Ozro Groce Fankboner
Mr. and Mrs. O. G. Fankboner and Daughter
It was in the days of the covered wagon emigrant train that George Kline Fankboner, from whom O. G. Fankboner of Fairmount is lineally descended, came from Tuscarawas County, Ohio, and located along the Mississinewa across from Jonesboro. He was not the first "Boner" to locate in Grant County, and to this day people have difficulty with the name, and it is as often called "Frankboner" and abridged to "Boner" as it is correctly spoken, although there are several Fankborner families in the community.
G. K. Fankboner sold his Tuscarawas County farm at forty dollars an acre, thinking it well sold. But when it developed that all that country was underlaid with iron ore, with melting furnaces springing up all over it, and that it sold again at two hundred dollars, he saw his mistake, but he had found good land -better farming land in Indiana.
The Fankboners who were already located at Jonesboro when George K. and Sarah (Moore) Fankboner arrived, were his brothers, and most of G. K. Fankboner and wife's children were grown, some of them married, but not all of them came to Grant County. The children of George K. and wife were:
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John, who married Mary Gaskell.
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Levi Lewis, who married Rachel Jane Moreland, through whom O. G. Fankboner belongs to the Fankboner family.
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Elizabeth, who became the wife of John Kilgore.
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Morris, who married Elizabeth Naber.
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Margaret Jane, who married Abram Carr (see sketch of A. W. Carr).
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George W., who married Mary E. Stallard.
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Sarah, who married George Eckfield.
Upon the death of his wife, George K. Fankboner married Matilda Webb, and two sons were born -Webster and Joseph, the former marrying Retta Fairbanks and the latter Minnie Havens. Mrs. Carr and Joseph Fankboner are still living in Grant County; some of the others are living in Ohio. Morris Fankboner was one time sheriff of the county.
Mr. and Mrs. Levi L. Fankboner
Levi L. Fankboner married Rachel Jane, daughter of David and Mary M. (Jones) Moreland, August 20,. 1852. They always had their home in the vicinity of Fairmount. Mrs. Fankboner was descended from Methodist ministers on both sides of the house, and they have always been identified with the Methodist Church, attending services in Jonesboro and Fairmount. She had a brother, Ellis J. Moreland (married Luvenia Winans), who recently died in Newcastle, and her sisters are: Melinda, who married George Thorn; Mahala, who married D. D. Ward; Sarah Elizabeth who married William Winans. The sisters are all living at Fairmount.
The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Levi L. Fankboner are:
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Morris Kilgore, who died in infancy.
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Sedora Jane, who married E. L. McDonnell and died in Michigan.
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Mary Martinette, who died in childhood.
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Sarah Romain, who married first Sanford McKinstry and second Eugene Mullen, and has one son, Terry Lewis McKinstry, who married Luella Tenny.
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Lucy Adelaid married Charles E. Sisson and has one daughter, Dora Alice Sisson.
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Lura Belle, who married twice, first William Smith and after his death M. F. Tackett, and has one son, Ara R. Smith, by her first marriage, and by her second husband three sons, William, Marvin and Walker Tackett.
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Ozro Groce.
Never having known his brother Morris, the oldest of the children, Ozro G. Fankboner, the youngest, is the son who perpetuates the family name, and sometimes it is "Boner" they call him. Mr. Fankboner was married April 2, 1891, to Effie Howell, and they have one daughter, Lois Ozro Fankboner. While Mr. Fankboner still has his mother, Mrs. Fankboner's only living ancestor is Mrs. Elizabeth Howell, In their years of married life Mr. and Mrs. Fankboner have had a varied experience, living both in town and in the country, and he has been employed on the railroad as well as on the farm, and two or three times has been established in the baker trade. In the present year 1913 Fairmount people are supplied with Fankboner's bread and pastry. The Fankboners occupy their own brick building.
Mr. Fankboner does any part of the bakery business or drives the wagon in the sale of the product, and Mrs. Fankboner can wrap more bead and send away more pleased customers than any one he could secure at the counter. There is demand for Fankboner pastry specialties, and few men work more ours out of every twenty-four than O. G. Fankboner. He will go on the wagon or take a turn at baking, and the farm will never again tempt him.
Mrs. Rachel Jane Fankboner, his mother, by terms of the will of her husband, who died Mary 10, 1910, is sole owner of the Fankboner farm on Back Creek (see (Omnibus Chapter), which her husband owned many years, and it was always one of the inviting countrysides, and attractive house overlooking Back Creek. Recently it was burned, a misfortune to the whole community, for it was always a beauty spot. Mr. and Mrs. L. L. Fankboner have not lived on the farm for several years, and she occupies a commodious home in Fairmount.
The Fankboner farm adjoins Back Creek and while the family were not Friends, in the old days of the Northern Quarterly meeting of Friends, Mr. Fankboner was forced to patrol his fences as there were so many horses hitched along them and sometimes whole panels of the fence were jerked down, so that it was a wise precaution for him to watch them. In this occupation he would visit the farmers from all over the country in attendance at the meetings who sought places to tie their horses, and Mr. Fankboner was really glad when the June meeting there was a thing of the past. The story is elsewhere told about him hanging venison in a tree on the meeting-house the first time he ever attended Quaker meeting at Back Creek. John and Daniel Fankboner were the two brothers living in Grant county when George K. Fankboner arrived, and thus he did not come into the wilderness absolutely among strangers, although he came early into the new country. Mrs. Carr is now the oracle of the Fankboner family in Grant county.
Centennial History of Grant County Indiana 1812-1912. The Lewis Publishing Co., 1914