Yost family, ca. 1885

Melinda, John Sr.
Leona, Birdie, Will, John

John Yost came to this country from either Hanover or Wurttemberg in 1869. The area that would become Germany was splintered into many small states and all were embroiled in various wars both with and against Prussia. According to family legend he left as a young man to avoid conscription into the army. He was to join his Uncle Jacob here, but it is not known whether he ever found him.

He married Melinda Denning in Jefferson County, Kansas in 1879, and they raised several children there. John worked at a grain mill on the Delaware River near Perry. He died in 1892, probably from tuberculosis. Their youngest son, Leonard was born after John's death.

After John's death in 1892, Melinda married again in 1899, at least briefly, to a man named Steven Stallons. He was killed in 1902 when a tree he was cutting fell on him. Melinda took in washing and ironing and cleaned houses to make ends meet.By at least 1920 she had moved to Topeka, Kansas where she lived with her youngest son Leonard until her death. In her later years she lived most of the time with her daughter Birdie in Oskaloosa, where she was living when she died.

When John and Melinda married she already had a two-year-old daughter, Leona. According to family legend, Leona's biological father was an itinerant farm hand whose name is now unknown. John seems to have adopted her, and she always went by the name Yost.

Leona's whereabouts in the 1880 census are something of a mystery. She was not living with John and Melinda, nor are there any two- or three-year-old Leonas living in any other household in the area in 1880. Melinda's parents did have a two-year-old "daughter" living with them, by the name of Emma. This may actually be Leona.