Lancaster
Heritage
The Descendents of a brother and sister; Ruben Lancaster, and Maryann Lancaster Thompson Family Foundation Plan.
Dedication:
This is dedicated to the two founders of the Lancaster Family Reunion: Eulette​ Arrington of Massillion,Ohio; and the late Ionie Dothard of Cincinnati, Ohio. They were first cousins,the grand-children of Henry Lancaster and the great grand-children of Ruben Lancaster.
Ionie Dothard, Eulette Arrington
Greetings from the National Chairperson; The Ruben Lancaster and Maryann Lancaster Thompson Family Foundation.
Mrs. Geraldine (Gerri) Shaw, Cincinnati, Ohio is the daughter of Maybell Lancaster Wallace who is the daughter of Edgar Lancaster, who is the son of Henry Lancaster who is the son of Ruben Lancaster. Gerri is the wife of Ed Shaw, mother of 3 sons, Tracy, Bryan and Alan, grandmother of 7 and great grandmother of 8. Gerri retired from Procter & Gamble Company in 2001 as a Human Resources Administrator for the majority of her 26-1/2 years of employment. Since retiring Gerri tutors first graders and mentors fourth grade girls in the Cincinnati Public School system. She’s active in her church and spends her time playing Bridge, golf and traveling.
Gerri was selected as National Chairperson in 2010 succeeding cousin Roy Lee Johnson. That was a tremendous honor for her to have the family that she loves to show their confidence in her leadership abilities.
As National Chairperson I hope all is well with each and every one of the Descendants of Ruben Lancaster & Maryann Lancaster Thompson. The National Committee has been whole heartily working to develop family programs and to institutionalize the Lancaster family legacy. It has been a long two years after the Family Meeting in 2010, Colorado Springs, where it was discussed that there were many conflicts with the current family reunion dates (2nd weekend in August).
It was decided that a survey would be distributed to determine if a large number of families is affected by these changes in early school start dates. The family committee would then take the information from the survey to determine what steps need to be taken to possibly change the date of the reunion or leave as is. Overwhelmingly, the information gathered revealed that the dates should remain the same.
Additionally there were a number of items the survey uncovered that needed to be addressed in order to increase participation of families attending the Reunions. One area was more involvement of the young up-and-coming Lancaster generations. This resulted in a suggestion of a Youth Advisory Council, a Scholarship Fund and a Lancaster Community Service program. The proposal of the Ruben Lancaster & Maryann Lancaster Thompson Family Foundation was then organized and is what we hope the beginning of a new era that will help maintain and support the continuation of the Lancaster legacy. The National Foundation Committee has begun with nine members and plans to expand with additional family members as we develop the program further. We’re very excited and hope that all of you will join us in keeping our legacy intact for generations to come. Our ancestors were rich in love and did a great job of teaching us that family is the foundation for living. Let’s continue with that Lancaster foundation and the love of God forever more.
Mrs. Geraldine Shaw
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Stanford Steve Arrington
National Co-Chair Person The Ruben Lancaster & Maryann Lancaster Thompson Family Foundation, Akron, Ohio
Steve is the fourth child of Chat Arrington & Eulette Joiner Arrington. Eulette is the daughter of Troy Joiner and Ada Lancaster Joiner; Ada is the daughter of Henry Lancaster and Charlotte Holiday Lancaster.
Steve’s mother is one of the co-founders of the Lancaster Family Reunion and he attended the very first Lancaster Reunion in Cincinnati Ohio, 1970. He was just a freshman in high school at the time. Steve went on to Bowling Green University in Bowling Green, Ohio and after college he began his career in the area of social services. Presently he is the Executive Director of the Akron AIDS Collaborative as well as the Director of Community Outreach for First Grace United Church of Christ where he is also a member of the congregation.
Steve became the Lancaster Family Co-chairperson in 2010 at the Colorado Springs family reunion. He shares this position with his cousin Vanessa Ware of Atlanta, GA.
Vanessa T. Ware
National Co-Chair Person/ Secretary, The Ruben Lancaster and Maryann Lancaster Thompson Family Foundation, Atlanta, Georgia
Vanessa (Thompson) Ware is the eldest child of four of Johnny Thompson Jr. and Edith (Joiner) Thompson. Edith is the eldest daughter of four children of Bessie S. Joiner and James Joiner. My grandfather, James is the son of Lonnie Joiner and Maybell (Lancaster) Joiner. Maybell is my great grandmother; she is the daughter of Henry Lancaster and Charlotte Holiday Lancaster. Henry is my great-great grandfather and is the only known child of Ruben Lancaster.
