An Empty Place at the Table: Cora Redington

David Owens > Lucy Owens & Ira Miller > Josie Miller Redington Swanger > Cora Redington

A child. Born after the last census and dies before the next, can be lost to history. Their place at the table still goes missed.

Before, I'd talked about the husbands of Josie Miller, James Irving Edward "Ed" Redington and Charlie Swanger. Ed was a wild one - a town eccentric and multiply married fellow. Charlie was a wild one when younger, but found The Salvation Army and led an exemplary, alcohol-free life in the latter part of his life.

To date, the only child I was aware of in the Redington-Miller marriage, was Ira Edmon Redington, namesake of Grandpa Ira Miller, who was born in 1905 and suffered from some sort of disability that eventually had him living Woodward State Hospital for the "feeble-minded" in Boone County, Iowa. He died at the age of 61.

In searching for something else completely, I ran across this article:

No name is mentioned and I certainly hadn't run across anyone having died so tragically in previous research. No mention was ever made that I recalled of any such horrific event. The story, which began on a beautiful day with children playing and ended in an instant in calamity of the worst kind, went like this:

Young Cora Mae Redington, born in 16 Apr 1903, died on her 3rd birthday,16 Apr 1906, in Harrison Township, Benton County, Iowa at the home of her grandparents, Ira and Lucy (Owens) Miller. The uncle mentioned is unknown as none of the children of Ira were 13 at the time of this event. Jesse was 11 and is the most likely solution. She was buried in Bear Creek Cemetery in Benton County, where several other Miller descendants are buried.

The Redington's had not married until February of 1905, so whether Cora is his biological daughter of Josie, Ed, or both, is not known, but she did carry the Redington name.

No mention is made in Edmond or Josie's obits about Cora, nor Ira Edmond Redington, their child born in 1905 who lived in the Woodward State Hospital for the "feeble-minded" for most of his life.

Josie Miller Must Have Liked Quirky

DAVID OWENS m Sarah Holler > LUCY OWENS m Ira Miller > JOSEPHINE MILLER REDINGTON SWANGER

I loved exploring the family of David Owens, my 3rd great grandfather. He was a good farmer, a solid citizen, and had an adventurous spirit that took him from Indiana to Illinois to Iowa and finally, to South Dakota. He married three times and had a total of 14 children.

Among his children was Lucy, my 2nd great grandmother. She married Ira Miller and they had nine children, among them my great grandmother, Florence and her sister Josephine, the fourth of the nine.

Josie, as she was known, was born 05 Nov 1882 in rural Urbana, Benton County on the family farm. She first got married to a man who would be described by the newspaper as a "well-known Vinton character," in earlier articles and in his obituary.  This item, listed under "Just for Fun" in the Cedar Valley Times on 16 Oct 1936, describes him philosophizing while a resident of the County Home:

"Ed Redington was around town talking politics today. Ed says he hasn't decided whether or not he will vote at the general election next month. However, he does make his position clear insofar as his choice between the two presidential candidates is concerned when he asserts: "If I do vote it will be for Roosevelt. But as I don't believe he will need my vote to win, I don't think I'll bother about going to the polls."

"According to Ed, he has been having considerable trouble of late with people breaking into his trunk and taking things that don't belong to them. Ed said that only recently someone broke into his trunk, which he left locked, and stole two pairs of underwear, two shirts, two quilts, besides a good army overcoat. "They even took my dishes," declared Ed, "and that is what I call a low-down truck." Ed maintains that he has lost practically all faith in humanity on account of the unfortunate experiences he has had lately."

WCF&N Trolley

His name was James Irving Edmond Redington, son of Mr & Mrs Ben Redington. Josie and "Ed" married 14 Feb 1905 in Benton County, Iowa. They had a son, Ira Edmond Redington, who had some sort of mental disability and lived in the Hospital for Epileptics and School for the Feeble Minded in Cass, Iowa from at least 1930. Ira died in 1966. The couple divorced and Ed went on to several more marriages before dying at age 62 in April 1940 in Vinton.

