From Proud Heritage, Volume I by DCPA, currently out of print.
In 1855 Jonathon Story brought his family to what is now the Irving area. He was about thirty and had a wife, the former Sophronia Hunsaker, and three children. About twelve brothers and sisters also came this way, as did his father, Marmaduke, born in Delaware in 1800. They settled in Ohio then in Illinois in Pulaski County, then went to Texas. The father and many of his descendants are buried in the Sowers and the Kit-Oak Grove Cemeteries.
There was Jonathon, 1825-1918; Thomas C., 1824-1870; Harvey B., 1828-1906; Marvin, 1830; Alexander, 1835; William, 1837; Isaac Henry, 1838-1918; Hezekiah, 1841; Joseph, 1845-1874; and George, 1848-1874, and a sister, Mary Ann, 1832-1905. Some of these came here and stayed; others moved on to other places.
Isaac Henry raised a large family here, of which O.L. (Dick) was a well-known local citizen, as was Hezekiah (Hez), one time Mayor of Irving.
George’s two children were Early May and Walter Young. Early was a pioneer in the telephone business here, and later started the first taxi service.
Thomas apparently never married, but stayed on till his death in 1870. Jonathon’s children were Thomas C., Marmaduke, Florence, Mary Ellen (first Story child born here), Carrol, and Francis (Frank).
Thomas married Helen Clark, settled an area that is now bounded by O’Connor and Highway 183. His children were William C., Jonathon, and Earnest. Francis married Mary Farine, daughter of Nicholas Farine, who came from the old La Reunion French Settlement. Their children were Pearl, Lizzie, Lester, Grover, Gus, Fred, Virgie, and Dovie. They lived on the old Jonathon homeplace, now in the O’Connor-Rochelle Road area. Mary Ellen married Columbus (Lum) Clark, and their home place was an area now bounded by Britain Road and Colonial. Their youngest daughter is one of only three surviving grandchildren of Jonathon. Other children were Mary Jeanette, Carrie, Rosey, Alfred, Cora, and the youngest, Mable. Other children of Jonathon eventually moved to Dallas and finished raising their families there.
The other two surviving grandchildren of Jonathon are Francis M. and Mary Farine Story’s Gus and Virgie. If there are others, I do not know of them.
My father, William C., son of Thomas C. and Helen, and grandson of Jonathon, married Fannie Farine, a younger sister of Mary who married Francis. They settled down to farm an area that straddles Grauwyler Road. In his search for a place, he chuckled as he told in his late years that he almost bought the area where downtown Irving now is. Instead he bought land in a heavily wooded, creek-crossed area. There he started cutting the oak and selling the wood in Dallas and soon bought an engine (1907) and saw. He custom-sawed to length and sold firewood. The common practice in clearing land was to pile up surplus wood and burn it, but he made use of it. The wood business was good for many years; I helped saw and haul many a cord up until we finally quit the business in the forties.
As the family grew, he added more acreage, more machines, and other work. As early as 1917, (I don’t know how long before), he bought a huge threshing machine and steam tractor and later traded the steam for a bigger gasoline tractor. He also had a hay baler to bale the prairie hay that grew wild out on the Grapevine prairie. Then in about 1930 the combines were coming, and the roads were beginning to be “hot top”; the big machine would just literally roll up the pavement on its wheels; that was the end of an era. I remember when that big rig rolled out from here (home), it consisted of the tractor, pulling the thresher, supply wagon, and chuck-wagon, all four hitched up together! What a sight! That rig roamed from what was the old Texas Company (forerunner of Texaco) farm in what is now West Dallas to near Grapevine. With that it was shut down, except for a few small jobs we ran right here at home; the last run ever made the neighbors’ grain was hauled right into the barn and threshed; the machine wasn’t even moved outside.
The engine sat idle and ruined, which also brought the demise of the hay baler for a time, until we made a few last runs with it in late 1930s and early 1940s. The thing would bale up way over a thousand bales a day and the last time I “monkeyed” and stacked the bales and we moved 3 times and ran out of hay in mid-afternoon after somewhere near 800.
During the fall season William got work in the cotton gins, and became a good gin operator; he worked in the old Trinity Farms gin, in the Davis gin that stood at the corner of now First and Britain, and later at the Lively gin until it burned in the early 1940s.
Of ten children born to this union, eight lived to maturity; five are still living, the three oldest to near 70 and above. Dad lived to age 83; Morn to 92. At 63, I am, as far as I can determine, the youngest living grand child of Nicholas and Jane Farine, and the youngest of William C.’s. We were in order: Clarence, Rose, Ada Lea, Susie, Grace, Audrey, Lenora, and myself-Raymond, with one lost near the oldest, and the other, Bill, between Audrey and Lenora. Ada Lea Story Million was a local teacher for over 35 years.
By Raymond L. Story, great grandson, Irving