Vanessa was born and raised in Bowdon, GA. Vanessa attended Atlanta Business College and received a degree as a Legal Secretary. She has worked for more than twenty-eight years for AT & T. Additionally, Vanessa has been employed on a part-time basis at DeKalb County Voter Registration Office and has worked as a precinct manager, trainer and presently as an area manager.
Vanessa has three siblings, Tesia King, Nedric Thompson and Casey Thompson (deceased). Vanessa has no biological children, but loves all the children in her family like they are her own. Vanessa loves to travel, play cards, especially Texas Hold'em. Vanessa is a big-time sports fan; she is a season ticket holder for the Atlanta Falcons and also supports the Atlanta Hawks and Braves. She is a member of the Beulah Missionary Baptist Church of Decatur, GA and currently attends the Enon Baptist Church, College Park, GA. Vanessa has been attending the Lancaster Family Reunion for over 40 years. Vanessa has served for several years as the
Secretary of the Lancaster Family Reunion Committee. She became the Lancaster Family Co-Chairperson in 2010 at the Colorado Springs Family Reunion Meeting.
Ellen Peterson
National Treasurer
The Ruben Lancaster & Maryann Lancaster Thompson Family Foundation, New York, NY
Ellen Peterson is the eldest daughter of Barbara June Mickens, who is the eldest daughter of Chat Arrington & Eulette Joiner Arrington. Eulette is the daughter of Troy Joiner & Ada Lancaster Joiner; Ada is the daughter of Henry Lancaster & Charlotte Holiday Lancaster.
At eight years old, Ellen attended the very first Lancaster Family Reunion in 1970 in Cincinnati Ohio. As a military family, she has lived in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, New Jersey, Hawaii and Germany traveling with her daughter, Octavia and son, Troy.
She received her Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a major in Finance from Hawaii Pacific University, Honolulu HI in 2002 and earned her Master’s in Business Administration from Regis University in 2005. She is currently a doctoral candidate at Walden University.
Currently Ellen works at The United States Military Academy West Point as the Funds Coordinator at the Simon Center for Professional Military Ethics, a $10M endowment. She is also an Accredited Certified financial counselor and provides personal financial education and counseling services to members of the military and civilian community.
The mission of the National Treasurer is to contribute to the establishment and sustainability of the Lancaster Thompson Family Foundation through sound financial planning including business advisement, financial reports, estate planning, and investments.
Tonia Cousett
Scholarship Coordinator,The Ruben Lancaster and Maryann Lancaster Thompson Family Foundation, Colorado Springs, Colorado
Tonia Cousett is the daughter of Barbara June Mickens and the granddaughter of Eulette Joiner Arrington who is the daughter of Ada Lancaster Joiner. She knows that she is blessed to be a part of the wonderful Lancaster family. Tonia is the mother of two children, Markia Parker and Jamil Cousett and the grandmother of three beautiful grandchildren, Chae, LeAjah and Jakailia. She has recently completed an Associate’s Degree in Liberal Arts and is working towards a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a minor in Human Resources.
Tonia is the contracts and credentialing specialist for a mental health organization. Her workplace experience provides Tonia with the essential skills of monitoring communications, creating databases, documenting submissions, and evaluating scholarship applications.
Preliminary discussions have taken place regarding the initial less formal scholarship distribution during the first year, establishing a scholarship advisory board, and factors to be considered to formalize the criteria for scholarships, e.g., written essay, honor roll or grade point average (GPA), recommendations from teachers/counselors, and volunteer activities in the applicant’s community.
Jackie Herring
Community Service Day Chairperson and Family Historian
The Ruben Lancaster & Maryann Lancaster Thompson Family Foundation
Atlanta, GA
Jacquelyn "Jackie" Herring is the fourth generation born free of the progenitor Mary Ann Lancaster Thompson (born 1850). Mary Ann’s first born child, Luella Thompson Herring (born 1870) was Jackie’s grandmother. William Herring (1907-1964) and Flora Herring (1909-1964) gave birth to their ninth child, Jacquelyn Herring in Woodland, Alabama. Jackie’s immediate family members did not take part in the Great Migration north and moved from Alabama to Georgia in 1959.
Jacquelyn completed the R.N. degree from Grady Hospital School of Nursing in Atlanta, Georgia. For the last seven years she has been employed at Grady Hospital as a Supervisor/RN Nurse Manager. Jackie graduated from Hope International University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management. She is a member of the Historic Big Bethel A.M.E. Church in downtown Atlanta, the oldest African American Church in the city. Ms. Herring is a member of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society-Metro-Atlanta Chapter and the Georgia Genealogical Society. Additionally, Jackie is a super grandmother to eight year-old Amina Brooks and three year-old Hakeem Brooks.
