Throwback Thursday: Israel and Bessie (Richards) Shaffer Wedding

Before Bessie Richards could marry Israel F. Shaffer on February 22, 1905, she had to find a wedding dress. Her mother, Katie, hired a seamstress, and the whole family went to West Union to shop for fabric and trimmings. It was winter, and the roads were covered with snow. Bessie’s father, Tom, hitched up the sleigh and the whole family – Bessie, her parents, and sisters Amy and Edith – nestled into piles of blankets for the 13-mile trip across snowy fields and lanes.

The trip from Illyria Township was an all-day affair. Tom treated the family to lunch in a local hotel, then the girls got to shopping. First came fabric. Then, a dowry lace for trim that came from Salt Lake City. They spared no expense, including a pair of shoes that cost $4 – “the finest we could get” as Bessie would recall. Israel’s wedding prep was less complicated. He purchased a two-piece black suite at Berg’s Store in Elgin for $15.

Rev. Wilbur Albright, a former Chilean missionary and Bessie’s uncle, performed the ceremony. Everything went smoothly at rehearsal the day before, until Rev. Albright tossed Bessie into the sleigh to head home and she fell, hitting her knee on the gate. Everyone froze in fear, but her knee was unscathed and the next morning she was ready to walk down the aisle.

Bessie’s older sister, Amy, was her maid of honor. Israel’s brother, Jack, was his best man. Once the wedding party was dressed, they stood in the sleigh for the short trip across the road from the Richards farmhouse to Illyria Community Church. They didn’t want their clothes to wrinkle.

The ceremony occurred at noon, followed by a wedding feast back at the farm. The highlight was a gelatin dessert, a relatively new dish for the home cook. The bowl of gelatin quivered every time someone walked past the table. Israel’s uncle, Luther Shaffer, observed: “My, that gelatin is nervous!”

Israel and Bessie lived on several farms near Elgin in the years after their wedding. They would have a daughter and two sons before moving home to the Richards farm March 1, 1912, where their fourth child, J.D., was born. They would live there until their oldest son, Ralph, took over the farm in the late 1930s. Bessie and Israel would spend 64 years together before he died in 1969 at age 88. Bessie remained in her home another 11 years, passing away February 28, 1980, at age 96.

Throwback Thursday: Mary Shaffer

Mary Christena Shaffer turned 18 on February 19, 1917, with little fanfare. The celebration occurred a few days later, on February 24, though the reason was bittersweet. Mary’s friends – more than 70 in all – filled her home to play games, sing songs, and feast as they wished their dear friend farewell.

The youngest of eight children, Mary was the last of John and Susan Shaffer’s children living at home when they sold their Illyria Township farm and moved to Elgin that spring. A few months after the family settled into their new house, Mary left for Fayette, where she enrolled in summer school at Upper Iowa University. Her first job was teaching at Lime Springs, where her sister, Hazel Whitford, lived. Mary’s father took her to Lime Springs in his car, dropping his youngest child off a few days before she began her first term September 10, 1917.

At the close of the fall term Mary returned to Elgin, where she remained through the summer. On September 30, 1918, she left to enroll in a business course at Coe College. She was there only a few days before the college was forced to close – Spanish Influenza was raging in Cedar Rapids.

By fall 1918 the flu was a global pandemic that had claimed millions of lives. Newspapers carried obituaries every day with people young and old across the state succumbing to the disease. When Mary returned from Cedar Rapids complaining of a cold, her parents didn’t take it lightly. The cold quickly became pneumonia. Her parents called a physician, and her family tried to nurse her through the worst of it, but by the morning of Wednesday, October 18, 1918, there was little hope of recovery. Her parents and siblings gathered at their house in Elgin and watched as their little sister slipped away shortly before sunset. She was 19 years old.

