The cathartic effect of hitting "unfriend"

A Facebook friend posted a meme Sunday morning that included something like the following printed in reverse type across a background of the American eagle and red, white and blue: "I'm sorry if my political posts offend you, but my country is more important than your opinion."

That was a little like a pheasant breaking cover. It attracted my attention, so I picked her off with the "unfriend" button and added another notch to my mouse.

That makes five during the current election season, maybe 10 during all the years I've been fiddling with the social media. I've got a really good group of friends with all kinds of opinions and convictions, political and otherwise. Generally, I'm interested in what they all have to say.

But the current election cycle has strained relationships, although I'm still not unduly concerned about who someone is or isn't voting for. Besides, I like to fire the occasional political potshot, too --- hopefully, no more than a half dozen or so a week.

The volume of "shares" lately has gotten out of hand, however. So I've taken out a major conspiracy theorist I've known since he was in high school, a sweet lady who seems to be spending her days scouring the internet for political stuff and then "sharing" it and a guy who posted something homophobic. I routinely unfriend racists and those who suggest others would be better off dead. And I once unfriended a guy just because he kept interspersing crude stuff with posts about how much he loved Jesus.

The result has improved my outlook considerably. 

A little traveling music for All Saints'

Yes, I know All Saints' Day isn't until Tuesday and that most protestant churches that do observe this ancient holy day of the church won't do so until the following Sunday. But tonight is beggars' night in Chariton --- and I have to remember to go buy another package of candy bars to replace the one I've already eaten.

So here as traveling music is the great Anglican All Saints' Day hymn, "For All the Saints," sung to Ralph Vaughan Williams' Sine Nomine setting as the All Saints' recessional during 2014 at St. James Episcopal Church in Los Angeles. The officiant was Suffragan Bishop Diane Jardine Bruce --- and that's a talented thurifer, too, showing off for the camera.

Politics, Elijah and Nathan Kendall style

I mentioned Elijah Kendall in passing the other day, noting in a post entitled "George Fancher & Miss Daisy Dukes" the 1888 uproar that resulted when the "aged" (he was 50 at the time) Civil War veteran (Kendall) was defeated in an election for justice of the peace by a young whippersnapper (Fancher).

What I didn't say was this --- that the people of Chariton realized the error of their ways next time around, re-elected Elijah and kept re-electing him JP until his hearing got so bad that he no longer could do the job.

He died in Chariton on May 5, 1900, aged 72, and was buried beside his wife, Lucinda (May 10, 1828-May 9, 1894), here in the northwest part of the Chariton Cemetery upon the instructions of their only surviving son, Nathan E. Kendall. That's Lucinda and Elijah at left.

Elijah and Lucinda, worthy Washington Township pioneers before moving to Chariton during 1883, have the distinction of being the parents of the only Iowa governor born in Lucas County, the aforementioned Nathan E. (Leo Hoegh was the only Iowa governor who was a resident of Lucas County when elected.) 

I'll probably have more to say about Elijah, Lucinda and their more famous son at other times, but  wanted to note the senior Kendalls' presence this morning, in part because of the following lines from his obituary, published in both The Chariton Herald and The Chariton Leader at the time of his 1900 passing:

"The deceased was a man of strong personal convictions, yet charitably tolerant of the opinions of others. He never professed any form of religion, but was quick to recognize the great good that religious organizations are accomplishing.

"In politics he was an intense Republican, but never dogmatic, often supporting men of opposite faith in local and municipal elections. He despised corruption in every form, and he would not support a candidate known to be unclean or unscrupulous, even if that candidate's name appeared on his party ticket. He always stood for the just and upright administration of public affairs."

We could all learn from Elijah's example during the current somewhat contentious campaign.

Nathan E. Kendall, also a Republican, went on to become one of Iowa's great progressive governors, serving two consecutive terms, from 1921 until 1925.

There may be a lesson in Nathan's passing, too --- on Nov. 4, 1936, at the age of 68. He died of a heart attack while listening to election results on the radio that morning at his home in Des Moines.

You might remember that while awaiting the outcome of the Nov. 8, 2016, election.

Sadly, from a Lucas County perspective, our neighbor to the east --- Monroe --- gets to claim most of reflected Nathan E. Kendall glory. After growing up in Washington Township here, he went to Albia during the 1880s to study law and was admitted to the bar there during May of 1889.

He remained an Albia resident while building his career as a lawyer and pursuing a career in politics --- serving in the Iowa House from 1899-1909; as U.S. representative from 1909-1913 when he was sideswiped by a heart attack; and then as governor from 1921-25.

After his death, his ashes were taken to Albia for burial on the lawn of Kendall Place, the big house just east of the square that had been given by Nathan and his first wife, Belle, to the Albia Woman's Club, now owned by the Monroe County Historical Society. You'll find him there, under a memorial bench in the front yard.

Nate Shradar and a tractor with a fringe on top

I've been admiring what presumably is a canvas fringe sheltering the "cab" of the tractor Nate Shradar was operating here during 1892 to power a threshing machine somewhere in Lucas County. You can see the big belt that linked the tractor to the threshing machine on the right.

That's Mr. Shradar in the foreground with his hand on the tractor, according to his daughter, Frances (Mrs. Willard Davis), who donated the photograph to the Lucas County Historical Society during 1976. The other two people are not identified. There doesn't seem to be a brand name anywhere on the side of the machine visible here.

Nate Shradar was born Oct. 13, 1870, in Pleasant Township, and married Sarah F. "Fanny" Casebolt during  February of 1892. They became the parents of 12 children --- so there most likely are plenty of descendants still out there.

If the date of the photo, "1892," is accurate, it was taken during the first year of his marriage, when Nate was only 22. There's no way of telling exactly where in Lucas County the photo was taken.

The Shradars eventually retired to Chariton, but apparently had farmed in the Russell area --- they're buried in the Russell Cemetery. He died Feb. 18, 1952, at the age of 81. Mrs. Shradar died during 1961.

Broken Hallelujahs

Been listening to my favorite versions of Leonard Cohen's classic "Hallelujah" this morning, looking for a way to say that I really like Texas-based Pentatonix's new one --- without acknowledging that it's off the a cappella group's new Christmas album. Christmas? Yikes.

But there doesn't seem to be any way around mentioning that. And we did decide the other day to revive St. Andrew's/First Lutheran's annual Advent Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, but move it this year to First Lutheran and schedule it for a Wednesday evening. So the season soon will be upon us. Stay tuned for details.

Jeff Buckley's 1994 "Hallelujah" probably remains the most popular, but I'm fonder of later releases by k.d. lang and Rufus Wainwright.

The only major version that really annoys me was issued during 2014 by Kansas-based Cloverton, which tossed out a majority of Cohen's lyrics and substituted an insipid Christmas carolish version. 

I'll take my hallelujahs broken, thank you very much, since that's just the way life is. Here's the Pentatonix version:

Meeker than Moses: More about Ezra (Part 2)

This is a continuation of yesterday's post entitled "Ezra Meeker, Chariton & the Oregon Trail" --- a little more about Meeker's epic journey east by ox-drawn covered wagon during 1906-7, when he was 76, retracing the route west to the Pacific Northwest that he had taken during 1852, when he was 22.

