Thanks for allowing me to join! I’m descended through the Bruer/Brewer line. My grandmother, Amanda Marie Brewer, was the daughter of John Byron Brewer & Anna Mary Erbe.
Sue Leffler Kitchen family.
John Byron Brewer was the son of Harry S. Brewer. Grandma (Amanda) & Grandpa (Abraham C. Loeb) had ten kids (nine who lived; one still living) and all but two had kids. The family is still growing thanks to the grandkids, great-grands, and in some cases, the g-g-grands of those kids.
Although all of them are interested in what I find, I’m the only one who has actively searched and compiled records & stories. I hope one of them will take up the cause when I’m gone.
Fireman Edward Dexter and the Original Staines Fire Brigade
Get Back On Track
Since it’s been some time since the last article, I have decided to get back on track with family history – and to do so means getting back to basics. I have hardly stopped my research – in fact, I’ve been more prolific – locating photos, articles and more details into my personal database.
How To Take Action
With that in mind, my game plan is (at this moment) to work toward a goal of an article every week to two weeks – with a focus on one branch at a time, and to build a gallery with each article.
What will you do? You are under no pressure to post, but it’s always nice to have your input and ideas. My idea of this website is for us to be able to work independently, focusing on our respective branches and adding substantiating data to prove all our connections. The connections will build the strength of the basic ahnentafel (family tree or, more properly, “ancestor table”).
What Can You Do?
To get back on track, for those of you who are working your lines, please feel free to enhance the information here. Write your own articles.
This website is for Dexters AND their related families. We have plenty of room for everyone to do articles, upload photos and work your lines. Just be aware that this is predicated on the original database upload and is not current.
In other words, when I reference a family member who is on an updated gedcom file on Ancestry.com but who does not show up here, I will link back to my Ancestor’s page there (pending some better way of doing this!) or at least to the family tree.
When you link back, you will have to refer to your own gedcom. Your article should go back from the person you are working on back to the individual it connects to here on this gedcom. (*Note-if you do not have an Ancestry.com account, you may not have access to all the data in my public tree.)
Why Do We Have To Do All This?
The reason for this linking back is that It’s a large undertaking to reload the gedcom here (and maintain the current links, data and other info. Data tends to drop out, lose the attachments and have to be rebuilt. Articles remain unaltered.
There are over 2 thousand individuals in this database currently. I am not a programmer, so I can’t attest to the long-term ability of the installed gedcom format and that is why I have to stick with the original gedcom upload here.
If or when the time comes that I have to upload a new gedcom due to obsolescence of the old one, we may have to experiment. The individual file numbers should remain the same – but does that remain if certain files have been merged? I just don’t know what happens in that case.
Q and A’s
Q: Can photos be harvested on the website?
A: I hope not. I have tried to set up the site so that our images and documents are protected. Feel free to try (right-click, save image as or use a clip tool) and let me know how your experiment goes. I know there are ways around anything, but I want to prevent issues, not cause them
Q: If I upload data, is it still “mine”?
A: YES…BUT… If you fail to mark your images/documents with your information, that could be lost; so be sure to fill in all the meta information required when you upload. (It’s easier if you only do one or two at a time, rather than uploading dozens of photos at once.
Your articles posted under your name will ALWAYS have your by-line. Please be sure to fill in your bio when you go to your dashboard/user profile page. If you have trouble with this, please tell me!
Connie Jean Dexter Spicer
Let me know if you have any questions, comments or concerns or you need any information on posting your articles. As always, I’m here to help, encourage and keep things running. Let’s get back on track!
With the noted exceptions, below is the list of current users and family researchers of our site.
Everyone who is a member has the right to author – you can write up stories of your family members. (Please try to link them to the appropriate pages – or if you don’t know how, send me an email and ask for help.)