Jackie has been involved in genealogy since 1985 and she is proud to be the Family Historian and the recently appointed Community Service Day Chairperson. The Ruben Lancaster & Maryann Lancaster Thompson Family Foundation is partnering with the MLK Day of Service, United We Serve and President Obama's national call to service initiatives. The MLK Day of Service/United We Serve empowers individuals, strengthens communities, bridges barriers, creates solutions to social problems, and moves us closer to Dr. King's vision of a "Beloved Community."
Renee Flowers
Youth Advisory Council Chairperson
The Ruben Lancaster & Maryann Lancaster Thompson Family Foundation
Renee Flowers is the daughter and oldest child of Richard and Shirley Crenshaw. Her mother Shirley Crenshaw is the daughter of Lillian "Lullene" Joiner and Johnny Johnson. Renee was blessed with the title of oldest grandchild and granddaughter of Lillian "Lullene" Joiner-Johnson who was the daughter of Ada and Troy Joiner. Ada was the daughter of Henry and Charlotte (Holiday) Lancaster.
Renee has a daughter Brittny Flowers and a son Daniel Flowers II. She has a 3 year-old granddaughter, who she proudly helped name, Camilla Renee.
Renee is the Division Director for a national staffing firm and resides in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her passions are helping others reach their full potential and motivating youth. She has partnered with several community organizations such as the National Urban League, colleges and local chambers to assist with career coaching and participated in volunteer activities.
Renee’s passion for the National Youth Advisory Council is to bring the young and young at heart together at our family reunions by building relationships within the family through mentoring and teamwork. Her grandmother, Lillian "Lullene" loved family reunions and always encouraged everyone to attend. NYAC will begin to accomplish this goal.
The goal of the National Youth Advisory Council (NYAC) is to create a voice for our youth with a common objective to contribute to our family by participating in service learning programs and activities.The NYAC will promote health and wellness and increase awareness on topics such as healthy decision making, teen pregnancy prevention, drug and alcohol abuse, dating violence, eating disorders, bullying, and LGBT issues. We will challenge ourselves to build leadership skills by planning a family reunion activity and organizing workshops on higher education and entrepreneurship. Finally we will use emerging media technology to produce a DVD for the Lancaster Family Reunion.
Donald Lancaster
National Legal Counsel
The Ruben Lancaster & Maryann Lancaster Thompson Family Foundation Donald A. Lancaster,Esq.
Los Angeles, CA
Donald is the son of Donald Lancaster, Sr. who is the son of Elbert Lancaster, Sr. who is the son of Guy Lancaster. Guy is the son of Henry Lancaster; Henry is the son of Ruben Lancaster.
With over a decade of public service, Donald Aquinas Lancaster, Jr., MPA, Esq., served governmental entities as a trusted advisor of intergovernmental affairs. Experienced in local and state politics, he has an instinctive command of multilayered public and private sector issues and has used those skills in service of both elected officials and public institutions. As an attorney, Mr. Lancaster has demonstrated success as both a litigator and counselor at law. Mr. Lancaster has litigated on behalf of individuals as well as corporate entities with unparalleled results. Skillfully navigating small and midsize businesses through complex transactions inherent with growth, Mr. Lancaster serves as counselor to businesses in need of corporate compliance and governance guidance. Combined with practice areas in employment law, commercial litigation, wills and trusts, criminal law and bankruptcy, Mr. Lancaster brings a wealth of diverse experience necessary to provide a solid foundation for each client to achieve their short-term and long-range goals.
Mr. Lancaster graduated from San Diego State University with a Bachelors Degree in Criminal Justice and Masters Degree in Public Administration. A graduate of California Western School of Law, he is also a published author in the Howard Law Journal.
Taba Aleem
National Developement/ Grant Writing. The Ruben Lancaster and Maryann Thompson Lancaster Family Foundation. Taba Aleem, Akron, Ohio
Taba Aleem is not a family member but is very much a part of the Lancaster extended family. Taba has especially close ties with the Arrington family of Massillon, OH. Since Colorado Springs 2000, she has attended many family reunions and has played a vital role in planning activities including entertaining at the family banquets and planning activities for children in Akron, OH 2008 and Colorado Springs 2010.
Taba is the Community Relations Manager for Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio and has held a number of other positions with the reproductive health care organization. She is passionate about comprehensive sexuality education; she has facilitated many teen pregnancy prevention groups in the last twenty years and she continues to mentor adolescent females in Akron. She first met Steve Arrington in 1996 at his mother’s church, St. James AME Church in Massillon where she was asked to give a speech on women and AIDS. Since that time Taba has worked as a volunteer at the Akron AIDS Collaborative serving as a grant writer, trainer, advocate, and most recently as the board chairperson.
