MRS. BIDDLE, DO YOU KNOW THE DECEASED?

~ MARY ELIZABETH STONE HUMPHREY BIDDLE ~

I first ran into Mrs. Biddle on her way to a funeral.  The newspaper report of young Rolland Humphrey Stevens' death in 1903 ended with the following:  "Mrs. Biddle of Carbondale, George Stephens of Ashton, OT, and A. H. Stephens of Kansas City arrived in the city yesterday to attend the funeral, which will be held today [Nov 1, 1903] at 3:30 o'clock from the family residence."

Roll, as he was called, was only 17 and had just started on his first job out of Business School - a "Train Butch" who walked through the cars while the train was chugging to its destination, selling travelers food or snacks, newspapers, books or whatever he carried that trip to make train travel a little more comfortable.  It was his first - and only trip - as there was an accident in Cimarron, Kansas, and he was one of the three people killed.

Roll's mom had died giving birth to a second son in 1899.  His dad's business necessitated his traveling a great deal between Oklahoma Territory and Kansas.  At various times unidentified pictures were taken by photographers in Purcell, Blackwell, Guthrie, (Oklahoma) and Hutchinson, Sterling, Carbondale and Wichita, Kansas and put in a big velvet album that was passed down in the family.  So we knew there were plenty of aunts and uncles to tend to Roll and his two younger sisters.

But there were no people with the surname of Biddle in his background.  It was a mystery: Why was Mrs. Biddle coming to Roll's funeral?

After several years of research on other family members, I came back to the Stevenses.  There were a few loose ends I wanted to wrap up.  One was getting to know Lillian Humphrey Stevens a little better.  Her children, Roll, Estelle and Helen, were my own grandma's cousins.  Grandma's mom was Nellie Stevens, a younger sister to Frank Dana Stevens.  My grandma would have played with these kids. I wanted to find out a little more about them.

In looking at some census records for Estelle Stevens, who was 9 years old in 1900 (shortly after her mother died) I found all three of these children living in Osage County, Kansas with Amos and Mary E. Biddle.  And Mary was listed as their grandmother.  I checked the cemetery and found that a John A. Humphrey had died in 1876 and his wife had later married Amos Biddle.  And I found that in 1880 Lillian May Humphrey was 17 and a school teacher.   My records showed that Lillian and Frank D. Stevens had married in 1885 and babies came fast -- and my grandma was born in 1885 and she and the girls probably played "dolls" together, like all little girls do.  Who would think that in a short period a few years down the road, Lillian, Frank D. Jr, and Roll would all be dead, way too soon.

(Estelle, Helen, and Rolland)

So when Roll died, of course his grandmother, Mrs. Biddle, came to the funeral.  One thing the obituary did not note and I found very interesting is that Lillian May Humphrey Stevens named her first child after her own brother - Rolland Humphrey.

Bits and pieces of this story have been in my mom's side of the family for years.  But we just didn't know how the pieces fit together.  Now we do.

ROLL HUMPHREY STEVENS - 1886-1903

~A RYLAND RELATIVE ~


The picture above may be of Roll Humphrey Stevens. It is in the Stevens family album but does not have a name on it. A process of elimination, although very “iffy,” suggests it is he.

He was my grandma Jessie’s first cousin. Both were born in Sterling, Kansas, one in 1885 and the other in 1886. He died in 1903 while still a teenager, and I never heard any family stories about him. In fact, I didn’t even know he existed until 1984 when I received in the mail a copy of a short handwritten family history written by Frank Dana Stevens, forwarded to me from a very distant relative in Wichita. The first page said, “Roll Humphrey Stevens, born August 29, 1886, died October 29, 1903.” Nothing more was said. The fellow was only 17.

He was buried in Maple Hill cemetery in Wichita but without a tombstone. I knew that Humphrey was his mother’s maiden name, and that there was a family friend or relative also named Roll Humphrey, which I’m sure is where Frank Stevens got the name. And in a printed bio of father Frank in a Kansas book it noted that Roll was killed in a train accident. I also learned that his first name was Rolland.

A newspaper article about the train wreck excerpted from the October 31, 1903 issue of the Wichita Eagle says this:

“Roll Sevens was a young man well and favorably known in Wichita, and has always borne an excellent reputation. He was born in Sterling, Kansas, August 27, 1885 [sic]. His parents moved to Wichita a number of years ago and the young man has always lived with his parents until a few weeks ago, when he left for St. Louis to accept a position with a train news company. The boy had not been heard from since he left home, and consequently Mr. Stevens was horrified to learn of the sad accident. The boy attended the public schools of the city in his boyhood, was a student at the high school at Carbondale and graduated from the Wichita Business College.”

The newspaper article is very vague on the cause of the accident, calling it simply a “smash-up” and it isn’t clear about the injuries and deaths of passengers. It was probably too soon to have the details in print. What is left hanging is an understanding of the following paragraph: “The engineer and fireman jumped and saved themselves, but three tramps who were riding on the blind baggage got the full force of the collision. One man named Stevens, who lived at Wichita, was killed and another was seriously injured.”

Roll's father, a well-to-do man in Wichita business circles, didn’t know why his son would have been in that location. But he admitted he hadn't heard from his son since he graduated. And in fact, at first there was some question as to whether or not Roll was one of the three who died in that crash. Unfortunately, he was.

As for what a "train news company" was, a Wikipedia article on the Van Noy Railway News and Hotel Company noted that early passenger trains had neither dining nor lounge cars so they employed young men to walk through the cars selling newpapers, books, food, etc. They were referred to as “News Butches.” I am sure that is exactly what Roll was doing on that train. He was a bright young man with a future in business and was from a well-known family in Wichita. It was obvious that he was not a tramp hitching a ride on that train.

Roll Stevens had a short life. While I can't prove it, I'd like to think that it truly his life that is honored with the picture above.