We’re still at Le Mars Cemetery, admiring more of its white bronze beauty and the stories behind the lives that the markers represent.

Today I’m going to make more of an effort to show you what people saw in the Monumental Bronze catalog compared to the real thing. We’ll also look a little more at cost, another great feature of the catalog.

Let’s start with Heinrich “Henry” Koehler. Born in 1809 in Hanover, Germany, Heinrich arrived in America sometime after 1845. He married another German immigrant, Margaretha “Margaret” Strott, around 1847 in Pittsburgh, PA. His profession was that of carpenter and at times, shoemarker.

The Koehlers moved to Ohio before settling for many years in Adams County, Illinois. Heinrich and Margaretha had several children, five living to adulthood. They didn’t come to Plymouth County, Iowa until around the 1870s when the couple were in their 60s. I suspect one or more of their children had already moved there and they wanted to be near them.

Henry died at age 77 on Jan. 25, 1887. A newspaper item noted that “No substantial reason is given for his demise excepting old age.” I did notice in another newspaper item that their son, also named Henry, moved to Le Mars with his family later that year. He may have done so to be a support to his mother. A railroad man, Henry was hit and killed by a railroad car in Illinois in 1901.

By 1900, Margaret was living with her eldest daughter, Caroline Koehler Helm, and her large family of 12 children. She died in 1903 at the age of 85. I did not get a picture of the other side of Henry’s monument (above) but I suspect her information is on the other side. I do know she is buried at Le Mars Cemetery in the same plot with him.

Here’s what Henry and Margaret’s children may have seen in the 1882 Monumental Bronze catalog. Note that the cost would have been around $49 in 1887 if they purchased it when Henry died. Adjusting for inflation, that would have cost about $1,411.57 today.

Margaret’s funeral was handled by Beely & Fissell’s, which was where John Bogen sold monuments like this around 1891. Their main function was selling furniture. It’s likely they handled Henry’s funeral arrangements as well.

The Adams Family

I could not find a photo in the Monumental Bronze catalog for the Adams family monument, but their story captivated me enough to include it. As opposed to a number of people buried at Le Mars Cemetery, John Adams (the father) was a prominent member of the community and thus received a long write up in the local newspaper.

Born in York, Ontario, Canada in 1861, John moved with his parents J. Frank and Ada Hoggan Adams to Le Mars. After high school, he studied law and passed the bar. Setting out his shingle in town, he also dabbled in real estate. In 1887, he married a local young lady named Ida Dier.

John’s star rose higher when he was elected city attorney in 1891 and was re-elected in 1893. In 1894, he ran for county attorney and won, keeping his seat in the 1898 election as well.

John and Ida had four children altogether. Roscoe Adams was born on March 7, 1889. Frank Adams was born on Jan. 6, 1892. Sybil Mae Adams was born on May 13, 1893 and died on Dec. 11, 1893 for reasons unknown. Arthur Everett Adams was born May 31, 1896 and died on Oct. 25, 1896. According to the newspaper, Arthur died of dropsy (a type of edema).

The Story Behind “The Last Voyage”

The plate with Sybil and Arthur’s names/dates features a motif known as “The Last Voyage” that was a favorite of Monumental Bronze. I’ve always wanted to know the story behind it after I saw it for the first time in a cemetery in Council Bluffs.

Thanks to another web site, I learned that this motif was taken from A Gentle Wafting to Immortal Life, a bas-relief marble sculpture by Felix M. Miller and a later engraving by William Roffe. You can find examples of Miller’s work in London’s British Museum.

As described in The Art Journal (1879), Miller portrayed the elder of two deceased brothers, Herbert Mellor, on the angelic mission of guiding his younger brother, Theodore, on his last voyage over the “sea of bliss.” They were the deceased children of J.J. Mellor.

The work’s title comes is from John Milton’s Paradise Lost: “A death, like sleep, A gentle wafting to immortal life.”

Sculptor Archibald McKellar modeled the image and finished it at Monumental Bronze’s art foundry (which I suspect was in Connecticut) in February 1881. They renamed it “The Last Voyage” and it was offered for the first time in the 1882 Monumental Bronze catalog.

Unfortunately, Ida was hit with tragedy yet again a few years later. While she was away in Colorado for health reasons, John went out for a long drive on December 1, 1899 and fell ill with pneumonia soon after. Shortly after Ida returned home, John died on December 7. He was only 38 years old.