Her death was a heavy blow to the entire family, especially her 18 nieces and nephews, who were not much younger than their aunt Mary and grew up playing with her like a big sister. The family gathered at the Shaffer home for a private service before they traveled to the Illyria Church, where the large funeral was held in the fresh air of the cemetery, where she was laid to rest.

Throwback Thursday: Hattie (Moats) Jordan

Hattie Moats was not quite three years old in 1865 when she traveled with her mother to Cleveland for a visit with family. They took the train, which was filled with soldiers returning home from the recently-concluded Civil War.

"I was just sitting there with my mother, humming a little song she taught me," Hattie recalled 96 years later, shortly before her 98th birthday. Her tune caught the attention of a Union soldier sitting nearby.

"He came over and told me he had a little girl at home just like me,” she recalled. “He asked me if I could sing a song for him. I said I can sing: ‘We'll Hang Jeff Davis by a Sour Apple Tree.’”

She was a hit.

“This officer led me all through that long train full of Union soldiers and I sang about Jeff Davis in each car,” she remembered. “I came back just loaded down with money, candy, and gum.”

The 11th of 14 children, Harriet Jenietta Moats was born February 10, 1863, in Highland Township, Clayton County, Iowa. Her father valued the importance of education, especially for children. Hattie and her siblings spent their evenings reading and studying. They read a Bible chapter every morning before breakfast.

She attended country school, then studied music, playing in church services and giving lessons. In 1879 she earned $1 a week for millinery work. By the early 1900s she was making $25 a week in Des Moines, enough to save $7,000 of her own money (about $200,000 today) before her wedding in 1904.

Hattie was a lifelong entrepreneur. After a short stint as head trimmer with a wholesale milliner in St. Louis, she opened a store in Elgin March 10, 1904, but gave it up when she married contractor Joseph Butler on September 24. Her new role, the newspaper opined, would be “homemaker.”

That didn’t set well with Hattie. Within a year she took a job trimming hats in the shop she once owned, and in 1907 she again opened her own store in Elgin. She made regular trips to Chicago and Minneapolis, learning about the latest styles and bringing back new trends to her small-town Iowa shop. After these trips her store would open for “previews,” where ladies could come see the current fashions from wide brims to ostrich feathers.

Joe died in 1917, and Hattie moved to Dubuque a few years later, where she worked for a millinery wholesaler. She met and married widower Sam Jordan there in 1927. He died in 1942. She continued working and regularly visited Elgin, where her many nieces and nephews lived. She eventually retired, but never slowed down. She still lived at home when she turned 100 in 1963. Her hearing was great, and still cooked her own meals, cleaned her house, and made her bed. At age 106 she moved into a nursing home after a fall injured her hip. Even that couldn’t slow her down. At her 109th birthday in 1972, it was becoming expected that she’d always have one more.

“It’s grand,” she said. “I’ve had a lot of birthdays. We’ll do it again next year.”

True to her word, she celebrated her 110th birthday in 1973. She was thought to be the oldest resident of Iowa when she died a few months later on May 19. Her funeral was held in Elgin May 22 and she was laid to rest in the Elgin Cemetery.

Throwback Thursday: Will Gruver

William J. Gruver turned 60 years old on February 1, 1908 – 108 years ago this week. It marked both the start of a new decade and the beginning of life as a retiree. The day before, January 31, he ended his 30-year career with the railroad, 29 of them as section foreman for the Burlington, Cedar Rapids, and Northern (BCR&N) and later the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific (CRI&P) railroads.

Will was the oldest of five brothers well known in the railroad business. His first career was a harness maker like his uncle, William B. Gruver. In 1878 he joined the BCR&N, beginning his long tenure with the railroad. He and his brother, A.J., came up together with the BCR&N, which was later absorbed by the CRI&P. They led construction of the line between West Union and Elgin, where “there are curves, double and perhaps triple, and where the waters of the whole township are confined between the rock-bound bluffs on either side.”

