Ross County OhArchives Photo Person.....Hester, Rosa Ella (Clark) abt 1950
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Ralph Cokonougher rcokon@hotmail.com August 8, 2008, 3:52 am

Source:             Old Family Photo
Name:               Rosa Ella (Clark) Hester

Date Of Photograph: abt 1950
Photo can be seen at:
http://www.usgwarchives.net/oh/ross/photos/hester2821nph.jpg
Image file size: 28.1 Kb

The photo shows Rosa (Clark) Hester, wife of Frank Hester, and daughter of 
William Wessly Clark and Mary (Sinclair) Clark, just a few years before her 
death.  The picture was probably taken about 1950.

Additional Comments:
	Rosa Ella Clark was born 11 December 1883 in Ross County, Ohio, and 
died from a stroke on 31 March 1952 in Greenfield, Ohio, at the age of 68.  
She was the daughter of William Wessly Clark and Mary Ann (Sinclair) Clark, 
and had six brothers and two sisters:  James, Jas. L., John C., Sadie C., 
Earl, Fred, Irene Chloe, and Theodore Clark.  
	My family’s oral history (both Cokonougher and Hester branches) says 
that when Rosa was a young girl, she was very beautiful, won a local beauty 
contest, and was courted and desired by all the young men in the Lattasville 
neighborhood, where she lived.  However, Rosa preferred a young man named 
Frank Hester, son of Joseph Hester, from the South Salem area, and began 
serious courting with him.  
	One day, when Frank showed up in Lattasville for a courting date with 
Rosa, his horse and buggy were forcibly stopped in the town square by a group 
of local boys.  The young men informed Frank that Rosa was off limits to him 
and that he was to turn around and never show his face in Lattasville again.  
Rosa was reserved for someone local to win, he was told, and they didn’t want 
any competition from outsiders.  Frank knew then that he had to choose between 
fighting against overwhelming odds or fleeing. The tension built to the 
boiling point while Frank considered his options.  
	Suddenly, a loud, but calm, voice boomed out from the back of the 
crowd.  “You boys stop now!  Get away from Frank!  He is going on down the 
road to Rosie Clark’s house, and he is going back as often as he wants.  And 
anyone who says different can just deal with me!!!”
	The voice belonged to young John Cokonougher, and when John 
Cokonougher spoke, people listened.  John wasn’t even twenty-years old yet, 
but he was a big and tall man, and he had a reputation for being one of the 
two strongest men of his age in the entire county.  Only his close friend, 
Miller Ogle, could compare to John’s strength.  John was also ornery, and he 
didn’t mind a good brawl once in a while. The crowd knew better than to 
challenge him.	 
	The crowd of young men quickly slunk away, and Frank went on to court 
Rosa Clark. The Lattasville boys never bothered him again.  Soon after, on 2 
Nov. 1902, the hopes of the young men of Lattasville were once again shattered 
when Rosa and Frank were married.  
	Frank and Rosa stayed married for almost 50 years, until death parted 
them, and they had seven children during that time:  Robert, Oscar, Hazel, 
Harold, Harry, Floyd, and Leslie.  The two of them spent most of their married 
life on the farm that Frank’s ancestors had purchased and pioneered way back 
in 1804 on Lower Twin Creek in Ross County, Ohio.  When Frank and Rosa died 
after a long life together, they were still living in the original log cabin 
that his ancestors had built more than a century and a half before.
	However, the story of Rosa and Frank Hester doesn’t end there.  There 
is one more footnote that needs to be added.  More than forty-four years after 
Frank Hester and John Cokonougher confronted the hostile crowd of men in 
Lattasville, John and Frank’s families merged when John’s son, Howard 
Cokonougher, married Frank and Rosa’s granddaughter, Viola Hester.  And then, 
a few years later, my siblings and I were born.  

						Ralph Cokonougher


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/oh/ross/photos/hester2821nph.txt

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