I received my great aunt Cary Stagner's Bible many years ago, shortly after her death. Her niece, Priscilla Pearce, passed it along to me and explained that the locks of hair in the Bible were from Cary's mother, Rachel Cornelia (Connie) Royse Hamilton. After her mother was widowed, Cary lived with her and cared for her until Connie died in 1943.
Cary and Jacob (Jake) Stagner both worked in the Warren County School District at Bowling Green, KY, and they married late in life. They had no children.
When Cary and Jake married, Robert Clark (my father and Cary's nephew) was recently discharged from the Navy where he had served as a pilot in the Pacific. He flew his mother, Mary Lula Hamilton Clark, to Edmonton to attend her sister's wedding. My cousin Mary Katherine Cassaday was a young girl at the time and remembered the sensation - "Mary Clark arrived with her young handsome son in a private plane, and they landed at the Mary Nunn farm. It set the town on its ear!"
This Bible is now in the hands of my niece, Rachel, who with her husband Eric is raising a family of six awesome young women.
Cary's Bible - the dates of birth and marriages are recorded in Cary's handwriting
Cary's Bible - a record of family deaths
Cary's Bible - According to Cary's niece, Priscilla Pearce, each year on her mother's birthday, Cary would save a lock of her mother's hair and preserve it in the Bible. Connie's locks of hair were a lovely chestnut brown even into her old age.