Matt Rogers

Matt Rogers was born on April 28, 1904, in Powell County, Kentucky, among the rolling hills and narrow valleys of eastern Kentucky where family ties were strong and life was measured by the seasons. He was the son of Hezekiah Rogers and Rutha (Bishop) Rogers, and his early years unfolded in the small community of Rogers Chapel. It was a place where neighbors knew one another well, church gatherings were central to community life, and hard work was simply part of growing up. As a boy, Matt learned early what was expected of him. Farm chores, tending animals, hauling wood, and helping wherever needed formed the foundation of daily life. Education came not only from books but from responsibility. The hills raised children quickly, and boys often stepped into manhood sooner than they might have elsewhere.

In December of 1918, the influenza epidemic swept through Kentucky with devastating speed. Within a short time, both of Matt’s parents were gone. He was only fourteen years old. The loss was sudden and life-altering. By 1920, census records show Matt living in the household of Ben Bishop in Rogers Chapel, along with most of his siblings and other relatives. Guardianship arrangements were made for the younger children, but Matt, already in his mid-teens, was standing at the edge of adulthood. The years that followed required strength and steadiness.

On April 20, 1924, Matt married Hazel Robbins in Montgomery County, Kentucky. Together they began building a home and family in the same Kentucky hills that had shaped them both. Over the years, children were born into their household, and life settled into the familiar rhythm of work, church, kinfolk, and community. Like many men of his generation, Matt farmed and took on labor wherever it could be found. The land did not always yield easily, and money was often scarce.

In April 1930, during the difficult years of Prohibition and the early Depression, Matt was arrested for operating a still. In the Appalachian hills, moonshining was not uncommon, and for some families it was tied as much to survival as to defiance of the law. Records show that he was convicted and served time; the 1930 prison census lists him as an inmate in Richmond, Kentucky. It was a humbling chapter in his life. After serving his sentence, he returned to Kentucky and resumed his responsibilities as husband and father. The experience did not define him, but it became one part of his long story.

The 1930s were not easy years. Matt worked on WPA projects during the Great Depression, contributing labor at a time when federal programs offered desperately needed employment. The family endured sorrow as well as struggle. In 1939, they lost their young daughter, Gertrude. Sometime after that, they also lost their son Thomas, though the exact date of his passing remains uncertain in the records. The absence of documentation does not lessen the weight of that loss.

By 1942, Matt registered for the World War II draft. His draft card described him as five feet eight inches tall, weighing 150 pounds, with brown hair and gray eyes. Though he did not serve overseas, the war years were a time of national change and quiet perseverance at home.

In April 1954, newspapers in Winchester, Kentucky reported that Matt had been missing near the Winchester reservoir, prompting a search by local authorities. After three days, he was found and safely returned to his family. The incident brought temporary alarm but ended in relief.

That same year marked a turning point. By 1954, Matt and Hazel had relocated to Indiana, appearing in the Logansport city directory. Their move from rural Kentucky to the industrial Midwest reflected a broader migration of Appalachian families seeking steadier opportunity. By 1959, they were living in Kokomo, Indiana, establishing themselves within a new community while carrying with them the resilience shaped in the Kentucky hills.

In Kokomo, Matt lived out his later years. He and Hazel made their home at several addresses over time, including South Union Street and later South Washington Street. Children grew into adults. Grandchildren followed. In 1986, after more than sixty years of marriage, Hazel passed away. Her death marked the close of a partnership that had begun in Kentucky decades earlier.

Matt lived seven more years after Hazel’s passing. On February 22, 1993, he died at Howard Community Hospital in Kokomo at the age of eighty-eight. He was laid to rest at Sunset Memory Garden in Howard County, Indiana.

Matt Rogers’ life stretched from the early years of the twentieth century into the 1990s. He knew the hardship of losing his parents young, the strain of economic depression, the consequences of difficult choices, and the courage required to begin again in a new state. He raised a family, endured the loss of children, worked where work could be found, and carried his name steadily through nearly nine decades. He was not a man of public titles, but of endurance — simply Matt.