In the late 18th century, two teenage brothers, Rubin and Adam Stedham, left Ireland with a very wealthy family (not their own, mind you) and landed in New Bern, North Carolina.
Rubin was my great-great-great-great-grandfather.
The family exploded from there:
We don't know how many children Rubin had, but one of them was my great-great-great grandfather, William Addison Steadham, whose family now resided in eastern Alabama. William, we know, had thirteen children, including seven sons, two of which died in the War Between the States. Jacob Newton Stedham, who was born June 9, 1852, was the first son too young to fight in that conflict. He was my great-great grandfather.
Jacob's first wife, Adeline, gave him six children before leaving him for another man. Alice Littlefield, his second wife, evidently felt the need to outdo her predecessor, delivering nine children. But it was one of Adeline's sons, second-born William Henry Steadham, who was my great-grandfather. (As you can see, William Henry added an a to the name, for reasons unknown.)
William Henry had eleven children, six girls and five boys. The fifth born, in 1901, was my grandfather, John Croley Steadham.
At this junction, my branch on the family tree narrows to a thin reed.
My father, John Wayne Steadham, was an only child, born in 1933. Perhaps one reason for that was his diagnosis of childhood diabetes at age five. Both his mother, Hazel, and his father had siblings who either suffered or had died of that same disease, and perhaps felt that their devotion should go exclusively to their son.
The branch strengthened again in the next generation. My father and mother, Joyce, brought into the world three sons: me, in 1954, Charles in 1958, and Jeff, in 1961.
Then the branch thinned again. While I have two sons and two daughters, my brothers have none. Charles married late in life (and even later again after the unexpected death of his first wife), and is blessed with wonderful daughters by marriage, but no one with the Steadham name. My youngest brother, Jeff, suffered a brain injury at age sixteen, and has never married.
While my daughters, Sarah and Hannah, may someday help to fill our house with children's laughter, the task of carrying on the family name falls to my sons. Joe, the eldest, is not married, though we assume it is probably in his plans. James, our second-born, married in 2004, and in 2010 blessed us with our first grand-child, Adeline Grace, a bright and delightfully precocious girl, who most assuredly is NOT named for her traitorous great-great-great-great grandmother!
But the name will survive. On June 21, 2012 (my wife Cheryl's birthday), James and Bernnie gave the Steadham family some staying power, in the little form of Callum James Steadham. Callum, originally from Latin, is a Gaelic (Irish) name which means "dove." It is a nod to his Irish great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather.
Welcome, Callum James Steadham!
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| My son James, his wife Bernnie, granddaughter Adeline and grandson Callum. (Click to enlarge) |
--Wayne S.