I would love to see more of you getting involved and playing on these pages. So, in order to try to get you going,
I issue the following challenge:
Write a 250-500 word story about one of your favorite Dexter or associated family relatives-alive or not. This includes any from the Dexter, Huston, Keifer and Rutherford families and THEIR associated clans. Link it to their appropriate page. (Again, ask me how – I can easily show you if you can’t find it or if it hasn’t yet been created). You can also send me the story by email along with any photos and I will upload it/them for you under your “byline”.
If you have photos, add them and include them (just one or two) into your story. If it is a relative or ancestor who is not currently on our website as yet, then I will go through the process of setting up their linking page.
I know you are all busy – but are you too busy to participate and bring something new in? This is a lot different than our old family site, but it has so many options we can take advantage of. I hope a few of you will try to jump in and learn how to use it. I’m only a Skype, Facebook message or email/phone call away!
Blessings, everyone!
Connie
PS – all current family researchers are listed below. I would love it if you would submit a short biographical statement such as I have input for a few select, below.
Alan King (Our favorite Spelthorne Historian and “cousin by proxy and heart”)
Located in England, Alan connected with Connie by reaching out to her after she posted a question to the Middlesex-L on Rootsweb. Alan was doing walking tours of the Spelthorne/Staines area and kept seeing the Dexter name crop up.
Alma Meredith* (From Keifer family)
Alma is interested in the Keifer family connection. Keifers are Connie’s grandmother’s family and Alma’s connection is through her grandmother, (who was Connie’s great aunt) Florence Keifer Smith; sister to Connie’s grandmother Phyllis Lucile Keifer Rutherford.
Karen is also interested in the Keifer family connection. Keifers are Connie’s grandmother’s family and Karen, like Alma’s connection is through her grandmother, Florence Keifer Smith. Karen and Alma’s fathers were twin brothers – Gene and Glen Smith.
Kenneth Dexter(Dexter clan)
Ken and his wife Ann are in England. Ken is convalescing and is not easily available, but can typically be reached by email. Ken is noted for his autobiography, “A Fleury Business” and his dedication to his family – and the family business, the famous Dexter Cafe.
In 1976, Alex Haley published “Roots“, an autobiographical story about an African American learning who he was through his people. It started a craze in our country, and I was one who got the bug. I took a social studies class about it, and got an A- in my Dexter research for my report along with the genealogy bug.
Connie Dexter Spicer, 2014
It became a life-long passion to learn more about my own history and people. I believe in the importance of knowing where I came from. My dad’s mother was instrumental in creating this “genealogy junkie” by giving me a number of (mostly) unbelievable stories about our family. After high school, however, I mostly put family history away. Other than a few reunions over the years, Dexter research went on the back burner.
Then came home computers.
Passing Brings Rekindled Interest In Dexter Research
In February of 1999, my grandmother, Marjorie E. (Huston) Dexter passed away. No matter whatever else may have happened to her during her lifetime, she gave me this gift – an interest in our heritage that I will never forget. The skeletons and the joys that crop up are what they are — pieces of a history – OUR history – that made us up in one way or another.
Introducing Grandma Marjorie Huston Dexter
Documentation Needed!
Before she died, I did family research using Grandma’s mythology — family stories and anecdotes with no documentation to go along with them. I learned quickly how important validating the information was.
In 1997, 20 years after I started, I got my first computer and discovered FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com. I learned Cyndi’s List and other online sites are dedicated to helping people put family documents into their hands to validate connections and eliminate myths.
The ahnentafel I created (the family tree itself) was built to a few hundred individuals. It was primarily my direct family on both sides. I had tons of questions. Brick walls kept coming, because I hadn’t yet made a valid connection across the pond. There were a few primary families I questioned-some in Leicestershire, some in Staines. I just didn’t know which family was the right one.
I didn’t connect with the right person to help me validate those ideas and families – until one day, when I got an email.
Roger Connelly, a Chamberlin Cousin
When Grandma died, I remembered the old research and decided my computer would be a great tool. I issued questions through online bulletin boards and one response to one of my online queries from Roger Connelly came back.