There's a great deal of material out there about Meeker, both in book form and just waiting to be Googled, so there's no need to do anything in depth here. Ezra was a native of Butler County, Ohio, who moved as a boy with his family to a rural area near Indianapolis. He married Eliza Jane Sumner in Indiana during May of 1851.

During October of that year, they headed west to find a new home in Iowa. They rented a farm near Eddyville and settled down for the winter --- but neither Ezra nor Eliza enjoyed Iowa's winter of 1851-1852, so during April of 1852, they outfitted themselves and set out to cross the Plains and mountains to the Pacific Northwest.

The opening days of their journey took them southwest on the ridge road from Eddyville to Albia, then west on the new (and minimally developed) state road linking Albia and Chariton. Meeker apparently had no memory of Chariton or any of the other little towns then scattered along the old Mormon Trail in south central and southwest Iowa. But then there wasn't much to remember. Chariton didn't take off until 1853, when the federal land office moved here from Fairfield.

The Meekers reached Portland, Oregon, on Oct. 1, 1852, but moved on into what became Washington Territory, settling eventually at the site of the current town of Puyallup, which he founded, He made a fortune there cultivating hops, becoming the wealthiest man in the territory. A blight, however, cost him his fortune and he resolved to make his fortune anew in the Yukon gold fields, but that never quite worked out. By 1906, when he hatched the idea of calling attention to the Oregon Trail (and himself) by retracing his journey of 1852, his major asset was the Meeker mansion, built during the glory days in Puyallup and still standing (below).

As noted yesterday, Ezra's epic 1906 expedition reached Chariton on Wednesday, Nov. 7, 1906 --- a bad time for the city's newspaper editors who were scurrying to finish up their Thursday editions and really didn't have time to do any reporting. Henry Gittinger, of the Leader, chose instead to pick up and publish a story published Oct. 30 in The Mills County Tribune along with a notice that Ezra had indeed arrived in town. Here's the Tribune story that Gittinger pubished under the headline, "Meeker is on his way."

Ezra Meeker and his now famous ox team passed through Mills County the past week and tarried in Glenwood from Friday afternoon till early Sunday morning. 

He arrived in Malvern Sunday afternoon and remained over night, taking up his journey eastward and passing through Hastings and Emerson Monday.

His passage through Mills County was unheralded. Many people had not read of his unusual undertaking and of course could not appreciate the full meaning of his coming.

A UNIQUE EXPEDITION

He has officially styled it: "The Ox Team Monument Expedition." This needs explanation.

He is a man 76 years old next December. He was born in Huntsville, Butler County, Ohio. When a young man he lived near Indianapolis in Indiana. In 1851 he came to Iowa and in the spring of 1852 went with the thousands of others across the plains and settled on Puget Sound near Seattle, Wash.

Meeker is now retracing the course, in as nearly the same manner as possible that he took in 1852, 54 years ago.

He disclaims that it is a "fad." He says his purpose is a serious one. Truly, there is a romance, a sentiment, interwoven about his long and toilsome journey that places him beyond the ordinary "freaks" who now and then attract public attention.

THE HISTORIC OREGON TRAIL

Mr. Meeker seeks to perpetuate by means of monuments erected along the route the memory of the old Oregon Trail and in addition the historic highway over which the thousands of people passed in the early 50s on their way to California.

In Southern Idaho the great caravans of covered wagons in that early day divided. The majority pushed southwest through Nevada into California. Others, among them Meeker, went to the northwest.

In his book he says: "The ox team was chosen as a typical reminder of pioneer days, an effective instrument to attract attention, arouse enthusiasm, and a help to secure aid to forward the work of marking the old Trail, and erecting monuments in centers of population."

IOWA'S TERRIBLE ROADS

Meeker arrived in Glenwood about 5 o'clock last Friday afternoon. He had started out bright and early from Council Bluffs.

A few miles out he got helplessly tangled up with genuine Missouri bottom gumbo. His ox team was stalled and he was compelled to phone to Liveryman Al Marshall to come and relieve him of a part of his load.

He declares that the stretch of bottom road out of Council Bluffs was the very worst he had encountered in his entire journey of 2,000 miles.

He will probably devote a page or so in his book telling of this road and it will not be a very flattering advertisement of Iowa roads.

ATTRACTED MUCH ATTENTION

In Glenwood Meeker was given permission to halt with his ox team and to pitch his tent on the Wickham lot on the southeast corner of the square to the rear of the Bromley & Lewis real estate office.

Saturday afternoon his wagon was pulled up in front of the Lamb bank and attracted much attention.

It called to the minds of our older citizens the early days when ox teams were common. The wagon was also of the old prairie schooner style, resembling the wagons used in the civil war. It was painted blue and covered with canvas.

The wheels were held on by the old style "lynch pin." Underneath the wagon dangled the "tar bucket," tar being used to "grease" the wheels as in the old days.

The wagon box was "dished" or canoe-shaped, with slanting ends. In crossing the plains these wagon boxes were, in the early days, made use of to cross streams too deep to ford.

Both the wagon box and cover were thickly inscribed with names, attesting the long journey it had taken.

MEEKER THAN MOSES

Although 76 years old, Meeker is remarkably spry and active. He is spare built, has white thin hair and beard, and possesses clear-cut features.

A Tribune man interviewed him in his wigwam-shaped tent and found him a very interesting talker. That he is possessed of a fine vein of humor was attested by a casual remark: "Moses was meek but I am Meeker."

He presented the Tribune a copy of his book, written and published since he started on his journey last January.

This book is entitled "The Ox Team, or the Old Oregon Trail." It gives an interesting account of his present trip, also much about his trip in 1852.

A copy of his book, also another one written by him, entitled, "Pioneer Reminiscenses of Puget Sound," was purchased and will be found in the Glenwood public library.

ONE OX DIED

Meeker's expedition was nearly broken up by the death of one of his oxen (the best one) near Kearney, Neb. He was unable to secure another till he arrived at Omaha, when he purchased a big Short-horn steer at the stock yards and after some delay broke him into the "yoke."

The ox that has made the entire trip thus far is the one on the right hand side with the twisted horn.

TRAVELED OVER 2,000 MILES

As MEEKER's "horseless carriage" stood on the square Saturday afternoon in Glenwood a little instrument attached to the wooden axle near the hub of the left hind wheel read: "17411."

This instrument is called an "odometer." Each revolution of the wheel is recorded by means of a clutch on the hub. The figures indicate the number of miles traveled since March 14, when the instrument was purchased at The Dalles, In Oregon, located only a few miles up the Columbia River from Hood River where W.F. Laraway resides.

Before reaching The Dalles he had come some 300 miles from his home at Puyallup near Seattle, leaving there the 29th of last January.

DEDICATES TWENTY MONUMENTS

In the States of Washington, Oregon and Idaho great interest was taken in the ox team man and modest granite monuments were erected in the principal cities along the route.

The interest was not quite so great through Wyoming and Nebraska. In all 20 monuments were erected and dedicated as he went along. Arrangements at other points were made to raise funds and dedicate at a later date.

He took a number of views as he came along the old Trail and has had them printed on souvenir postal cards. These he and his two assistants sell at their various stopping places.

