I'm grateful to have received this biography from the book "History of Neosho and Wilson Counties" originally published in 1902. Maybe it will be of interest to someone on the list. Jean Gilmore MRS. GLAPHYRA GILMORE--The venerable subject of this review is one of the few surviving pioneers of Neosho county. No one, perhaps, ever cast his lot on the frontier under less favorable circumstances and for the ten years following 1860 few persons were tortured with more harrowing experiences and endured greater domestic hardships that she. Her life has been passed in the west for her parents were pioneeers to Howard county, Missouri, where she was born on the 8th of March, 1828. She grew up in Pettes county, that state, whither her parents moved in 1834, and in Johnson county, Missouri, on the 13th of March, 1856, she was married to James S. Gilmore. Her husband was born in Morgan county, Missouri, March 8, 1831, and his parents were pioneers from Illinois to Morgan county, Missouri, where they settled about 1820. Mrs. Gilmore was a duaghter of Anthony and Dorothy (Gentry) Mullins, the father of Kentucky and the mother of Virginia. Her grandfathers were James Gentry and Jesse Mullins and both settled in Kentucky when their families were small and their children young, migrating thence from Virginia, Jesse Mullins being a soldier in the Revolutionary war. Anthony Mullins took his family into Howard county, Missouri, about 1826, where he was a farmer and also one of the early school teachers of the state. He was born May 9, 1799, and died September 3, 1835, and his wife was born on the 6th of May, 1804 and died July 27, 1888 in Johnson county, Missouri. Their children were Moses G., born August 19, 1826, and died July 3, 1901; James, born May 9, 1822, died at twenty-four years old; Frances, born January 30, 1834, and died in infancy; Mary, born 1826, died at sixty-eight years; Glaphyra, our subject; David born April 30, 1830, died at twenty-one years old; Elizabeth born March 18, 1833, is residing in Washington, D.C., and married to George W. Gentry, and Susan, born May 24, 1835 resides in Johnson county, Missouri. Glaphyra (Mullins) Gilmore was limitedly schooled in the rude school house of the early day in Missouri and she and her husband began life as renters in Johnson County, that state. Mr. Gilmore, being loyal, when the war came on joined the state militia and thereby earned the eternal enmity of the Bushwhackers and rebels. When he was called into serve his family and stock were at the mercy of the lawless bands throughout the state and when he returned home he was set upon, his property taken and himself chased into the wood, a fugitive from the vengeance of the Confederate gray. He was once captured but released and ever after ward managed to keep out of the way. In 1864 he became the owner of a small yoke of cattle and a wagon and with these he brought his wife and five children to Kansas. They reached Big Creek township, Neosho county, which as near nothing as ever settlers started in a new country, he was from the tyranous oppressions of his country's enemies and thereby felt encouraged to take up public land in the hope of its ultimate ownership and profitable cultivation. It would be a long story to describe all the misfortunes and trials that afflicted the family before the day of plenty was at hand, but they met difficulties as they came to them and it was a long stride from the cabin of 1864 to the comfortable residence of the present day. After fifteen years of toil and when Mr. Gilmore had reached a position of independence for his family he was stricken down and died on the 14th of January, 1879. There were born to Mr. and Mrs. Gilmore six children, viz., David W., born December 17, 1856; Dorothy, born July 13, 1858, is the deceased wife of Henry Howard; Sarah E., born November 28, 1859, married Newton Dennis and is deceased; John F., her twin brother; Jesse M., born January 13, 1861; David W. and Jesse M. being farmers of Neosho county, and John F. a railway employee of Kansas City, Missouri. A conversation with Mrs. Gilmore about the olden times and early people is like reading a chapter of pioneer history. She is something of a storehouse of incidents and old relics of the days of spinning-wheel and loom, both of which has operated in the manufacture of the "janes and homespun" so fashionable and durable in the palmy days of our industrious forefathers. She has preserved a part of her grandfather's bible--more than a century old--and has, in perfect condition, a copy-book prepared in the hand-writing of her father when he was a teacher in the early years of his life. Mrs. Gilmore has occupied her present home more than thirty-eight years. It is the place upon which she settled with her husband when the cattle and cart pulled their effects into Neosho county. The country has been settled up and developed, her children have grown and departed from the parental roof and she, alone, is left to tell the story and is a living witness to the acts and things of another day.