I was curious to know the fate of Ida, Frank, and Roscoe because none of them are buried at Le Mars Cemetery. According to the 1900 U.S. Census, Ada and the children moved 50 miles east to Nokomis, Iowa to live with her sister. Ida remarried in October 1901 to a widowed carpenter and Civil War veteran from Ohio named John Pickering who was much older than she.

By 1910, Ida and her sons were living in Cedar Falls, Iowa (about 150 miles east of Nokomis). John Pickering was living his last days at the Iowa Soldiers Home in Linn, Iowa about 65 miles away. John died at the age of 72 in 1911 and is buried with a previous wife in Woodlawn Cemetery in Alta, Iowa.

Ida filed for a pension in light of John Pickering’s service in 1916 and received it. She continued to live in the Waterloo area until her death in 1924 after suffering from “pernicious anemia” for two years. I don’t know where she is buried. Both of her sons lived well into adulthood and had families of their own.

Note: Soon after I published this post, kind reader Karen Cowles Kester posted on Facebook another obit for Ida that I missed that mentioned Ida’s body was moved from Waterloo to Le Mars for burial. I looked up the information on Iowa Gen Web’s site for Le Mars Cemetery, which has each burial and location listed. Sure enough. Ida Dier Adams Pickering is listed as being buried in Block 2, Lot 2 along with first husband, John, and Sybil and Arthur. I suspect she has no marker because it’s not in the pictures I took that day.

The Bixby Family

There are 19 Bixbys buried at Le Mars Cemetery. Three of them share a white bronze marker, complete with some additions that I’ll talk about a little later.

Born in New York in 1836, Emerson Bixby married Lydia Seals in Illinois. They moved to the Waterloo, Iowa area in the 1860s and later to Le Mars in 1869 as their family grew. Eventually, they would have five children together (Charles, Elmer, Emory, Levi, Harry, and Elizabeth).

Emerson died at age 55 from influenza in April 1891. Brothers Emory and Levi were very close and stayed with their mother on the family farm in Stanton, never marrying. Lydia died in 1904.

Emory and Levi continued to live at the family farm and looked after the tenants who rented from them. They later moved into a home together in Le Mars. Unfortunately, it was from helping one of their tenants that Levi met his untimely death in 1912.

The brothers had recently completed building a new barn on the property the Walsh family was renting from them. Levi was struck by a load of toppling hay in the loft and fell 18 feet to the ground. His back was broken and he was instantly paralyzed from the waist down.

A newspaper article explained that Levi knew his end was near and summoned an attorney to have his will written. His brothers sped to see him in his last hours and he died two days after his fall on Oct. 26, 1912. He left his estate to his siblings, naming brother Emory as his executor.

Emory decided to leave Le Mars and moved to Watertown, S.D. to be near his younger married sister, Elizabeth Bixby Bruns, who was married to foundry operator James Bruns. Emory died in 1937 and is buried at Le Mars Cemetery in the Bixby plot.

Head and Foot Markers

If you’re standing in front of the Bixby monument, you’ll notice some white bronze markers on the ground in front of it. The 1882 Monumental Bronze catalog refers to them as “head markers” and “foot markers” to denote the position of the grave. They came in different sizes and could feature the deceased’s initials or full name. Last week, I featured one for Annie McCurdy.

Here’s what the Bixby siblings might have seen in the catalog as options.

Here’s the foot marker for Levi Bixby. It probably cost about $4 at the time, depending on the year of purchase.

Head markers were also purchased for Emerson, Lydia, and Levi. Those are not in the 1882 catalog.

I suspect that the Bixby monument was possibly done after the death of Lydia in 1904 but I’m not certain. One reason is because the plate for Levi on the side doesn’t seem to fit well and is missing three screws. By then, the Western White Bronze factory in Des Moines was on the verge of closing.

One final note to the Bixby family story. On the other side of the monument for Emerson, Lydia, and Levi is this one for a Baby Bruns. I believe this is for a child of Elizabeth Bixby Bruns and her husband James. But there is no burial date for this child in the cemetery records so perhaps it is a cenotaph.

I’m not quite done at Le Mars Cemetery. Part IV is soon to come.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today I’m diving deep into why I consider my visit to Le Mars Cemetery my favorite part of my Iowa/South Dakota road trip with Christi in June 2018. It really boils down to two words: white bronze.

