier, and she was one of fifteen Callin cousins who grew up on the farm settled by James’s two sons in Milton Township, Richland County, Ohio. According to the Callin Family History, Henry and Ann were married on 20 August 1833.
Frances had two older brothers, Cyrus and Harrison, and an older sister, Elizabeth. They had a younger sister named Cornelia, who was born on 13 October 1843 and died on 13 March 1849, at only 5 and a half years of age. The surviving siblings grew up in Ashland County, Ohio on their parents’ farm.
When the Civil War broke out, both Campbell brothers enlisted. Harrison enlisted on 15 September 1861 in the 59th New York Infantry, and he likely fought in the Battle of Antietam the following year. Cyrus is listed in two Missouri Cavalry units, Berry’s Battalion, and the Cass County Home Guard, both of which fought for the Union.
Early in the war, on 20 February 1862, Frances married John B Hoot, a harness maker in Ashland. John enlisted in the 196th Ohio Volunteer Infantry near the end of the war, serving six months beginning on 27 February 1865, likely serving garrison duty in Baltimore and Fort Delaware. Gen. Lee surrendered at Appomattox on 9 April of that year, and the hostilities ended on 6 November, with the surrender of the CSS Shenandoah. Coincidentally, John’s sister, Catherine Hoot, married Frances’s brother Harrison on 9 November 1865.
Frances and John named their eldest child Agnes Cornelia, likely in honor of the little sister Frances lost when she was young. Agnes was born in 1863 before John went away to war; their second child, Ida, was born in August 1865, about a month before he returned home. Their third child was a son, Byron, followed by three more girls: Clara, Hattie, and Abbey.
At last, on 2 June 1877, a sixth daughter was born, and John and Frances gave her a name that defied the ordinary and stands as an inspiration for parents seeking unique names:
Zelpha L. Hoot
The Hoot family lived in Nankin, in the southern part of Orange Township, Ashland County. Zelpha’s father was a successful saddler, and he and Frances had one more child, Walton Wesley Hoot, in 1879. The eight Hoot children grew up in Nankin, but John eventually retired from the harness-making trade and after 1890, moved to Mount Vernon in Knox County to run a boarding house.
Zelpha was 23 years old in 1900, and I suspect that is about when this photograph was taken. She would have finished school by then, and while the census did not record an occupation for her, other girls her age have been recorded working outside the home.
Zelpha married William Crawford Welch on 31 October 1900 and moved with him to Columbus. William was born in 1875 in Pennsylvania, and he worked as a brakeman and a fireman for the railroad. They had two daughters in Columbus: Leota, born in 1906, and Frances Dana, named for Zelpha’s mother and born in 1909. William died on 10 September 1917, and Zelpha found work as a dressmaker and as a bookkeeper to support her daughters.
On 4 March 1924, Zelpha married Edward L. Kraner in Columbus. Edward was a widower whose first wife had died in 1911. He and Zelpha were only married for a few years, and by April of 1930, Zelpha was divorced from him and living in San Diego, California, with Frances. This may have been related to legal and financial troubles. In September of that year, the Columbus Mutual Life Insurance Company sued several defendants, including Edward and Zelpha, in a case involving a mortgage on a property in Columbus claiming the defendants owed taxes and assessments. According to an item in the Mansfield News Journal1, the plaintiff asked:
…that in the event of a sale that in execution on the judgment a commanding officer cause the money to be made out of goods, chattels, rents, etc., and that the property of Edward and Zelpha Kraner, be exhausted before any of the property answering defendants be taken on execution.
Zelpha’s elder daughter, Leota, married Walter William Roseberry (1904–1990) in 1928, and they raised their son, Kenneth William Roseberry (1932–1991), in Columbus. By 1933, Zelpha and Frances had returned to Columbus, where they lived in Leota’s home at 50 Wisconsin Avenue. Zelpha worked as a nurse, and later, as a dressmaker; Frances found work as a clerk. They remained there until 1940, but by 1942, Frances was married to Roy D Gilmore, and Zelpha resided with them in San Diego.
Zelpha L (Hoot) Kraner died on 12 August 1951 in San Diego, California, and was interred at Cypress View Mausoleum and Crematory. Roy Gilmore died in 1957, and after that, Frances moved back to Columbus, where she died in 1963.
Zelpha’s only grandchild, Ken Roseberry, had one daughter (still living) who also had one daughter (still living) - which means that Zelpha’s great-great grandchild’s closest cousins from the Hoot family would be 3rd or 4th cousins, at best.
Connections that distant can feel like they don’t count for much - and yet, they are connections. After so many generations, Zelpha’s descendants are just as much a part of James Callin’s legacy as I am. We don’t need to share a name for that to be true.
News Journal, Mansfield, Ohio; Wed, Sep 3, 1930, Page 6,