New Madrid Record
March 24, 1886
Funeral Notice:
Died in this city at one o'clock p.m. Wednesday, March 24, 1886.
Mr. Gazwell Klein
Aged 42 years, 11 months, and 15 days. Friends of the deceased are respectfully notified that the funeral will take place from the residence of Mrs. Mosier in this city at 2 o'clock Thursday, March 25, 1886, to the Klein graveyard. Services will be conducted by Rev. Webster Full.
(The Kline/Cline graveyard is now in the middle of the Mississippi River. Gazwell Kline was the husband of Anna Eliza Blount Kline, and the above newspaper clipping was pasted in her Bible.) ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ____
The funeral was held at Elizabeth "Tickell" Jones-Moore-Blount-Mosier.
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Elizabeth Mosier, who died February 20, 1892, was a sister of Madison Tickell and Gazwell Kline's mother-in-law. Elizabeth Tickell, the wife of Daniel Mosier, is buried in the Sikeston City Cemetery along with her daughter, Eliza Anna Blount Kline, her son-in-law, W. Henry Cline (his wife and Elizabeth's granddaughter Nancy Lena Kline), a grandson Webster, and a great-granddaughter Vera Cline Johnson. Elizabeth has her maiden name on her headstone, which shows her date of birth as March 9, 1811.
NOTE: William "Wilheim" Cline was born in Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany, and his American family originally spelled their name Cline. However, after the marriage of his granddaughter Nancy Lena Cline to her first cousin Henry Cline, Anna Eliza Blount Cline changed the spelling of her and her daughter's name to Kline.
William's only son, Gazwell, was born in or near New Madrid, Missouri, on April 8, 1843. Some seventy-four years and fifteen days later, his great-great-granddaughter Tina Louise Harmon Havard was born on his birthday on April 8, 1960. Even odder, six years later, on April 8, 1966, a second great-great-granddaughter Jeanelle Renee' Cline Shaw, was born. Both these baby girls were the granddaughters of Curtis Henry Cline and Marie Ruth Price Cline. Unfortunately, family tradition says that Gazwell died from either gallstones or appendicitis.
I found the 1863 Tax Assessment Report for New Madrid County, Missouri, listing non-serving men of eligible age who were not fighting in the War Between the States. I then found Missouri taxed a $30 fee for non-service in 1863 on Gazwell Cline for not serving in the War. I was surprised by this as Gazwell's father was a German-born immigrant to the USA. In general, German-born immigrants firmly backed the Union cause. It is also odd that this family had three or more slaves. But, again, most German-born citizens were staunch abolitionists. From these documents, he apparently declined to take sides in the American Civil War and continued to run the family grocery store.
We have little information on Gazwell Cline; however, I have a videotape of granddaughter Vera Cline Johnson telling the camera about her memories of hearing her Grandma Kline talk about her husband. My Aunt Vera recalled her Grandma saying, "My husband Gazwell was a kind man and a gentleman. He was good to me. I could go into the store and take money out of the cash register, tell him how much I took, and he would just say, 'fine dear, have a pleasant day.' That was the way he was, even-tempered." Unfortunately, family traditions state he died of appendicitis. Today, a simple operation would take care of that issue; however, in 1886, doctors had little knowledge of the surgery needed to remove his appendix. He did just fifteen days short of his 43rd birthday.
Gazwell Cline (later changed to Kline) and Anna Eliza Blount married on January 23, 1868, in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South in New Madrid. He was educated in private schooling in New Madrid and worked in his Father's Grocery and Dram store in downtown New Madrid. His wife, Anna, was educated at the Nashville Ladies College in Nashville, Tennessee. Gazwell and his wife had two children, Nancy Lena Cline and Robert Edward Cline. Both were well-educated in private educational institutes in New Madrid. Lena was fluent in English, German, and French and was an accomplished musician. She played the pianist for the local Methodist Church. Their son, Edward, graduated from the Kentucky University and Business College in Lexington, Kentucky, and was employed with N. W. Marshall and Company as a bookkeeper. He died in 1894, just one year after graduating from college.
Gazwell's daughter Lena married his wife's cousin, Henry Cline. Family tradition says that it was at this time they changed the spelling of the last name from Cline to Kline. So Anna Eliza Blount Kline's mother (Elizabeth Tickell Jones-Moore-Blount-Mosier) and her new son-in-law Henry Cline's mother (Sophronia Tickell Cline) were sisters. This made my grandparents William Henry Cline and his wife, Lena Kline Cline, second cousins. It also makes my family tree interesting.
Gazwell's daughter Lena married his wife's cousin, Henry Cline. Family tradition says that it was at this time they changed the spelling of the last name from Cline to Kline. So Anna Eliza Blount Kline's mother (Elizabeth Tickell Jones-Moore-Blount-Mosier) and her new son-in-law Henry Cline's mother (Sophronia Tickell Cline) were sisters. This made my grandparents William Henry Cline and his wife, Lena Kline Cline, second cousins. It also makes my family tree interesting.
