Monday, September 12, 2016

The Prolific David Owens: Daughter Lucy Jane "Lizzie" Owens

Polk Township, Benton County, 1875
DAVID OWENS m SARAH HOLLER  > LUCY JANE "LIZZIE" OWENS

You can read about David Owens' beginnings here. This is my 2nd great grandmother and a product of David Owens' first marriage to Sarah Holler. It is also the last in the series on the David Owens children.

She was born 22 Jun 1850, in Bono, Lawrence County, Indiana, where the Owens' resided prior to their trek to Illinois and then Poyner Township, Black Hawk County, Iowa.

At age 19, on 04 Nov 1869, she married Ira Smith Miller, son of George Miller and Mary Ann Leroy.

Mary Ann provides our direct link to one of the wealthiest and one of the most prominent people of the New World, Christina Cappoens, who was a wealthy, wise, and wily matriarch in New Amsterdam in the 1600s. I hope to publish more about this family as I have time, but you can get a taste here.

Ira's family came to Iowa from Indiana prior to 1860. They settled in Benton County, a county over from Black Hawk. The young Miller's farmed in Polk Township in Benton County in the Center Point/Urbana area through the 1900 Census. Before 1910, they had picked up and moved to Jefferson Township in Butler County. This was moving from southeast of Cedar Falls over an hour to north of Cedar Falls, close to Oelwein. A pretty big move, and I haven't discovered the reason for the move.

Miller daughter Florence, her son Leo Linsey,
his son Larry Linsey and his daughter
The Millers had nine surviving children:

Emma, 1870-1954; married George Simpson
Charles, 1874-1925; never married; died of uremic poisoning
Fred H, 1877-1941; married Glennie Lott
Edith Elnora, 1879-1963; married Frank Hudson
Josephine "Josie", 1882-1954; married Charles Swanger (who married 3 times)
Florence S, 1884-1983; married Charles Linsey (my great grandmother). Read about her here.
George David, 1889-1923; married Luella May "Ella" Decker. Ella died in childbirth with their third child in 1914. Their two children's upbringing is another mystery since George died before they reached their majority.
Harriet "Hattie" Stella, 1892-1963; married (1) Charles Babcock, (2) Leroy "Roy" William Bushnell. You can read about her here
Jessie E, 1895-1975; never married.

But, by 1920, back in Benton County they were, only this time in Harrison Township. The Miller's were getting old and son Jessie lived there also working on the farm.

Quite elderly, 1930 found them moved "into town." They lived at 714 E 2nd St in Vinton, which even today is somewhat semi-rural yet still in town. Ira died in May of that year and Lucy joined him on 17 August of 1931. Lucy died in the home of her daughter, Mrs Josie Swanger in Waterloo, Black Hawk County, Iowa five weeks after she moved from her Vinton home to her daughter's care.

Like most people in the day, they lived, they farmed, they died. A story lost to time for nothing remains to tell their story but a few dry facts.

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