“White Bronze” Equals Zinc

White bronze is really just a fancy term for zinc, which is a metal. White bronze markers became popular starting in the 1880s. While there were a few different companies, Monumental Bronze of Bridgeport, Conn. was the largest with a number of subsidiary factories in Detroit, Chicago, Des Moines, Philadelphia, St. Thomas, Canada, and perhaps New Orleans. Around the start of World War I, all metal was needed for munitions so the factories started closing. The name/date plates continued to be manufactured into the 1930s.

Better Than Stone?

An agent for the company could show you a catalog of all the possibilities/costs available. The pieces were shipped by train and you put them together. At the time, they were marketed as a less expensive, longer lasting alternative to stone. But some people thought if you bought them for a loved one, you were being “cheap” so a little bit of a stigma existed.

I found this bit of marketing in the 1882 Monumental Bronze catalog:

There being no deterioration in their value, you always have in these your money’s worth; while, with marble, or even granite, what you obtained at great expense, may, in a few years, become of little or no value, as defective headstones and monuments in every cemetery bear witness. Is it not then the part of wisdom to invest where you will always feel satisfied with your purchase, and also give better satisfaction to coming generations.

Some insist that all the casting was done in Bridgeport and only finishing work was carried out by the subsidiaries. However, rail cars loaded with zinc rolled regularly into Des Moines from Kansas with material for the Western White Bronze Co., so it’s likely that casting occurred there, too.

I did find ads from the 1891 editions of the Le Mars Semi-Weekly Sentinel promoting a salesman named John Bogen who sold grave markers (both stone and white bronze) at a local furniture store, a common practice in those days. I got a kick out of how the quote used is attributed to “Science”. I did note that according to Find a Grave, Bogen is buried at Le Mars Cemetery but has a stone marker. Did he decide, in the end, not to put his faith in “Science”?

This marker for Catherine Garman (they misspelled her last name as “Germen”) is a good example of a smaller white bronze. There are two more like it that I saw for other people.

On the back is a lily of the valley suspended by a cuffed hand.

Having the 1882 catalog to refer to, I found an example there that looks much like the Garman marker. Size would vary depending on need.

I did notice that Catherine’s daughter, Mary Anna Elizabeth Garman Hamm, has a large stone marker nearby.

Four Little Lambs

For those of us who adore “zinckies” (as we call them), finding certain examples of them in a cemetery can be very exciting. Before visiting Le Mars Cemetery, I had only seen a white bronze lamb marker online. To my amazement, Le Mars has not one but FOUR of them! I’m going to share all of them with you here.

I think I may have found the answer as to why Le Mars Cemetery has so many lambs.

The final one pictured is a for a boy named Edward Patzig, who died in February 1889 at the age of 16 months. An item I found in the newspaper from November 1890 indicating Louis Patzig and his family were moving to Des Moines where he would be selling white bronze monuments and working with his wife’s relative, Joseph Clos, as an undertaker. It’s possible that Louis Patzig, already known in Le Mars, sold the other lambs to his former neighbors. Louis’ mother, Johannah Patzig, is buried nearby.

“Suffer the Children”

Sadly, white bronze was a popular choice for families mourning the loss of their children. Several examples of this can be found here. If any family knew loss, it was the Traeders.

A native of Germany, Albert Traeder was born around 1849 and emigrated to American with his family in 1865. He married Bertha Woodke in 1876. Edward “Eddy” Bernhard Traeder was born in 1877. Lora Marie Traeder was born in 1878. Rudolph “Rudy” August Traeder was born on Oct. 24, 1880. Albert Jr. was born on April 27, 1884.

Scarlet fever ravaged the Traeder home in early May 1883. Six-year-old Eddy died on May 10, 1883. Two-year-old Rudy died the next day.

Tragedy struck again on Aug. 15, 1884 when Albert Sr. died at the age of 34 from “brain fever”, as it was called. Today it might have been called encephalitis.

It’s not surprising that the family chose what the Monumental Bronze catalog refers to as the “Suffer the Children” design for one of the panels.

At the foot of the monument are two name plates for the boys and their father. Such plates are often damaged by mowers and end up in sad shape. But it appears the Traeder ones are holding up fairly well.

Bertha’s woes were not yet over. On May 28, 1886, Lora died from complications stemming from the croup and diphtheria. She has her own stone at Le Mars Cemetery.

