Rodell Ella Howard Ellis: Shunned Stepdaughter, Beloved Granddaughter

Johann Gottfried Hauer (John Godfrey Howard) Family Line

Rodell Ella Howard Ellis (1857-1899) Shunned Stepdaughter; Beloved Granddaughter

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by Carolyn Ann Howard

This post was updated 01May 2022

When I first considered writing a book about a family member, Ella Howard Ellis was my first choice. After learning that she died from tuberculosis, like her father before her, at the age of 42, I changed my mind. To say I didn't want to write such a sad ending doesn't seem to hold water, though. My first novel, Blood of My Ancestor was such a tragedy. Perhaps Ella would've been a brighter choice, after all, and the thought is still there. Her husband, William Ellis, seems like quite the character and a lot of fun. It also feels that we have a charming love story here, him being a wounded Civil War veteran with a right below-knee amputation (BKA), revised later to above-knee (AKA), and Ella being the lovely person I'm certain she was.

Ella's father was Henry Albert Howard and her mother, Elizabeth Smith. Do you know how difficult it is to do a family search on the name Elizabeth Smith? I'm quite sure that her father was Samuel Smith, from whom Henry's father first purchased acreage after landing in Shoals, Indiana.

Henry and Elizabeth were married in 1854, moved back to his native New York, and had 2 children Emory and Ella. Then, all of a sudden, Henry was married to his neighbor's daughter, Nancy Crays, living just outside of Loogootee, Indiana, and Elizabeth had disappeared. I dislike presumption very, very much; therefore, I'm skeptical that she died, bur I have no documentation of her after 1858.

On my family tree, I have Elizabeth Smith also linked with the Woody family of Martin/Lawrence County. There is some evidence that she may have been a Woody from a previous marriage. In working the tree, I've followed that hunch a bit, but I'm going to have to leave Evansville to find the answers, if indeed any answer is out there.

When Henry brought his two children back with him from New York, he moved to the area where his father and father-in-law lived in Perry Township, Martin County, Indiana, just outside of Loogootee.  Henry married his neighbor, Nancy Crays, in 1861. Together they had four sons and one daughter. The stepchildren, Emory and Ella, unfortunately, didn't get along too well with their stepmother.

Ella's father, Henry, died of tuberculosis in 1872. At that point, Emory moved out of the area and Ella, aged 16, went to Vincennes, Indiana, where her aunt Mary Jane Howard Sawyer lived. Ella's grandmother, Mary Ann Toles Howard, also went to Vincennes with Ella along with another grandson, Abraham Frank, whom Mary Ann had adopted. Click on photos to enlarge

1876 Map of Vincennes, IN
Public Domain

According to my dear friend and lovely cousin, Ann Hartwell Britton, who has done considerable research on the Howard tree, that once Ella landed in Vincennes, she took a job,

"either at a Methodist newspaper or a Methodist church putting out a newsletter. Two caveats: 1) This was told to me by the same people (that is, all the then-existing Ellises) who said her name was Mary Ellen Howard and 2) I called the Archives of the (now) United Methodist Church who told me there was no Methodist church in Vincennes at that time."

First ME Church, Vincennes
Public Domain
History of Old Vincennes
Click on photo to enlarge

Upon further investigation, however, Ann and I found that there was indeed a Methodist church in Vincennes at that time. According to History of Old Vincennes and Knox County, Indiana, Volume 1, by George E. Greene published in 1911 [2], the first Methodist Episcopal (ME) church was established in Vincennes in 1810 with the first building erected 1828 and a second, larger building erected 1854.

Ella and Will were married in Flint, Michigan on 07 Dec 1876, and lived their married life together in Michigan. In the 1880 census of Mount Morris, Michigan, we not only find Ella and Will but also, thankfully, Ella's grandmother Mary Ann, along with her cousin, Frank.

If I were writing a fictional story about Ella and Will, I might have them meet at this Methodist Episcopal Church in Vincennes, Indiana. Or what if they met somewhere else? After all, they weren't married in Vincennes but in Michigan. It is clear, however, that Ella and Will both had roots in Vincennes, and it is an important location to their untold story.
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1. Ella is listed as Rodell on the 1870 census.
2. Most counties have a written history in the public domain. Consult Google Books and type in either the town or county name along with the state followed by the word "history."

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