Josie then married Charles H Swanger on 23 Apr 1923 in Waterloo, Black Hawk County. Charles was born in Fredericksburg, Iowa on March 11, 1882, to James and Hattie Sisson Swanger. Charles had previously been married to Cora, whom he married in 1903 and was divorced from in 1911 in Waterloo, having alleged adultery and addiction to intoxicants as grounds.

In 1931, Josie's widowed mother, Lucy Owens Miller, came to the Swanger home for the last five weeks of her life, with Josie caring for her.

Charles worked as a section man on the WCF&N Railway, the interurban rail and trolley system that ran in the Central Valley and its surrounding towns. On December 22, 1932, while he was out shoveling snow off the tracks, he was struck by an auto driven by Mrs Roy Hamilton. Mrs Hamilton said her car got caught in the tracks and she attempted to turn when she skidded into Swanger. He survived!  He retired from the company in 1941 after 25 years of service.

Both Josie and Charles were very active in the Salvation Army for many years. In addition to taking care of the home, Josie also sold magazines on the side. Josie died at Allen Memorial hospital of a heart condition on 12 Jan 1954 in Waterloo and had services in the Salvation Army's Stone Church on Park Ave at Mulberry. After her death, Charles remained in the family home at 1104 Franklin St. In August 1964, be received a knock at the door one day from two men purporting to be from the public utility company wanting to inspect the electric meter. While one distracted him, the other robbed his house of $280. The article in the paper was a warning to citizens that this con was being worked in the area and to always verify identity with the IPS ID card or by calling the utility.

He kept busy after Josie died by continued work for the Salvation Army. Charles ended up spending 40 years with the Salvation Army, attaining the rank of Sergeant Major, until his second retirement in 1948. He continued volunteering with them after that. This article outlines his trips to the front entry of Rath Packing Co. where he handed out the Salvation Army War Cry newspaper every other day for 13 years and was dubbed "Uncle Charlie," by those who worked at Rath. His eventual absence, which started in 1968, was noted by many and the local paper wrote this article about what "Uncle Charlie" was up to now.

Waterloo Daily Courier, Mar 29, 1968

                 

He spent the last years in the Platte Rest Home in Waterloo before dying at Allen Hospital on 22 Apr 1970.

Remembering Florence Miller

DAVID OWENS m Sarah Hollar > LUCY OWENS m Ira Miller > FLORENCE MILLER m Charles Linsey

Today, I'm remembering my great grandmother, Florence Miller, who was born 132 years ago on a farm in rural Iowa. She was my paternal grandfather's mother.

Wedding of Florence Linsey, 1903

Florence Miller Linsey was born 17 Sep 1884 to Ira S Miller and Lucy “Lizzie” Owens Miller. The Millers farmed outside of Center Point, near Urbana. She married Charles Lindsey (later Linsey) 12 Aug 1903 in Vinton, Benton County, Iowa.

Florence and Charles had three children survive. Charles, a laborer, died in 1933, leaving Florence a widow left to support herself and the remaining child at home, Charles Jr “Junior.”

She went to work as the laundress and kitchen staff for the Iowa School for the Blind and could be seen walking the two miles each way back and forth to work each day until her retirement in the 1950s. She lived in the same home for many decades on the east side of Vinton.

The very small home, which had had a bathroom and small bedroom added in the 1930s to give it two bedrooms, originally had an outhouse that was later converted to a garden shed. Florence planted a large garden each year and from the bounty of that garden, was able to subsist quite well without outside assistance. The room most used in her home was also the largest – the kitchen. She spent hours upon hours each year canning vegetables and making preserves which would later be stored in the dirt cellar accessed by pulling up a rope in the middle of her kitchen floor and traversing the treacherous stairs to dimly lit room.

