Rufus was a civil war veteran who was wounded, received an honorable discharge and returned to Lawrence County, married Susan Jane Kern, and established himself as a respected farmer.  In 1882 Rufus sold his vast holdings and moved his wife and seven children to a farm near North Bend, Nebraska.  Their eighth and final child was born there.  Two years later he moved the family to South Haven, Kansas.   Less than two years later, Susan became ill and died.  Her youngest child, this writer's grandfather, was less than two years of age at the time.    In 1889 Rufus and a son-in-law, J. C. Miles homesteaded land in the Oklahoma Indian Territory near Crescent, OK.  Rufus sold his farms in 1895 and returned to Lawrence County Indiana with some of his children while the older and married ones stayed in Oklahoma.  

By 1910, Rufus had joined one of his daughers and her husband on a pineapple plantation in Old Mexico.   In 1916 they all literally "fled for their lives" with limited personal possessions after being caught up in one of the Mexican revolutions.  Rufus returned to Oklahoma and later to St. Petersburg, Florida where he lived with some of his children.  He was an avid fisherman who enjoyed the roaming the fishing piers of the area.  He died in 1926 and is buried in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Otmar Williams was this writer's grandfather.  

BOWMAN CONNECTION

 Otmar Williams married Celia Bowman, the daughter of Jackson Bowman.  The Bowman were neighbors of Rufus Williams in Lawrence County; and they, in fact bought some of  Rufus' holdings when he sold out and moved from Lawrence County, Indiana to North Bend, Nebraska.

Celia Bowman's grandfather was Pleasant Bowman who had married a cousin of Rufus Williams' father (Clarissa Williams).  Family lore could not trace the lineage of the Bowmans back farther than Pleasant.  This writer's study of the census records strongly suggests that his heritage is known and documented.   The following link leads to the author's notes on the subject.