Brother Charles H. was section master in Decorah, and later oversaw most of the northern lines around Forest City, and Albert Lea, Minn. Another brother, U.G., was station agent at Dysart, Decorah, and Maynard, before settling in Cedar Rapids. The youngest brother, Benton C., was station agent at Clermont before leaving to take a job as bank cashier.

In 1899 the BCR&N cut a new line through north-central Iowa near Emmetsburg, creating the town of Luzon. A number of the Gruver brothers worked on the project, and their collective history with the railroad was quickly becoming well known. On April 2, 1900, a petition signed by two-thirds of Luzon residents was presented to the Emmet County Board of Supervisors, asking that their village be renamed. On May 3, 1900, the town became Gruver, Iowa.

The week after Will retired, his record, along with that of his four brothers, was tallied. Their combined service added up to 133 years, 10 months, and by the time they had all retired in the 1920s, they aggregated 167 years for the railroad.

Will retired on a full pension, and though he suffered from rheumatism, he transported mail from the depot to the post office in Elgin, and was a regular fixture at railroad employee meetings and reunions in Cedar Rapids. He and his wife, Mary, had eight children and celebrated their golden wedding anniversary October 2, 1923. The next year, their granddaughter, Leone Kerr, moved to town from the farm in Illyria Township and lived with Will and Mary while she attended Elgin High School.

His health began to fail around 1925 and by May 1927 he was seriously ill. Will died May 19, 1927, at his home in Elgin. He was 79 years old.

Throwback Thursday: Lilly (Sienknecht) Staker

Henry and Frieda Sienknecht were fresh off the boat when they welcomed a daughter into their home 131 years ago this week. Natives of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, they had arrived in the U.S. just two months earlier, sailing into New York harbor on November 26, 1883. Frieda’s 18-month-old nephew, Henry Krambeck, immigrated with them as their adopted son, Henry Sienknecht Jr., but the little girl born January 30, 1884, in Hampton Bluffs, Illinois, was their first child together – and the first born an American citizen.

She was baptized Louise Marie Dorothea Sienknecht at the Protestant Lutheran Church in Hampton Bluffs on July 27, 1884. Following tradition, she was named after three of her four godparents: her aunts, Louise Leethje and Mary Bohnstengel; and family friend, Dorothea Gerken. She would call herself Lillian or Lilly for her entire adult life.

The Sienknechts would have three more children in Illinois before moving to Tama County, Iowa, in 1893. It was there Lilly met Julius Staker. On January 30, 1902, Lilly turned 18. The next day, she and Julius took out a marriage license.

They were married February 12, 1902, in the Sienknecht home. Lilly’s maid of honor was Julius’ sister, Amanda Bern. His best man was her brother, Henry Sienknecht Jr. Their first child, Fred, was born on July 28, 1902. For the next 20 years motherhood would be Lilly’s main occupation. She would give birth in 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1908, 1909, 1911, 1912, 1913, 1914, 1916, 1918, and 1922. By their 60th wedding anniversary in 1962, they would have 24 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren.

Julius and Lilly retired in 1948, moving from their farm in Grant Township to the house they built in Lincoln. They became great-great-grandparents on December 6, 1964, a few weeks before Julius died on December 30 at age 86. She died just two months after her husband, on February 27, 1965, at age 81.

Throwback Thursday: Eliza (Zehrung) Reinig

Eliza (Zehrung) Reinig passed away in Toledo, Iowa, on January 21, 1925, when she was an 86-year-old great-grandmother. It was 70 years after she first settled in Tama County, arriving in a covered wagon with her family on May 15, 1855.

Zehrung family came from Fairfield County, Ohio. Eliza’s great uncle, Adam Zehrung, had lived in Tama County since the early 1850s and had named the fledgling frontier town of Toledo, Iowa, after the city in his native Ohio. Eliza’s parents, Jonathan and Mary, were farmers with seven daughters and one son. When they loaded the wagon to join Adam in Iowa, Eliza, the second oldest, was 17.