Bertha didn’t let these tragedies stop her from making a life for her and Albert Jr. She became a successful businesswoman in the community. She waited until 1908 to remarry to Henry Frevert, when Albert Jr. was 24.

Albert Jr. married in 1917 to Victoria Dionne. They had one child, Patricia, in 1920 and Victoria died soon after. With the help of Bertha, Albert raised Patricia. Bertha died in 1932. When Patricia was 16, he remarried. He died 13 years later in 1949.

I found plenty of markers for older people as well. This one for the Blackwells is an example. Catharine is one one side and husband Henry’s on the other.

Born in 1823, Henry emigrated from Canada and settled in Le Mars. Catharine was about nine years his senior. I don’t know what year they married but four children followed.

“The Angels Took Her Home”

Catharine died in August 1880 at the age of 66, I don’t know what from. Henry must have mourned her greatly. The words at the bottom of her marker read: “She faltered by the wayside, and the angels took her home.”

The news account of his death notes that Henry was an “old man” nearing 70 when he was actually only 63. It also said he was suffering from rheumatism and “felt for some time that death would be a great release.”

On April 18, 1886, Henry was alone in his room at the home he shared with his son, William, and his family. He somehow managed to rig a shotgun against a plank at the bottom of his bed and shot himself in the chest. His family raced to help him but it was too late.

His epitaph reads: “Where immortal spirits reign, there we shall meet again.”

There are many more white bronze stories left to share from Le Mars Cemetery. Stay tuned for Part III.

So we’re nearing the end of my Iowa/South Dakota 2018 adventure back in Iowa. While I truly enjoyed all the cemeteries we visited, and seeing Sioux Falls for the first time, our excursion to Le Mars Cemetery was by far my favorite. It’s probably going to take at least three parts to cover it all.

Origins of Le Mars

According to Le Mars’ web page, the history of the town goes back as early as the 1850s when white settlers arrived to the region now known as Plymouth County. The county of Plymouth was organized in 1853 and started with 2 townships. Le Mars was platted in 1869, but no lots were sold until the Iowa Falls and Sioux City Railroad, later part of the Illinois Central Railroad, arrived in 1870.

You might think, as I did, that Le Mars was named after a Frenchman. But that’s not what happened. In 1869, Le Mars was named when railroad builder John I. Blair came by special train with a company of officials and a group of ladies. These ladies were asked to suggest a name for the town, then know as Saint Paul Junction. The ladies’ names were (and locals quibble a bit on whether or not all the names are accurate): Lucy Underhill, Elizabeth Parsons, Mary Weare, Anna Blair, Rebecca Smith and Sarah Reynolds. The result: Le Mars.

Unlike many rural Iowa towns, Le Mars did not begin as your typical farming settlement but was pitched as an English colony of sorts. In Philadelphia in 1876, Oxford University student William B. Close and Daniel Paullin, a land agent who was promoting land sales in Illinois and Iowa, talked about the opportunities in Iowa. Inspired by Paullin’s idea, Close and his three brothers organized the Iowa Land Company.

The Close family was well connected in England and secured financing for their venture. They encouraged upper-class Englishmen to join the colony. Several Englishmen came to buy farms and ranches, and set up banks and other businesses. You might be asking yourself why, as did I.

An English Colony for “Second Sons”

Young Englishmen, especially the “second sons” of elite families were encouraged to travel to Le Mars to learn the business of farm management. Some of the older men took responsibility for the housing and training of these young pupils. In England, such young men were not known for being incredibly industrious but tended to live off the coffers of their eldest brothers who held the family money.

Le Mars is not the first type of “colony” of this nature, another being Rugby, Tenn. Founded in 1880, it had similar origins but failed miserably due to many factors I won’t get into. While Le Mars fared better, I’m not sure a great many of the young men truly took to farming. I read that some were known to have unhitched plow horses for informal racing and betting, among other activities. They even played polo.

While the original experiment fizzled out around 1890 after the death of Fred Close in a polo accident in 1890, some of the Brits stayed an married Americans. By 1895, when the Prairie Club caught fire and had to be rebuilt, the new club began accepting forced  Americans as well as British members.

Birth of Blue Bunny

While few people know about Le Mars’ British connection, many are familiar with the ice cream that one of its families started producing that became a household name.