ADVOCATES A NATIONAL ROAD

In a brief address on the street at Glenwood he advocated for the first time in public the making of the old Oregon Trail into a national road, to be called the "Pioneer Way."

He says the government should take hold of it, combining a practical use with the preservation of a historic route. He points out that the public roads are getting to be more and more important with the coming of the automobile.

He thinks the making of the old Trail into the fine thoroughfare would help towards solving the railroad question.

TRAIL ENDS AT MISSOURI RIVER

Meeker names Omaha as the official end of the Trail. Plattsmouth would have been more appropriate, as it was along the Platte River from its mouth to the intersection of the Sweetriver River in the Wyoming that long emigrant trains used to pass.

No definite route has been mapped out by Meeker through Iowa. He is not certain of his bearings, except for a short distance.

In the fall of 1851 he arrived at Burlington and passed through Mt. Pleasant and Fairfield and stopped for the winter at Eddyville in Wapello County near Ottumwa.

He had intended locating in Iowa but the severe winter of 1851-2 determined him to go to the milder climate of Puget Sound.

After leaving Eddyville in April, 1852, he passed through Albia and does not remember any point till he reached Council Bluffs, the intervening territory being a vast prairie with only small towns along the route.

STARTED FROM MILLS COUNTY

It is possible Meeker passed through Mills County and striking the old north and south government road went through Glenwood to Council Bluffs.

It is rather more likely, however, that he struck the road further to the north and came through old Macedonia and Taylor Station.

At any rate, he was on Mills County soil when he started across the Missouri River, crossing at the old ferry operated by Col. Peter A. Sarpy at Traders Point in the northwest corner of the county.

Meeker gives an interesting chapter in his book about crossing the "Big Muddy." At the time there was no ferry at council Bluffs and he and others arriving at that point were compelled to come south into Mills County to cross.

Shortly after this time Sarpy moved his ferry a few miles south to the old town of St. Mary. He also operated a ferry at East Plattsmouth.

TRAFFIC WAS CONGESTED

Meeker says it was a wonderful sight as he approached this ferry, upwards of a thousand covered wagons were converged at that point waiting to cross with only two small flat boats in operation.

Shortly afterwards a large steamboat came up the river and by working day and night soon had the "prairie schooners" landed on the Nebraska side.

The older residents of Mills County recall the days of the California gold excitement in the 50s and the Pike's Peak rush in the 60s. Thousands of covered wagons in those days passed this way, many of them getting their supplies at Glenwood for the long journey across the plains.

--- Mills County Tribune

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After leaving Chariton, Ezra moved on through Albia to Eddyville, where the trek had begun; then continued on to Indianapolis. He left there on March 1, 1907, and continued east through Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York.

Meeker ran into a little trouble in New York City, where he was ticketed for driving cattle on the public streets. Once that difficulty was resolved, however, he obtained permission to drive his ox-drawn wagon the entire length of Broadway --- a six-hour trek.

By Nov. 29, 1907, Meeker, his wagon and oxen were on the grounds of the White House in Washington, D.C., to meet President Theodore Roosevelt. He finally finished this journey in Seattle on July 18, 1908, traveling by train and riverboat across much of the country, but driving his team across Missouri and then from Portland to Seattle.

Promoting the Oregon Trail remained his principal occupation for the remainder of his life. During 1916, he made the trek from Washington, D.C., to Olympia, Washington, in a Pathfinder automobile. In 1924, he flew the Oregon Trail route with Army pilot Oakley G. Kelly, with the Dayton, Ohio, International Air Races their destination.

As a result, he became the only known pioneer to have crossed the prairie on the Oregon Trail by ox-drawn wagon, automobile --- and airplane.

As noted last time, Ezra died just short of his 98th birthday on Dec. 23, 1928, in Seattle, and was taken home to Puyallup for burial beside Eliza Jane, who had died during 1909, in Woodbine Cemetery.

Ezra Meeker, Chariton & the Oregon Trail, Part 1

Ezra Meeker passed through Chariton twice during the course of his remarkable 97 years.

The first time was in the spring of 1852, age 22, in an ox-drawn covered wagon, headed west for Oregon and accompanied by his wife, Eliza Jane; son, Marion; brother, Oliver; a man named William Buck; a second yoke of oxen, one yoke of cows and a spare cow --- just in case.

The second time was during the fall of 1906 in an ox-drawn covered wagon, headed east for Indianapolis via Eddyville and Burlington. He was now in his mid-70s, had made and lost fortunes and was beginning the work of locating, marking and commemorating the route of the Oregon Trail he had followed west in 1852. That work would occupy him fully until he died just short of is 98th birthday, declaring that he "couldn't go yet" because he still had work to do.

Had you been in Chariton on Wednesday evening, Nov. 7, 1906, you could have greeted Ezra as he drove his ox team onto the square, tethered them nearby and pitched his tent. The next morning, you might have gathered with the crowd on the west side of the square, where team and wagon were deployed in preparation for the next leg of the trek --- to Albia --- to hear him discuss his project. You might also have bought a copy of his brand new book, "Ox Team; or, The Old Oregon Trail," or one of his earlier publications, "Pioneer Reminiscences of Puget Sound." 

+++

Henry Gittinger, editor of The Chariton Leader, was fit to be tied. The Leader published on Thursday and had to be put to bed and printed Wednesday night. So the best he could do so far as coverage of Meeker's visit was concerned was to publish a notice of his arrival in town and lengthy excerpts from a long article that had appeared in "The Mills County Tribune" of Oct. 30 which had just arrived in the mail.

The editor of The Patriot was in a similar position, since that newspaper also was issued on Thursday, and he no doubt worked from exchange newspapers, too, when putting together the following report, published in his edition of Nov. 8:

EZRA MEEKER IN TOWN

Aged Pioneer and Ox Team Interest Many People

"Ezra Meeker, the aged pioneer, who with his famous ox team is making the trip from Puget Sound to Indianapolis, Indiana, over the old Oregon trail, was in Chariton Wednesday.

"The gray haired veteran of the plains and his unique means of transportation were of much interest to the people who saw him here, many of whom had the pleasure of talking to the old man. He had already completed over 2,000 miles of his trip and departed for Eddyville today.

"Mr. Meeker is now 76 years of age. Forty-four years ago, in 1852, he started from Eddyville, Iowa, with an ox team and prairie schooner, bound for Oregon. He went over the Oregon trail and arrived safely on the Pacific coast. His object in making his present trip was to relocated the old trail and to erect appropriate monuments along the trail route. He started nine months ago with an outfit as nearly as possible like the one with which he made the trip in 1852. He bought a pair of big strong steers and a 'Prairie schooner,' and with two young men and a dog he has made his trip.

"The expenses of his journey were all borne by Mr. Meeker, except some $300 which has been donated to him by towns along the route. Much interest in his trip has been aroused in towns along the old trail, and in twenty of these towns Mr. Meeker had the pleasure of dedicating monuments.

"He and his oxen cover about 15 miles a day. Mr. Meeker has walked much of the distance traveled the past summer. At night he sleeps in a tent. He has enjoyed good health and says he expects to travel all winter if the weather permits. From now on he will raise money by the sale of his books, one of which is a history of Puget Sound, and the other, an account of his present trip.

