THOMAS S. NORMAN By Eugene Hampton
Thomas was born on July 19, 1829 according  to  family history.  The 1860
census for Cass County, Jackson Township, Indiana, states he was born in
Harrision County,Virginia. Based on 1830 and 1840 Federal Census records
for Harrison County, his  parents are thought to be Shumate and Nancy
Norman.  However no further collaboration has been made.
The first authenticated record of Thomas was found in the 1860 Federal
census for Cass County, Indiana.  This  census shows Thomas at age
thirty-one living in the township of Jackson with his wife M. Elizabeth,
age twenty-six; son, Alton, age nine, and daughter, Florence, age two.
Thomas and M.Elizabeth may  have met and married in Ohio. Elizabeth was
born in Brown County, Ohio, and  their first child, Alton, was born in
Marion County, Ohio.  Their second child, Florence, was born in Miami
County, Indiana, which is immediately adjacent to Cass County, Ohio,
where  they  were living in 1860.  By 1867 the family was in St. Clair
County, Missouri, in the town of Osceola where Mary Elizabeth was to die
of Tuberculosis on the 14th of February, 1867.
The next record of Thomas was found in the marriage registry for  St.
Clair County, Missouri.  The records show he married Sarah E. Davis in
Osceola, Saint Clair County, on June 2, 1868.  Thomas was age 39 and
Sarah was 22.  Thomas and Sarah appeared in the 1870 census in St. Clair
County, Town  of Osceola, with their first child, a son named Albert, age
2.  They were to have four other children: Joel B., born in May of 1871;
R. Ella, born in 1875, T.S., born April 10, 1878 and Callie Bell, born
September 2, 1879.  All of the children were born in St. Clair County,
Missouri.  Neither of  his  children from his first marriage were with
them in 1870.  Thomas' son Alton would have been nineteen  years of age
when  the Census was taken.  It is likely he had left home and was
working on a farm somewhere near by.  However, Thomas' daughter,
Florence, would have been only twelve.  It is  possible she may have also
contacted tuberculosis and died.   Thomas and Sarah were to be married
for  thirteen years when she died in 1881.  No Church, Cemetery, Mortuary
or  public record has been found to determine the exact date of  her
death, or where she is buried. The year of her death has  been  set by
family verbal history as the year Callie Bell nee Norman Steele ( the
authors grandmother ) was two years  old. family verbal history has her
buried in St. Clair County.
The next record of Thomas' life was recorded in the McConnell Newsletter
dated December 31, 1992.  The information was extracted from the Eleventh
Census (1890) of the United  States, Special Schedule, Surviving
Soldiers, Sailors, and  Marines and Widows, etc.  One of the Stone County
people listed was Thomas S. Norman, the father-in-law of John P. Steele,
and father of Callie Bell Norman. Thomas had been a member of Company G
of the 155th  Regiment, Indiana  infantry.  He enlisted in April of 1865
and was discharged in August of 1865.  The census shows that Thomas
received a gun  shot wound in the right arm (or possibly kidney, very
difficult to read ).  Thomas would have been thirty-six years old in
1865, which would have made him well above the normal age for soldiering
in any Army.
Thomas was married for the third time to Alzora Francis On September  22,
1881 in Osceola, St. Clair County, Missouri. Their first child, Sarah
(Tacy) was born in St. Clair County.  The other children of this marriage
were born in Stone County,  Missouri;  They were: Mary Fannie, born  in
August of 1886; Bessie, born in June of 1889; Zella A., born November 16,
1892; Gertrude (AKA Artie), born in  September of 1893 and Carrie, born
in February of 1895.  Alzora Francis died on the fourth of July in 1911
at the age of fifty-four.  She is buried in the Ponce de Leon Cemetery
in Stone ( The cemetery is in Christian County) county where she and
Thomas lived for most of their married life.
Copyright 1996 by Eugene Hampton.  Eugene Hampton grants USGenWeb
Archives the right to post this information.
This information may be freely copied, but may not be sold.