James Henry Gibbar was two years old in 1890. Unfortunately, the census data for that year was destroyed by fire and water damage. However, we do know that in 1890 the family was living in Saline Township, Perry County Missouri.  

Missouri Death Records (1850-1931) records that Catherine Ellenor Gibbar (of Saline Township) developed spasmodic croup and died within twenty-four hours at the age of four years, one month and five days. James was only two years old at the time. 

1900 was the first year in which James Henry Gibbar was represented in census records. Twelve years old, he was living in Saline Township, Perry County, Missouri, with his father Pius (age 39) and his step-mother, Mary Clotilde Layton (42).

It is uncertain precisely when James' mother, Mary Ambrosia Kline, died. On a popular online genealogy website, some people list her death date as 1892. This is impossible for several reasons. First, her daughter, Louisa (Lou), was born in 1894. Lou is not, as they proport, the child of Mary Clotilde Layton (James' step-mother). In Lou's obituary, it states that she was the daughter of  "Alfred and Ambrosia Gibbar." Secondly, the 1900 Federal Census lists Pius and Mary Clotilde as married and that they had been married for "zero" years, indicating that their marriage took place that year. It also records under "number of children born" that they have had no children together. 

Finally, First, James Gibbar recollected (to his daughter, Jeanette Gibbar Brown) that his father remarried when he was 12. This would put their marriage in 1900. Lou was already six years old by this time. (Note: there are even online sources that suggest that James was the son of Mary Clotilde Layton and connect our family line to the Layton family through her. That is incorrect information and easily debunked).

This information places Jame's mother, Mary Ambrosia's death between February 26, 1895, the birth of her last child, and November 7 1899, the day her husband remarried.

Based on the recollections of his daughter, Jeanette Gibbar Brown, James found his step-mother a "difficult woman" with whom to get along. As soon as he was old enough, and with an 8th grade education, he left home with a friend, Thomas Parris, and went to the Dakotas to "homestead." Whether they traveled to North or South Dakota is unknown.

Apparently, the homestead plans did not materialize and the two ended up working for a farm family. We don't know the age at which James left home, or how long the friends stayed in the Dakotas. 

This photo, taken in St. Louis, Missouri in approximately 1916, is of the two brothers, Allie and James, and an unidentified young man. It is possible that he could be John Miles, the young man with whom the brothers were staying. In the photo, Allie is in the back of the vehicle. The consensus, although not verified, is that James is the young man on the right.

James was working as a conductor or motorman on a street car in St. Louis (possibly during a temporary lay off from the steel foundry or moonlighting while still employed at the foundry). It was there that, through mutual friends, he met a young woman named Mary Eleanora Belsha.

Mary Eleanora Belsha was born on November 4, 1894, in Belgique, Bois Brule Township, Perry County, Missouri, the eldest child of John Logan Belsha and Mary Elizabeth Hager. She was baptized on November 24, 1894, twenty days after her birth, at the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The baptismal register was written in Latin and Mary Eleanora was listed as "Maria Elnorina".

Mary Eleanora's godmother was her mother's eldest sister, Rosa Hager. Her godfather, listed as D. L. DeCeunynck, was Reverend David Leonard DeCeunynck, the pastor of the church, who also baptized her. Whether Reverend DeCeunynck was a close family friend or simply stood in when there was no other person to stand as godfather is unknown. There was an additional comment inscribed on the register that stated that she married "Jacobi Gibbar" on September 30, 1913.​

The family moved to St. Marys Township by 1910. Situated in the southwestern corner of Perry County, St. Marys includes three unincorporated communities: Barks, Silver Lake and Yount. Although the Belshas continued to farm, they were no longer renters, having purchased their own land.

On Tuesday, September 30, 1913, the couple joined in marriage at the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Belgique Missouri, where she was baptized, went to school and where her parents still lived. At the time of their marriage, Ella was 18 and James was 25. Ella's uncle, Joseph M. Hager, C.M., performed the ceremony. Her sister, Anna Gibbar, and her future brother-in-law, Pius Mattingly, signed as witnesses. 

The couple continued to live and work in Maplewood, St. Louis County, where their first son, Jerome James was born on July 7, 1914, quickly followed by their second son, Harold Logan on October 7, 1915 and their daughter, Jane Elizabeth on November 1, 1917.​​

On April 6, 1917, American entered the War and on May 18, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson enacted the Selective Service Act. Originally, all males aged 21 to 30 were required to register for military service. This was expanded in August 1918 to include all men 18-45. More than half of the Americans who served in the war were drafted.​​ Unlike the Civil War draft, the Selective Service Act of 1917 did not allow for substitutes.​

There were several different draft categories, delineating specific reasons that a person would either be eligible, deferred or exempted from the draft. ​One of the categories for exemption was "Exempted due to Extreme Hardship." Men eligible for this exemptions included: 1) married registrants with dependent spouse or dependent children with insufficient family income if drafted, 2) registrants with deceased spouse who provide sole family income for dependent children under 16, or 3) registrants with deceased parents who provide sole family income for dependent siblings under 16.

In 1918, on his doctor's advice, James left the city and moved his family to Cranes Island, Illinois, on the Missouri side of the Mississippi River near Belgique, Missouri. The island was named after John Crane, its first settler who died there in 1850.

In the 1920 census, the family was listed in Chester Precinct, Randolph County, Illinois (approximately 1/4 of the area of Cranes Island was in Chester Precinct). The rich Mississippi bottomland, excellent for its fertile soil, saw frequent flooding. There they rented a farm from Joe Modde where they lived from 1918 until 1943.​

By this time the family had grown to four with the addition of Paul Lawrence on December 20, 1919. Ella was fortunate, however, to be surrounded by family for support. 

In 1926, Mary Ella's father, John Logan Belsha, died of pneumonia. Her mother, Mary Elizabeth, died two years later in the home of her sister, Mary Anna Mattingly. Ella's sister, Mary Anna, and her brother-in-law, Pius Mattingly, still worked on a farm on Cranes Island, but no longer lived adjacent to the Gibbars. After 10 years of marriage, the Mattingly's had a young daughter, Mary Doris. 

Ella's other sister and brother-in-law, Mary Pearl and Lawrence Mattingly, are not found in the 1930 census, but by 1940 had moved to the town of Chester, Illinois where, at the end of the Great Depression, Lawrence had found employment with a WPA project as a cement worker building a swimming pool for the town. They had no children.

The 1940s census records the Gibbar family still on the farm on Cranes Island. Their oldest son, Jerome, had married Lucy Modde in 1936. Their daughter, Jane, had married Noah "Pete" Franklin on April 21, 1936 and their second son, Harold, married Zita Marie French on February 6, 1940.

James and Ella still had several children at home, however. Paul, now 20, lived and worked as a laborer on the farm. Another daughter, Jeanette Ambrosia, was living at home while working as a "perforator" at the International Shoe Company in Perryville, Missouri. 

Rose graduated the 8th grade from Locust Grove School when she was 13 years old. Afterward, she attended McBride High School, in Perry County, Missouri, for one year.