"He is to meet his wife in Indianapolis, where on the 13th of next May the aged couple will celebrate their fifty-sixth wedding anniversary.

"Mr. Meeker has a fine home in Puyallup, Washington, a city which he had the honor of founding. He was for forty years a farmer and fruit raiser. He is most pleasant to meet and very entertaining to talk with. His journney has received much notice in the newspapers throughout the country."

More about Ezra Meeker in a future post.

To every thing, there is a season ....

Can't identify this colorful couple and that pilot pooch.

   
But their Sunday afternoon Red Haw adventure brightened mine, and I'm grateful.

It was a grand day to be out, letting the poison drain away ...

... making room for the important stuff: colors of the leaves, the quality of light on water; sound of wind in the trees, turning of the seasons.

 

A trip down Miller Ridge with Marjorie Miller Shaw

This post is primarily for members of my extended Miller family, but as always others are welcome to come along for the ride. It involves a small stretch of territory southeast of Albia in Monroe county on the Blue Grass Road that was (and still is by some) called Miller Ridge.

My (distant) cousin, Marjorie Miller Shaw, was born there in 1905 and 86 years later, in 1991, when she and her husband, Olen Shaw, still were living in Silver Spring, Maryland, I asked her to conjure up a trip down the ridge for me, traveling from east to west, and talking a little about who lived where.

Marjorie was a pioneering Miller genealogist, a hardcore boots-on-the-ground researcher of a type who would hardly be recognized by many of the sissified search-engine find-and-merge computer jockeys claiming the title today (the latter description now includes me, of course, although I never "merge.")

To reach Miller Ridge today, drive a short distance east of Albia on Highway 34 and turn right on paved 201st Street, also called Airport Road, and once that road turns to gravel, just keep going. You're approaching the "Ridge."

+++

I've marked a few Miller family landmarks on a section of the 1875 Andreas Atlas map of Monroe County (top) so that I can, hopefully, provide a moderately coherent explanation of how one of the multitudinous Miller families that once populated Monroe County's Pleasant and Mantua townships hangs together. Miller Ridge snakes across the southern border of Mantua Township.

William and Miriam (Trescott) Miller, who were my great-great-great-grandparents, arrived in Monroe County from Van Buren immediately after it was opened for settlement during May of 1843. They had been early converts of Mormon prophet Joseph Smith Jr. in Ohio and had followed his directions during the 1830s to relocate to northwest Missouri, settling just north of Haun's Mill in what now is Caldwell County. When the Saints were driven out of Missouri, the Millers and dozens of their extended family members and friends came up into Iowa rather than going on to Nauvoo, Illinois, and parked themselves in Van Buren County to await the opening to EuroAmerican settlers of what previously had been territory of the Sauk and Fox, including Monroe County.

William and Miriam settled during 1843 immediately west of what now is Pleasant Corners Cemetery, not far southwest of Eddyville --- then the principal Des Moines River crossing point. They're buried there, in unmarked graves. Their enthusiasm for the LDS faith had long since waned and William reverted to Baptist, becoming a founding member of Pleasant Corners Baptist Church just to the south.

Joseph and Mary McMulin --- who had come to Van Buren County from Ohio during 1838 but were not Mormon --- also were among those May, 1843, first settlers. They claimed land just north of the now-ghost town of Fredric a short distance south of Pleasant Corners. Their affiliation was with the Church of the Brethren a short distance to the south, east of a place first called Fairview, later Cuba.

William and Miriam Miller's son, Jeremiah, married Joseph and Mary McMulin's daughter, Elizabeth, during 1849 and they brought their family west to English Township, Lucas County, during 1867. These were my great-great-grandparents.

+++

Meanwhile, William Miller Sr. apparently wrote back to his kinfolk living in Ohio and during 1846, the first of his nephews, sons of Stephen and Lydia (Lamb) Miller, began to arrive in Monroe County, too. This is the branch of the family that settled some distance to the south on Miller Ridge. Stephen died during 1852 in Portage County, Ohio, and not long thereafter, Lydia (Lamb) Miller joined her children in Monroe County, becoming the matriarch of Miller Ridge.

Before all was said and done, the following children of Stephen and Lydia had settled on or near Miller ridge: Alpheus Franklin Miller, George Miller, John Miller, Harriet (Miller) Miller, Minerva (Miller) Walker and Alvin Miller. Of the Stephen and Lydia Miller children, only Lucinda (m. Ralph Dewey) settled elsewhere --- at Washington, Iowa.

Daughter Harriet added extra complexity to the family mix by marrying, in Ohio, her first-cousin, William Trescott Miller, son of William and Miriam (Trescott) Miller. One of their sons was the Rev. Ambrose Miller --- a great friend of my great-grandfather, Joseph Cyrus Miller --- and the source of the middle name of my grandfather, William Ambrose Miller.

The principal burial place of these Miller Ridge pioneers was Smith-Beebe Cemetery, just north of the old route of Highway 34, north of the ridge. This most likely is the oldest cemetery in Monroe County and one of the county's earliest settled places. When the original survey of Monroe County was taken, the Smith-Beebe Cemetery site already was occupied.

Got all that?

+++

The following map, lifted from the 1906 Monroe County atlas, shows the ridge as it was occupied at the time --- nearly all of this has been swept away by now. But it is possible, if you're curious and patient, to follow along on Marjorie's little tour, using this map. This and the other map will enlarge if you right-click and open in new windows. Ignore the areas filled in in crayon (these were a feature of the copy of the atlas digitalized at University of Iowa Libraries).  I've marked "The 160" where the tour begins. Here is Majorie's tour:

"I will try to give you a picture of Miller Ridge as you asked me to do.

"To our family, it started about 5-1/2 miles east of Albia (slightly south) in the valley before the three Trimble Hills. To the left (north) as we travel east there was a lane which went back to what we called "The 160," which meant a mostly wooded farm of 160 acres with a house, barn, etc., which was owned by my father (Nelson Miller) and his brothers, Boyd and Wallace, in partnership or alone for many years. No one ever quite moved out of the house, leaving carpets, stoves and any furniture which was surplus to them. Any of the John Miller family could go there between jobs or farms.

"Proceeding east on the "Blue Grass Trail," at the top of the hills (two or three red clay hills with a house  on the left side at the top of the eastern-most hill) --- Before my time a big family, Trimbles, lived there. One daughter, I believe, was the first wife of James Miller, son of William and Harriet Miller. Another Trimble daughter was the third wife of Onie Piper, a Lamb descendant and cousin of the John Miller and his brothers' and sisters' families (Onie's mother, Gracia, was a Lamb descendant).

"The  next house east was the Lewis Parry farm with William Parry's family there in the first decades of the 1900s. Their only connection was the marriage of Lucy Miller (daughter of Harriet and William Miller) to a son of Lewis Parry.

"The next place east was through a lane which turned to the left, going north a short distance to the farm of Albert Miller and Lydia (Roberts) Miller. Later, a second house was built back there for their son, Elton, and his wife, Lola (Cornford) Miller. Elton later became a United Brethren minister, as was his father-in-law.

