The courage of Sarah Catherine Reitzel Spoon and her children

Luray, Kansas, shown here in 1957, looked much the same when the Spoons arrived in 1885

Somehow -- probably due primarily to the incredible faith and strength of Henry Spoon's long-suffering wife, Sarah Catherine -- the Spoon family endured Henry's tragic final years and survived even more heartbreak to forge the bond that remains strong to this day among its descendants.

It wasn't easy. After Henry's death in 1877 at the Indiana Hospital for the Insane, Sarah Catherine Reitzel Spoon was left on an Indiana farm to care for five children, ages 8-16. The oldest of the six Spoon children, Margaret Ellen, was on her own, having married local resident Columbus Pierce two years earlier. It was up to Sarah to do her best in raising the others, relying on friends and relatives to provide support and trying desperately to make sure her children didn't dwell on the tragic manner in which her husband died.

Eventually, Sarah found a new partner in life. On June 3, 1883 she married Hiram Rhoades near Pecksburg, Indiana, the place she had called home all her life. It was a new beginning for a woman who had been the victim of spousal abuse and her husband's alcoholism long before such issues were identified and treated in mainstream society. Yet once again, fate dealt Sarah a cruel blow.

Less than four months after Sarah and Hiram were married, typhoid fever struck the Spoon household. As was the case with so many diseases which in that era were not easily treated, the illness took a heavy toll. On Nov. 23, 1883, Hiram Rhoades died from the disease. Just three days later, 14-year-old Rose Zetta -- one of the twins and the youngest of the family -- also passed away. Most of the other family members were sick for weeks before recovering.

According to the Dec. 13, 1883 edition of the Hendricks County Republican, "The condition of the afflicted Spoon family is somewhat improved. For 13 weeks, sickness has held its sway in the family. Five of the family have been protracted with malignant typhoid fever; two of them have died and one remains very sick. The friends and neighbors have done everything in their power to mitigate their suffering and add to their comfort."

Oliver Spoon poses for a tintype

Devastated, Sarah relied on her faith in God and held the family together. In 1885, she left behind the bad memories and what was left of the Hendricks County farm and boarded a train for Kansas, where her daughter Margaret and son-in-law Columbus Pierce had moved some time earlier. The four surviving Spoon children still living at home were by now young adults: Nannie (25), Oliver (23), John (21) and Mary Etta (16). Yet there was no doubt that their mother remained the guiding force in the family.

A year later, all but Nannie moved to Osborne County, Kansas, just north of Luray, a farming community on the vast Kansas plains. Luray lies in the north central part of the state, a few miles north of what is now Interstate 70. Today it is a city of 261 people in Russell County.

Luray is, basically, in the middle of nowhere. In the 1880s, it was for many the edge of the frontier, an exciting land of opportunity.

It was not always a safe haven. Margaret Ellen, the oldest Spoon child and the one who had first moved from Indiana with her husband, died at age 34, only eight years after her family had followed. Her cause of death is unknown. The other Spoon children prospered, a fitting testament to the gritty determination of their mother.

John Alvin Spoon became a successful farmer in the Luray area and eventually moved to California. His brother Oliver also farmed the land successfully and later in life managed a productive citrus fruit ranch in Raymondsville, Texas, where he died in 1941 at the age of 79.

Mary Etta, who lost her twin sister at age 14, went on to become Dr. Mary Beatty, a chiropractor who lived to the ripe old age of 86. She didn't even begin her chiropractic studies until after the death of her husband, Boyd Clark Beatty. Mary Etta died at the home of her son-in-law and daughter, Milan and Nina Hitchcock, in Savannah, Missouri in 1955. Besides her daughter, she left behind daughter-in-law Dr. Louisa Beaty (widow of Mary Etta's only son, Homer Beatty), and nine grandchildren.

Sarah Catherine Reitzel Spoon lies in her casket outside the family home in 1924

Little is known about Nannie Caroline Spoon. We have only a notation that she married a man named Boggs (date unknown), that she too became a doctor, and that she died April 23, 1930, at the age of 70.

Nannie outlived by only six years her mother, a matriarch who deserves a special place in the Spoon family history. Sarah Catherine Reitzel Spoon Rhoades died in Luray on April 7, 1924, just 15 days short of her 90th birthday.

"All her life, she bitterly denounced evil with righteous indignation," an obituary author wrote about her. "She loved her Savior first of all and always tried to do his will."

Douglas Spoon

16 November 2008