The progenitor of the Tavener family in Antelope County was John Isaac Tavener who was born in Yeovil, England in 1809. He immigrated to America in the early 1800’s, settling first in New York state, then in Ontario, Canada and finally in Winneshiek County, Iowa. He was known as a “wild Quaker” because he played the flute. In the 1970’s he traveled to Eugene, Oregon where he died. John and wife had five children, LEONARD EUGENE, born in Iowa on July 26, 1866. Leonard moved to Antelope County in 1886 to join his two older sisters, Mary and Lydia who had already settled there. Mary had moved to a homestead near Royal in 1883. She had married Charles Johnston and they had three boys, Earnest, Dan, and Jim. Lydia Tavener married Jule Fannon and lived in Clearwater. No children.
On January 1, 1889, Leonard married Berta Ethel Sutton. Berta was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on November 5, 1866. She had four siblings. The Suttons moved to Nebraska in 1881 and then to a farm southwest of Oakdale in Antelope County in 1883. William Nathan Sutton, veteran of the Civil War, and Sarah Elisabeth Meiks were married in 1864. Their youngest son, Jesse, was a life long resident of Antelope County. Leonard and Berta were parents of nine children, two died in infancy. All were born in Clearwater and raised in Oakdale. They were: Stella, Ella, Ernest, Evelyn, Mattie, Howard, Laura, Cecil, and Helen. Stella married August Johnson. Ella married Fred Springer, Mattie married Leroy Gates, Ernest married Myrtice Brainard, Howard and Lara died young, Cecil married Marjorie Runyan and Helen married Everett Woodworth.
Source Unknown: Originally submitted for this website in Dec 2007