The Blossom Family page 2
The following information about William Blossom and his family was provided by Bessie Edmiston, one of his great-granddaughters. The original author is not known, but the names and dates are taken exactly as written. "William married Nancy Johnson in 1853. We know very little about her, except that census records report her as having been born in Canada. Information about his civil war service is on the white family history page. He was in Florida when the war ended. This is where he met his second wife. It is said that William went home to Ohio, drove a horse and buggy to Florida, got married and brought her back to Ohio. Margaret died in about 1874, and he married his third wife, Matilda "Tillie" Kendel McBride(wife of Ezra McBride)
William Blossom Jr. was born in 1858 and lived in the area of West Elkton, Ohio. On May 12, 1878, he married Clara May Stubbs. Shortly after they moved to Kansas where they joined Clara's sister, Adaline Stanley and her husband, Daniel, and his father, Thomas, who ran a mission for the Osage Indians before Kansas was a state or territory. They stayed at the Stanley Mission, located near present day Dunlap until they found land to farm. William and Clara were quiet people and farmed all their lives. They were well read and hard working citizens. A month or two after the Oklahoma land rush, William and a neighbor took a team and wagon over the prairie into the central Oklahoma area which had been newly settled to see if they could run across a bargain. They found much land for sale or trade, but none appeared to be any better than what they already had, so they made no attempt to acquire any. On one occasion, a settler was so anxious to leave the territory, he offered his 160 acre claim in return for the shotgun William carried with him in the wagon to shoot prairie chickens. After four of his children had settled on their homesteads in northern Minnesota, he and Clara rented their farm in Kansas and went north themselves just to see how the kids were doing. They sold outright after the First World War, when prices were high and returned to their farm in Kansas.
Gladys Marie Blossom was the 10th child of Clara and William and married Victor Otto White on April 14th, 1915 and Victor's brother John, near Americus, Kansas.
