Kansas, 1897

Kansas, December 1897

ARJ stuffed the letter into the pocket of his work shirt.

Arthur Robert Jarman Dibbens (ARJ)

'I'll mail it in town this afternoon.'

He began to straighten his father’s desk. Mum and Dad wouldn’t be home from England until April, and Pleasant Valley Farm was in his hands until then.

As he closed the farm ledger and placed it with the others, his eyes fell on an old, familiar book resting on its spine among them. ARJ immediately recognized The Book of Maps. Unable to resist, he picked it up and slowly ran his hand over the leather cover.

Memories sprang to life in his mind: he and Dad sitting side by side in the little cabin NE of Wichita. Dad had brought the book with him from the Isle of Wight when they emigrated, and they looked at it often when ARJ was homesick as a boy. His fingers found a gap in the pages. He pulled it open, expecting the familiar map of England. Instead, a flurry of newspaper clippings surprised ARJ as they fluttered to the floor.

Sighing, he twisted on the desk chair and bent forward, retrieving a long, discolored clipping from under the toe of his right boot.

ARJ returned it to the open book, picking it up again as his eyes landed on the name, Dibbens. The chair creaked as he leaned back, bringing the article closer.

Wichita, Thursday, June 18, 1874

The District Court

His eyes searched for the name that had caught his attention a minute before.

“Second paragraph,” he said quietly, his thumb quivering as it marked his place in the words.

On Friday, the case of the State vs A. Dibbens, was taken up.

A cold wave washed over ARJ as his eyes skimmed the rest of the article. Familiar names from his boyhood struck his memory with such a force as to drop him, unexpectedly, back into 1874.

Sheriff Pleasant H. Massey

Sheriff Massey (1822-1919) was sheriff of Sedgwick County, Kansas in 1874. His office was in Wichita, in a building with other city leaders and the courtroom. He was born in 1822 and died at the age of 97 near Wichita in 1919. He is buried at Seltzer Cemetery in Sedgwick County.

 

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/98178251/sheriff-massey-and-family-living-at-new/

 

1870 John William Dibbens (JW)

 When John William Dibbens was born on January 13, 1870, in Ryde, Hampshire, England, his father,
ARTHUR, was 23 and his mother, ANNA, was 27. He married Stella Rosaline Baker on December 23, 1896, in Winfield, Kansas. They had three children during their marriage. He died on May 22, 1960, in Canton, Kansas, at the age of 90, and was buried in Winfield, Kansas.

John William was an Evangelist with the Methodist church. He held many revivals around the area.

1867 ARTHUR ROBERT JARMAN DIBBENS (ARJ)

ARTHUR ROBERT JARMAN DIBBENS (1867-1930)

When ARTHUR ROBERT JARMAN DIBBENS was born on October 1, 1867, in Ryde, Hampshire,
England, his father, ARTHUR, was 21 and his mother, ANNA, was 25. He married Roberta Bertie Myers and they had one son together. He then married JESSIE CHRISTENE FIELD and they had nine children together. He died on March 28, 1930, in Cheney, Kansas, at the age of 62.

1842 ANNA RUTH JARMAN (DIBBENS)

 ANNA RUTH JARMAN (DIBBENS) (1842-1919)

When ANNA RUTH JARMAN was born on June 13, 1842, in Barnstaple, Devon, England, her father, JOHN, was 31, and her mother, ANNA, was 30. She married ARTHUR ROBERT DIBBENS on November 4, 1865. They had nine children in 14 years. She died on December 20, 1919, in Southsea, England having lived a long life of 77 years.

She learned the trade of lace making when she went to live in Budleigh, Somerset, England, in 1861 with her Aunt and Uncle.

Anna's mother Hannah or Anna (Coombes) Jarman and her sister, Emily, were also masters of needlework.

Anna Dibbens won first place with a piece she entered in the fair while living in Illinois.

1846 ARTHUR ROBERT DIBBENS

ARTHUR ROBERT DIBBENS known also as Arthur Dibbens Sr. in the Cheney, Kansas area because ARJ also went my Arthur in the community.

When ARTHUR ROBERT DIBBENS was born on September 25, 1846, his father, WILLIAM, was 31 and his mother, ANN, was 30. He married ANNA RUTH JARMAN on November 4, 1865. They had nine children in 14 years. He died on February 17, 1932, in Cheney, Kansas, at the age of 85, and was buried in Vinita, Kansas.

In Ryde, he worked as a carter.

Arthur, Anna, and the family landed in America, Boston, Massachusetts on 7 March 1872 according to JW Dibbens' naturalization record. They settled near Peoria, Illinois and tried farming there. Arthur hated the mud so they moved on to Kansas, arriving in Wichita in October 1873.

They claimed the SW quarter of section 31 of Payne Township, Sedgwick County, Kansas in 1873. They appear on the 1875 Kansas census on this land. By August 1876, they had relinquished that claim and Robert Williams claimed it. 

Current Google Map of Section 31 Link:

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/37.7450532,-97.2625224/East+29th+St+N+%26+N+Woodlawn+St,+Wichita,+KS+67226/@37.741469,-97.2633974,15.75z/data=!4m9!4m8!1m0!1m5!1m1!1s0x87bafd4ba194038d:0x416c106da6a865a8!2m2!1d-97.2623125!2d37.7375538!3e2

The land Arthur and Anna first settled is now part of Wichita. It's the 1/2 mile east of Woodlawn and 1/2 mile north of 29th Street.

Their seventh child (4th living child), Viola, was born in Wichita the first of December 1876. 

Land records telling exactly when the land SW of Cheney in Vinita Township, Kingman County, Kansas became theirs are unavailable. 

Anna and the children may have stayed in Wichita as borders until a dwelling was ready in Vinita. 

He is listed as a witness for another land owner in Vinita in October 1879. Arthur and Anna are listed in the Cheney papers with Arthur holding an office on the Sunday School board by 1880.

Arthur and Anna owned the north half of section 35 and the NW quarter of section 36, and the west 2/3 of section 25 (everything west of the Ninnescah River), of Vinita Township. Their house was on the quarter section of 36.