Geneology for the Fayette County Historical Society

The Robison Family, circa 1928

ROBISON - David William Robison moved his family to Fayette County in 1903, seven years after his marriage to Shelby County schoolmate and neighbor, Esther “Lizzie” Carey.  David purchased a small farm in Sefton Township referred to as “the Tipton forty,” located approximately one mile north of Liberty Christian Church.  These two had seven children, only three of whom lived to adulthood:  Homer, born in 1897, Carey Lucile, in 1917, and Beulah May, in 1919.  After Homer, a daughter was born to them on May 5^th, 1901, who died that same day.  Their next child, Elsie Viola, came into the world on November 30, 1904.  She died a little over a year later from gastroenteritis, in January of 1906.   A third daughter, Helen, was born shortly after Christmas in 1906.  She died on December 8^th, 1912, from bronchial pneumonia.

Their fifth child, John William, was born in the late summer of 1911.  He survived an appendectomy, an uncommon procedure at the time, when he was sixteen.  A few weeks later, while visiting relatives in New Mexico with his family, John was thrown from their automobile during a collision.  He survived this, too, only to die a few days later from an infection to his surgical wounds, doubtlessly aggravated by the violent crash.

Homer, meanwhile, had married Ruby Arnold a month after his twentieth birthday, on December 13^th, 1917.  The couple lived and farmed less than a mile south of his parents, and together they had a set of sons, Russell Edward, born in 1918, and Ralph William, born in 1920. Both boys took to farming early and studied agriculture at Brownstown High School, which Homer would later credit for increased soil productivity.  In the spring of 1937, Russell rode along with County Extension Advisor J.B. Turner the day he provided some area farms with the county’s first hybrid seed corn, planted earlier that morning in the field just south of Homer’s home.  Both brothers also enjoyed playing baseball and music, Russell with his acoustic guitar and Ralph with his banjo.

David and Lizzie’s two youngest daughters, born nearly a generation after Homer, lived long and productive lives.  Like Homer, Carey remained close to her roots, marrying local farmer Durward Miller in the summer of 1938.  This couple raised their own large family in a house located less than a half-mile between David and Homer’s farms.  While Carey also lost a child in infancy, Evelyn Lucille in June of 1943, her other four children, Marion Edward, Diana Kay, Delmar David and Esther Viola, all survived to adulthood and had children of their own, many of whom continue to farm and contribute to Fayette County to this day.

The couple’s youngest, Beulah May, ventured out after high school, finding employment as a seamstress, first in Champaign and then in Richmond, Indiana. While working as a bookkeeper for the Brownstown lumberyard, she met Bob Harclerode, an engineer directing the construction of an oil pipeline through her father’s property, in 1939.  Three years later the couple married and moved to Kansas City, where they raised two daughters of their own, Nancy Ann and Barbara Jean.

As it did for Beulah, the oil boom of the late 1930s also influenced the matrimonial fortunes of her two nephews, Russell and Ralph.  Two sisters from Oklahoma, Elizabeth and Louese Pearson, moved to Fayette County in 1939 along with their brother Waylon, who was working for the Mudge Oil Company.   Although the younger set, Ralph and Louese married first, in 1942, followed by Russell and Elizabeth a year later.

After serving his country in the Second World War, Russell continued to farm until poor health led to an early retirement.   Although he and Elizabeth had no children of their own, the couple often traveled with their two nieces, Gloria and Jeanne Lou, born to Ralph and Louese in 1945 and 1952, and their nephew William “Bill” Robert, born in 1946. They also contributed much to the Fayette County community throughout their lives, both as members of Liberty Christian Church and as Brownstown citizens.

Thus, both Lizzie, who died in December of 1947, and David, who passed in the summer of 1961, lived long enough to see the family farm tradition survive and thrive well into their grandchildren’s generation. That tradition continues to this day, with Ralph still offering insight into the family business.  Often accompanied by Ralph’s great-grandson Wade William Robison, Bill and his son Lucas Robison continue to work the same ground the family has farmed for over a century.

(Much of the research used in this brief history was compiled by Nancy Frost, Beulah's oldest daughter.)  

(A Note on the Accompanying Picture:  The three adults in the background, left to right, are Lizze Robison, David William and their eldest son Homer.  The five children, left to right, are Carey, an unidentified girl, but perhaps a relative, Buelah, Russel, and Ralph.  Although no date was on the picture, it is reasonable to assume that the picture was taken in the late 1920s, almost certainly after John William's death in 1927.)