Rebecca Margaret (Stephenson) Wooden was the daughter of William and Rebecca (Robinson) Stephenson. She married Isaac Wooden (1801-1865) on December 3, 1822, in Henry County, Kentucky. They first settled in Kentucky, but soon relocated to Fountain County, Indiana, about 1823 (their first child, Benjamin, was born in Indiana). In 1838 or 1839, the family relocated to an area about 4 miles east of Carrollton in Carroll County, Missouri. In 1839 they built a log cabin in Hill Township in that county.

This Wooden family were some of the earliest settlers in Hill Township, along with Thomas Sugg and Dorsey Miles, all arriving within several years after the founders (brothers George, Richard, and Nathaniel Hill) arrived about 1836.

The Woodens were lifelong members of the Methodist Church, and religious services were said to have been held in their house in Hill Township. Isaac was a founding trustee of Rush Chapel Methodist Church, the land for which was deeded to the trustees by Uriah and Harriet Standley on May 22, 1838.

After the death of her husband, Rebecca stayed with one or another of her children. One night when she was staying in the home of her son, Cornelius (“Neal”), he heard her knitting in the wee hours of the morning. He asked her how she could see to knit in the dark, and she said she could see just as well in the dark as in the daylight. That was when they knew she was blind.

Rebecca died at age 77 years and 6 months. Her death came 14 years after her husband’s death. They had 17 children (15 of whom lived to adulthood), 64 grandchildren, and 10 great-grandchildren. Her son, John W. Wooden, made her casket of walnut.

Family notes: Rebecca is of German descent. She had red hair and smoked a pipe. She was said to be a niece of Adlai Stevenson (Vice President under President Cleveland), and a cousin of Adlai Stevenson, Ambassador to the UN. It is said that her aristocratic family resented her marriage.

[Sources: Kentucky Marriages, 1802-1850; US Federal Census records; Wooden Family, 2nd Edition, ed. by Dorothy Sykes, Jennie O’Roark, and Herb Wooden]