Rosa
Ella Shipman was my gt-grandmother. She was the youngest of my 8
gt-grandparents, being born 29 Nov 1863, during the middle of the
Civil War. I believe she was born in Mercer County, Illinois,
although some records give the location as Galesburg, Illinois, which
was in a neighboring county.
There
is a fairly complete entry for her on my website:
Rosa
was listed along with her father on the 1870 census in Mercer County
in the household of her grandfather Timothy Chase. Before 1880 the
family moved to Saline County, Nebraska and she was listed there with
her parents and brother Timothy on the 1880 census which was taken on
June 1st. She was age 16 with the occupation teacher. It was just a
month after her 17th
birthday, 29 Dec 1880, when Rosa married Lafayette Pierce Smalley.
This photo shared by a cousin was dated Jul 1881 and seems to be the
closest to a wedding picture that we have.
It
was May of 1882 when her first child, Pierre A. Smalley, was born.
Sadly he died when about 15 months old 2 Sep 1883. Six months later
her son Ralph was born 16 Mar 1884. Soon after that the family moved
to Sherman County Kansas where her oldest daughter, Lucie, was born 5
Aug 1886. Lucie was my grandmother. Rosa's next child, Curtis, was
born 21 Dec 1888 and died less than a month later 9 Jan 1889. Then
came a succession of children who lived to adulthood: Lake 1890,
Celia 1892, Marvin 1896, Julia 1898, and one day before her birthday,
28 Nov 1900, the twins Lauren and Laurene were born.
As
I posted in September, Rosa continued to do some teaching. Before the
1930 census, she and her husband, Lafe as he was called, moved from
the farm into the town of Goodland. She was listed in that census as
a retail merchant in the grocery business.
When
I was 10 months old in 1940, my parents, grandparents and I traveled
back to Kansas and were able to visit Rosa and Lafe and many other
relatives. On 21 Sep 2017 I posted a 4 generation photo taken during
that 1940 visit. It was in 1944 when they came to Oregon to visit us
and other relatives who had moved from Kansas to Oregon. In December
1945 Rosa and Lafe celebrated their 65th wedding
anniversary and a month later Lafe died 30 Jan 1946.
Rosa
lived as a widow for 8 more years. My father took a trip to Kansas
mid-summer of 1954 and was able to visit his grandmother. She died a
little over a month later, 16 Sep 1954, and was buried in the
Goodland Cemetery, Sherman County Kansas.
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