17th, gathered a load of corn & cleaned out oat bin. Frank & Charley started to school this morning. Prof. Truit is Frank’s teacher & Mrs. Katie Stetplugh is Charley’s.
Professor Truit is likely twenty-seven year-old Cyrus Gilbert Truitt. In early June, 1900, he was listed in the federal census as a teacher boarding with the Dale family in Harrison Township in Davies County, west of Sampsel and north of Breckenridge. Like preachers, teachers are transient and move from contract to contract. Who knows how many places he worked between the 1900 census and the 1910 census where his mother and stepfather are living with him in Salisbury, Chariton County, Missouri. His picture at findagrave.com lists his education and titles starting with 1905.
Katie May Braden Steplugh was listed as a widow with a baby living with her parents in Green Township in Livingston County, Missouri. On October 20, 1898, she married Utica-born Henry Steplugh, and four months later he died of pneumonia in Chula, Livingston County. Just short of a year after getting married, Katie delivered baby Geneve. That means when the school year began, she was a relatively new widow, teaching and caring for an 11 month-old infant. In 1904 she married John William Cramer and they went on to have four children. John, a widower, lost his first wife Mary Elizabeth Womble also in 1899. Mary Womble was Will Womble’s sister.