About 1962 in Vinton with son Leo and grandson
Larry

Once the children were grown and gone and the grand children and then great grandchildren came to visit, they could invariably be found either playing in the large back yard or in the small bedroom with the ancient erector set and tinker toys.

 At 72, she had a heart attack and the doctors, according to Florence, said, that the reason it didn’t kill her is that she walked so much. She blamed her health problems on hard work and the doctors said she’d live to 100 because of her hard work.

 A proud and often stubborn woman, she refused help of almost every kind, even as her hearing and sight began to fail. In 1980, at the age of 95, she was interviewed by the Cedar Rapids Gazette about her acquiescing and accepting energy assistance. She was quite perturbed by having to do so, but her small Social Security income and small work pension just didn’t stretch as far during those high-cost energy years.

She admitted to the Gazette, “I’m awful savin’ on my oil. I cut down, but the way my house is cut up, I have to have two fuel sources.” She had an oil-burning stove in her kitchen and gas heater in her living room. She added, “I was awful afraid I wasn’t going to make it last year. This takes so much,” she said pointing to the gas heater. “One month, it was $71. It took both checks.”

She stayed in her home, despite her growing blindness and the need for a cane and continued to care for herself until a serious fall in her beloved kitchen, breaking her hip at age 97. She spent some time in hospital and then moved to the Sunnycrest Nursing Home in Dysart, Iowa where she passed away, just shy of her 99th birthday. Her daughter Lucy and son Junior survived her. Her son Leo preceded her in death along with an infant daughter and two infant sons.

Miller Family Stories

The Millers, as far back as I can find, start with William Miller and his bride Loraine Fountaine:

WILLIAM MILLER  & LORAINE FOUNTAINE

GEORGE MILLER & MARY ANN LEROY

Christina Cappoens: A Woman of Wealth
Roots of Slavery: Christina Cappoens of New Amsterdam
Simeon LeRoy dit Audy
CHARLES E MILLER
Private Charles E Miller, 40th Iowa Infantry Regiment, Company K
IRA MILLER
The Prolific David Owens: Daughter Lucy Jane "Lizzie" Owens
Mystery Solved: Hattie Stella Miller, A Little Bit of Unconventional
Remembering Florence Miller 
He Looked Down Upon Me and Laughed
Cappoens/LeRoy Line: Leo Linsey
Ancestry DNA & Mystery Solving
MILO VOLNEY MILLER
Sideroad: Lyman Dixon Bordwell Family

EDRICK MILLER

MILO VOLNEY MILLER

The Original Milo Volney Miller: Mr Successful 
Patience Meeker's Surviving Child: Almira Miller
ALMIRA MILLER
Vernard, Oh, Vernard, What Have You Done?
Ernest Fee, Law Man 
ADELIA "DELIA" MILLER
Lampman Family Tragedy

MARY JANE MILLER

ELIZABETH MILLER

The Cappoens/LeRoy Line: Leo Linsey

Leo Lee Linsey was born the oldest child of Florence Miller and Charles Lindsey (later Linsey) on 18 Jun 1904 in Benton County, Iowa. Florence was a farmer's daughter, having been raised in the rural Benton County area prior to her marriage. They resided at 410 11th Ave in Vinton, Iowa.  They would have two other surviving children; Lucille and Charles, Jr. who went by "Junior" his entire life.

Charles was a working man, working various jobs and spent the last 12 years of his life working on a section gang for the railroad.

Leo would grow up to be a pressman, but also was a sales delivery man for a company for a while. He spent his longest working stint with a printing company in Waverly, Iowa until his retirement. On 12 Apr 1930, he married Hazel Batchelder in Vinton. She was the daughter of Lottie Berry and Lester Batchelder. From this point, things get dodgy. They filed for divorce in 1935, each slinging accusations at each other which made the paper in great detail and the wife requesting Leo be institutionalized (mostly likely for alcoholism). Eventually, the request for commitment was dropped, a demand was made by the court that they stop slinging mud, custody was awarded permanently to Hazel's mother of the son. Leo had very little contact with his son from then on. That son had a successful life and looks back very fondly on his grandparents who raised him. Hazel and Leo were divorced at last in 1936 for the 1st time.

