Sunday Obituary: Nancy Catherine Campbell Halstead: 1856-1940

It's Sunday, and I'm currently watching the Chicago Bears pummel the Seattle Seahawks in a very snowy playoff game. Well, it's not really even a game at this point, so I though I'd share some more family history!

Nancy, left, with daughter, Jessie, and grandchildren

Today's Sunday Obituary is dedicated to my great great grandmother, Nancy Catherine Campbell Halstead. Nancy was born on November 13, 1856, in Palo Alto County, Iowa. She married William Leroy Halstead in Missouri in 1880, and they raised eight kids. She passed away on March 14, 1940, in Cushing, Oklahoma.

One of the things I love about these old obituaries is that they often tell us more about the lives of our ancestors than, perhaps, we would find out from our living relatives who actually knew them. I knew Nancy's daughter (my great grandmother, Jessie Luetta Halstead), and I know her grandson (my grandfather, Woodie Brittain), but I don't recall either of them ever telling me much about their own ancestors. In the case of Nancy, I had no idea that her family were some of the earliest Oklahoma pioneers.

I have a poor copy of this obituary from my Grandma Edith's records, but it doesn't list the newspaper in which it appeared, so here's the text as well as some photos that have been passed to me from other cousins I've met online:

Nancy with her husband, William Leroy Halstead

March 14, 1940 
Cushing, Oklahoma

Pioneer Cushing Woman Dies Today

Mrs. Nancy C. Halstead, age 83, died at 2:20 o'clock this morning at her home southeast of Cushing. She was a pioneer of Oklahoma, coming to Lincoln County in 1893 where she and her husband homesteaded the Skinner place five miles south of Cushing, later moving to their present location where they have lived the past 30 years. She became a member of the Methodist church several years ago.

Funeral services are to be held tomorrow afternoon at 2:30 o'clock in the home, with Rev. Golden Shook, pastor of the Methodist church
in charge. Burial will be in the Avery

Avery Cemetery, Avery, Lincoln County, Oklahoma

cemetery under direction of the Garrison Mortuary.

Surviving relatives include her husband, William Leroy Halstead of the home; four daughters, Mrs. Mary Thompson of Cushing, Mrs. Gertie Bradshaw of Lebanon, Missouri, Mrs. Jessie Brittain of Avery and Miss Myrtle Halstead of Avery; four sons, C.D. Halstead of Oklahoma City, Charley Halstead of Beaumont, Kansas, J.R. Halstead and L.E. Halstead of Avery; two sisters, Mrs. Elizabeth Folley of West Bend, Iowa and Mrs. Ida Elkins of Jefferson, Iowa; thirty grandchildren and forty-two great-grandchildren.