Vernard, Oh, Vernard, What Have You Done?

WILLIAM MILLER > MILO VOLNEY MILLER > ALMIRA MILLER > WESLEY BARTLETT FEE m Estella C Cox > VERNARD FEE m Zora Emma Robinson

I've talked a little about both Milo and Almira. Wesley Bartlett Fee went by "Bart" his entire adult life or "W. B." He farmed successfully, raising stock in both shorthorn cattle and American Poland-China hogs. The 1930s wouldn't be a stellar decade for Bart and his family. His farm was severely damaged by a windstorm, his son's wife would cause a scandal of epic proportions, and the same son would die under mysterious circumstances. Bart and his wife both died in 1934.

Kensal, ND, just a few miles from Corrine, where
the Fees homesteaded in the 1910s.

Vernard and Zora got married on 25 Nov 1914 in Delaware County, Iowa. Zora was born on 12 Sep 1895 in Earlville, Delaware County to Charles and Mary Simons Robinson. The young Fee couple had their first son, Charles, in 1915 in Iowa, but by 1917 had moved to Corinne, Stutsman, North Dakota, where their second son Clarence was born. Vernard had a bad case of pneumonia while there and by late 1920, they had returned to Iowa where he plied his trade as a cattle buyer and farmer, like his father. They had three more boys in short order back in Iowa.

Then, the weirdness begins!

On Tuesday, September 2, 1930, Mrs Fee and the five children, paid a "friend" to drive them to her sister's in Delaware County. The Fees had been bickering and fighting for some time and she needed a break. They never arrived. Police were called in and according to reports, "...were concerned over the disappearance of a razor and rat poison from the farm home of Vernard Fee, apparently about the time it was left by Mrs Fee and five children..."

Mrs Fee had only five dollars with her and no food. On September 18th, Mrs Fee and the children returned with quite a tale to tell:

Ralph Owens, who was her traveling companion, was eight years younger than Zora. He was born in Vinton, Iowa 11 Jul 1903. The 1930 census has him living with his parents. We'll get back to him.

The Fee's were headed to divorce. Their divorce was finally granted in about February 1932. Vernard was living at the time with his parents. He had been working in the shed at his parents' farm, soldering a pipe on a stove for the brooder on the evening of his death. He then went to a friends' home and was later found slumped in his car at his friends' home. The death had originally been attributed to self-administered poison, but the coroner found it to be accidental.

How long it took for Ralph Owens and Zora to end up cohabitating, I don't know, but by the 1940 census they were all living together on a rented farm in Harrison township. In 1942, they married. In 1947, Ralph died suddenly of a heart attack at age 43. Zora did not marry again and would die 02 Dec 1976 in a Cedar Rapids nursing home.