The oldest Mock picture I have is a tintype portrait of my great grandfather, Michael Mock II. He appears to be about 18 years old in this picture, so I assume it was taken just before the Civil War.

I also have the wedding picture of Michael Mock II and his bride, Sarah Jane Cory. A family story is that she was nearly engaged to a young man who left to fight in the Civil War, but fell in love with Michael while she was waiting for the latter to return.

According to my mother, Freda Mock Stoner, whose family lived with her grandparents until she finished high school and married, her grandfather Michael was one of the kindest and gentlest men she ever knew. My grandfather Robert Fausset Mock was the youngest of Michael Mock"s large family, all of whom were raised on the Mock farm located on the county line between Marion and Hancock Counties, NE of Oaklandon, IN. As the youngest son, the tradition of the time was that he was elected to stay on the home farm to take care of his parents in their old age. I have a picture of Michael Mock II taken about the time of his 50th wedding anniversary. My mother would have been very young when this picture was taken.

The earliest picture I have of my grandfather Robert F. Mock must have been taken in the early 1890s. In this picture of Robert F. Mock and his sister Effie he appears to be about 5 years old. Effie died in a farm accident as a teenager (she was badly burned during lard-rendering), but Robert lived to become the patriarch of a family of six children, 15 grandchildren, and uncounted other progeny.

I have a picture of four of Robert Mock"s children taken about 1919, on a stepladder. From top to bottom (oldest to youngest) these Mock kids were Easter Lillian, Freda Iona, Robert Allen, and Erbin McCord Mock. Born later were Flora Belle and Samuel Carl Mock. Of the six Mock children, Freda, Robert and Sam are still living.

After his parents died, my grandfather was left with no home of his own and little formal education. All his children but the youngest had left home. Luckily, my grandmother, Flossie Day Mock, inherited enough money from her father to buy a small (50 acre) farm. I have a picture of Robert and Flossie on their front porch of this home, where they moved around the time I was born. A picture of the three Mock boys, Sam, Bob and Erbin, shows them by the farmhouse circa 1942.

It was probably the same day that the above picture was taken that this picture of five of the grandchildren of Robert and Flossie Mock was taken. From left to right are Derith Anne Stoner, Ronald E. Stoner (me), Rex M. Craig, Gerald Manship, and Robert E. Mock.