Fancher-Lombar Families...

 

​(printed in THE MILLER COUNTY AUTOGRAM-SENTINEL in the column, 'WINDOW TO THE PAST',  Jan. 26, 2012)

​Mary Ellen Fancher was born in 1842 in Windham, Greene County, New York in the beautiful Catskill Mountains of east central New York . She was one of ten children born to David Fancher born 1816 in New York and Catherine Hurley, born 1819 in Ireland. In 1839 David Fancher left New York and moved to Jefferson Co., Kentucky where he met and married Catherine Hurley in 1839. They were not content to stay in any place for very long because they moved on to Ohio , back to New York , and finally moved to Miller Co., MO in 1858. They settled near Old St. Elizabeth and I believe it was on the west side of the Osage River. Catherine died in 1865 at the age of 46 years and was buried at the Jesse Hawkins Cemetery near Tuscumbia. He married 2 more times before his death in 1874----his second wife was Sarah Jane Brightwell-Dickson with whom he had 3 more children---and his third wife was Mrs. Camille Thompson whom he married in 1873. He died one year later in 1874 but there is no record of his burial in county cemetery records. The children of David and his 2 wives were:
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By Catherine Hurley------
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David Hurley Fancher 1840-1862 (it is believed he was killed in the Civil War)
Mary Ellen Fancher 1842-1913 m. Francis/Frank E. Lombar 1862
Julia Ann Fancher 1844-1932 m. John D. Brown 1866
Lewis Henry Fancher 1846-1867 (he may have been killed by Indians in the west)
Elbert Emmett Fancher 1848-1876 m. Martha Long 1872
George Garry Fancher 1850-1858
Marcus Walter Fancher 1851-1931 m. Lucy Ann Cummings 1879
Alice Catherine Fancher 1853-1934 m. Dr. John H. Moore 1871
Emma Rosalee Fancher 1854-1878
Franklin R. Fancher 1858-1884 m. Louisa C. Shelton

​By Sarah Brightwell-Dickson----
​
Bertha Fancher b. 1868
Daisy Fancher b. 1869
Charles David Fancher b. 1870

Mary Ellen Fancher, oldest daughter of David and Catherine, married Francis/Frank E. Lombar of Iberia on March 22, 1862, the marriage performed by Rev. W. H. Monroe, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Frank was a son of Peter and Julia (DuPery) Lombar of Leeds County, Canada who moved to New York after their marriage. The Lombar family came to Missouri in 1852 and Frank enlisted in Company F of the 33rd Missouri Infantry and fought in several battles across the south during the Civil War. He was discharged from the Union Army in January 1866 at Brownsville, Texas. When he returned home to his wife in Iberia , he became a prominent merchant in the young town when he opened a general merchandise store and operated it for many years. 

They became parents of three children:
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Minnie Lombar 1869-1919 m. Frank W. Wiggenhorn or Wiggenham?
Frederick E. Lombar 1873-1908 m. Lalla McGee (dau. of Dr. McGee of Tuscumbia)
Frank D. Lombar 1883-1969 m. 1) Bessie Dillard 2) Catherine Reynolds

 

I found Francis/Frank Lombar in some records listed as Capt. Lombar and also Major Lombar. I would imagine he got these military acknowledgements from serving in the Civil War. He was a member of the Iberia Masonic Lodge; a knight of the A.O.U.W. (Ancient Order of United Workmen); the G.A.R. (Grand Army of the Republic); and served as a Republican State Representative in the Missouri Legislature. He and Mary Frances built a beautiful, stately home on Lombar Avenue (today’s Highway 42) and it was a fantastic old home and outstanding for a small Northern Ozark Plateau village like Iberia . In its ‘heyday’ it must have been magnificent but I remember it as a huge old house sitting among a grove of trees, rather unkempt, with an iron fence encircling the whole property. I passed it many times during my childhood but never saw the inside of the house. Now I wish I had been more inquisitive and walked up to the front door and gave a mighty knock! The house is no longer there but was torn down several decades ago and the new Bank of Iberia now sits where the old mansion once stood.

 

Mary Frances Fancher-Lombar died in 1923 at the age of 81 years. Her husband, Frank, had died in December 1913 and buried at Iberia Cemetery. She was placed beside him. She was survived by only one child, her son Frank who lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She died at the home of her niece, Belle Brown Thompson, in Springfield, MO. and was brought back to Iberia for burial.

​​​​​​​​​​​Her son Frank returned to Iberia for her funeral, He was her only survivor except for at least one granddaughter that I met in the l980s who was living in Wichita, Kansas. Her name was Catherine Lombar, the only child of Frederick and Lalla (McGee) Lombar, and she never married.  I  do  not  know if  Frederick or his sister, Minnie, ever had children. I know that Frederick died at the age of 36 years in Texas where he had moved and practiced law for several years during his short life.