Roger identified himself as a cousin on the Dexter side — his connection was through his mother and my great grandfather’s mother, Mary. They were Dunlap sisters. Roger developed his Chamberlin/Chamberlain family lineage and George James Dexter cropped up as the spouse of one of his aunts.
Obituary of George James Dexter submitted by Roger R. Connolly
He passed on a copy of George James’s obituary and the clues within were invaluable to connecting the families! I discovered his military history – the first time I learned someone in my family served in the Civil War! I learned about his death and burial. The hints about his family’s immigration were not entirely correct but close enough to work with, and his birth location gave me a direct verification to the Staines clan.
Enter Alan King, Noel Bye and Bill Guest
At that point, things really started happening. I quickly connected with Alan King of Shepperton, England. Alan is now a cousin-by-proxy.
Alan and Di King
Bill Guest
As a local historian, he conducted walking tours of the area and noticed the Dexter name — and then my inquiries.
Alan corresponded with me and provided more fleshed out details after visiting the local churches that kept cropping up in Dexter stories, specifically the Independent Chapel that the family was so instrumental in building and growing.
Noel Bye (then of Tasmania) and Bill Guest (Karori, NZ) then connected with me – all of which significantly helped put puzzle pieces together and added to my list of cousins and interested Dexter family researchers and historians.
Noel confirmed his connection with the Staines clan and then somewhat fell off the radar. I later found out he has had health issues and moved to mainland Australia to benefit from the weather.
Bill connects to Noel’s same root family lineage. He was able to give me the appropriate 1850 Census records that started bringing more of the Staines clan to reality.
If you haven’t yet, read Bill and his wife Sue’s story put together from the letters of Eric Standring, you should. They are available for Site Members to read.
David Leonard Dexter Group Joins the Fray
David L Dexter family
More details emerged as David Leonard Dexter (Newent, England) and Dave V. Dexter (Neenah, Wisconsin) brought more information out. The ancestral Dexters of Staines remained involved in their community and church. They started the first fire brigade of Staines. The Spelthorne Museum has a dedicated area for the Fire Brigade and contains a great deal of information about Dexter involvement.
David L. was, for much of this particular time frame, serving in Japan with his wife, Esther as part of their christian mission. They found time to correspond and kept in touch, sharing the beautiful countryside and history of Ashiya along with David’s wonderful photography.
Kenneth Dexter Wrote His Own Story
With help from David L., I was soon in touch with Kenneth Dexter. Ken’s family line had a bakery with wonderful reputation – the Dexter Cafe (imagine!). Ken grew up in that environment and wrote his family’s story, (currently available on Amazon.com), “A Fleury Business“.
A Fleury Business, By Kenneth Dexter
More Cousins Add Depth
About this same time, I corresponded with Mary Dexter Heighway, Tony Dexter and Malcolm Robert Dexter – the latter who was living in Turkey. We have since lost Malcolm Robert, but he is with us in spirit, if not in person.
Tony had another first cousin (another Malcolm)– and in short order got me corresponding with the juggernaut of our Dexter family research in the UK, George Dexter.
Juggernaut George Dexter, Researcher Extraordinaire!
George Dexter (not George James, but this generations’ own George) is also a significant gatherer of our family’s history. It was he who got us past George Dexter, the tallow chandler and his son Thomas and Susannah, among the earliest founders of this family line that we have uncovered so far.
George Dexter
Calling All Family Writers and Photographers!
I hope you will come back and read up more on the family. Our collaborative efforts are great fun and full of wonderful information (and occasional surprises). Despite the writing and research, this is part of what helps build the site.
There are many more of you outside of the Dexter direct family that I have not yet mentioned. I apologize – you are not being ignored. We will focus on those family branches too. Where would we be without our mother’s own families, after all?
If your research is outside of the direct Dexter lineage, your stories are still part of the heritage of the family. It should be included! Your information as a group and are invaluable.
Grow your branches here, as well. Rutherford, Keifer, and Huston; Bruer/Brewer, Bye or Standring; Pease, Taylor, Connelly/Conley, Chamberlain and Swan all need representation. Through the richest old stories our own new history unfolds!
