In April 1890, Mabel’s youngest sibling and only brother was born in Oxford, after which the family began a series of moves:  to Conway Springs, Kansas, in September 1890; to Winfield, Kansas, in September 1893; to Guthrie, Oklahoma Territory, in the spring of 1894; and finally to Wellston, Lincoln County, Oklahoma Territory, in February 1896.  There, Mabel’s father was murdered, on 2 February 1898.  See the Mary Martin bio page for a description of Isaac Rhine’s murder.

Early in 1899, without much to keep her in Wellston, Mabel’s mother decided to move to Paonia, Delta County, Colorado, and Mabel went with her, along with Mabel’s brother Richard, her sister Alice Rosecrans, and Alice’s husband and daughter.  Several of Mabel’s relatives lived there in Paonia, including three uncles, two aunts, and assorted cousins.  One cousin, in particular, was Crary Martin, the son of Mabel’s uncle Rev. Joseph Martin.  At age 28 (9 years older than Mabel), Crary had already established himself as a gospel preacher, assisting in his father’s campaigns, even though he was not formally ordained.

On 26 December 1899, Mabel married (1) Crary Judson Martin under some peculiar circumstances:

• Although Mabel and Crary both lived in Paonia, Colorado, they traveled more than 700 miles to be married at Omaha, Nebraska, a place where neither of them had any close relatives.
• Scheduling the wedding at that remote location on 26 December meant that neither of them could have been home with their family for Christmas.
• Although both came from very religious families, they were married by a Justice of the Peace in a civil ceremony.
• Crary misstated his mother’s name on the marriage license, calling her “Maggie Williams.”
• Immediately following the wedding, Mabel and Crary traveled on to Sioux City, Iowa — a place where neither of them had any relatives — to begin their married life together.

One reason for the odd circumstances may be the fact that Mabel and Crary were not just cousins but, in fact, double cousins.  Crary’s father, Joseph Martin, was a brother of Mabel’s mother, and his mother, Sarah Margaret Rhine, was the aunt of Mabel’s father.  Hence, they were full first cousins on the Martin side and first cousins once removed on the Rhine side.  Another reason for the wedding arrangements (and, indeed, the whole reason for this clearly inappropriate marriage) became apparent with the birth of Crary and Mabel’s daughter Orpha on 26 April 1900, exactly 4 months after their wedding.

Upon arriving in Sioux City, Crary commenced a series of revival meetings at the Rescue Mission, and he was soon hired to be superintendent of the Mission (a position most likely arranged by his father, who had conducted a campaign at that site 2 years earlier and probably still had friends in the area).  Six months later, Crary and Mabel were interviewed for the 1900 census, in which their listing was thoroughly screwed up.  They are listed as Martin and Mabel Crary, and their daughter Orpha is listed as a 1-month-old boy named Arthur.  The rest of the information there seems to be correct.  The occupation for “Martin Crary” is shown as “Supt. of Mission.”

Crary and Mabel had only two children during the course of their marriage, both born in Sioux City; they were:

• Orpha Mary Martin, 1900–1905.
• Richard Pierce Martin, 1901–1977 (married Belva Harriet Williams).

It’s not clear how long Crary continued to oversee the Rescue Mission, and even how long he and Mabel remained in Sioux City.  Their son Richard was born there on 21 July 1901, but a month after that, Crary was assisting his father in conducting a 10-day revival meeting at Strang, Nebraska.  Crary participated in several evangelistic campaigns over the next few years.  By 1903, newspapers were referring to him as “Rev. C. J. Martin of Winfield, Kansas.”  The exact timing of Crary and Mabel’s move from Sioux City to the Winfield area is unclear.

Rather than living in Winfield itself, Crary and Mabel may actually have settled at the town of Burden, about 10 miles northeast of Winfield.  Mabel’s sister Myrtle Mercer then lived in Burden; her mother and brother Richard also moved there early in 1905; and Mabel and Crary were residing there when their daughter Orpha died, on 3 February 1905.  According to a brief note in the Burden Eagle (9 Feb. 1905, p. 3), Orpha died of membranous croup and was only sick a few days.  She had not previously been sick and was naturally strong and healthy.  She was laid to rest in the Burden Cemetery.

Around the time of Orpha’s death, Mabel’s marriage with Crary was starting to break up.  Crary first tried to get Mabel to sue him for divorce, and she refused (according to what Mabel told The Wichita Eagle several years later, when Crary was involved in a legal battle with his second wife).  Crary eventually went to McCook, Nebraska, and sued Mabel for divorce there.  To do so, he had to swear that he had been a resident of Red Willow County, Nebraska, for more than a year (which seems questionable) and that Mabel had deserted him and had been willfully absent for more than two years (apparently untrue).  According to his suit, the supposed desertion happened “in or about the month of February 1905” — the same month that Orpha died.  The divorce was officially granted on 30 November 1908.

