Release of the 1950 Census

The 1950 census is available at the government's census archive at:   https://1950census.archives.gov/  accessible at no cost. Read on for some guidance to use the archives.

The 1950 census was released on April 1, 2022, 72 years after the official date of the '50 census. The delay is prescribed by law.

The census is not indexed so can not yet be searched by name, or other data information. Private enterprises, ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com, etc, have teams interpreting the handwriting of the enumerators to build digitized data bases that will be searchable.

In the meantime, the raw data is available at the government archives. At the archives website you can select a state or county and some breakdown within the county. A list of "Enumeration Districts (ED) will appear that are chucks of the county you can browse.

It may be cumbersome to find the ED you need. This website will help: https://stevemorse.org/census/arc1940-1950edmaps.html?year=1940  But be careful to select 1950 then follow the links to maps that are marked with ED names (numbers). For instance, Sutton is divided into ED 18-30 (east of Highway 5) and ED 18-31 (Sutton city - west of Highway 5). (For those under a certain age, Highway 5 was a state highway that went from Highway 41 through downtown Sutton and on to Henderson. Sometime when I was living elsewhere, the state must have taken those signs down and turned the road back to the counties.)

Outside of town, School Creek Township is ED 18-27 and Sutton Township is ED 18-32. 

Grafton Township (Fillmore County) outside of Grafton village is ED 30-21. Grafton village is ED 30-20. 

All Clay County ED's are listed HERE.

Have fun.

1950 Census Enumeration Districts for Clay County

The 1950 Census data will be released on April 1, 2022. Staff at various companies including genealogy websites will begin indexing the date and releasing searchable data bases over the following weeks.

Raw data will be available quicker, accessible by Enumeration District (ED) which you must know to find data by location.

ED's for Clay County data in the 1950 census are as follows:

18-1                 Town of Clay Center
18-2                 Town of Edgar
18-3                 Edgar Twsp
18-4                 Eldorado Twsp
18-5                 Town of Spring Ranch
18-6                 Town of Fairfield
18-7                 Fairfield Twsp
18-8                 Town of Glenvil
18-9                 Glenvil Twsp
18-10               U.S. Naval Ammunition Depot
18-11               Town of Harvard
18-12               Harvard Twsp
18-13               Inland Twsp
18-14               U.S. NAD
18-15               Town of Trumbull
18-16               Leicester Twsp
18-17               Town of Saronville (Lewis Twsp)     
18-18               Town of Saronville (Sutton Twsp)
18-19               Lewis Twsp
19-20               Town of Ong
18-21               Logan Twsp
18-22               Lone Tree Twsp                     
18-23               U.S. NAd
18-24               Lynn Twsp     
18-25               U.S. NAD
18-26               Marshall Twsp           
18-27               School Creek Twsp    
18-28               Sheridan Twsp
18-29               Spring Ranch Twsp
18-30               Town of Sutton (East)
18-31               Town of Sutton (West)
18-32               Sutton Twsp

 

Stella's Brother, Admiral J.J. "Jocko" Clark

There is a Sutton connection, close enough for our purposes, with one of the more fascinating heroes of Naval aviation.

Admiral J.J. "Jocko" Clark was an older brother of Stella (Clark) Olinger, wife of LeRoy (Roy) Olinger, Sutton residents who owned farms northwest of town. The Sutton story appears at the end of this article.

Joseph James Clark and Stella Clark were born on a farm near Chelsea in Oklahoma Indian Territory, J.J. in 1893, Stella in early 1900. Their parents were William and Lillie Clark. An older brother died in infancy, eight Clark children survived.

This photo of William Clark's family appears in Chapter 1 of "One the Warpath in the Pacific" by Clark G. Reynolds. The farmhouse was near Alluwe, Indian Territory in 1906. Left to right Joe, 12 with his dogs; "Papa" Will Clark, 45; Mary, 8; Stella, 6; "Mama" Lillie Belle, 33; twins Bill, Jr. and Dollie; and Lucy, 11.  

Joseph Clark received an appointment to the U.S. Navy Academy in Annapolis and in 1917 became the first native American to graduate from the academy. Tradition calls for plebes to receive a nickname, Midshipman Clark became "Jocko" a name that stuck with him throughout his career in WWI, WWII, to the end of the Korean War. 

He was assigned to one of the earliest aircraft carriers and immediately was attracted to flying becoming a Naval Aviator in 1925. 

Early in his career, he was the only aviator assigned to an inspection team evaluating new carrier aircraft and procedures for carriers and their aircraft. He was involved in developing carrier tactics until the end of his career, tactics that are key to naval carrier operations today.

