His family moved down to Nodaway County, Missouri, when he was about 10 years old, and he is shown living there with them in the 1870 census.  The 1880 census shows him (as “Jasper Venesse”) living with his sister R. J. (Rachel) York and her family in Adair County, Iowa.

I have not found Jasper in the 1900 census.  The next record I have of his whereabouts is a notice in the Stillwater, Oklahoma, Gazette of 22 December 1904, saying that there was an unclaimed letter waiting for him at the Stillwater post office.  That may indicate that he had just moved to Stillwater around then, as it was common practice for people new to a community to have their mail sent to “General Delivery” until they could establish a specific address.

Stillwater is the county seat of Payne County, Oklahoma, and it appears that Jasper spent most of the next 40 years there.  He, or a man by the same name, is shown there in the 1910, 1930, and 1940 censuses.  The ages given are wrong in the 1910 and 1930 censuses, but both show him to have been born in Iowa with both of his parents born in Ohio, so I think this is the correct Jasper VanNess.  The 1940 census seems to have the correct age (84) but the wrong place of birth (Illinois).

Obituary from The Stillwater News- Press (Stillwater, OK), 3 December 1944, Sunday, page 8.)

The 1910 census showed Jasper serving as a hired hand in the household of George Gambill in Perkins Township, but the two later censuses both showed him living at the County Poor Farm.  That is consistent with the information from Jasper’s obituary, shown at right, that he had been at the “County home” since 1927.

As that obituary also shows, Jasper died at the County home on 2 December 1944 and was buried at Fairlawn Cemetery.

Jasper apparently never married.  All census records show him to be single, and no wife is mentioned in his obituary.