A longer version of Lena’s biography will be posted in the
near future. Please check back.Mary Lena Brown
A longer version of Lena’s biography will be posted in the
near future. Please check back.
Mary Lena Brown, eldest of the five children of Emma Ann Martin and Cullen Penny Brown, was born 6 March 1876 in Martintown, Green County, WI. She was known by her middle name to such an extent that it appears first in multiple public records. In the mid-1880s Lena and her immediate family spent a sojourn in West Plains, Howell County, MO. Before the end of that decade they went on to Fort Smith, Sebastian County, AR. This marked the dawn of a permanent presence in Arkansas and/or in Texas for most of these individuals, but the family also maintained a home in Martintown, which they often visited, and Lena was the one of her parents’ children whose heart remained in Wisconsin.
When not quite out of her teens Lena married a long-time neighbor, Frank Opal Hastings (shown lower right). Born 19 May 1868 just north of Martintown in Cadiz Township, Frank was a grandson of Green County pioneer William S. Spece. The marriage of Lena and Frank was the second in a trio of such unions between grandsons of William Spece and granddaughters of Nathaniel Martin that occurred in the mid-1890s. The first had been the union of Frank’s first cousin Alfonso James (“Hap”) Spece to Lena’s first cousin Cora Belle Warner. Next would come the marriage of Frank’s brother Fred Philo Hastings to Mary Emma Warner.
Frank
and Lena’s wedding took place 9 October 1895 in Green County. The event involved a buggy ride that remained
famous in family lore. Frank’s parents Barbara Ann Spece and John Quincy Adams “Picket” Hastings rode with the
young bride and groom. Picket Hastings, a Civil War veteran, was known for enjoying his liquor, and the
celebratory occasion had given him license to indulge himself. He was roaring drunk as the buggy rolled on
down the road on its way home. Lena is reported to have said she wondered what kind of a family she was
getting into.
Lena and Frank had eight children together, most of them born in Martintown. The couple spent nearly all of their life as a couple residing in Martintown in one of the three “main” homes of the original Nathaniel Martin estate, on property that had come to Lena’s mother Emma Ann Martin Brown as a consequence of her Martin heritage. This house was given over to Lena and Frank’s use as newlyweds, and eventually they would become the deed-holders. The couple did, however, make extended visits to Arkansas to see Lena’s parents and sisters. The latter group moved from Fort Smith to DeQueen, Sevier County, AR in 1898, and it was there that second son Leland “Hap” Hastings, was born in October of that year. The couple were also briefly based in Dilly, Vernon County, IL due to Frank’s railroad job. This is where fifth child Ernest Brown Hastings was born in 1907. To this day many of Lena and Frank’s descendants live in the Wisconsin/Illinois border region, a group which represents the largest clump of descendants of Nathaniel Martin and Hannah Strader to remain so close to where the founders of the clan dwelled. It was Lena who was Hannah’s primary caregiver at the very end of the matriarch’s life.
Frank worked for Illinois Central Railroad from 1899 to his
retirement in 1937. For the last four years of
his career, he was a track maintenance foreman in Rockford, Winnebago County, IL. During this tenure he
and Lena maintained a home in Rockford, but did not give up on Martintown -- in fact, Frank served
as Martintown/Cadiz Township city clerk during those same years. Two years after he retired, Frank was
diagnosed with stomach cancer and passed away from this condition 13 May 1940 in Winslow, Stephenson
County, IL, just south of Martintown. He was just shy of seventy-two years old. He
was buried two days later at Saucerman Cemetery, Green County, WI.
Lena survived another two decades. The old home in Martintown (shown left, still in use but long past its prime) came to be a less than ideal place for her, so she spent most of the last nine years of her life residing with her daughter Mary in Pecatonica, Winnebago County, IL. Her very last fortnight was spent with son John in Winslow. Her collapse of health became obvious after she arrived there in early August, 1961, so family members began to gather to be with her at the end. By the time she finally expired 21 August 1961, all her children and many of her other descendants and descendants-in-law had been able to come, except for son James, whose home was in California. Many of them were with her as she quietly slipped away. Her body was also interred at Saucerman Cemetery.
Lena was blessed in the sense that all eight of her children thrived and outlived her. She was not so fortunate when it came to her grandchildren. A distressing proportion -- eight out of the twenty-six -- perished before adulthood. Six died very young. Another, Paul Eugene Hastings, died at sixteen in a car accident. Lena endured the anguish of these seven losses, but her own demise spared her from knowing that the very last of her grandchildren, Blanche Anna Fernstaedt, would ultimately pass away at only eighteen years of age.
Children of Mary Lena Brown with Frank Opal
Hastings
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each of the names.
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