The eldest child of Jacob and Libbie Miller Marshall, Estella (Stell) had meningitis when she was 18 months old. When she failed to respond to treatment,the family moved by covered wagon to Superior, Nebraska (then home to her grandparents, George and Elizabeth Boyer) hoping that a change of climate would help her recover. Estella nearly died during the journey. In Nebraska the doctor gave her doses of blackberry brandy and olive oil, saying that the lining of her stomach had been ruined by strong medicine. Estella began a slow recovery; her new-born sister, Rose walked before Estella learned to walk again. By 1880 the family had moved to Delphos, Kansas where Estella grew up on the family farm. She was 19 years old when Jacob became too ill to farm and the family moved to Kansas City. Her little sister, Clara, was only four at the time.
In Kansas City, Estella found work and a husband but her first husband sickened and died young. She next married a man named Lee who joined the KKK when it enjoyed its resurgence in the 1920's and she divorced him. At some point Estella graduated from Cleveland Chiropractor College and opened her own business as Estella I. Lee, Chiropractor. She also taught for Cleveland and made a comfortable living between the two jobs.
When Clara was widowed, Stell went to Colorado and brought her sister and her children to K.C. Clara lived for that first winter in a two-room house next door to Stell (and current husband Lee) in Rosedale at the top of the hill behind what was later Clara's home on 10th St. Trfy. Sister Daisy and her family lived across the street. Clara went to work and began buying the four room plus lean-to back kitchen at the bottom of the hill. Estelle arranged a scholarship for her at Cleveland and for a year or so rented the two front rooms in Clara's home as a doctor's office and waiting room. Then she divorced Lee and bought a house on the 41st block on Gennessee St in Roanoke and set up her office there. She hosted a family dinner every Christmas--adults upstairs and kids at a big table in the basement. She was a rather stern aunt, and "ignored children unless they weren't doing right."
In the early 1940's she married Jack Drummond, a hard driving, well-to-do salesman who was in the papers as Man of the Year for his company before they married. Jack and his wife had been friends of Stell's and after his wife died, he married her. They had been happily married for several years when Jack died and left Stell everything. From then on, she lived alone in Carthage, Missouri writing her book on her Grandmother Miller and "making what she could out of life and history."
Estella self-published her book, Rosanna Miller Of The Kansas Hills, in 1956. The book "irritated her sisters and amused their children" and made this one particular grand neice very grateful. She sent me a copy along with a very sweet letter in 1965. She was 79 when she published her book, and her memory wasn't perfect (whose is?) and not all of her facts were accurate and certainly her sisters had differing versions of some of the same family stories, but she included a wealth of information and family photos that would have been lost to me otherwise. She died the same year that she sent me her book at age 88.
In Kansas City, Estella found work and a husband but her first husband sickened and died young. She next married a man named Lee who joined the KKK when it enjoyed its resurgence in the 1920's and she divorced him. At some point Estella graduated from Cleveland Chiropractor College and opened her own business as Estella I. Lee, Chiropractor. She also taught for Cleveland and made a comfortable living between the two jobs.
When Clara was widowed, Stell went to Colorado and brought her sister and her children to K.C. Clara lived for that first winter in a two-room house next door to Stell (and current husband Lee) in Rosedale at the top of the hill behind what was later Clara's home on 10th St. Trfy. Sister Daisy and her family lived across the street. Clara went to work and began buying the four room plus lean-to back kitchen at the bottom of the hill. Estelle arranged a scholarship for her at Cleveland and for a year or so rented the two front rooms in Clara's home as a doctor's office and waiting room. Then she divorced Lee and bought a house on the 41st block on Gennessee St in Roanoke and set up her office there. She hosted a family dinner every Christmas--adults upstairs and kids at a big table in the basement. She was a rather stern aunt, and "ignored children unless they weren't doing right."
In the early 1940's she married Jack Drummond, a hard driving, well-to-do salesman who was in the papers as Man of the Year for his company before they married. Jack and his wife had been friends of Stell's and after his wife died, he married her. They had been happily married for several years when Jack died and left Stell everything. From then on, she lived alone in Carthage, Missouri writing her book on her Grandmother Miller and "making what she could out of life and history."
Estella self-published her book, Rosanna Miller Of The Kansas Hills, in 1956. The book "irritated her sisters and amused their children" and made this one particular grand neice very grateful. She sent me a copy along with a very sweet letter in 1965. She was 79 when she published her book, and her memory wasn't perfect (whose is?) and not all of her facts were accurate and certainly her sisters had differing versions of some of the same family stories, but she included a wealth of information and family photos that would have been lost to me otherwise. She died the same year that she sent me her book at age 88.