"The next place of Millers was the John Miller farm a short distance on the right, still going east. He and his wife, Amelia (Hoskins) Miller, came there soon after their marriage in Portage County, Ohio. The family belonged on the ridge, or at least a member of that family did, until about 1936 when Carrie Miller sold (Carrie was the last of the family "at home") it to Victoria Pickerell, a young teacher and a Lamb cousin coming through the Harrison Ames branch. Later, she married Emmett VanDalen. They are both deceased and, as far as I know, their two children own the place. I was born there in 1905.

"In 1909, Nelson Miller, my father, bought the Morgan place owned by Olive Tyrrell Morgan. Her son, Ren (Philander Lorenzo Tyrrell), and wife, Eliza, lived there with her. My father had a small cheese factory there until 1912, when we moved to Albia. After that, my uncles, Wallace and Boyd, owned the place.

"Just east of that on the right side of the road was the Harrison Ames home --- Lamb cousins. The next on the left side was the Frank Lindsey place. Mrs. Lindsey (Victoria) was a daughter of Harrison Ames.

"Just down a small hill was the Alpheus Miller farm (on the right). By my time he had died and his daughter, Adelia (Dele) and husband, Las (Lawson) Carlton lived there with his sister, Angie.

"Almost across the road was what had been the Lydia Lamb Miller home, whose son Alvin was single and living with her there when she came from Ohio. In the early 1900s and until probably the 1940s, Adolphus (Dolph) Carlton, son of Dele and her husband, and his wife, Elsie, lived there with their three sons.

"East of there, on the left side also, in the early 1900s, until probably 1930, Bertha Miller Sinclair and husband, Willie Sinclair, lived. Bertha was a daughter of Albert and Lyda (Roberts) Miller. They had Kenneth and Eva, their children, there with them. That was "the Duffy place" early, then Boyd and Leoti Miller owned it.

"The next two buildings were on the left side, too. These were the Miller Ridge Methodist Church and the Miller Ridge school.

"About a quarter mile east, where the road divides going north toward Avery and southeast toward Blakesburg and just at the north corner, was the Dyghton (Dyght) Miller and wife, Ann Tyrrell Miller --- with a foster son, Harold Riggs --- place.

"On that road north from there was the James Miller home with his second wife, Nellie Brady I believe, and a son, Jerry (probably short for Jeremiah). Then the Milt Walker and Ethel (Miller) Walker home. Ethel was the daughter of Ann and Dyghton Miller. They had two daughters, Violet Walker (later West) and Zella, who died young.

"A little farther north was the Clark and Kate (Roberts) Carlton home with Nora (Newman), Irwin, Alice, Ruth (Chrisman), Lina and Helen (Anderson). Kate was a sister of Lyda (Roberts) Miller, Albert's wife --- also it made Lyda her sister Kate's aunt!

"Just as you leave the Carltons on the road going east on the right side of the road was Llewellyn Ames and his wife, Annie (Tate) Ames. He was a brother of Victoria Lindsey, son of Harrison Ames. That was about the end of the Miller connections on that road.

"Going back to the place where the road divided, going southeast, right there William Miller and Harriet (Miller) Miller had lived. William was dead, but Harriet lived until 1915. Her son, Clifton "Cliff" and his wife, Eva, lived there with her. They had one daughter, Grace, and Harry Earl, Jamie, Maurice, Eugene and Mason "Teddy." By about 1910 they had built a house in their side yard for Minerva Miller Walker and her husband, William, who had moved from Albia in their older age to be near Harriet and the family to care for them. They had no children."

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That's the end of Marjorie's tour. She concluded her letter of July 21, 1991, "I remember Alvin, Minerva and Harriet of Stephen's children, Alvin's wife and my grandmother, Amelia, John's wife, and Minerva's husband, William Walker. Any further detail you might like on these families, I might have it in my head!"

And of course there are days when I ask myself, "now why didn't I ask Majorie that?"

When they were in their 90s, Olen and Majorie moved from Silver Spring to Michigan, where one of their sons and his family lived. Olen died in Ann Arbor on Dec. 26, 1994, and Majorie, on Oct. 23, 1998, at Salem. They are buried in Worden Cemetery, near Salem.

Alfred E. Smith and Lucas County back in 1928

I got to wondering, as pundits pondered the performances of Clinton and Trump at the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner in New York recently, how the Democratic Party candidate for president during 1928 had fared in Lucas County. The short answer is, not very well, but that was the case in Iowa as a whole, too, not surprisingly.

Smith, a progressive four-term governor of New York, was Roman Catholic --- the first nominated for president by a major U.S. party. His nomination was the equivalent, in its time, of Barack Obama's in 2008 and Hillary Clinton's in 2016 --- all considerable shocks to the sensibilities of good old protestant white boys accustomed to running things.

Many protestants were outraged by Smith. While doing a little research, I pulled up a The Atlantic article from 1927 that was a mind-numbingly long open letter to Smith, carefully explaining why a Catholic could not be a loyal, true and red, white and blue American. It was the pope thing, of course. In fairness to The Atlantic, Smith was given space in the next issue to respond and did so eloquently. 

But religion certainly was a factor in the 1928 election, most likely in Lucas County, too, although I didn't find any locally generated anti-Catholic rhetoric in Chariton newspapers from that year --- granted that there wasn't time to look through them all.

Beyond the fact that Lucas County always has trended Republican, a major talking point for the Republican candidate, Herbert Hoover, was the fact he was Iowa-born. Despite the fact Hoover had been relocated to the West Coast when 11, his place of birth --- it was assumed --- would make him more likely to promote his home state's agricultural interests.

Then there was the issue of prohibition. Smith was not a fan of the Eighteenth Amendement, enacted in 1919, and favored its repeal. That distressed many in Iowa (and elsewhere), dominated by protestant prohibitionists who viewed alcoholic beverages of any sort as a tool of the devil, so much so that during the 19th century communion wine had been replaced by unfermented grape juice.

That view is kind of summed up in a little letter from Annie C. Smith, identified as "a former Lucas County lady now of Washington," published in The Chariton Leader of Oct. 11, 1928:

"I thought you might be interested to know how some of us in the east view the political situation. The Protestant ministers and their congregations generally, in this city, feel that it is not so much the religious issue as the wet and dry issue that is to be met by those who are interested in the future welfare of our country, and of course, as you know, this is the big question that is splitting both parties. We were quite surprised when we were driving recently through the Shenandoah Valley to see the number of Virginians with the Hoover and Curtis banner on their automobiles or the button on their coats. I think it is a very critical time, and that to attempt to change the 18th amendment, as Smith would advocate, would throw the country back to where it was 75 years ago and the sacrifices of those who have worked for prohibition all these years will have been in vain. Yours for Hoover and Curtis, Mrs. Annie C. Smith, formerly of Lucas County, Iowa."

A majority of Lucas Countyans apparently agreed with Mrs. Smith. When the count was final that November, Hoover had tallied 3,811 votes and Smith, 1,888. In Iowa as a whole, Hoover led Smith 623,570 votes to 379,011. The Eigteenth Amendment, by the way, was repealed in 1933.

Reading, writing, arithmetic --- and whippings

I found this little memoir again while moving school-related items from one archival binder to another yesterday at the museum and thought it worth reproducing. It is among numerous oral and written histories collected by Warren S. Dungan, founder of Lucas County's first historical society, then read at annual old settler reunions, held regularly during the very late 19th and early 20th centuries. This one is undated and typed (I recognize a product of Col. Dungan's typewriter when I see it). The heading reads, "Statement of George B. Tout."

