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This must have been a very unusual situation. Joseph Van Nostran was married to Catherine Field, a daughter of Reuben R. Field and Sarah McMullen. Another daughter of Reuben and Sarah was Ada Jane Field. She must have gone by her middle name Jane. Ada Jane was a cousin of Benjamin R. Field, George's father.
Ada Jane married William W. Gillaspie on 5 April 1883. Catherine and Joseph had only been married for seven years when he died just before his sister-in-law's wedding. We know of no children for Catherine and Joseph. At the time of this wedding Reuben Field had been dead for twenty six years. Ada was only five years old when her father died. Reuben was the son of Keen and Anna Lewis Field, the first of the Field family to move into southern Indiana, about 1799. Reuben was obviously named after his uncle, Reuben Field, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Sarah was fifteen years younger than Reuben and was his second wife. When Sarah and Reuben got married he was thirty and she was only sixteen. His first wife was Nancy Adams who died in March of 1839. Reuben married Sarah in May of 1839.
There is an interesting story about Sarah McMullen Field that has been passed down in Sarah's line of the family for years. We heard the story from one descedant that lives in South Carolina and one in California who do not even know each other. When Sarah was in her late 70's her son Byron Allen Field took her in a covered wagon to Oklahoma. She died on the way and is buried somewhere along the trail. The story was pretty much the same from each side of the family. It was always told that she died on the Oregon Trail. However, the Oregon Trail did not go through Oklahoma. Notwithstanding the mistake, Sarah is buried somewhere on the great plains of the United States. It was also reported that her other son Henry Clinton Field never spoke to Byron again because he blamed Byron for the death of their mother. In that day it would have been dificult for them to have spoken anyway, but it makes a good story.
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