Eliza’s sister, Catherine, was 18 when they began the journey. She was also unmarried and pregnant. The family settled northwest of Toledo, where Catherine gave birth to twin girls, Katie and Caroline, on December 23, 1855. Catherine survived childbirth by just a few weeks, dying January 11, 1856.

In Toledo, Eliza met Jacob Reinig, a German immigrant working as a farm hand. Though the Zehrungs had been in the U.S. for 150 years, they still spoke German, which was an asset when courting the young Bavarian immigrant. They married August 15, 1859, and Eliza gave birth to their first son, William, on January 31, 1860.

A second son, Franklin, would arrive while Jacob was away fighting in the Civil War. Eliza lived with her parents during the war, receiving $9 a month for compensation from the county while her husband was marching through the South. By the end of his service she would save more than $300.

After the war Jacob bought land near his in-laws and Eliza had more children – 10 total over the span of 26 years. They adopted Eliza’s orphaned niece, Caroline Zehrung, bringing their total to 11. When Jacob died in 1909, Eliza filed for a widow’s pension from the government. She would outlive four children, three in infancy and a son, Lewis, killed in 1916 when his car was hit by a train in Tama. In her later years she would live with her youngest son, Elmer, on the farm northwest of town. Her funeral was held from his home on January 25, 1925, and she was laid to rest next to her husband in Woodlawn Cemetery, near her parents, great-uncle Adam, and sisters, Maria, Elizabeth, and Catherine.

Throwback Thursday: Loren and Clara (Wilson) Finch

Mrs. Clara Finch had already seen her fill of the Tama County District Court by the time it convened on January 7, 1913. She wasn’t a criminal – far from it. She was a plaintiff, and that particular Tuesday marked the end of a four-year struggle to gain divorce from her husband, Loren.

They were married December 5, 1896, in Marshalltown. Clara Wilson, 26, was the educated daughter of a wealthy Tama County farmer. Her mother had died when she was nine and she had spent her life up to that point helping raise her younger siblings. Loren, 22, was a railroad fireman from Boone. After marriage they would live in Boone, where their first two children were born.

Clara’s problems started early. Loren, she discovered, was an alcoholic, and an abusive partner. She never said Loren was physically abusive, though his emotional abuse, coupled with his habitual alcoholism “preyed upon her mind as to undermine her health and make her a nervous and physical wreck.”

They moved to Des Moines in 1900. In 1901 their five-week-old daughter, Dorothy, died, while they were in Boone visiting Loren’s parents. That year they moved back to Boone and began a semi-nomadic life as Loren chased work and ran from his demons. His railroad career was over by 1905 and his drinking was out of control. Clara was left raising their four children, scraping together what money she could and sometimes calling on city or county agencies for support. Once, when Clara had just five cents left to her name, Loren stole it to buy whiskey. By the time their marriage ended, she estimated Loren had spent $1,800 of her money – approximately $45,000 today.

It’s unknown what finally made Loren leave for good, but on January 9, 1909, he and Clara parted ways for the last time. Clara was 39, broke, and pregnant with their sixth child. She filed for divorce on April 13, but Loren couldn’t be found to serve papers. The case languished on the court docket for four years, coming up each term and getting postponed because the defendant was not present. By 1913, the court was satisfied that Loren wasn’t going to show. They found in favor of Clara, granting her sole custody and ordering Loren to pay alimony. It was money she’d never receive from a man she’d never see again.

Loren’s ultimate fate remains a mystery. He was estranged from his parents and siblings, who lived very close to Clara and her children, but had no association with them after the divorce. Their youngest daughter, Mary, was born three months after Clara filed for divorce. She would grow up being told her father was dead.

Clara managed the emotional and physical toll of her marriage as best she could. She lived to be 89 years old, most of her life spent moving between her children’s homes. In later years, when Clara’s grandchildren would ask what happened to their grandfather, she would simply remain silent. If she knew what became of him, she took it to her grave.