Jocko developed a well-earned reputation for his aggressive nature and leadership. He became known as "Patton of the Pacific." Several videos about the admiral live on youtube.

Patton of the Pacific from Cherokee Nation Archivists. 

Admiral Jocko Clark and the Battleship New Jersey - The New Jersey was Admiral Clark's flagship in the Korean War.

After the Yorktown (CV-5) was sunk at Midway, a carrier that was under construction on the east coast was renamed the Yorktown CV-10). Then-Captain Clark was assigned as the new commander and he picked up the carrier before all interior work was done. Crews completed the ship as Jocko drove it through the Panama Canal and to the war in the South Pacific. He was launching aircraft into combat six months later.

A movie production crew accompanied the Yorktown filming what became an hour-long navy promotional movie called "The Fighting Lady." The narrator (Robert Taylor of Clay Center fame) purposely did not name the Yorktown to honor all carrier crews and airmen in the flick.

The Fighting Lady - an hour-long movie by 20th Century Fox.

The film is illustrated by navy combat film. A commentator pointed out that the Yorktown was the only ship with color film so all color photography in the film came from Jocko's ship. Jocko gets good coverage especially of him chewing out the crew and directing traffic on deck. The original film had no sound so we enjoy Jocko's words in a voice-over.

Back to the Sutton connection. Jocko's sister Stella Clarinda married LeRoy (Roy) Olinger in Oklahoma in 1918. Roy and his sister Bertha (wife of Dr. Fred Figi) were Sutton High grads in 1914 and 1913. (Dr. Figi in '12). 

Roy and Stella's daughter Jody married Paul McBeth and farmed an Olinger farm northwest of town. (I scooped corn with Paul many a time on our neighborhood corn-shelling crew.) Their daughter Paula was my classmate, class of '61. Second daughter Jody ('65) lives in Omaha - we had a great conversation about her great uncle Jocko and the books. Elizabeth was in the class of '72 and Dr. William McBeth in '74. 

Clark G. Reynolds assisted Jocko with his autobiography. Reynolds was the nephew of Admiral Clark's personal aide and snagged the gig when he was 19. Writing the book had to wait until Reynolds had his PhD from Duke years later. 

Reynolds was upset that the editor cut the story of Jocko's early years (including all mention of Stella) so that the autobiography concentrated on the admiral's career on carriers. So, we now have a full-fledged biography that does include the admiral's formative years in Indian Territory, hi-jinx at Annapolis (oh yeah), and pretty robust genealogy coverage of the admiral's various lines, including the Cherokee ancestry.

Jody and I captured the last copies of "Warpath" at amazon, so if you're interested (I recommend it) you'll have to wait or find another source.

Griess Name & Sutton was Featured in 1922 Lincoln Paper

This article in a 1995 issue of The Clay County News told the story of a 1922 article in The Lincoln Sunday Star about the Griess family of Sutton. 

The original 1922 article follows.

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The headline banner of the Lincoln paper on July 30, 1922 surely caught the eye of Sutton locals.

This collage of photos was the centerpiece of the 1922 Lincoln Sunday Star article.

Publication of "Along the County Line" was 50 years ago.

One of out two important books about the history of Sutton (the other being Jim Griess' book) was published 50 years ago. The publication was announced in The Clay County News on August 1, 1968.

The cover of "Along the County Line" is simplicity itself

The Sutton Museum's copy of "Along the County Line" is autographed by the authors.

Howard (HCK) King wrote the newspaper item in 1968 and the Preface the prior October.

Many of the poems in the book were by Anne Sheridan. The book also has a Bibliography. 

1942-1950 Sutton Wedding Clippings

The recent Shirley Wach donation included a scrapbook of newspaper clippings of Sutton weddings from about 1942 - 1950.

The note inside the cover indicates it was the work of Christine Fenske and it was "Book IV". Pages are 7 X 10 inches. About 80 of the pages in the book are filled. 

This 7" X 10" scrapbook of Sutton wedding newspaper clippings was part of the Shirley Wach collection received recently.

If there might be a clipping of interest to you, stop by the museum on a Sunday afternoon or drop us a note and we'll check it out for you.

The clippings were pasted into a catalog from the W. M. Welch Scientific Company in Chicago. A few of the trade catalogs are available at amazon.com for impressive prices and the Smithsonian seems to have a display of them. Several hundred items at the end of the book were not covered by wedding pics and are somewhat interesting in themselves.