Take some time and author your own stories here. If you have questions on how to do it, let me know. All who have joined here can write and submit your articles easily. You retain authorship and copyright remains in your name.
I suggest you each write a brief author’s statement. Include:
Who you are.
Where you are
How long you’ve been researching and
How someone can contact you for more information (if you wish to be contacted). Feel free to include social media @usernames.
For all involved, our site grows richer with every piece of information. Please join in often with articles, photos and comments.
At about 9.30 am on Saturday, August 25th 1917, the dreaded telegram came to Rev. James Standring in Middlemarch signed J Allen, Minister of Defence.
Regret to advise you cable received this day reports that temporary Lieut H. E. Standring was killed in action August 17th. Please accept my sincerest sympathy in the loss which you and New Zealand have sustained.
Telegraph Back
Telegraph Front
Doris forwarded a copy of the letter she received from his commanding officer advising that
He was killed while trying to get an old lady and two little girls away from some buildings that were being the heavily shelled.
Myself and two others went to his assistance as soon as we saw him fall, but his death was instantaneous. He was buried in a military cemetery some distance behind the lines by the Rev. Capt. Tobin.
Hubert Eric Standring was just 22 years old and had served nearly three years in the Army.
Notice of Death of Lt. Eric Standring
Aftermath: Redeem the Past
Reading Eric’s letters there is continuing reference to the need to make his family proud of him. He went to Wellington as a cadet in the Public Works Department but when he enlisted in the OMR he was a commercial traveler in Dunedin. He also mentions several times in his letters that he would like a commission in the Imperial Army where no one knows his past.
Family stories had not provided any clue to this mystery. A search on “Paperspast” (the online newspaper database), finally solved it. A report from the Gisborne Police Court appeared in the“Poverty Bay Herald” on 3 November 1913. It appears that on 15 September 1913, Hubert Eric Standring had left the Public Works Department. He had subsequently called himself Truxton Standbridge, and claiming he still worked for the Public Works Department, got himself accommodation at the Masonic Hotel, Gisborne and ordered a suit of clothes from John Rossbotham . He had not paid for the clothes or the accommodation.
Eric pleaded guilty in the police court of false pretenses for the suit of clothes, valued at 5 pounds.
He also pleaded guilty to supplying liquor to Lawrence Mawson, a prohibited person on 31 October. Police reported that they had “found Mawson lying in a beastly state of drunkenness” with Standring. Mawson was a dentist and Eric said he went there “to learn the trade of dentistry”. Eric admitted supplying liquor to Mawson on more than one occasion. (In 1913 the minimum age for purchasing liquor to take away was still only 13 years so it was not illegal for Eric to buy the alcohol.)
Eric was convicted on both charges. On the false pretenses charge he was placed on probation for six months, directed to abstain during the period of his probation from intoxicating liquor and not enter premises where intoxicants are sold, and to pay John Rossbotham the 5 pounds for the suit of clothes.
On the charge of supplying liquor he was fined 10 pounds and costs of seven shillings with the provision, if he defaulted to serve two months in prison.
It is not clear why Eric left the Public Works Department. The reports of the court case do not appear to have been picked up by the Otago papers.
Memorials
France
Lieutenant Hubert Eric Standring is buried in the Pont-d’Achelles Military Cemetery near Nieppe in Northern France.
The military cemetery at Pont-d’Achelles was begun in June 1917 and used by field ambulances and fighting units until the German advance in the following April. It was used by the Germans during their occupation, under the name of Papot Military Cemetery, and it was resumed by the British in September and October 1918. The cemetery contains 293 Commonwealth and 37 German burials from the First World War (the Cemetery having briefly been under German control).
In 1919 Rev Standring wrote to Padre Tobin asking if he had a photo of the grave. The Padre advised him that they were not allowed to have cameras in France. Contrary to the information Doris had received Padre Tobin did not bury Eric. He had looked back and seen a diary entry saying he had seen the grave. He notes “the graves are well cared for and different from those up the line”. Padre Tobin also notes that he was camped with the 3rd Otagos in Port Nieppe.