In 1913, Fred H. Wells, Jr. paid a local dairy farmer $250 for a horse, delivery wagon, a few cans and jars, and the goodwill of the business. His investment covered the milk distribution route and guaranteed Wells a source of raw milk from a herd of just 15 milk cows. Around 1925, Fred and his sons began manufacturing ice cream in Le Mars.

In 1935, the brothers decided to run a “Name That Ice Cream” contest in the Sioux City Journal. A Sioux City man won the $25 cash prize for submitting the winning entry, “Blue Bunny,” after noticing how much his son enjoyed the blue bunnies in a department store window at Easter. The winner, an illustrator , also created the first Blue Bunny logo, used on Blue Bunny packaging for nearly 70 years.

Ice Cream Capital of the World

Le Mars reportedly earned the title of “Ice Cream Capital of the World” in 1994 after being recognized for more ice cream being made by one manufacturer in one location. Le Mars makes the most of this distinction and it’s noted on the town’s sign as you enter.

Christi and I visited the Blue Bunny ice cream parlor when we arrived in downtown Le Mars, which has preserved a number of those original British-built storefronts. The parlor boasts a great store of Blue Bunny merchandise (I bought a cool tie dye t-shirt) and a small museum upstairs. It’s definitely worth a stop.

If you ever make it to LeMars, you’ll notice several fiberglass ice cream cones around town uniquely designed to reflect local businesses. This one pictured below is right across from the Blue Bunny ice cream parlor and I believe it is for a church. About 55 of them can be seen around Le Mars, having been part of a local art project.

If you’re wondering, we finally did make it to Le Mars Memorial Cemetery, although the sign says “Memorial Cemetery”. I’m going to refer to it as Le Mars Cemetery. I could find very little about the cemetery’s history. Not when it was established, who owned the land, etc. According to Find a Grave, it has close to 7,000 graves. An 1893 article states it covers 20 acres and was managed by a man named C.P. Woodward.

The first person I wanted to find at the cemetery was Blue Bunny’s founder, Fred Hooker Well, Jr. To my surprise, while he had a Find a Grave memorial, there was no photo of his grave. I remedied that quickly.

The next two markers I’m going to focus on were actually among the last I found during our visit. But I wanted to talk to them in this installment because they’re not white bronze markers and I’ll be focusing on them next week. They are unlike any other in the cemetery.

The Artistic Moon Sisters

Born in Ohio, Araminta “Mintie” Moon and her sister, Sylvia Theresa Moon, were both of a creative and artistic nature. They were the daughters of Eveline and George Moon. They had a younger brother named Willis. I don’t know when George died but by 1870, Eveline and her three children had left New York and settled in Waterloo, Iowa, which is 220 miles east of Le Mars.

The Waterloo newspapers often featured stories about the sisters’ artistic pursuits. They were popular in local society and both enjoyed participating in local plays. Mintie was the sister known for her painting. Theresa focused on supporting literary pursuits, singing, and playing the organ. Mintie took classes at the Massachusetts Normal School Art School in Boston for a few years. Willis helped support the family as a bookkeeper.

Sometime after 1880, Mintie and Theresa opened their own school in Waterloo that they called the Art Association. They hosted a number of exhibitions there and taught students. But Mintie’s health began to fail. She had contracted tuberculosis. The family moved to Le Mars around that time. Several months later, Mintie died on March 15, 1884. She was only 30 years old.

“To Live in Loving Hearts Is Not To Die”

Eveline died only three years later in 1887. Later that year, Theresa married attorney Alvin Low. He had older children from a previous marriage. By 1900, the family had moved to Los Angeles, Calif. Willis, who never married, shared their home later.

I can find no evidence that Theresa continued her artistic pursuits in California. She died at the age of 73 in 1925. Her body was brought back to Le Mars, where she was buried beside her beloved sister, Mintie, and her mother.

Willis continued to live with his brother-in-law Alvin and his step-niece and nephews in California. He died in 1941 and is buried in the same lot as his sisters. There is no photo of his grave or Eveline’s on Find a Grave and I did not see any for them when I was there.

Next time, I’ll delve into the wonderful collection of white bronze markers at Le Mars Cemetery. There are more of them here than any other cemetery I’ve ever visited.

 

On our journey back to Omaha, we decided to make a stop in Le Mars, Iowa to visit the Blue Bunny Ice Cream Museum. When looking on the map to see what exit suited us best off I-29, I noticed there was a small cemetery near a tiny town called Spink. So that’s where we left the interstate.