Ms. Aleem graduated from Hunter College of the City University of New York with a Bachelors Degree in African Studies and minor in Women’s Studies. She completed a Masters Degree at The University of Akron in Secondary Education with a major in History.
Taba is divorced and she is the mother of three adult sons, one adult daughter and she has one granddaughter.
The Official Lancaster Family History Rubin Lancaster & Sister Maryann Lancaster Thompson
Jackie Herring, National Lancaster Family Historian
The Lancaster Family Reunion may be looked at in several phases, the first being events in U. S. history during the 1820s and 1830s in Georgia and Alabama. The Indian Removal Acts initiated by President Andrew Jackson and passed by the Congress of the United States stipulated that all Native American tribes in these areas would be removed to land west of the Mississippi River enabling white settlers to come in with their slaves and take over the land, particularly those of the Creek Nation, in northwestern Georgia and northeastern Alabama. Carroll County in Georgia was created from land forced from the Creek Indians in 1827. Randolph County, Calhoun County and Chambers County were created by
an act of the Alabama General Assembly in 1832 from the Creek Nation territory. It is in these counties that census, cemetery, and probate records related to the Lancaster's, Thompson's, Herring’s, Boykin's, Maffett’s, Joiner’s, Johnson's, and others of the extended family can be found. Some of the Creek Indians classified themselves as free blacks or mulattoes in order to remain in the area.
Ruben Lancaster was born in 1833 in North Carolina. His father and mother were born in Virginia. Lydia Lancaster, Ruben’s wife, was born in 1844 in Alabama. She was a mulatto. Her father was born in Alabama and her mother in Georgia. It was more than likely that both Ruben and Lydia were born slaves. Ruben and Lydia had one offspring, Henry, who was born in 1858 in Alabama. Henry Lancaster later married Charlotte Holiday, born in 1859, and had sixteen children: John (1872), Emma (1880), Adell (1882), Joe (1883), Edgar (1885), Ada (1887), Thomas (1889), James (1890), Maybell (1891), Guy (1894), Booker (1895), Pauline (1898), Homer (1900), Leatha (1903), Jennie Lee (1905), and Roosevelt (1908).
Maryann Lancaster, Ruben’s sister, was born in 1850 in Alabama. She later married Henry Thompson, born in 1850, and had seven children: Luella (1870), John (1876), Ada (?), Will (?), Richard (?), Howard (1874), and Jasper (?).
The Lancaster Family Reunion’s second phase begins a hundred years later during the 1920s. During World War I, many blacks in the South saw an opportunity to move away to seek better living conditions and opportunities in the North, West, and elsewhere. The offspring of Henry and Charlotte Lancaster and Maryann and Henry Thompson were among thousands of blacks that did likewise.
The Republic Steel Corporation in northeastern Ohio was booming during the early 1920s and was seeking laborers. David Joiner and other
men from the South came to work in Massillon and were sent back to bring up more workers. In 1922 the young wives and children of James Herring
(Adell), Nick Herring (Henrietta), Troy Joiner (Ada), Lonnie Joiner (Maybell), Eli Stephens (Dana), Willie Luke (Ruby) left Randolph County during this first migration north and came to settle in Massillon. Many other of this extended family (Birdsongs, Carters, Maffetts and Boykins) followed and there continued a migration north and south above the Ohio River for the next two decades into Ohio, Michigan, New York and other states.
The third phase of the Lancaster Family Reunion began after the death and funeral of James "Biss" Herring (husband of Adell Lancaster) in Massillon. Ionie Dothard (daughter of Jennie Lee Lancaster Boykin) and Eulette Arrington (daughter of Ada Lancaster Joiner) conceived and planned for a family get together in the future at a park to socialize and have a joyous occasion for family members and friends rather than just at funerals.
The first get together was on a Saturday in 1970 in Cincinnati. Ionie Dothard became the main coordinator, facilitator, communicator and "do everything-er." It then was decided to meet the next summer in Chattanooga, TN the second weekend in August.
From that point the family reunions expanded to Massillon, Woodland, and Detroit. The reunion became an annual weekend occasion that all family and extended family looked forward to by moving it back and forth from Ohio and Michigan to Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee.
After fourteen years the first reunion moved west beyond the Mississippi River where family members had migrated. Kansas City, KS was the first, Colorado was next, and California followed. Family
members in Virginia, Minnesota and Little Rock, AK also became hosts for the reunion. With these new places to visit, an increase in the days and expenses resulted. The initial cycle of reunion sites was broken.
Death comes and we think about what has been and we mourn; but life continues and we think about what is to come and we are joyful. The third phase of the Lancaster Family Reunion continues.