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George B. Tout was born Sept. 1st, 1853, at Danville, Hendricks County, Indiana, and came to Chariton, Iowa, June 4th, 1857.

The teachers in Chariton to whom he went were, to the best of his recollection, as follows:

Miss Nan Mitchell in 1858 in a little house on the square --- north side.

Miss Thorpe in the old M.E. church in 1859. She was red-headed and a terror to evil-doers. She was great for whippings. She sometimes whipped the whole school during one day. After whipping one scholar, she stood him on the platform to watch the others and when he discovered another scholar doing something forbidden, the scholar disobeying was called out, whipped and stood on the platform and the other relieved. And so the process went on until the whole school had taken their medicine.

Miss Emma Hosner was one of the pupils who was pointed out for a whipping. Instead of submitting gracefully, she darted out at an open window and made good her escape. He does not remember the finale to this little episode.

Miss Lizzie McCormick was his next teacher. Miss McCormick taught in the Pennsylvania House, so called, which was put up for a hotel on Lot 7, Block 16, where Dr. Perry's residence now stands.

S.D. Hickman and wife were also his teachers.

John Matson was next and then T. Park Coin, but the time he cannot remember. Charles H. Sorenson was another of his teachers.

J.P. Simpson was his last teacher. He taught in the basement of the Presbyterian Church.

John Matson was cross-eyed, and when Tout thought he was looking away from him he was looking directly at him. Matson had that advantage of his pupils.

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Public schools were among the first things organized after Lucas County was settled, but it took a number of years for substantial buildings to be erected in Chariton. The big building known as "South School" on the current site of Columbus School (top), completed in 1867, was in fact the first.

Until then, schools moved from place to place. As Tout reports, the original First Methodist Church, located on the approximate site of Johnson Machine Works headquarters, was recycled into a school after the new brick church was constructed and he attended classes there.

Chariton High School did not graduate its first four-year class until 1878 and even then attendance was spotty because many families preferred to enroll their scholars in one of the private academies then operating. George Tout's narrative suggests that he completed his education in the academy operated by Prof. Joseph Parke Stout Simpson --- an uncle of mine some generations removed.

George was a son of William H. and Sarah (Kite) Tout. He eventually settled in Ottumwa with his wife and daughter, but died on Nov. 25, 1911, age 58, at the state hospital for the insane in Mount Pleasant of "softening of the brain" --- something we'd probably call Alzheimer's today. He is buried in the Ottumwa City Cemetery.

George Fancher & Miss Daisy Dukes

This is kind of a sad tombstone tale, involving as it does middle-aged romance and a death bed marriage. But it also involves a real Daisy Dukes, one of the reasons it caught my attention in the first place. (Yes, I know that the Dukes of Hazard Daisy didn't have an "s" on the end of her surname; nor, I suspect, did our Daisy look much like, let alone behave like, the fictional Daisy.)

George Fancher, who is buried here with his wife, Daisy, and mother, Maria, was a New York native, born during 1864 in Delaware County, where his father --- Charles S. Fancher --- died during 1870 when George was only six years old. When he was about 11, his mother, Maria, moved west to Osceola, where her eldest daughter and son-in-law had settled, bringing her younger daughter, Charlotte, and young George along. 

As a young man, George entered the law office of renowned Chariton attorney Theodore M. Stuart to learn the arts and mysteries of the legal profession and eventually was admitted to the Iowa bar. He moved his mother and sister, Charlotte, to Chariton during that process.

Rather than establishing a general law practice, George became interested in real estate and entered into a partnership that operated an abstract, title and loan company that was the ancestor of today's Chariton Abstract Co., LLC, which continues to operate upstairs on the north side of the square.

There are some indications in Chariton newspapers that George was a bit of a wild child in his younger years, socializing (and occasionally getting into trouble with) the cream of Chariton's young manhood. 

In 1888, for example, he sought the office of justice of the peace and defeated the incumbent, the venerable E.L. Kendall, an honored Union veteran. The editor of The Chariton Democrat fumed editorially, dismissing George as "a rattling, rollicking, harem-scarem boy who has no more use for the office than a turkey-cock has for a duck-pond."

George settled down however and into what must have seemed to many confirmed bachelorhood, sharing a home on West Braden Avenue with his mother. He became a valued member of the Hook & Ladder Company of the Chariton Volunteer Fire Department and was initiated into a variety of fraternal organizations --- Masonic, Mystic Shrine, Knights of Pythias and Knights Templar.

Maria Fancher died during 1906, when George was 42, leaving him alone in the home they had shared and at some point thereafter, romance blossomed between George and his associate at the abstract and title company, Miss Daisy Dukes.

Daisy, born in Chariton during 1872, was in her mid- to late 30s at the time, a daughter of Harrison L. and Lucy (Wilson) Dukes. Daisy had graduated from Chariton High School, then during 1894 from a conservatory of music affiliated with Iowa Wesleyan College in Mount Pleasant. But after that, she became the principal companion of her widowed father. He died during 1907, the year after George's mother died, and both perhaps were at loose ends.

George and Daisy, he at 47 and she at 39, were making plans to marry during the summer of 1911 when disaster struck. On or about June 9, George suffered an attack of appendicitis, the appendix ruptured and peritonitis set in. 

He was taken to Mercy Hospital in Des Moines for surgery, but the outcome was doubtful. As a result George and Daisy were married in his hospital room on June 13, the evening before surgery was scheduled. 

The surgery went as well as could be expected, but the infection by this time was so advanced that George could not recover and he died on June 19. Daisy brought her new husband's remains home for burial near his mother in a west central section of the Chariton Cemetery.

After that, Daisy took the helm of the abstract and title company and operated in successfully for a dozen years --- until she was successfully wooed by the twice-widowed Philip Rockey, some 14 years her senior and cashier of the Russell Bank. They were married during November of 1923.

Daisy moved to Russell, switched her affiliation from Baptist to Presbyterian and became principal pianist for her new husband's church and apparently lived contentendly with him for the next 20 years, until his death at age 85 on Oct. 11, 1943.

After Philip's death, Daisy invited Miss Jennie Haywood to share her home and the two lived companionably until Daisy's death on Sept. 4, 1956. Her remains were brought to the Chariton Cemetery for burial beside George, her husband of only a few days some 45 years before.

Chariton Suffrage heroes: The Branners, Part 2

I wrote yesterday about Chariton sisters Victoria (Branner) Dewey and Virginia M. Branner, leaders of the women's suffrage movement in Lucas County --- and Iowa --- incorporating a biography of Victoria found in the Iowa Women's Archives at University of Iowa Libraries and presented in a digital collection entitled "Women's Suffrage in Iowa." You'll find the cover page for that collection here with links to its various parts. The "Iowa Suffrage Scrapbook" provides a good overview.

The Branner sisters and their mother, Jane (Cowan) Branner, who died in 1911, had been active in the suffrage movement since the late 1880s, but progress was slow --- men were reluctant. Modest victory came in 1894, when the Iowa Legislature approved a measure allowing women to vote on "yes and no" issues --- a bond referendum for example, or a surtax --- but women were denied the right to participate in elections that involved candidates for a quarter century more.

