Life's challenges and Derby's Daniel Christy

We live in complicated times, or so it seems --- and the temptation is to idealize the "good old days" when life supposedly was simpler. But our ancestors faced challenges, too --- some of them difficult to imagine now.

Consider Daniel Christy, who died on April 29, 1885, age 79, on his farm just southeast of Derby. There seems to have been no published obituary, but he did leave behind a brief biography on page 720 of Lucas County's 1881 history to remind us of his life and its challenges:

CHRISTY, DANIEL, farmer and stock-raiser, section thirty, post office Derby. Born May 4, 1805, in Richland county, Vermont, where he was raised on a farm and educated in the common schools. Being closely confined at home during his minority, it was natural for him to desire to see more of his country, hence he went to Albany, New York, where he engaged as a common hand on the Erie Canal for a short time. He then bought a boat and ran it the balance of the season.

He then went to St, Lawrence county, New York, and engaged in farming, where he was married February 1827 to Nancy Brown, a native of Massachusetts. Moved in 1834 to Michigan, hoping to improve the failing health of his wife. She died May 1835 leaving four children; one of them, a babe, soon followed her.

He remained here, keeping his children together for two years, when he returned to his father's, who took his second son and raised him. He took the other children to St. Lawrence county, left one with his brother, the other with its grandparents.

He then went to Chicago, engaged in the carpenter and joiners' trade. He married his second wife in Michigan, April 19, 1844, Mary J. Brace; returned to Chicago, working at his trade; moved to Fond du Lac, Wis., and worked at his trade five years; then came to Lucas county, Iowa, and engaged in farming.

His second wife died July 10, 1868; his children keeping house for him since that time. Had four children by his first wife: Levi, Cyrus W., and Lorenzo, living; and six by the second: James A., Ellen M., Eva L., Charles N., Alice M. and Lincoln R. --- three living.

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Daniel and his second wife, Mary, are buried in what we know today as the Murray Cemetery, located along a gravel road a mile and a quarter southeast of Derby that isn't heavily traveled these days. Murray was the name of an early landowner, John Murray, who farmed in the neighborhood for 37 years before moving into Chariton, where he died in 1901, upon retirement.

There are no Murrays buried in the cemetery which our pioneer ancestors knew as High Prairie. In addition to Daniel and Mary Christy, their son, Charles (1855-1908), and an infant grandson are buried here, too.