Saturday, July 29, 2017

A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse ....



I'm fairly good at human genealogy; not so good at livestock pedigrees. So I don't have much to report about this magnificent Percheron stallion, Ildefonse 105130.

Other than the fact I really like the enlarged photograph, dating from 1916, that we moved from an obscure corner into the museum's Perkins Room yesterday, so arranged --- as a change of scenery --- to be the first thing guests see when they enter the Lewis Building's front door.

Ildefonse 79307 was a famous stallion, foaled during 1911 and imported from France, who swept every field he was entered in at the 1913 International Livestock Exposition in Chicago. So does  Lucas County's Ildefonse share his lineage? Can't say.

Stud records show that our Ildefonse was foaled during April of 1913 of Barbaris 80160 out of Bertha 96600. The breeder was W.C. Cox, of Indianola.

This photograph, which perhaps was prepared for an exposition of some sort, has a printed tag in its lower left hand corner that transposes the "d" and the "l" in Ildefonse but does provide a little more information.



The owner was Fred Moore Chandler, who came to Lucas County with his brother, Howard A., in 1907 from their family home near Kellerton in Ringgold County to launch a big sheep operation on land just southwest of Chariton. Fred married Ida Mitchell and they had two sons, Freddie and Alva. Quite a few Lucas Countyans are likely to remember Freddie Chandler, an auctioneer who died during 1999.

Fred M. and Howard A. Chandler's livestock operation soon became known for its horses rather than its sheep and Fred became known throughout the Midwest as a breeder and dealer. He died rather young, at age 61, during 1943. This photograph came to the historical society during 1967 from his sons.

The handler at far left most likely was someone's grandpa, too --- but of course there's nothing to tell us who he might have been. One of the Chandlers? Perhaps.



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