Lafe-Benjamin & family Mulnix ref: Rebecca Watson Walker - this information came to her from Donald B Mulnix.  He also enclosed a photocopy ofanother letter which states: "Your great great grandfather's last name was Mulleneaux. His first name and the name of his wife have been forgotten. They were emigrant farmers who came to the United States sometime between 1830 and 1840. They settled on a homestead which was located in what would now be near the center of the city of Chicago Illinois.  This area was apparently inhabited by a large number of French emigrents many of which had the same last name of Mulleneaux, a very common last  name and the French equivalent to Smith.  He therefore changed the spelling of the name to Mulnix but continued to pronounce it the same. (Mul-in-o)  No one seems to know why we eventually started to pronounce the x as an x.  This was probably started by American neighbors who pronounced letters as they saw them. The Mulleneaux had twelve children one of which was your great grandfather Lafayette Mulnix.  During this period of time they moved from Illinois to Kansas where they again took up homesteading.  No November 1, 1861 at aaage 16 Lafayette "Lafe" Mulnix ran away and joined the union army and fought with the th Kansas Volunteers.  He was discharged on December 31, 1863 ( "I have attached a copy of his discharge").  Lafe returned to Kansas and married a school teacher named Florence Adoline Woodward.  They lived a very long life and spent their 69th wedding anniversary together living in an old soldiers home in Ft Dodge Kansas. Lafe was always a farmer and apparently was very proud of his service in the Civil War. To back up a little now, the father of Lafe's wife ( "your great great grandfather") was Doctor Benjamin Richmond Woodward, who was born at Park House,Devonshire, England on February 11, 1811.  He was apparently from a reasonably well to do family, an English gentleman, who came to America as a young man. The doctor married Amanda Hargin who was born in Ithica, New York in 1813.  We don't know much of her background but she was apparently well educated and a nurse.  Doctor Woodward spent four years in the Civil War as a surgeon.  He volunteered on the 6th of October, 1862 at the age of 51 and served until the seventh of July 1865.  During this time Amanda spent much of her time on the battle fields with her husband.  I have attached the Civil War discharge of Dr Woodward and I have also attached a reprint of a letter he wrote in which he described to her the Battle of Belwood which took place near Columbus Ohio on October 9th, 1861. ("This was prior to his actual enlistment and during a time that he was serving without pay or rank")  The original of this letter is written in beautiful script in brown ink., The typed copy was made by Aunt Chuck and although difficult to read is well worth the time if you want to know how he felt about the war, slavery, and pride of service. Doctor Woodward and Amanda Hargin had two sons and four daughters.  The sons, Henry and Howard both went into the Civil Warl   Henry was killed in the first battle which was with General Sherman at Franklyn, Tenn.  Dr Woodward died in Olathe, Kansas on June 29, 1887 and his wife died on May 27, 1892 also in Olathe. Your grandfather, my dad, was Benjamin Richmond Mulnix who was born in White City Kansas on September 21, 1887.  He was one of eleven children born to Lafe and Florence, six boys and five girls.  Three of the children died as infants and one as a teen aged girl  There were no hospitals in that part of Kansas during those years and many children died during birth or shortly there-after.  My dad's eldest brother was a premature baby which was so small at birth that they kept him wrapped in cotton inside a shoebox which they made into an incubator by packing hot water bottles around it. Florence was said to be able to slip her wedding ring on the baby's arm all the way to the elbow. Benjamin R Mulnix left the farm as a young man and worked at various jobs in the manhatten Kansas area.  In one of these jobs he fell into a pit of hot water and was badly burned from the waist down.  When the first world war came, Ben enlisted in April of 1917 and served with the 137th Infantry 35th Division. He saw action in France and Germany and spent many months fighting the trench warfare on the western front.  This was a barren no mans land in which the German and allied armies faced each other in miles of trenches.  This hopeleses deadlock lasted over a year, a period during which there was so much shelling that not even a blade of grass survived. The hell of this type war is told in the book, "All Quiet on the Western Front" something you might like to read if you ever get the time. Ben was eventually wounded by a shell burst during one of the many back and forth charges of trench fighting.  He lay in a shell hole for over a day, with wounds to his right leg, before he was moved back to a field hospital.  Surgery had advanced beyond amputation techniques of Dr Woodward's Civil War days and Ben's leg was saved and he was eventually moved back to the army hospital at Fort Dodge Kansas to recover. During this recuperation period Ben renewed his courtship with your grandmother, Ellen Christine Lindstrom.  Although they had known each other for some time prior to the war Ben had decided to wait till the war was over to marry.  They were married on April 21, 1919 in Junction City Kansas.  Ben was 31 years old and Ellen was 23." ======================== ref: Rebecca Watson Walker- written by Donald Mulnix -"I was born when my mother was 40 years old and my dad died when I was nine in the winter during November of 1944 (or 45* ) All of my brothers and sister were older than I and all were serving in the armed forces during WW2  Charles was a fighter pilot who was shot down and served 18 months in a German prison camp.  Harold was in the Navy and served aboard a submarine in the Pacific.  Sylvia was an Army nurse who served in hospitals in the US. Following my dad's death my mom worked very hard to get me raised.  She did baby sitting, took in washing, and rented the back bedroom of the house.  She finally got a job as a nurse's aide at Fitzsimons Hospital where she worked until she retired at age 69.  Her strength during those years is an inspiration to me still.   She had to be a father and do things like fix a bike, make wooden guns, and build kites.  She worked in the yard, painted the house, and fixed flats on the car.   Yet with all of this she remained a beautiful and tender woman who gave me a strong religious upbringing and a pleasant sense of happy security in  my home. She has the ability to see beauty in everything and never seems to dwell on the unhappy aspects of life.  Some day I am going to spend a great deal of time writing my memories of this unusual woman."