The eldest child of Jacob and Libbie Miller Marshall, Estella (Stell) had meningitis when she was 18 months old. When she failed to respond to treatment,the family moved by covered wagon to Superior, Nebraska (then home to her grandparents, George and Elizabeth Boyer) hoping that a change of climate would help her recover. Estella nearly died during the journey. In Nebraska the doctor gave her doses of blackberry brandy and olive oil, saying that the lining of her stomach had been ruined by strong medicine. Estella began a slow recovery; her new-born sister, Rose walked before Estella learned to walk again. By 1880 the family had moved to Delphos, Kansas where Estella grew up on the family farm. She was 19 years old when Jacob became too ill to farm and the family moved to Kansas City. Her little sister, Clara, was only four at the time.
In Kansas City, Estella found work and a husband but her first husband sickened and died young. She next married a man named Lee who joined the KKK when it enjoyed its resurgence in the 1920's and she divorced him. At some point Estella graduated from Cleveland Chiropractor College and opened her own business as Estella I. Lee, Chiropractor. She also taught for Cleveland and made a comfortable living between the two jobs.
When Clara was widowed, Stell went to Colorado and brought her sister and her children to K.C. Clara lived for that first winter in a two-room house next door to Stell (and current husband Lee) in Rosedale at the top of the hill behind what was later Clara's home on 10th St. Trfy. Sister Daisy and her family lived across the street. Clara went to work and began buying the four room plus lean-to back kitchen at the bottom of the hill. Estelle arranged a scholarship for her at Cleveland and for a year or so rented the two front rooms in Clara's home as a doctor's office and waiting room. Then she divorced Lee and bought a house on the 41st block on Gennessee St in Roanoke and set up her office there. She hosted a family dinner every Christmas--adults upstairs and kids at a big table in the basement. She was a rather stern aunt, and "ignored children unless they weren't doing right."
In the early 1940's she married Jack Drummond, a hard driving, well-to-do salesman who was in the papers as Man of the Year for his company before they married. Jack and his wife had been friends of Stell's and after his wife died, he married her. They had been happily married for several years when Jack died and left Stell everything. From then on, she lived alone in Carthage, Missouri writing her book on her Grandmother Miller and "making what she could out of life and history."
Estella self-published her book, Rosanna Miller Of The Kansas Hills, in 1956. The book "irritated her sisters and amused their children" and made this one particular grand neice very grateful. She sent me a copy along with a very sweet letter in 1965. She was 79 when she published her book, and her memory wasn't perfect (whose is?) and not all of her facts were accurate and certainly her sisters had differing versions of some of the same family stories, but she included a wealth of information and family photos that would have been lost to me otherwise. She died the same year that she sent me her book at age 88.
In Kansas City, Estella found work and a husband but her first husband sickened and died young. She next married a man named Lee who joined the KKK when it enjoyed its resurgence in the 1920's and she divorced him. At some point Estella graduated from Cleveland Chiropractor College and opened her own business as Estella I. Lee, Chiropractor. She also taught for Cleveland and made a comfortable living between the two jobs.
When Clara was widowed, Stell went to Colorado and brought her sister and her children to K.C. Clara lived for that first winter in a two-room house next door to Stell (and current husband Lee) in Rosedale at the top of the hill behind what was later Clara's home on 10th St. Trfy. Sister Daisy and her family lived across the street. Clara went to work and began buying the four room plus lean-to back kitchen at the bottom of the hill. Estelle arranged a scholarship for her at Cleveland and for a year or so rented the two front rooms in Clara's home as a doctor's office and waiting room. Then she divorced Lee and bought a house on the 41st block on Gennessee St in Roanoke and set up her office there. She hosted a family dinner every Christmas--adults upstairs and kids at a big table in the basement. She was a rather stern aunt, and "ignored children unless they weren't doing right."
In the early 1940's she married Jack Drummond, a hard driving, well-to-do salesman who was in the papers as Man of the Year for his company before they married. Jack and his wife had been friends of Stell's and after his wife died, he married her. They had been happily married for several years when Jack died and left Stell everything. From then on, she lived alone in Carthage, Missouri writing her book on her Grandmother Miller and "making what she could out of life and history."
Estella self-published her book, Rosanna Miller Of The Kansas Hills, in 1956. The book "irritated her sisters and amused their children" and made this one particular grand neice very grateful. She sent me a copy along with a very sweet letter in 1965. She was 79 when she published her book, and her memory wasn't perfect (whose is?) and not all of her facts were accurate and certainly her sisters had differing versions of some of the same family stories, but she included a wealth of information and family photos that would have been lost to me otherwise. She died the same year that she sent me her book at age 88.