St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery is also known as Garryowen Cemetery by the locals. The Garryowen community was first settled by the O’Connors, the Mannings, and the Sullivans. If you go to Find A Grave and look up St. Mary’s Catholic Church Cemetery, you’ll discover that 71 of the 315 memorials recorded have the last name of O’Connor. St. Mary’s and the church building are about all that’s left of the Garryowen community.

You’ll notice in the photo above that there’s a large metal piece with three crosses on it. I had no idea what this was supposed to signify at the time. Later, when I was doing research, I learned that it had formerly held the cemetery’s main sign.

Roots of Garryowen

The Irish families that moved to this southeastern corner of South Dakota had first lived near Dubuque in Garryowen, Iowa. These were immigrants mainly from Munster, Ireland. Garryowen is a variation of the Gaelic for “John’s Garden,” a popular parade and fairground outside Limmerick, Ireland.

In 1860, a group from Garryowen, Iowa, led by a Manning, moved west to start a new community. Between 1860 and 1879, these families attended church in nearby Fairview and their dead were buried in the Fairview Cemetery. When the Garryowen community had increased to 50 families, a parish was finally organized in 1879 to form St. Mary’s Catholic Church. Initially, the Fairview priest was responsible for this church.

The church’s new sign, made out of stone, explains the history of the community and cemetery.

St. Mary’s Catholic Church and the cemetery were first located together on five acres donated by Patrick Mahan. Eventually, the church became too small for the increasing membership so a larger one was built in 1904 at the James Casey farm. It was destroyed by fire in 1924. A third church was built in 1925 diagonally across the road from the cemetery on land donated by Tom O’Connor.

The signs also indicated that in 1993, the diocese of Sioux Falls closed the church. My thought is the community had shrunk considerably by then.

That 1924 church building, I recently learned, still exists. I didn’t notice it at the time when we stopped at the cemetery, probably because it doesn’t look much like a church any longer. I read that it was used as an antique store and as of 2016, the building and property were for sale. I have a feeling it’s not going to last too long unless it gets some TLC.

A brief history of the church and cemetery that I located notes that the first burial at St. Mary’s Cemetery was that of Michael O’Connor. The grave was dug with the help of Vincent O’Connor, who was 16 at the time. There are only about 300 or so burials at St. Mary’s, so it is a small cemetery but well maintained.

It also notes that the second grave was that of Jeffery Donahoe in September 1883. Problem is, there’s no Jeffery Donahoe listed on Find a Grave but a Mary Ann Donahoe who died in September 1883 is. So I think the author is referring to her. As it turns out, Jeffery was her husband. There is no marker for him in the cemetery.

Born around 1831 in Castle Ireland, County Kerry, Ireland, Mary Ann Breshanan married Jeffrey Donahoe. I don’t know when they arrived in America but their first child, Daniel, was born in Connecticut in 1854. By 1860, they were in Table Mound, Iowa and that was about 15 miles northeast of Garryowen, Iowa. So they may have been among those that migrated over to Garryowen, S.D.

Mary Ann passed away at the age of 51 on Sept. 3, 1881. I couldn’t find out when Jeffrey died and he has no marker at St. Mary’s. Their son, Andrew, who died in 1935, is buried near Mary Ann with his wife.

The Mysterious Rev. Kennedy

One gravestone I photographed was for the Rev. Matthiae Kennedy. I’ve never seen what I’m guessing is a form of Matthew spelled that way.

The information I was able to glean from his marker was that he was born in Ireland and died in Dubuque, Iowa on Oct. 8, 1887. At the bottom is the Latin inscription: Pro me omnes vos orate, which means I pray for you all.

If he did indeed die in Dubuque, why was he buried in Garryowen, S.D.? Did he ever pastor St. Mary’s? I Googled my heart out and could find nothing at all about him online. Perhaps someone reading this is familiar with him and will contact me.

The Dillon Children

I found a repaired marker for two children of John and Annie Dillon. Born in Camross, Ireland in 1823, John arrived in Boston, Mass. around 1848. He married Annie McCarty in Galena, Ill. sometime before 1853. By 1880, they were living in Spink, S.D. (which is next to Garryowen) and had seven children.

Born in 1860 in Illinois, Thomas was probably the third child in the family. He died on March 16, 1878 at age 18. Anna, who was born in 1871, died in 1885 on April 26, 1883. She was 14. I don’t know their causes of death. Their parents share a marker nearby.

