The Other Newcombs of South Dakota

JACOB SMITH > JAMES SMITH > JOHN R SMITH > OLLIE BEATRICE SMITH m Robert Kingsbury Newcomb

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You can read a little bit about John Smith, who went to California after living in Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota, here. The Newcombs in this story shouldn't be mixed up with the Newcombs that married into the Munson family elsewhere in this blog. If there is a connection, it goes way, way, back and I'm not dealing with it!

Olive Beatrice "Ollie" Smith was born 26 Mar 1876 in Nebraska. Several of her siblings settled in South Dakota and did not go on to California with their parents. Ollie met and married Robert Kingsbury Newcomb and married him on 06 Nov 1897 in South Dakota. The couple settled in Ramona, Lake County, South Dakota. Robert had several jobs during their marriage, but in about 1915, he started to experiment with breeding and incubation of chicks. He studied and perfected his methods and in 1929, opened the Sunshine State Hatcheries first state-of-the-art location in Madison.

Before long, he had several locations throughout the state, which were operated by his four sons: Bob, Chuck, Parker, and Lyle.  I don't know what became of the hatcheries, but a news item from 1962 indicated that Lyle's son, Lyle Ralph, had declared bankruptcy and was no longer in the hatchery business. Farming operations and technology kept improving and with the loss of three of the sons by the mid-1950s, my guess is that the effort slowly fizzled out. I'd be interested to know what the end of the story was.

Madison location of the Sunshine State Hatcheries

Ollie died 07 Sep 1949 in Minnehaha County, South Dakota. Robert died 14 Dec 1955.

Ollie and Robert had eight children:

1. Mable born 28 Oct 1898 and died 03 Jan 1899 in South Dakota.

2. Robert "Bob" Kingsbury Newcomb Jr. was born 30 Oct 1899 in Lake County. He died on 08 Apr 1952. Terrible floods swept through parts of South Dakota that week. Bob was trying to keep flood waters out of the basement of his Lake Kampeska home when he succumbed to a heart attack. He was listed as the first victim of the floods that year. During the war, he was regional director of the Civil Aeronautics Association for seven states. He operated the hatcheries at Flandreau, Sioux Falls, Arlington, Salem, Bryant and Huron at various points. He was also the founder and operator of the South Dakota Turkey Breeder's Association. He left his wife and two sons.

3. Lyle Smith Newcomb was born 27 Nov 1901 in Ramona, Lake County. He operated the hatcheries

Lyle Smith Newcomb

in Huron and Madison and died after a lingering illness 23 Sep 1950 in Madison. He left four children and his wife Vera.

4. Parker William Newcomb was born on 27 May 1903 in Lake County. He married Myrtle Dahl, who had a child from a previous marriage. They had four children together. He died 17 Aug 1957 in Lake County. During World War II, he served as a Lt Colonel in the US Army and served a full career in the South Dakota National Guard. He is also listed as having worked in the hatcheries.

5. Emma Mary Newcomb was born 21 Nov 1905 in Hamlin, South Dakota according to her birth index record. She married Fred John Kaske, who served in World War II. They moved to Ventura, California. Emma died 29 Nov 2001. They had two children.

6. Charles B. "Chuck" Newcomb was born on 13 Sep 1907 in Hamlin. He married Camilla Euphame Steensland on 08 Jun 1934 on her parents' farm. They lived in Arlington until 1939 when they moved the family to Sioux Falls to work in the hatchery business. The couple had six children. Chuck died in April of 1986, but Camilla lived to be 100 years old and died in Salt Lake City, Utah, on 05 Aug 2013.

Camilla Steensland

7. Florence Faye Newcomb was born 24 Apr 1909 in Lake County. She and her husband Lewis Arthur "Arthur" Larson had two children. She died 02 Mar 1991 in Durham, North Carolina. Arthur died  27 Mar 1993 in Durham. I'll be writing separately about them.

8. Doris R Newcomb was born 08 Oct 1916 in Lake County. She married Gordon Norbraten on 07 Sep 1938 in Hutchinson, South Dakota. They had one daughter. Gordon died 07 Aug 1975 in Miami-Dade County, Florida and Doris died 16 Aug 1995 in Lee County, Florida.