John Quincy Boner (1830-1908) and his wife Sarah Ann Clark had already lost three children to illness by 1876, when they built this home in Milan, Mo. Thankfully, the stately home with its inviting, wraparound porch, is still standing, as I discovered on a visit there last summer.Two children — Minnie (12) and Charles (2) — were still alive by the time the home was finished. Boner, my second great grandfather, served at the time as clerk of Sullivan County, registering all the land deals. It was an easy two-block walk to his office. My great grandmother, Elizabeth Boner, was born in 1878, shortly after completion of the house, one of the nicest still standing in Milan, located in the north-central part of the state. It’s eery to think she lived there.
John Quincy Boner paid $875 in October 1876 for the prime lot, according to Beverly Bonner McCord, writing in the self-published “The Bonners of Milan.” Bonner speculates that John Quincy may have launched the project to take his wife’s mind off the loss of three children to diptheria.
“Sarah had lost three children by this time,” Bonner writes, noting that she lost a fourth later. “Perhaps John thought it would take her mind off her sorrows if Sarah were busy designing and decorating a new home.”
The depleted Boner family lived temporarily in a shed on the lot while the main house was being built. The shed was used for storage after the main house was completed. The large lot provided plenty of space to plant cheerful fruit trees, flower beds, and a large vegetable garden. John’s brother Henry lived a few blocks away in a modest one-story bungalow on the corner of East 4th Street and Vine. “A lot of visiting went on between the two homes,” Bonner writes.
Sarah remained close throughout her life to her younger sister, Elisabeth, who was seven years younger. Sarah was light-haired, brown-eyed, and at an early age mastered “all the homey little arts that women performed in those days,” writes Bonner. She loved to garden, cook, and sew, and was also a good student. Sister Elizabeth writes that “her house was always homelike and attractive. She loved pretty clothes and things for her house and loved to entertain her friends.”
Unfortunately, the Boners suffered financial as well as emotional setbacks. The town of Milan, Bonner speculates, may have been economically depressed in the late 1870s. On June 15, 1878, shortly after building the home, John and Sarah mortgaged it to Sarah’s mother, Mary Andrews Clark, for the sum of $1,056.