Notes:
Data source is Linda Lightholder Kmiecik. E-mail tonky@isp.com
Fred L. Sterling/Moomaw was born 11 August 1879 at the Macoupin Co. Poor Farm. His parents listed on his "delayed" birth certificate are William Sterling and Agnes Jones. [Note all mothers in these records are listed by their maiden names, so it is impossible determine who was married and who wasn't. They most likely weren't.] Fred was taken in by David Lewis/Louis Moomaw and Jeanette/Nettie (Arnold) Moomaw around 1880 or 1881, but not formally adopted until 1892 when he was 13. Fred's elder brother or half-brother Edward Jones was taken in by Noah Wrightsman and wife Susanna (Brubaker) Wrightsman, a Brethren couple, before the 1880 census, and Edward is actually listed once with Agnes Sterling and brother Fred and a second time with the Wrightsman couple. They moved to another Brethren settlement, Holmesville, Gage Co., NE in 1888. Fred and Maud May Drury, born 10 March 1884, Virden, were married on 27 October 1902 in Virden. Their first child Pearl Elizabeth was born on 15 October 1903, and their second daughter Verna Jeanette was born on 30 December 1908.
Fred was supposedly injured in some kind of boarding accident with a Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy passenger train at the Virden Depot, and the railroad later paid his widow Maud a $500 settlement. However, Fred's obit states that he died 30 July 1909 of "tuberculosis of the stomach and bowels", and I am not sure if this is TB (natural mother Agnes Jones died of TB in March 1881) or perhaps cancer. He was not quite 30 years old. He was buried in the Moomaw family plot in the West Grove/Thayer Cemetery. His stone says "Papa".
1880 Census, Nilwood, Macoupin, Illinois
Agnes Sterling, 24, widowed, b: IL/England/Scotland
Edward Sterling, 4, b: IL/IL/IL
Frederick Sterling, 11m, b: IL/IL/IL