Martha S. Winans

The subject of this page has only the barest of entries in Alice Winans Egy Woolley's monumental genealogical tome, on page 28 of the Isaac Winans section:

1-9-1-3-2-4-3-4 MARTHA S. WINANS b 1 Nov 1862 at Indianola, Ia., unmarried. She received her AM degree in 1885 from the Iowa Wesleyan College. She was a very influential business woman.

Until June 2014, that was all we knew about this person. Then we heard from a researcher named Kathy Hamilton, who told us, among other things:

Martha S. Winans fostered two daughers – Dorothy Gay Wendell and Katherine Faith Wendell – and they are not listed in your extensive Carey Family Album. They were orphan foster children and not biological siblings. At the time of Martha S. Winans' death, the latter was divorced and going by the name Faith W. Stephenson. Soon after that Faith married again and changed her name to Faith S. MacGregor. She and her husband Claude Robert MacGregor adopted a little girl, whose birth name was Shirley Jonna Williams, and named her Martha Susanna MacGregor. Sue was my mom. She passed away last year.

Foster or adopted children. We found the information which Kathy was sending us highly interesting. We've known various people who have agreed to be foster parents, plus several who were foster children at one time or another, including our "honorary daughter" Lauralyn, who was raised by foster parents after her birth parents both died.

México. We were also intrigued by Kathy's mention of being born in Guadalajara, the year after our own son, Dave, was born in Monterrey. They are both "American Mexicans", through the occurrence of their births in the country where their parents were residing temporarily, and were both raised in the United States.

Research. Kathy has sent us a lot of interesting information about Martha Winans and her foster, and adopted, descendants. We have also found some stories about Martha, who was a "capitalist" or "business woman", in the newspapers of a century ago. We'll be adding this information to this page as often as our busy schedule permits.

Martha Winans' parents. Martha was the daughter of Rev. Ephraim Hutchinson Winans (1-9-1-3-2-4-3) (1831-1918) and Margaret Strother "Maggie" Wright (1834-1910). We've been able to locate Martha and her parents in several censuses:

• 1870 – in Hancock county, IL, listed as Mattie
• 1880 – Ephraim was in Hardin county, IA, where he was superintendent of a reform school, while the rest of the family, including Mattie, was about 175 miles away, in Henry county, IA
• 1900 –
  • Ephraim, listed as "Pres. Water Co.", and Margaret,
  • Martha, a "capitalist", along with two little "boarders", Dorothy and Faith, and
  • Martha's younger brother, Joy A., "Supt., Water Co.", and his wife Adele,
    were all in Los Angeles
• 1910 – A few days after Margaret's death, Martha and the children, now listed as "adopted", were enumerated with Ephraim on Marmion Way in Los Angeles
• 1920 – Martha was living alone in the same house in Los Angeles, where the census taker somehow got her gender wrong!

In two of his census records, Ephraim's name was misspelled Ephriam, which seems to have been a common alternate spelling.

Kathy informs us that Martha S. Winans died 13 Oct 1929 in Los Angeles.

In the news. Here are just a few of the numerous mentions of Martha in the Los Angeles Herald. The information can be accessed in the California Digital Newspaper Collection at the University of California, Riverside:

• 9 Aug 1895 – Martha Winans was one of the persons listed as stockholders and directors of the Highland Water Company, when it filed its articles of incorporation. The list also includes E. H. Winans, obviously Martha's dad, and a Jay A. Winans, who is almost certainly Martha's brother Joy.
• 14 Mar 1901 – Martha was listed among persons attending a chapter meeting of P. E. O., which the article describes as

  ...the largest woman's organization in the United States not auxiliary to a men's order. The P. E. O. society was organized over thirty years ago by seven college girls of Mount Pleasant, Iowa, and has steadily grown from a small society, devoted to social and literary pursuits, to one of national standing. What the abbreviated title may mean in full none but the initiated may know, but outsiders who are occasionally invited to the social meetings of the club are strong in admiration for it...

  The organization is undoubtedly the P.E.O. Sisterhood, founded at Martha's alma mater in 1869.
• 5 Oct 1901 – Martha conveyed some property in West L. A. to James W. Mays for $1450.
• 28 Jan 1902 – Martha was said to have initiated a "new action" for "quiet title" against one A. G. Myrberg in Superior Court.
• 26 Apr 1903 – Martha was one of the officers installed by a local P. E. O. chapter. There are several other references in the newspaper files to her participation in this society.
• 3 Nov 1910 – Martha is involved in the activities of the Highland Park Ebell club, which is helping to host a convention. Martha's name appears in several articles about the Ebell club, whose history in the Los Angeles area goes back to the late 1800's.

There are even more articles in this collection which mention E. H. Winans than mention Martha Winans. We will make available, soon, any of them which might be of interest to fellow researchers.