October 25, 2026
The October 1896 biography of Dr. Federal Champion names five children: Mary, Belle, Jane, Maggie, and Frank. It gives several of them a glimpse of adult life, but another obituary suggests that this list does not tell the whole family story.
The earlier obituary for Dr. Champion says he and Patience Ann Treen had one son and four daughters. The 1896 article’s list fits that count if Frank was the son. It says Mary married Hiram Padfield, Jane married Judge W. H. Snyder, Maggie married J. M. Dill, and Frank became a wholesale druggist in St. Louis. Belle is named as a daughter, though this profile gives fewer details about her life.
The family identification connecting the records is that B. F. Champion was Benjamin Franklin Champion, called Frank. Business notices name B. F. Champion in the St. Louis drug trade; the 1896 biography describes son Frank as a St. Louis wholesale druggist. This identification brings the business records and family account together.
A transcription of the 1860 St. Clair County census offers a useful household clue. It groups Patience, Margaret, Bella, and B. F. C. Champion in household 2268, headed by John Kinne; B. F. C. is listed as 25 and born in New Jersey. The census does not give relationships, so it cannot prove that Margaret was Maggie or that B. F. C. was Frank. It lists Patience as 55, one year below the age of 56 calculated from her reported March 24, 1804 birth date on the census's June 1 reference date. Check the original schedule before relying on these details. Read the 1860 census transcription (https://genealogytrails.com/ill/stclair/60st_clr.htm) · National Archives: 1860 census and age instructions (https://www.archives.gov/research/census/1860)
There is still a count that does not neatly reconcile. The 1847 obituary says one son and four daughters; Patience’s 1892 obituary says six children—four daughters and two sons—and that Jane was the only survivor. The 1896 profile names five children. If the 1892 total is accurate, one child is omitted from the 1896 list; the newspaper evidence checked so far does not identify that person. The 1892 notice says three daughters and both sons were deceased, but does not name them. The 1896 names may account for the three deceased daughters and one son, leaving a second son unnamed; that is a possible reconciliation, not an established fact. Their individual birth dates are not established in these sources, and their death dates are mostly unknown. Do not fill those gaps with guesses.
The named children open several distinct stories: Mary and Hiram’s family, Jane and the Snyder household, Maggie and her daughter, and Frank’s work in the drug business. Each deserves its own sources and its own careful treatment.
1896 biography naming the children
1892 obituary and the six-child count
1847 obituary and the one-son, four-daughter count