The Branner women were among principal organizers of the Lucas County Suffrage Association and regional suffrage conventions held in Chariton during 1897 and 1898. Women and their male backers gathered during 1897 at First Christian Church and during 1898 at First Baptist Church to hear nationally known speakers, to strategize and to inspire each other.

Finally, during its 1916 session, the Iowa Legislature passed for the second time a universal suffrage amendment to the Iowa Constitution and scheduled a ratification vote for June 5.

At this point, the effort in Lucas County and elsewhere shifted into high gear. Public informational meetings were scheduled across the county --- in towns and in rural churches --- an effort organized by Victoria, Virginia and their many associates with Victoria's daughter-in-law, Ruth Leonard Dewey, leading the effort on the ground. All of Lucas County's newspaper editors were strongly in favor of the amendment and both The Herald and The Leader donated space for a regular column, written by Virginia, updating readers on campaign activities.

The June 5 vote resulted in disappointment, however, when the issue failed statewide by a margin of 173,020 "no" votes to 162,679 "yes" votes. The principal opponents of suffrage were liquor interests in the state and elsewhere who feared that granting women the right to vote would advance the prohibition movement in the state (the Women's Christian Temperance Union and its members were among the principal proponents of universal suffrage). Liquor interests were well organized and had deep pockets and were very influential, especialy in Iowa's "wet" counties. (Lucas County was "dry.")

The map at the top of the post, also from the Women's Suffrange digital collection, was compiled during a post-election investigation by the WCTU that found substantial voter fraud in many counties, too --- enough to tip the outcome toward rejection of the amendment.

Liquor interest opposition to the amendment was supplemented, proponents also felt, by opposition from those who shared conservative views about the role of women, most notably the Catholic Church and groups of recent immigrants, especially Germans.

Yellow counties backed the amendment, Lucas County by a 540-vote margin. White counties voted against the amendment. The "no" votes in Dubuque, Jackson, Clinton, Scott and Linn counties were enough to ensure defeat. The flags indicate election irregularities detected by investigators.

Although disappointed by the outcome, the Branner sisters and their colleagues in the Lucas County Suffrage Association were by no means defeated. A "note of appreciation" from the association published in the editions of Lucas County newspapers in which results of the vote were announced, singled out for "special thanks" the "pulpit and press for their most generous and kindly support, which was invaluable at the time" and promised, "We will enter another campagn immediately and with our past experience to guide us, and knowing where to look for assistance, we will buckle on our armor with more faith and courage and with more assurance of the final result."

Suffragist focus now shifted from state to national level and, during 1919, Congress passed the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and passed it on to the states for ratification. Iowa became the 10th state to ratify the amendment on July 2, 1919; and on August 26th, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify, thereby enacting the amendment.

But suffragists had been active on the state level in Iowa, too --- although passage of the 19th amendment trumped state law, the Iowa General Assembly had during April of 1919 approved a bill giving women the right to vote in presidential elections.

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Here's the biography of Virginia M. Branner, found in the Iowa Women's Archive. It is far less detailed than the biography of her sister, Victoria J. (Branner) Dewey, but probably written by the same author. That's kind of unfortunate. Virginia's efforts certainly equaled, if not exceeded, those of her sister. She was the "voice" of the suffragist movement in Lucas County and a foot soldier, too --- traveling statewide, even moving to Des Moines to work in the state suffrage office.

VIRGINIA M. BRANNER

Virginia M. Branner, a pioneer suffragist in Iowa, was a native of Tennessee, born December 5th, 1852, in the town of Dandridge. She was the youngest child of her parents, Judge John Branner and Jane Cowan Branner, and a sister of Victoria Josephine Dewey. She was educated in the Brazelton School for Girls in Dandridge and in the Episcopal School for Girls in Dubuque, Iowa. Moving with the family to Chariton, Iowa, in 1873, she married Charles H. Palmer of that city from whom she was divorced twenty years later, when she resumed her maiden name of Mrs. Virginia M. Branner. No children were born to her.

Mrs. Branner was an adherent of the Presbyterian faith and a member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union for forty years. She was an early member of the woman suffrage work in Chariton and identified in the state work many times in an official capacity. In 1908 in the convention at Boone, she gave a report as a member of the National Committee from Iowa for Peace and Arbitration, which indicates her especial interest in these questions. At the close of the convention at Corydon in 1910, she was elected treasurer of the Iowa Woman Suffrage Association with Mrs. H.E. Evans, president; she served through 1911 at the Headquarters of the state association in the Equitable Building. These headquarters were established after the death of Mary J. Coggeshall who left a generous bequest to the society for the suffrage work in the state.

Mrs. Branner gave generously of her time and energy to these causes and also gave liberally of her income, a goodly portion of it to Parsons College of Fairfield, Iowa. In 1920, she went to California in search of health, but becoming very ill, returned to her friends in Fairfield and finally to her old home in Chariton, where she died at the home of her sister, Mrs. Victoria Dewey, September 16th, 1921, beloved of her friends and acquaintances, which she numbered in many states.

Mrs. Branner and Mrs. Victoria J. Dewey were sisters living at Chariton, and the period of their labors for the cause of equal suffrage covered nearly fifty years. Before 1900 they had been largely instrumental in holding a three-day county suffrage "convention" at Chariton, which was very successful. In the state campaign for a "suffrage" amendment, in 1916, they organized a county caravan which was conducted by Mrs. Dewey's daughter-in-law, Mrs. Ruth Leonard Dewey, and which with national speakers, visited every town in Lucas county, which county gave a large majority for the amendment. In this period of work, they became acquainted with most of the state workers for suffrage, and many of the national leaders, Susan B. Anthony, Anna Howard Shaw, Mary G. Hay, and others had visited them in Chariton, and made addresses in that town.

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Another point to mention is the fact that Victoria and Virginia played a major role in development of the Chariton square, too. Jane (Cowan) Branner and her children, Victoria, Virginia and N.B., had inherited the east half of the south side of the square from John Branner. As the years passed, Victoria built the Dewey Block on the corner, occupied until recently by Chariton Floral. Virginia built a triple-front structure known as the Branner Block just to the west on the lots now occupied by the Ritz Theater/Connecticut Yankee Pedaller building and the Harbor House Christian Bookstore building; and Victoria built the three-story Temple Theater Building, destroyed by fire in 1930, on the site now occupied by Hammer Medical Supply.

These were women made wealthy initially by inheritance from their father who were astute  businesspeople themselves, but strong-minded and community-minded --- determined to make a difference at a time when women's rights were not guaranteed.

Womens suffrage heroes: Chariton's Branner sisters

I've been thinking about the Branner women --- Victoria (Branner) Dewey and Virginia M. Branner --- as election day 2016 nears. These sisters were Lucas County's leading suffragists during the late 19th and early 20th century, yet a hundred ago, during the 1916 election cycle, they still could not vote.

In fact, the men of Iowa had just handed women of the state a crushing defeat on June 5 of that year.

After years of contentious debate, the Iowa Legislature finally had passed a universal suffrage amendment to the state constitution during two consecutive sessions. Men were called upon to ratify the amendment during a special June 5 election --- and refused to do so.