But, lo and behold, come just months after the protracted legal battle, they announced their intention to marry again. I'm guessing this engagement was on and off until they finally remarried on 12 Dec 1936. They separated within months, but did not divorce immediately.

By 1937, Leo was living and working in Waterloo, Iowa. He began cohabitating with Verlie Smith Michaelsen sometime that year. Both were still married. Verlie's husband finally filed and was granted a divorce in 1941 and he remarried in April 1942. It is presumed that Leo's divorce from Hazel was finally finalized sometime prior to her marriage to Jack Ritzman in the mid-1940s. 

Verlie's relationship with her first husband, Ted Michaelsen, was marred by spousal violence and alcoholism. It was also the depression and things were very dire financially for her. Verlie had four children by her first marriage. Many children ended up in orphanages during this time as many did not have the means to even feed the children. Three of the children of this union were adopted by various family members after stays of various lengths in the Bremer Lutheran Children's Home, and the youngest was adopted to a well-to-do Lutheran couple. Two girls were adopted by a paternal aunt and uncle and the oldest was adopted by a maternal aunt and uncle. After extensive conversations with the children of the first marriage, one can only presume that while difficult for all involved, the children ended up in safer, more stable environments. All but one of the children of that marriage maintained a relationship with Verlie her entire life.

Leo and Verlie had three sons between 1939 and 1944. The couple did not marry until 1965, when they drove up to Minnesota and tied the knot 12 Jul 1965 in Fillmore. Leo reportedly wanted to ensure that Verlie was able to get his Social Security. They generally lived on the edge financially their whole lives. Near the end of Leo's life, which had ritually involved stopping off at the tavern after work and after getting a paycheck, he and Verlie separated. Their decree of separate maintenance appeared in the Marriage Dissolutions column in the Waterloo Courier in 1975 and terms were, "She gets household goods and furniture, he pays debts incurred during their marriage." He died on 04 Feb 1980 in Waterloo of a heart attack. His final years were spent with his companion, Elsie Stoner. Verlie lived on until Nov 1986 and died at Ravenswood Care Center in Waterloo. 

I have incredibly fond memories of both of my grandparents. Leo was quiet and smoked stinky green cigars outside. He affectionately called me his "Little Kraut" because I was born in Germany. He mostly liked to sit back in his recliner and watch Lawrence Welk on Saturday nights. Grandma made the best fried chicken dinners and a had a little candy dish on her buffet waiting for all of us when we came for Sunday dinner after church. She was the typical grandma, baking and cooking her way into each of our heart's.

It's much easier to step back and look at their lives from a dispassionate perspective now, with them both gone for over 30 years. They made a lot of probably not so good choices in their lives, but managed to have a bunch of kids between them that did what America is great for -  providing opportunity for each to find their own success and doing it better in the next generation.

Simeon LeRoy dit Audy

Christina Cappoens was the mother of one side of the family that eventually became the Linsey family and can be read about here and here. The father of the other side of that equation was Simeon LeRoy dit Audy, a Frenchman who became a French-Canadian. Rather than excerpt his story, I share this link with you, which details his life and addresses some of the mysteries of his life in a way I think most plausible. It's written by Lorine McGinnis Schulze: Simeon LeRoy dit Audy

I hope to be uncovering more about the LeRoy family in the coming weeks. The visual of descendancy is below. You may recognize names like "Owens," a family well-documented within this blog:

The Founding Families of Poyner Township

Zachariah Holler > John Holler > George Holler married Lucy Robertson 

George Elam Holler was the son of Johannes "John" Holler and Margaret Low. He was born about 1803 in Rowan County, North Carolina and traveled west with his family; first to Ohio, then to the Washington County, Indiana area.

