Claud Edger Bumpas and Mary Ethel Martin

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Husband Claud Edger Bumpas ¹

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           Born: 26 Oct 1886 - Windsor, Henry Co, MO 1
     Christened: 
           Died: 13 Dec 1957 1
         Buried: 

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         Father: Hugh Bumpas (      -      ) 1
         Mother: Evaline Dodds (      -      ) 1

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       Marriage: 5 Apr 1941 1

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Wife Mary Ethel Martin ²

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           Born: 26 Aug 1892 - Lincoln, Benton Co, MO 2
     Christened: 
           Died: 
         Buried: 

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         Father: James P. Martin (1857-1926) 3 4
         Mother: Ann Rachel Wilson (1871-1955) 4

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Children

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• They had no children.

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General Notes: Wife - Mary Ethel Martin

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A Tribute to Ethel (Martin) Bumpas
(As printed in the Windsor Review paper 1973 Windsor, Missouri)
CHARMING LADY
Mrs. Ethel (Martin) Bumpas, eighty-one years old isn't giving in to old age, for on her birthday August 26, 1973, she rode up town on the back of her great-great nephew's motorcycle for her birthday dinner. She is still showing some of the daring spirit that took her to New Mexico in 1916 where she homesteaded four-hundred eighty acres.
She was born August 26, 1892, on a farm north of Lincoln, Missouri, and was the second child in a family of seven children. She attended McMurdo rural school two miles from her home, then went to high school in Lincoln, Missouri. She also attended summer session at what was then known as Warrensburg State Normal.
In 1910 she taught Prairie View School near Wind-sor, Missouri, which has gone the way of most all coun-try one room schools. She then taught four years in Lincoln Public schools in the primary department at a salary of $35 to $45 a month. In 1916 she went to New Mexico by train to homestead. She filed a claim for four-hundred eighty acres in the sand hills of the northeastern part of the state. The requirements were to live there seven months a year for three years and spent $1.25 an acre on improvements and to have a specified number of acres in cultivation. She taught school there for two years at a newly established district twenty miles from Nara Vina. She lived in a dug out on her homestead near the school building. The dug out was comparable to what we know as a cellar or storm cave. It had a dirt floor and most of her furniture was constructed from wooden boxes. Her uncle, who at this time lived near there, dug a cistern and piped the water inside for her. He then had to haul the water and keep the cistern full. No one had a telephone. Her uncle was instrumental in getting the school established and getting her employment as a teacher. Her New Mexico teacher's certificate expired in two years so in 1913 she took a job as clerk in a general store in Nara Vina, going out to the dug out on Saturday night after work and returning on Monday morning. Each summer she returned to Missouri, as she only had to stay on her homestead seven months a year, so when school was out in the spring she would come home. In 1918 when she went back, she and her fifteen year old brother drove out in a Model T Ford so she would have transportation to go to her homestead on weekends. Her brother attended high school there. On the trip to New Mexico, they did well to make two-hundred miles a day as there were no hard surface roads then.
After a time, a bachelor in the district resented having to pay more taxes because of the school and boasted that he would contest her residency when she went to make final proof. She had been told it was permissible to live away from her claim if necessary to earn a livelihood, provided she spent weekends there. This Mrs. Bumpas had done for part of the time but she didn't want to become involved in a trial case so she stayed on a few more months and received the land patent in 1920.
She then came back to Missouri and entered busi-ness college in Chillicothe and secured a position as bookkeeper/cashier for Western Union Telegraph Co. at Hastings, Nebraska, in 1921. After five years she transferred to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and resided there until 1941 when she married Edgar Bumpas. They lived on a farm south of Windsor, Missouri. Some of her venturesome spirit is still alive as she found the ride on the back of a Honda quite a thrill. She admits though that she took a lot of kidding about it. Mrs. Bumpas said people tell her that because of her age that she should slow down. She said, "I never run out of things to do." She does all her own yard work and for real relaxation she works cross word puzzles. She has been a member of the Windsor United Methodist Church, also a member of Weneeda and Henry County Chapter of the DAR. At this time she says that her greatest assets, in addition to her family, are her wonderful neighbors and friends and her good health which she has had most of her life. She feels that her experience in homesteading years were very reward-ing, not so much of a financial success as she sold thirty years later for $3.50 an acre, but in many other ways. The four-hundred eighty acres she homesteaded are now part of a large cattle ranch and quite valuable. She did retain mineral rights on one-hundred sixty acres and has it leased to Humble Oil Company.

1 Claudine Adams Diemert, The Descendants of David Martin (Self-published.), Pg 98.

2 Claudine Adams Diemert, The Descendants of David Martin (Self-published.), Pg 97.

3 Charles A. Babcock, Venango County, Pennsylvania, Her Pioneers and People (Chicago, IL: J. H. Beers & Co., 1919), Pg 1018.

4 Claudine Adams Diemert, The Descendants of David Martin (Self-published.), Pg 94.