As a result, Iowa women could not vote until after the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified during 1920.

So politics aside, I'm certain that Victoria, Virginia and others who worked with them in Lucas County would be gratified by the fact that two women --- Democrat Hillary Clinton and Green Party candidate Jill Stein --- are contenders for president this year; that one of Iowa's U.S. senators is a woman; and that another woman is contending with the incumbent for the state's other Senate seat.

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Victoria and Virginia as well as other family members are commemorated on the tablet atop this tomb in the Chariton Cemetery. The bones of the family matriarch, Jane (Cowan) Branner, actually rest here under the tomb but the remains of all the rest were cremated. The Branners were progressive on a number of fronts.

I've written about this interesting family before, focusing on the patriarch --- John Branner --- who arrived in Chariton from East Tennessee during 1853 with his young son, Napoleon Bonaparte Branner, the same year the federal land office was relocated here from Fairfield. He had purchased land warrants, primarily from Mexican War veterans, in Tennessee and parlayed them into a considerable fortune by using them as the basis for land speculation in southern Iowa. You can find a post entitled "Working Title: The Almighty Branners" here; and "The Almighty Branners, Part 2," here.

I found the following biography of Victoria among Iowa Suffrage Memorial Commission records in the Iowa Women's Archive at University of Iowa Libraries. There's a shorter biography of Virginia, which I'll post tomorrow. Both are accessible online through the University of Iowa Libraries' Iowa Digital Library.

The authors of the biographies are unknown and archivists guess that they were written during the 1920s, although Victoria's would date after her 1930 death. My personal guess, because of level of detail, is that they were written by Victoria's daughter-in-law, Ruth (Leonard) Dewey, a suffragist herself, or her son, Walter Dewey.

A couple of details are not mentioned in the biographies. The Branner sisters' parents, John and Jane (Cowan) Branner were estranged. John never returned to Tennessee for anything other than a visit after settling in Chariton during 1853. Jane did not move north from Tennessee to join two of her children here, N.B. and Virginia, until after his death. Victoria and Walter arrived during 1885. Victoria and Virginia saw Iowa for the first time during 1867 when their mother sent them north in the aftermath of the Civil War to live with their father for a time.

Here's Victoria's biography:

VICTORIA (BRANNER) DEWEY

Victoria Josephine Dewey was born in Dandridge, Tennessee, April 15, 1850, the daughter of John Branner and Jane Cowan, and the great-granddaughter of Abednego Inman, a soldier of the Revolutionary war. Abednego Inman was the maternal great-grandfather of Victoria J. Dewey. She was a descendant of Casper Branner, who was born about 1729 and who settled in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, probably about 1750. Living in the border country of East Tennessee, as a child she endured the hardships of the Civil War. Her two brothers were in the Confederate army, and the younger, Thomas Cowan Branner, was killed in action when not quite nineteen years of age.

She attended school at the Brazelton school for girls, in Dandridge, and later at Lee Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa, an Episcopal School for young women. Returning to Dandridge, she lived there, and on November 14, 1871, she married General Joel Allen Dewey, an officer of the Union army, born in Vermont, reared in Ohio, and who was, at the beginning of the war, a senior at Oberlin College. He was first Lieutenant in the 43rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry, then captain, major and lieutenant colonel; in 1864 he was colonel of the 11th colored regiment, U.S. Volunteers. He was commissioned brigadier-general in the winter of 1865, when but twenty-five years of age.

Declining a captaincy in the regular army, he went to Albany, N.Y. Law School, and graduated from there in 1867, and settled in East Tennessee. In 1869, he was elected attorney general for the second judicial district of Tennessee, and re-elected in 1870 for a seven-year term. He died suddenly of heart disease, in the court room in Knoxville, Tennessee, June 17, 1873. Their only child, Walter Dewey, was born in Dandridge, September 5, 1872.

In 1878 Mrs. Dewey married John Beecher Meek, a lawyer of Dandridge, who died in 1881. Later, by legal action, she changed her name again to Dewey, and in April 1885, with her son, moved to Chariton, Lucas County, Iowa, which was her home until her passing, which occurred at Chariton, December 26, 1930.

During her long residence at Chariton, Mrs. Dewey was active in business, church, and other community affairs, and was reasonably successful in her financial investments. With her son, in April 1898, she purchased the Chariton Herald, which that fall was sold, and at the same time they purchased the Chariton Leader, and published it for six years. She was the financial founder of the Hawkeye Produce Company of Chariton, a wholesale poultry and egg establishment, conducted as a partnership and which had branch houses in four other southern Iowa cities. These houses were sold at a good profit to the Beatrice Creamery Company, shortly before Mrs. Dewey's passing. In 1899 she bought a five thousand acre ranch in the coast country of Texas, which was later sold at a profit.

Mrs. Dewey never had the opportunity of attending any of the higher institutions of learning, but she was a lover of books, and an omniverous reader. Her private library was probably the largest in Lucas county. Many of these books were given by her to the rural schools of the county, some to friends, and others to the city library. The remnant of her books, some five hundred in number, are now in the family home in Chariton. Her love of books and of good reading, naturally made her much interested in the Public Library, and in the library movement in general. She was a charter member of the board of trustees of the Chariton Free Public Library, and the second president of the board, and on April 23, 1904, she presided and formally laid the corner stone of the present library building at Chariton, said to have been the first time that a woman had ever presided at such a function. The "Victoria J. Dewey Memorial Fund" given to the library by the members of Mrs. Dewey's family, provides proceeds for the purchase of an average of one or more good books for the library each month.

Mrs. Dewey was a pioneer advocate of equal suffrage, a lifelong member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, a devout Episcopalian, and a most progressive Democrat. She attended at least two of the national conventions of the Woman Suffrage Association, and many of the state conventions. She supported the Democratic party with her voice and purse for many years before she received the right to vote. She attended the Democratic National Convention at Denver, in 1908, and was present at every session of the historic National Convention at Baltimore in 1912. On January 31, 1920, she and two other women were chosen by the Lucas County Democratic Convention as delegates to the State Democratic convention to select delegates to the national conventions, these women being the first women chosen in Iowa as delgates to a state convention of Iowa Democrats. Mrs. Dewey was chosen as an alternate to the National Democratic Convention at San Francisco that same year, and in 1924, she declined a district delegateship from her own congressional district, saying she thought a man, younger and stronger physically, should be chosen.

Mrs. Dewey and Mrs. Virgina M. Branner were sisters living at Chariton, and the period of their labors for the cause of equal suffrage covered nearly fifty years. Before 1900 they had been largely instrumental in holding a three-day county suffrage "convention" at Chariton, which was very successful. In the state campaign for a "suffrage" amendment, in 1916, they organizied a county caravan which was conducted by Mrs. Dewey's daughter-in-law, Mrs. Ruth Leonard Dewey, and which with national speakers visited every own in Lucas county, which county gave a large majority for the amendment. In this period of work, they became acquainted with most of the state workers for suffrage, and many of the national leaders. Susan B. Anthony, Anna Howard Shaw, Mary G. Hay, and others had visited them in Chariton, and made addresses in that town.

To be continued ...