Grandfather, David Schmick Crissman, was born in Sinking Valley, PA. He married Mary Magdelene Thompson, an orphan, who had been reared by a Presbyterian family named, Fleck. The Flecks also had come from Schleswig- Holstein, which at times, had been under Swedish, Danish, or Prussian rule but it is generally conceded to have been under German rule at that time.
In 1850, after the birth of their fourth child, David and Mary Crissman, decided to go west. Only two of their children had survived infancy and it was these two children who set out with their parents for St. Louis, MO.
There, Grandfather got a foreman's job working on the building of the Missouri Pacific Railroad. After two years, he had enough savings to buy a farm. He again set out West, where he found what he wanted near Clinton, in west-central Missouri. His farm was about four miles north of Clinton. There he built his home. He ordered lumber from St. Louis to to be sent via the Missouri River to Booneville. When word came to Clinton of the lumber's arrival, Grandfather would hitch up his team of John and Jerry- an ox and a horse- and drive his wagon the 110 miles from Clinton to Booneville and bring his lumber home. There he built a barn and an exact replica of the Crissman family home back in Pennsylvania.
Flowers were soon growing . An apple orchard began producing. And soon at the Clinton Fair each fall, Crissman apples were taking prize in the category of " Greatest Variety". My father could name more than 40 varities that had been in his father's orchard.
Missouri, a border state, was largely southern and Democratic. But Grandfather David Crissman, when living in St. Louis had read a Republican paper, The St Louis Post Dispatch, and he continued his subscription to it when he moved to Clinton. He was, for some time, the only Clinton subscriber to the St Louis Post Dispatch. Also, it is said that David Schmick Crissman, was the only person in Henry County to have voted for Abraham Lincoln.
No Lutheran or Presbyterian church had as yet been established in Clinton, so the Crissmans joined the Methodist Episcopal church there.
After the birth of her twelfth child, Grandmother Mary became an "invalid" , a then not uncommon approach to evading further child-bearing. When Grandfather and the older boys left for the orchards and fields, Grandmother would get up and Frank, her tenth child, stayed home to do the housework. With her little pug dog trotting alongside, Grandmother would lend Frank a hand. Grandmother and Frank became great pals.
Frank not only did the housework, but Frank was the breakfast cook as well. He would make pancake batter and pour it onto two griddles. Simultaneously, with one griddle in each hand he would flip the flapjacks into the air to turn them.
Late in 1900, shortly before Grandmother Mary died, my father, now a married man with his own household, took me, hid first child (Helen Jo Crissman born May 17, 1900) to Clinton too see Grandmother. After her death, Grandfather went to live with his youngest son, David (Schmidt Crissman b. September 20, 1870). Grandfather, though, made occasional visits to us, and we always looked forward to his comings. He died in 1911 , age 86.
- Helen Jo Crissman , Life Story pgs 3-5
