This page: Chandlers Who Ventured West |
John Edgar Chandler of Tennessee and TexasJohn Edgar Chandler was born 1875 in Pulaski, Tennessee, and died 1956 in Wichita County, Texas. His parents were Andrew Jackson Chandler (born February 26, 1841, Tennessee; died November 29, 1927, Wellington, Texas) and Sallie Jane Wilks Noran, daughter of Dempsey Noran. John Edgar Chandler’s great-granddaughter, Rhonda Chandler Clark, has not been able to pin down parents for Andrew Jackson Chandler. (See Rhonda’s 2008 query on this website.)
Children of Ardell W. “Dell” ChandlerJon Chandler of Commerce City, Colorado, wrote: “The photo is of my father Verdon A. Chandler and his siblings at the Children’s Christian Home (orphanage) in Holdrege, Nebraska, circa 1926 or 1927. They’d come from a fairly well-to-do farm family in Carter, Nebraska, but their father, Ardell W. Chandler, was killed when his car was crushed by a train in 1923 and they lost everything. Mayme, Ardell’s wife, learned she was pregnant with her sixth child, Dell, on the day her husband was buried. A couple of years later, Mayme put the children in the orphange while she went to Colorado to find a better life. They were there for six long years. My dad’s expression says it all.” Mayme remarried while in Colorado and then sent for her children. They travelled to Longmont, Colorado, where they lived as a family once more and all the children finished school. The boys all served in WWII, and Lee was killed at the Anzio Beachhead at age 21. Dell became a much-decorated soldier, a sniper who helped clear the Allied path to Rome. He fought overwhelming mental demons after the war and died at age 60. Verdon, Jon’s father, who outlived all his siblings, died December 5, 2012, at age nearly 96 years and 9 months, after celebrating the 74th anniversary of his marriage to Helen E. Patterson in 2012. John said, “”My dad is my hero.” Jon, a musician, song writer and author, blogged about his dad on his website in 2010. |
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At left is an enlarged detail from the photo above. Front row, from left: Lee, Leila (Peggy) and Dell. Rear: Genevieve, Verdon (Jon’s dad), and Malcolm.Jon’s family descends from Elisha Chandler (born 1813 in either Maine or New York) and Emily Kies. They moved to Wisconsin before the Civil War and raised five sons and two daughters. All five of the boys fought for the Union. Jon’s great-grandfather, Curtis Chandler, homesteaded at Carter, Nebraska, after serving in the Civil War with the Wisconsin 7th, part of the famed Iron Brigade. He was wounded at Gettysburg and the Battle of the Wilderness. His unit was also at Appomattox. Curtis and his wife Julia Verdon Chandler had two sons, Ardell, killed in the car/train accident in 1923, and Charles.
Descendants of this family gather regularly in Colorado and have a reunion planned for June 2011. |
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