Mother of 13 Children

This marker got my attention because of the words “Mother of 13 Children”. It also has that homemade rustic quality that tugs at the heartstrings.

Mary Donahoe (or Donahue) was born in Iowa in 1855. She married Irishman Jeremiah “Jerry” O’Connor in 1878. He’d only been in America a few years, having emigrated from Ballyferriter, County Kerry, Ireland in 1875. He came to Iowa to join two of his brothers who were already farming in Iowa.

By 1880, the couple were living in Garryowen where they farmed. When I saw the 1900 U.S. Census, it listed them with four children (Mary, Anna, Joseph, and Luke). But it also noted that the total number of children Mary had given birth to was 13. I can only guess that nine did not live past childhood, which is incredibly tragic.

Mary died in 1905, I don’t know her cause of death. Jerry and the three younger children remained on the farm. He moved to nearby Vermillion, where he taught school and farmed there near daughter Margaret. When Margaret and her family moved to California, he went with them. He died there on Feb. 5, 1935 and is buried in Calvary Cemetery in Los Angeles, Calif.

O’Connor Brothers

This handsome marker for James O’Connor and his wife, Nora, is one of the largest ones in the cemetery. I am fairly sure that he’s the son of Michael O’Connor, the first man buried in St. Mary’s. Michael and his wife, Margaret were also from Ballyferriter, County Kerry, Ireland like Jerry O’Connor.

Born in 1829, son James may have married Hanora “Nora” Shehan after he came to America. They were both from County Kerry and married in 1850. They settled in the Jones County area of Eastern Iowa and had all of their children there before moving over to Union County, S.D. in 1869. The U.S. Census from 1870 lists eight children in the household. Amazingly, it looks like they all lived well into adulthood.

James died in 1910 and Nora died the following year. At least four of their children were also buried at St. Mary’s when they died.

James’ brother, Thomas, also moved to Union County and raised his family there. He and his wife, Johanna, share a very similar marker next to James and Nora’s. Thomas died in 1907 and Johanna died in 1910.

There are small cemeteries like St. Mary’s on country roads throughout states like South Dakota and Iowa. Many are the last remnant of a community whose population dwindled over time and eventually died out. Garryowen is one of them.

Fortunately, those left behind are still taking care of the final resting place of those Irish pioneers.

 

 

 

We’re still in Sioux Falls, South Dakota! This week, our destination is Woodlawn Cemetery. Founded in 1905, it’s a not as old as nearby Mount Pleasant Cemetery. But it has an illustrious history all its own.

With some cemeteries, it can be difficult for me to locate information on who the founder was or any kind of history. With Woodlawn, their website provides plenty of useful information.

The man at the center of Woodlawn’s history is Richard Franklin Pettigrew, who is (as you might imagine) interred at the cemetery he founded. There’s a lot of material written about him because he was a key player in South Dakota history.

A Dakota Pioneer

Born in Vermont in 1848, Richard and his family relocated to Wisconsin where he attended the University of Wisconsin Law School. In 1869, he moved to the Dakota Territory, where he first worked as a surveyor, then entered the Territorial Bar in 1871. After establishing a law practice in Sioux Falls, he also pursued real estate interests.

Active in politics, Pettigrew served a term in the Dakota Territorial Legislature, and two terms on the Territorial Council before being elected as a Democrat to represent the Dakota Territory in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1880. He served a single term in Congress from 1881 to 1883, and was unsuccessful in his bid for re-election.

When South Dakota was admitted to the Union in 1889, Pettigrew was elected along with Republican Gideon C. Moody as the state’s first two Senators to the U.S. Senate. He served two terms from 1889 to 1901, switching from Democrat to Republican in 1896. The party switch hurt him of politically, and he lost his re-election bid to Senator Robert J. Gamble. His post-Senate career was marked by a time of practicing law in New York City before returning to Sioux Falls.

A New Cemetery for Sioux Falls

It was during his time in New York City that Pettigrew served as an officer of the Rosehill Cemetery Association (located in New Jersey), which sparked his intent to help establish a cemetery in Sioux Falls.

When a 70-acre tract of land in the southeast corner of the city went up for sale, Pettigrew paid the $8,750 purchase price from his personal funds.The entire amount, plus interest, was repaid to him as the cemetery association’s funds slowly grew. In the winter of 1922, an adjacent 10 acres were purchased from a private owner.