George married Lucy H. Robertson in Washington County, Indiana on 18 Feb 1823. Recently, a death record was located that says George died 02 Feb 1841. He had died prior to the death of his father and was referenced in his will. In about mid-1853, John and his mother, his sister Sarah and husband David Owens (David was also born in North Carolina), her brother John, and sister Edna and husband William Wheeler and their families left Indiana and moved to Black Hawk County, Iowa, stopping briefly in Illinois along the way.

Nancy, Lucy, and Nathan Poyner are
buried on a section of Nathan's property
now the Poyner Twshp Cemetery

Nathan Poyner, of North Carolina, was a Baptist traveling preacher who had preached to pioneer flocks all over the country under shade trees. In the early 1850s, he located, along with his oldest son Thomas, to Linn County, Iowa.

Thomas purchased 200 acres of land in southeast Black Hawk County in 1851 for $102. He purchased another 160 acres for $228 the following year. Horatio Sanford, a land speculator who had purchased the land from the government a short time before using land warrants, made both sales. The Poyner's settled in southeast Black Hawk County in 1853.

The pioneers to this area built log cabins and began clearing land. Poyner preached to its residents under old shade trees as he had before. Settlers trickled in and the township, named Poyner township in honor of Nathan, was organized by order of the county judge in 1854. Nathan's wife, Nancy Johnston, was the first death in the township. She died in 1853 and was buried on a portion of Poyner land. This location is now part of Poyner Township Cemetery.

Mrs Lucy Holler then married Nathan in the summer of 1854, joining together two of the founding families of the township. In 1856, Poyner son James also moved from Linn County and purchased land in the township.  Nathan Poyner died 16 May 1867. His wife Lucy died 19 Aug 1889.

Sarah Holler, daughter of George and Lucy Holler, married David Owens while in Indiana, an early pioneer who joined the original seven families in the area. David was born in North Carolina and had also resided in Indiana. They had nine children, the middle of whom was Lucy Jane "Lizzie" Owens. Sarah died 20 Feb 1864. David married Elizabeth Brown on 21 Aug 1864 and she died 09 Jun 1866 in Poyner Township. Lucy married Ira S Miller (my 2nd great grandparents) 04 Nov 1869 and they resided in Polk Township, Benton County, Iowa for the remainder of her life. David Owens remarried once more, moving to nearby Barclay Township to farm, and then moved on to Davison County, South Dakota where he died 18 Feb 1909.

Edna Holler, Sarah's younger sister, had married William M Wheeler in Washington County prior to 1850. William had two children by his first marriage who both died as young adults and were buried in Poyner Township. Edna gave birth to eight children: William H., Mary, Emma, Thomas Grant, Albert, Lucy Ann, Henrietta, and Sarah J. Edna cared for her mother Lucy in her declining years until her death. The Wheeler’s remained in Poyner Township for the remainder of their lives. William died 10 Jun 1896 and Edna on 09 Sep 1895.

John B Holler married Harriet in about 1857 in Indiana. They had four children: Eliza, Hattie, Granville, and Edward. They lived in Poyner Township for the remainder of their lives. John died

31 May 1918 and Hattie in 1917.

A little family drama:  Nathan and his first wife had help raise a ward in addition to their children. James B. Edwards, who was born in Rappahannock County, Virginia, 11 Mar 1839. When a child, he came with his parents to Illinois where he was left an orphan at the age of 3 years.  Nathan and Lucy raised an additional ward, Isaac Walter Hollar, who was the orphaned son of Wesley Hollar (another son of Lucy & George Holler) of Indiana. It was reportedly Nathan's wish that the boys share equally in Thomas' land. Thomas, who never married, had a major hand in raising James who ended up farming Thomas' land after his death. After reaching his majority, Isaac struck out on his own in the Muscatine, Iowa area. In 1908, he brought suit in Iowa court over the land. Since no articles were found referencing the case after the suit, one might presume some sort of settlement was reached or the suit was dropped.

