Sunday, July 15, 1866

A very warm morning and day; mercury at 90; some slight indication of rain, but no rain. Milton, Lizzie, and I went to meeting, which was small. No preaching; some napping. [This] afternoon David went with Lizzie and me to George Butler’s to see Elisha and Luscinda [sic] Butler who have lately returned from Little Rock, Arkansas. They were not at home and we did not stop long as the family were fixing off to Sabbath School. We came by Alpheus Rayl’s and found no one at home. Then [we] came home. I have had the headache all day and traveling has not relieved it.

–Mary Jane Edwards

The information I find when diving into Mary Jane Edwards’ diary never fails to prompt more questions than answers.

Some quick internet research suggests that Elisha and Lucinda Butler were siblings and members of Walnut Ridge Meeting in Rush County, Indiana. Lucinda was teaching at the schools across the river in Little Rock when Mary Jane and Lizzie visited on their journey home from Jackson, Mississippi. I wonder if the four were acquainted before their teaching trip south. 

The Edwards’ eldest sibling, Hannah married a Nathan Hill from Walnut Ridge, so the possibility of their all being acquainted seems likely.

Another brother-in-law of the Edwards siblings was Alpheus Rayl. His son, Harmon H.- the baby belonging to Ruth Emily in the diary- turned up in my city and even at the same Friends church I grew up in- albeit some seventy-five miles away and long before I was born. To my great surprise, I found him by using Newspapers.com.

Harmon worked as an assistant to Joseph Goddard, the Hoosier Quaker millionaire, whose grocery warehouses supplied much of East Central Indiana and some of Western Ohio.

Joseph was the husband of Quaker Mary Goddard, who pined for a Friends meeting upon moving to Muncie. She was instrumental in establishing a Quaker meeting in Muncie.

My first cousin, three times removed Harmon H. Rayl served as treasurer of the building committee for the new Muncie Friends’ meetinghouse, dedicated in 1908. The committee’s chair was Joseph Goddard.

How did Harmon come to be in Muncie? How did he begin work for Goddard? How long was he a member of the Friends meeting in Muncie? Why did he leave?

I know that he ended up back in Henry County because I found articles about his political life and serving as executor of the estate of one of the three bachelor uncles, Mary Jane’s brothers.

As a side note, strangely enough, although not a Quaker, my husband’s grandfather also worked for Joseph Goddard’s company. Not that only Friends worked for Goddard, but how odd that his family had a work connection with mine. But then, his mother and my father also worked for the same company! What are the odds?

Everywhere I turn, there are connections. And even more questions!