Pike Township Family Stories
BERTON L. METCALF – INA LEE HANKINS
Nichols, Iowa Centennial Book 1884-1984, pages 301-302
By Alberta Metcalf KellyIna Hankins and Berton Metcalf were married on 6 April 1893, at the home of the bride’s parents, Timothy Hankins and Elizabeth Lee Hankins, who lived three miles south of Nichols.
At the age of ten months, Berton came from Upper Sandusky, Ohio, in a covered wagon with his parents, Melissa Jane Metcalf and Reuben Metcalf, his two older brothers, Harvey Metcalf and James Metcalf, and his sister, Harriet Metcalf. Another sister, Nettie Metcalf, was born after they came west. Ina’s parents came before the Civil War and were from Virginia and Ohio. Both Ina’s and Berton’s ancestors were English in origin.
Ina attended Brockway school and the Muscatine Academy. She was a music teacher and a homemaker. Berton attended Siloam school. His father and brother James Metcalf died when he was 10. H served his community as a member of the local school board and as mayor; his county as a state representative for three terms during the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration; and his federal government on several commissions during the great depression of the 1930s. He was on the county draft board during World War II.
Ina and Berton were the parents of two children: Clarence Metcalf, born 13 May 1895, and Alberta Metcalf, born on 11 March 1899. Clarence married Verda Shannon on 6 April 1921 in Muscatine; they were parents of two sons. Alberta married William S. Kelly at the Christian church in Iowa City on 6 January 1923.
Clarence Metcalf graduated from West Liberty and attended a short course at Ames. He became a partner with his father, dealing in livestock and farming. Alberta graduated from Davenport High school, received B. A. and M. A. degrees from The University of Iowa. She was a teacher, a politician and a homemaker. During the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, Clarence was one of the three state agriculture chairmen in Des Moines.
Ina died in 1933, Berton in 1957, Verda in 1965 and Clarence in 1977. They and the two sons of Verda and Clarence are buried in the Nichols cemetery.
The name Metcalf supposedly goes back to 1046, when the king awarded land in Yorkshire, England, to his warriors. The land resembled three calves lying down; the middle calf was ours, from which the name evolved.
My great grandfather, James Metcalf and his wife, Jane Jolly, were the parents of nine children. Their eldest son George was married and did not come to America until after the family came in the early 1800s to Bellevue, Ohio. Reuben Metcalf, our grandfather, was 12 years of age. Eliza Metcalf, a young sister, after a shipboard illness, was buried at sea. Two daughters, Hannah Mallory and Mary Greenslade, were born in America. They visited us in Nichols when I was ten. It was my job to take up their pre-breakfast tea. I still have the tea pot they gave me.
Grandmother Metcalf was the only grandparent I knew. Her grandfather, Cyrus Call, was a pre-revolutionary missionary among the Indians. She was the support of her family after the early death of her husband and oldest son. Her Nichols home is where the Weydels now live. Three first cousins were born in that home on 13 May, two years apart, an odd coincidence.
To Clyde Hankins, a double cousin of my mother, I am indebted for the Lee-Hankins genealogy. He was an engineer on the Minneapolis to St. Louis Rocket that came through Nichols at midnight, and he always “tooted” twice as he came through. He and his son went to England twice to trace ancestry.
The Hankins family in England were Hankinsons; the Lees were Leighs. John G. Lee and his wife, Elizabeth Lowman, were my great great grandparents; she was a cousin of Martha Custis. Their son, Richard Lee, my great grandfather, was a first cousin of Robert E. Lee.
There is a tie that binds us in our Nichols area. All of our ancestors have come from “across the waters.” Those with living descendants must feel the joy of continuity.
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Page created December 16, 2010 by Lynn McCleary