Today, Woodlawn Cemetery covers 80 acres, with about half of it plotted and sold. According to Find a Grave, there are about 17,400 recorded burials.

Unfortunately, the last decade of former Sen. Pettigrew’s life was colored by difficulty. In 1916, his wife, Bettie Pittard Pettigrew, died after a long illness. In 1917,  he criticized America’s involvement in World War I, and publicly urged young men to evade conscription. As a result, he was arrested and charged with sedition under the newly passed Espionage Act of 1917. He enlisted famous lawyer Clarence Darrow as his defense attorney, who delayed the case long enough for the charges to be dropped.

Before Pettigrew passed away in 1926, he donated his residence to the city of Sioux Falls and it is operate it as the Pettigrew House and Museum. He was interred in the Pettigrew mausoleum with his wife, Bessie. Also interred inside are his youngest brother, Harlan, who died in 1917 at the age of 34, and unmarried sister Alma Pettigrew, who died in 1922 at the age of 78.

Other siblings of Richard Pettigrew are also buried at Woodlawn. His older sister, Luella Belle Pettigrew, is buried near the Pettigrew mausoleum. Born in 1839, Belle was greatly influenced by her abolitionist father, Andrew. After graduating from Rockford Seminary in Illinois (now Rockford University), she devoted her life to missionary work.

For 12 years, Belle represented the Woman’s Baptist Home Mission Society as a missionary among African-Americans, teaching at two historically black institutions, Shaw University and Roger Williams University. She also spent three years as a general missionary in South Dakota, living in Sioux Falls for periods of time.

A Lifetime of Service

Later, Belle lived for several years in Washington D.C., where was a member of the Columbia Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution, the Anti-Saloon League, as well as being a member of a missionary society and literary club connected with the Calvary Baptist Church. She traveled extensively in the U.S. and internationally, including visits to Europe, India, China, and the Philippines to do inspection visits for missionary organizations.

Belle died in 1912 of hardening of the arteries. Staying at a sanitarium in Chamberlain, S.D., her remains were returned to Sioux Falls for burial at Woodlawn.

It’s hard to miss the other Woodlawn monument for a Pettigrew because it’s one of the largest in the cemetery.

Born in 1850, Frederick “Fred” Pettigrew moved from Vermont to Flandreau, S.D. (about 40 miles north of Sioux Falls) around the same time as sister Belle did. He married Jennie Salome in 1879 and they had five children.

Fred did not attain the status of his brother Richard, but he made a mark in his community just the same. More comfortable in a rural setting, he was content developing and working his large farm in South Sioux Falls. He was a judge in Moody County for several years as well.

A Mysterious Accident

At the same time, Fred had a reputation for being somewhat taciturn in nature. On Dec. 8, 1901, while doing evening chores around his farm, he was found unconscious and injured in the road by two hired men near his home. Some thought he might have been accidentally run down someone in a buggy in the darkness. But others wondered if he was attacked by an enemy with a grudge.

A few days later, Fred regained consciousness for a short time but did not make a great deal of sense. When asked about the accident, he claimed a buggy driven by someone he didn’t know had struck him in the darkness, although he had tried to step back out of its way. Despite the belief he might recover, Fred passed away on Dec. 21, 1901.

Another farmer that made his mark in Sioux Falls was John Alguire, whose family has a distinctive “tree” monument at Woodland.

A native of Canada, John was born in 1842 and took a circuitous route to get to the Dakotas. He left Canada for New York in his late teen years. He later moved to Wisconsin to farm, marrying Jane Foster in 1869. The couple moved to Benton, S.D. around 1874 where their third child was born.

“Summoned to the Other Side”

After moving to Oregon for a few years, the Alguires returned to South Dakota and John continued to farm. He and Jane had a total of nine children together. John died of pneumonia at the age of 69 on Dec. 1, 1911. His obituary in the Sioux Falls newspaper had a headline that said he was “summoned to the other side.”

John must have done quite well because one article I found estimated his estate to be worth $75,000. That would be about $2.03 million dollars today.

I am especially fond of the Alguire family “tree” monument. There are no specific first names or dates on it. Those are inscribed on individual stones or “logs” around the monument. There’s a potted calla lily at the base and a sweet bird resting on a branch near the top.

Here’s a look at the “logs” for John and Jane, his wife who died in 1920 at the age of 73.

Next time, we’ll return to Iowa for some more cemetery hopping…