Ada Vonner Brown

Ada Vonner Brown, fifth of the five children of Emma Ann Martin and Cullen Penny Brown, was born 22 December 1889 in Fort Smith, Sebastian County, AR. Her parents and their older children had come to Arkansas within the previous few years. However, a significant amount of Ada’s childhood was spent on extended visits to her mother’s birth place of Martintown, Green County, WI, where the family continued to maintain a residence only a stone’s throw east of the home of Ada’s maternal grandparents Nathaniel Martin and Hannah Strader. (The photo at left is Ada as a young mother, with her baby daughter Marjorie.)

Ada’s middle name surely came from her paternal grandmother. However, there is a mystery in that regard. As far as can be determined, her grandmother’s maiden name was Mary Varner, not Vonner. Certainly, the name reappears among many of her descendants as Varner. Perhaps there was no consistent spelling in the 1800s, and different branches of the family settled upon different versions. Perhaps Cullen simply did not remember the name accurately when he suggested it as his daughter’s middle name. For several months during 2008, this website used Varner in the belief it was the “real” spelling. Since that time, documents have been found showing that Ada herself, along with her sisters and probably her parents, used the Vonner spelling, and so it now appears that way here.

Ada’s father Cullen was a sawmill supervisor. Demand for lumber for construction drew him to a job in the new and growing community of DeQueen, Sevier County, AR. The family relocated to DeQueen in 1898. The town became the base of operations for the younger Brown girls -- Ada and her sisters Ethel and Lulu -- for all or most of their childbearing years, even as eldest sister Lena chose to settle permanently back in Martintown (and later in its neighboring town of Winslow, Stephenson County, IL).

In late 1906, Cullen Brown was killed in a sawmill accident. His girls and their mother cleaved to DeQueen even though it had been his employment searches that had brought them to the community, and even though they had only been there eight years at that point. In late 1908, Lulu married Edgar Gardner Seay. Inasmuch as Lena was by then more than a dozen years into her marriage to Frank Hastings and Ethel eight years into her marriage to James Cannon, Ada was the only child left to share the house with Emma. She was perhaps reluctant to leave her mother alone, or maybe Emma’s presence was an inhibiting factor in drawing the attention of suitors. She spent her late teens and early twenties as a bachelorette music teacher. However, she did not become an old maid, at least not by modern standards. Just after she had turned twenty-four, she wed John Bryant Luton. The wedding took place 21 January 1914 in DeQueen.

Ada had undoubtedly known John for a number of years. The only son of Nicie A. Arnold and an unidentified Mr. Luton, John had been born 2 January 1881 in Boydsville, Clay County, AR. From early childhood, he had been the stepson of James Yates. The Yates/Luton family had come to DeQueen in its early days (prior to 1900). Nicie had long run a hotel there. It had been her own venture, while James Yates had worked outside the home as a machinist. James Yates had died in the early part of the 20th Century. Nicie had forged on, eventually handing the role of hotel proprietor on to John, whom she assisted and guided in its operation. With such a well-established source of income and lifestyle already in place, Ada did not have to be reduced to being a mere housewife. She was groomed as Nicie’s successor.

Ada and John remained in DeQueen as hotelkeepers throughout the rest of the 1910s. During this stretch, Ada gave birth to the couple’s only child, Marjorie Ione Luton. Unfortunately the little girl survived less than four years, passing away from a prolonged illness in the spring of 1920. The following year, Nicie passed away. Perhaps these tragedies soured Ada and John’s affection for DeQueen. In any event, as the 1920s went on, they chose to make their home elsewhere. The 1930 census places them in San Angelo, Tom Green County, TX, running a hotel there. Their relocation was the precursor of a shift of most of Ada’s immediate kin from Arkansas to western and southern Texas.

In the 1930s, the couple gave up hotel work in favor of ranching in Camp Wood, Real County, TX, where John died 23 September 1936. He was cleaning a gun when it accidentally went off. Death was instantaneous. His body was shipped back to DeQueen, where it was interred 25 September 1936 at Redmen Cemetery.

Ada never married again. She remained in Texas. She retained ownership of the Camp Wood ranch for a number of years, but began leasing it by 1940, if not earlier. She appears to have spent most of her long widowhood back in San Angelo. She is described as a resident of San Angelo in her sister Lena’s 1961 obituary and her sister Ethel’s 1970 obituary. Her own obituary, published eight years later, repeats that description. However, she is known to have spent a period living with her niece Mary Seay Abel and family in Elgin, Bastrop County, TX. And then, toward the end of her life, she must have been obliged to seek the assistance of another niece, Hazel Cannon Rodgers. Hazel had settled just west of San Antonio in Medina County, and it was at the Medina Memorial Hospital (probably in Hondo) that Ada expired away 24 October 1978 at eighty-nine years of age. Her grave is at Redmen Cemetery.

Above and below are two views of the four Brown sisters. (There would have been five sisters if Minnie Edna Brown had lived past early childhood.) Above is a studio portrait taken in the mid-1890s. Lena is the teenager on the left, Lulu is in back, Ethel is on the right, and a very young Ada is in the center front. Below is the same quartet more than sixty years later at a family reunion in 1955. The scene is Martintown or a spot near there. Left to right, youngest to eldest: Ada Vonner Brown Luton, Lulu Fay Brown Seay, Ethel Irene Brown Cannon, and Mary Lena Brown Hastings.

Child of Ada Vonner Brown with John Bryant Luton

Marjorie Ione Luton

For genealogical details, click on Marjorie’s name.

To go back one generation, click here. To return to the Martin/Strader Family main page, click here.