Section 14, Lot 17, Ely Mausoleum
Dayton, Ohio
STANLEY TRIBE OF GYPSIES SETTLED IN MIAMI VALLEY
King bought farmland, cemetery plots here
By Roz Young
lma J. Reichbauer wrote: `I think there is a fascinating story of gypsies in this area that is untold.
`I can remember many years ago reading about the big gypsy funeral at Woodland. Horse and buggies were lined up from the courthouse to Woodland Cemetery. The gypsies came from far and near. That has always fascinated me, as does the idea that their burial ground would be here in Dayton.'
Jim Sandegren, curator of the Woodland Cemetery Arboretum, had a letter from Sherry Stanley of Englewood, who has been researching her husband's relationship to the gypsies of Dayton, saying that she would like to know more about the Stanleys.
The Dayton gypsy story is indeed a fascinating chapter in Dayton history.
It began in England with the Stanley tribe of gypsies, a large family and the most prominent and influential of the gypsy tribes in that country.
In 1856, Owen Stanley, commonly recognized as the king of the gypsy tribes, and his wife Harriet Worden, his son Levi and his wife Matilda Joles, and many of their tribe came to the United States because the tight little island of England had become so densely populated that living there was becoming impossible for the free-spirited and free roving gypsies.
Shortly after arriving in this country, the Stanleys arrived in the Miami Valley. Owen called together his followers and told them that he had chosen Dayton as his permanent home. He would invest money in farmland so that his children, their wives and husbands and their children would have houses to live in during the cold winter months. Owen Stanley also purchased a large lot in Woodland Cemetery where all the tribesmen and women could be buried when the time came.
He bought a small farm northeast of Dayton, and there he lived with his wife Harriet. They pastured their horses there during the winter, and although they had somewhat peculiar lifestyles in the opinion of their neighbors, they never gave offense.
Others of the tribe bought land in Dayton, Harrison, Wayne, Mad River and Butler townships. They wintered here and rented out their farms when they took to the road as soon as the weather began to get warm. The men were horse traders and did some metal work. The women told fortunes.
The Rev. Daniel Berger, a United Brethren minister and editor for the U.B. Publishing Co., first learned of the gypsies in Dayton when Owen Stanley knocked on his door one day and asked him to conduct a funeral for a four-year-old boy who had died in Mississippi. His family had brought the body to Dayton for burial on the Stanley plot.
Berger was hesitant at first, supposing that perhaps the gypsies had rites he would not be familiar with. Stanley assured him that the family wished a service the same as for any other person, and Berger agreed to perform the rites.
`The burial was not attended by any unusual character,' Berger later said, `but I was impressed by the evident and deep sorrow for the loss of their child and the generous sympathy of the large group of relatives and friends .
`The service rendered on this occasion was the beginning of a long and friendly relationship with these people. ... I have been with them at the burial of their dead and occasionally visiting their sick during the period of a full quarter of a century, sharing in a good degree their confidences and, in some instances, their real affection. I have served them on more than 20 different funeral occasions, assisting them in burying their dead from the young infant to the more than centenarian, and from ordinary folk in the presence of a dozen or two immediate friends to royalty in the presence of thronging thousands.'
He performed the rites for Harriet Stanley in 1857. On her monument is the epitaph:
Harriet Stanley was her name,
England was her nation;
In any wood her dwelling place,
In God was her salvation.
Owen Stanley died in 1860. Owen's son Levi became king and his wife Matilda became queen. Levi inherited his father's title, although there was no law, written or otherwise, that established his rank.
`There is nothing more than a good man and a good woman,' he explained to a reporter. `Our people trust me and love me as they did my father and mother before me; that is all. They do pretty much as I tell them and we all work together, and that is all there is to it.'
- See more at: http://calvarycemeterydayton.flarecode.com/frank-p-stanley#sthash.kVJcJJv1.dpuf