After her separation from Crary, Mabel and her son Richard moved in with her mother, Mary Rhine, on a farm in Pleasant Valley Township of Cowley County, Kansas.  The 1910 and 1920 censuses both show them there, along with Mabel’s brother Isaac Richard Rhine in 1910 but not in 1920.  Pleasant Valley Township covers about 50 square miles south of Winfield, but it appears that Mary Rhine’s farm was located near the eastern edge of the township about 7 miles southeast of Winfield.  The Winfield newspapers include dozens of mentions of Mabel entertaining guests or visiting with friends, in which she is variously identified as Mrs. Mabel Martin of Center Point, or of Redd Valley, or of Liberty.  I have not clearly identified the location of Center Point, but Redd Valley is shown on Google maps along County Highway 20 about a mile east of the Walnut River (map coordinates 37°09'33"N, 96°55'28"W).  This is just a half-mile from the border of Pleasant Valley Township with Liberty Township, which may explain why Mabel is sometimes described as being “of Liberty.”

While living in this place, Mabel engaged in various activities, as reported in the Winfield newspapers.  In 1909, she was elected Treasurer of the local chapter of the Y. P. C. E. (Young People’s Christian Endeavor Society), and the following year, she served as Assistant Secretary for the same organization.  In 1916, she and her mother were both active in the Ladies’ Aid Society at the Methodist Church.

In February 1918, Mabel engaged briefly with a bit of history she might have hoped to leave behind.  She was contacted by Lillie Martin, of Wichita, Kansas, who was Crary’s second wife.  Lillie was suing Crary (who, by then, was known as “Clarence”) for child abandonment.  She asked Mabel to come to Wichita and testify against Crary.  Mabel not only agreed to that but she took 16-year-old Richard with her, to add his insights about what it’s been like, growing up without a father.  The hearing made quite a splash in the Wichita press, but the Winfield papers mentioned only that Mabel had “visited with friends in Wichita” and that Richard had been out of school for a couple of days.

In May of 1918, in the midst of World War I, Mabel helped to organize a Red Cross auxiliary in Winfield, and was named secretary of the group.  It’s hard to say, but it could be that the work this group did with wounded war veterans is what got Mabel interested in nursing.  Sometime in 1920, she and her son Richard left her mother’s farm and moved into Winfield, where Mabel had signed up for nurses’ training at the Winfield hospital.  She made nursing her profession for the next six years.

On 5 December 1926, Mabel married (2) Charles Henry Eastman at Winfield.  A rumor in the family is that Charles had been a patient of hers at the hospital, and that is how they met.  I wonder, though, if they actually met while Mabel was providing care for Charles’s first wife, Nancy Eastman, who died in Winfield on 26 May 1926.

Charles Eastman was born in Union, Tolland County, Connecticut on 4 December 1850, the son of Laburtis Darwin Eastman and Harriet (Corbin) Eastman.  As he was growing, he had moved with his family to Massachusetts, to Indiana, and later to Eldora, Hardin County, Iowa.  There he had married Nancy Jane Leply on Christmas Day, 1872.  Charles and Nancy moved to Cowley County, near Winfield, in 1876.  Charles homesteaded some land there, became a successful cattle rancher, and also owned and invested in oil wells in the area.  Charles and Nancy had nine children together.

In 1925, Charles had purchased land in Hidalgo County, Texas, near McAllen, and he planted citrus groves and established a second home there (while keeping his property in Kansas).  He and Mabel moved there shortly after their marriage, and made that their primary home for the rest of their days.  Mabel, of course, traveled back to Kansas from time to time, such as when her mother died in January 1930.

Charles died in McAllen on 3 January 1935.  McAllen newspapers printed at least three obituaries for him, including a long one written by “a friend of the family,” who may not have been much of a friend of Mabel’s, as that obituary makes no mention of her.  Charles’s body was returned to Kansas, where he was buried next to his first wife, at Wilmot (about 10 miles northeast of Winfield).

Following her 8-year marriage to Charles, Mabel lived on in the McAllen area another 28 years.  Charles, apparently, had left her sufficient resources to live comfortably through this period.  I have seen no indication that she ever went back to nursing or any other outside employment.  The 1940 census lists no occupation for her, though the 1950 census identifies her occupations as farming and investing.

Mabel was active in community activities in McAllen, both before and after Charles’s death.  The local newspapers carried many reports of her participating and taking leadership roles in the McAllen Rebekah Lodge, the WCTU, the Royal Neighbors Club, the Truth Seekers Sunday School Class, and various “circles” of the Women’s Society of the First Methodist Church.  She was most devoted, though, to the Hoit Hammond Home Demonstration Club, which she joined in 1929 and continued attending regularly until at least 1958.  Another regular attendee, beginning in 1934, was “Mrs. Richard Martin” — Mabel’s daughter-in-law Belva.  Mabel served three terms as president of the club, in 1940, 1943, and 1947.

In January 1959, Mabel was listed as a member of the club’s Citizenship committee, but I’ve seen no reports that she actually attended any meetings that year.  She was reportedly hospitalized that same month, and the next report I find of her shows that she was in the Pharr Convalescent Home (in Pharr, Texas, adjacent to McAllen) as of June 1961.  The report gives no indication of how long she had been there.

Mabel passed away at the Pharr Convalescent Home on 20 April 1963.  The only cause stated on her death certificate was “Infirmity due to age.”  The Monitor printed a brief obituary, which is reproduced below, and her body was returned to Burden, Kansas, for burial near her daughter Orpha.

If you can suggest any corrections to the information above or provide any further details about the lives of Mabel and her descendants, please contact me at the address shown in the image below:

Thanks,      
     —Pete Martin

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