He was killed the day we went up the line. The Hun was shelling some “Archies” – aeroplane guns and they lengthened a few hundred yards…Your son was helping an old woman escape when a shell burst on the road killing him instantly.
Subsequently a card came from the War Office with a photo of the grave.
Photograph of Eric’s grave. The crosses have now been replaced by the white stones erected by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
Salford
Doris had a plaque put on grave of her mother. It is still visible on the grave in St Pauls, Kersal Moor in Salford.
Also Lieut H. E. Standring the beloved husband of Doris Standring and son in law of the above killed in action in France – August 17, 1917
New Zealand
On 11 September 1917 the Otago Daily Times told of a service in Middlemarch (where Rev James Standring was now the minister).
MEMORIAL SERVICE AT MIDDLEMARCH.
On Sunday afternoon one of the largest congregations that have assembled in Middlemarch gathered in the A. and P. Hall to take part in a memorial service to the soldiers who have fallen during the war. During the past week or two the grim and tragic nature of the conflict has been brought home poignantly to the people of the district by the deaths of Lieutenant Eric Standring and Private Alec. Robertson, who were killed at the front. The hall was packed to the door and the Rev. Mr Standring (father of Lieutenant Standring) conducted the service. Ten wreaths, one for each of the boys from the district who have given their lives for the Empire and the cause of freedom, were ranged in front of the platform, and the reading desk was draped with the Union Jack.
The members of the Middlemarch Band, Territorials, and Senior Cadets, and the members of the Oddfellows’ and Freemason Lodges marched to the hall in procession, and the flags outside the, hall were flown at half-mast.
Taking for his text the words “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend,” the Rev. Mr Standring delivered a most eloquent and touching address……
The address moved the audience powerfully. Appropriate hymns were sung, and the meeting closed with the benediction.
Eric is not included on the Middlemarch War Memorial. His name is on the Enfield Memorial gates in North Otago.
Waitaki Boys’ High School, Eric’s old school has an impressive Hall of Memories. About 700 old boys served during the First World War, 119 of them dying. His name is included on the memorial.
Eric is also remembered in a memorial in the Waiareka Presbyterian Church. There is a framed photo with an inscription on the back from Rev. James noting that it was unveiled on Sunday, 7 December 1919.
Postscript
Tom Mansergh died in 1920 and is buried with his wife Grace in the churchyard of St Pauls, Kersal Moor, Salford, England. There is a memorial to Eric on the headstone.
Doris Standringmarried Frank Arthur Harrison, an accountant, in 1927. He had also been a soldier and had been awarded the Military Cross. They do not appear to have had any children. She died in 1955.
Gladys Hull (nee Standring) had a disastrous first marriage to a man who had left his wife and children in Scotland. She married again and had over 20 happy years with Horace Hull. Horace died in 1951 while visiting Wellington. Gladys lived in Warrington, Karitane, and Dunedin until her death in January 1987 at the age of 90. She always remembered Eric and kept his letters and postcards.
Victor Tainui (Vic) Standring served in the New Zealand Merchant Navy in both the 1st and 2nd World Wars. He married in England in 1918 and brought his bride back to New Zealand. He had a distinguished career as an Engineer in the Union Steam Ship Company and died in 1962.
Rev. James Standring retired as a Minister in 1924 and died in 1928.
Amelia Alice (Millie) Standring lived until August 1957. She was 92.
Sources
Letters and postcards sent by Eric Standring
Military Personnel Files – STANDRING, Hubert Eric – WW1 9/481 – Army; Archives New Zealand
PapersPast; National Library of New Zealand
Damien Fenton, New Zealand and the First World War 1914 – 1919, Penguin, 2013
Don MacKay (ed),The Troopers Tale, the History of the Otago Mounted Rifles, Turnbull Ross Publishing, 2012