What isn't clear is what the original connections was between the Poyner and Holler families, which very well could extend for decades from their North Carolina origins, despite the serpentine nature of how all of them arrived in Poyner Township.

He Looked Down Upon Me and Laughed

In the little town of Vinton, Iowa, just down the road a spell from the big state mental hospital, and home to of the best popcorn fields in the world, there sat a little tarpaper shack, where the weeds grew unchecked between the cracks of the neglected tar and gravel street, down near the railroad tracks.

The house sat right up against the street, with two lop-sided, rotting wooden stairs leading to the front door. The yard was huge and full of all types of Iowa wildflowers and a large, meticulously tended vegetable garden. In the back was an old outhouse that eventually became the garden shed. The entire house was probably 700 square feet. The floors sloped and waved and jutted from 70 years of settling and warping. The bare floor was sprinkled liberally with simple hand-made throw rugs to keep the chill of an Iowa winter at bay.

The house had that aged, musty smell yet was invariably spotless. Long-faded wallpaper with patterns out-of-date by the 1920s covered each wall. The kitchen was the largest of the rooms and obviously the most used. Under the simple kitchen table was a small rope with a knot in the end that served as the handle to lift up the cellar door. Once open, stairs led perilously down several rickety stairs to the tiny, pungent, dank, dark, dirt room where the year’s food supply, culled from the bountiful garden, were stored.

The living room was small—with a coal burning stove eventually replaced by an electric heating stove. A short couch lined one wall, and directly in front of the couch; facing the same direction as the couch, sat the one comfortable chair in which a woman sat for much of her day watching the small black & white television at the other end of the room. Hanging above the television, a small, lonely picture of Jesus looked down upon the room, surveying the every thought, word, and deed of generations.

The woman, who lived to somewhere between 99 and 101 years old, depending on who you took as authority on such things, was tall and lean. Her dress was always immaculately ironed. Her hair was white as pure driven snow, and was always covered by a hairnet. When she spoke, her voice warbled and rasped from too many years of use. Age and gravity had some interesting repercussions. Her face was very, very long, reminding me of a tired old Bloodhound with wrinkles on top of wrinkles. Her earlobes had somehow managed to extend nearly to her shoulders, and her breasts, well, she was never one to bother with such frills as a bra…she was old, let’s leave it at that. Whenever I saw her, a particular Girl Scout song would pop into my head, “Do your ears hang low, do they wobble to and fro, can you time them in a knot, can you tie them in a bow, can you throw them over your shoulder like a continental soldier, do your ears hang low?”

As a child, I paid little heed to her, and as my conversation wasn’t very interesting to her, we never made a connection. I probably spoke a total of 10 words to her my entire life. She visited freely with her son and grandson (my grandfather and father), but my sister and I were left to our own devices playing on most visits at the back of the house in the tiny closet-sized bedroom, with an ancient erector set and tinker toys. All I really knew is she spent over 65 years a widow, raising her kids the hardscrabble way, but most of it was spent alone in that little house, taking care of her business.

Our last visit came when I was about 20, on leave from Germany. Her hearing was nearly shot and her eyesight failing. My father pulled up a straight chair to be near her. She sat in her chair, facing the same direction we faced sitting on the couch behind her—which was always so odd to me—looking at the back of her head. My senses dulled as I listened vaguely to them speaking. Finally, out of the blue, she said, “Lori, where are you?” I snapped out of the daydream state I invariably slipped into, thinking, “Wow, she is actually speaking to me.”

I reached forward and gently and lovingly placed my hand on her arm, feeling suddenly quite warm and sentimental, sure she was asking because she could neither hear nor see me from her current vantage point, and said, “I’m right here Great Grandma.” Perhaps at last, we'd make a connection!  And, then she sighed heavily, and I swore I heard Jesus laughing as he looked down upon me.  She said, “No GOD DAMN IT, where are you in Germany? Larry, what is wrong with the girl?”

Copyright,  2008