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I know little of the VanLandinghams other than they lived in
Joplin,Missouri at the time of the Civil War.According to family
history,my great,great grandfather left Missouri for what is now
the state of Oklahoma to avoid being conscripted into the Confed-
erate Army.The VanLandinghams ultimately setted in Woodward Coun-
ty,Oklahoma and left there around 1914 or 1915 before moving bri-
efly in Colorado then settling in Canyon County,Idaho.My grandfa-
ther,Lynn VanLandingham was born in Oklahoma on 19 May 1910 and
passed away in a Nyssa,Oregon nursing home in July of 1992.He was
united in marriage to Myrtle Morgan around 1929 in Canyon County
Idaho.They divorced around 1953 or 1954.They had five children:
Annette,born 3 March 1931;my father,William Roger,born 31 August
1932;Melvin Laurance,born 22 February 1937;Larry Lynn,born Janu-
ary,1939 and Nancy Sharon,born 17 August 1942.My grandfather was
in the construction business with his brother Glenn but had a c-
attle ranch in Cambridge,Idaho in the 1940s and 1950s.He also w-
orked at B & M Equipment in Caldwell,Idaho in the 1960s.This was
what I learned from him prior to his death regarding the VanLand-
ingham family origins:
My great grandfather was known as Jesse VanLandingham.I was
under the impression that all of the VanLandingham men,until me,
were christened "William".My great grandfather was also in the
construction business.He died of emphysema at the age of 55 in
or around 1947.My aunt Annette(b.3 March 1931)was sixteen at the
time of his death.My father was around 15.His father was alleged-
ly killed in a mining accident.His mother,whose surname was Pols-
on or Poulson,married a man named Sargent.My younger brother Bob
inherited his pocketwatch.I know of no other VanLandinghams in
the Woodward County,Oklahoma area.
A woman contacted me by the name of Hazel Blomgren and a nu-
mber of her relatives were from Western Oklahoma.She had traced
the VanLandingham tree back to 1720 to a Belgian immigrant from
Belgium.His name was Michael VanLandingham.I believe she was al-
so related to a horse thief named George VanLandingham.He made
the lawbooks as I recall seeing his name when I studied criminal
law on the side.We had always believed that we were of Pennsylv-
ania Dutch extraction.Hazel Blomgren lived in Meadview,Arizona
when she contacted me.I have had a number of other contact us
regarding VanLandinghams.One of them,whose name I was not given,
went to David Douglas High School in 1961.He had mentioned the
state of Oklahoma,and I told him that our side of the family had
lived there.I am currently living in central Texas and I have se-
en numerous VanLandinghams around Dallas.My sister called a Will-
iam VanLandingham in Dallas about ten years ago.There was a Will-
iam VanLandingham who pitched for the San Francisco Giants around
that same time.My father is William VanLandingham and was a left
handed third baseman in Cambridge,Idaho.He graduated from High S-
chool there in 1950.My father married on 16 September 1950 in Wi-
nemucca,Nevada.My mother is Willa Dean VanLandingham nee Edens.S-
he was born 11 August 1930 in Seligman,Barry County,Missouri.My
father was born 31 August 1932 in either Caldwell or Parma,Idaho.
I had heard he was born at my great grandmother Anna VanLandingh-
am's home in Parma,Idaho.I never knew much about my father's side
of the family other than what I learned from my grandfather Lynn
VanLandingham not long before his death.
There was some family history done by my aunt Ethel whom I
never knew.My great grandmother,Anna VanLandingham,was a Sutton
and after my great grandfather passed on,she married a man named
Landers.At the time of her death in late May of 1968,there was a
fight as to bury her a VanLandingham or as a Landers.We never kn-
ew the outcome.Around that same time,my uncle Ivan was killed in
an auto accident outside of Ontario,Oregon.That was in 1968
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