Father: Jacob Hendrickson Potts
Mother: Nancy Catherine Agnew
Spouse: James Warren Hastings
m: 30/Jun/1909 - Iola, Allen Co., KS
Child-1: Margaret Eva
2: Lillian
Lucille
3: Jacob
(Jake) Warren
4: Bessie
Catherine
5: Donald
Eugene (Gene)
6: James
(Jim) Marshall
7: Robert
(Bob) William
8: Wilma
Nadine
9: John
(Johnny) Henry
10: Cecil
Lee
11: Laurel
Marie
12: Dale
Laverne
Biographical Details:
Bessie Nannie Potts was born in Ozark Township in Anderson County, Kansas, near the small town of Colony on April 23, 1888. She was the daughter of Jacob Hendrickson and Nancy Catherine Agnew Potts. Evidently, she grew up in this locality and married James Warren Hastings in the neighboring town of Iola in Allen County on June 30, 1909. Shortly after their marriage the young couple relocated to Sterling in Rice County, Kansas, where Warren and his two brothers apparently established an automobile repair business. Here, their four oldest children, viz., Margaret (unaccountably called Clara in census records of 1910), Lillian, Jake, and Catherine, were born. Even so, by 1915, Warren and Bessie Hastings moved to a homestead in Morgan County in northeastern Colorado and remained there until 1925. Concomitantly, five more children, viz., Gene, Jim, Bob, Wilma, and Johnny, were born while they lived on this farm. They then moved to the small town of Snyder and in 1939 to Brush. Their remaining three children, viz. Cecil, Laurel, and Dale, were born in Snyder between 1925 and 1930. All twelve of the children of Warren and Bessie Hastings survived to adulthood and had numerous offspring. (Indeed, at the time of her death Bessie had a total of fifty-one grandchildren.) Warren Hastings' health began to fail in 1940 and he desired to relocate to Missouri. Thus, the family moved to Gentry County, Missouri, in 1941. After the death of her husband in 1949, Bessie Hastings returned to Snyder, Colorado, in 1954 with her oldest son, Jake. She continued to live in or near Snyder until she became infirm in the 1970's and moved into the Eben Ezer Lutheran Care Center in Brush. Bessie Nannie Hastings died October 15, 1978, at the age of ninety years. She is buried in the Brush Memorial Cemetery. Personal recollections portray her as a warm and caring woman, well able to cope with the vicissitudes and peregrinations of her life. She had a bright smile and infectious girlish giggle even into old age.Source Citations:
1. 1910 US Census Population Schedule for Rice County, Kansas, National Archives, Washington DC: pgs. 130B, 132A, & 136A, (microfilm: roll T624_838; imgs. 711, 714, & 722).2. 1920 US Census Population Schedule for Morgan County, Colorado, National Archives, Washington DC: pg. 172B, (microfilm: roll T625_168; img. 927).
3. 1930 US Census Population Schedule for Morgan County, Colorado, National Archives, Washington DC: pg. 219B, (microfilm: roll T626_246; img. 441).
4. 1940 US Census Population Schedule for Morgan County, Colorado, National Archives, Washington DC: pg. 406A, (microfilm: roll T627_472; img. 880).
5. K. Bovaird, N. Newman, E. Miller, B. Phillips, N. Summa, and R. Pierce, Once Upon a Railroad, Stanberry, Missouri 1879-1979, Inter-Collegiate Press, Shawnee Mission, KS, 1979: pgs. 275-6.
6. Anonymous,"Brush Cemetery Records", Brush, CO, 80723. (Anonymous, "Brush!", www.brushcolo.com, 2005.)
7. Brush Memorial Cemetery, Morgan County, Colorado (www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=cr&CRid=195562&CScn=Brush&CScntry=4&CSst=7&CScnty=284&, continuously updated).
8. Death Master File, Social Security Administration, Washington, DC, continuously updated.