Bird Helton
Mr. Bird Helton came as a small boy with his family from Kentucky in a covered wagon pulled by oxen. The family located in Macon County until 1907 and then moved to Marceline. He was employed by the coal mines for over fifty years. He married Annie Love who had moved to Marceline from Pennsylvania in 1893. They had five children and all are still living in Marceline. They are Ray, John, Gladys Atkins, Margaret Riley, and Geneva Helton.
William Edward Cantlon
William Edward Cantlon and Mae Davidson Cantlon, pioneer citizens of Marceline, settled here in 1893. Mr. Cantlon was born in Blue Vale, Canada and his parents settled in Chariton County when he was six years old. He married Mae Davidson of Bucklin in 1890 and settled in Westville, Missouri until moving to Marceline. Mr. Cantlon owned a wagon repair and blacksmith shop and sold wagons, surries and buggies, much the same as the present auto dealers. His first shop was located on East Ritchie Street in the vicinity of the post office and later he moved to East Howell just east of the present hospital. In later years after retiring from this business he was a dealer for cemetery monuments and markers. He retired a few years before his death in 1920 because of ill health. When Mr. Cantlon first arrived in Marceline he built a home on the southwest corner of Santa Fe Ave. and Missouri Avenue. Later the original house was moved to a location just south of Santa Fe Ave. and the present home which is there now remained in the family until a few years after his death. Mr. and Mrs. Cantlon were among the original members of the Presbyterian Church and continued as loyal and faithful members until the church was dissolved in 1920. They are the parents of three children: Mrs. Berniece Milstead, Kirksville, Missouri; Wray W. Cantlon, Tulsa, Oklahoma and Mrs. R. M. Wrenn of Marceline. Mrs. Wrenn before her marriage was a member of the Marceline school system for three years. Mrs. Mae Cantlon died in 1952.
Charles T. Whisenand Family
Dr. Charles T. Whisenand came to Marceline from Bucklin, Missouri, in December 1895, to wed Miss Dona L. Carter who, with her father and mother George and Lueuna Carter and one brother, Talmadge Carter, had moved to Marceline from a farm near Bucklin, Missouri, to build a home, which now stands as a pioneer residence at 909 North Kansas Avenue. Mr. and Mrs. Whisenand first occupied the home at 1000 North Kansas Avenue, a home now one hundred years old and owned by the daughter, Fleeta (Mrs. Herman Rodgers.) Mr. Whisenand formed a partnership with Mr. Talmadge Carter and they owned and operated one of the first ice plants including the bottling works where they distributed hundreds of cases of all kinds of a beverage known as “pop.” Mr. and Mrs. Whisenand next moved to the home at 1101 North Kansas Avenue which has been their home for over sixty-five years. Here their second daughter, Oma, (Mrs. Roy A. Richardson) was born. Mr. Whisenand, now a retired rural mail carrier, at the age of ninety-four years, still has an active interest in the livestock business. He operated a farm during the thirty years that he was rural mail carrier.