Emma Elizabeth FARR [Parents] [scrapbook] was born 1 on 22 Jun 1846 in Middlebury, Addison, Vermont, United States. She died 2 on 17 Feb 1914 in Hurley, Turner, South Dakota, United States. She was buried 3 in Hurley, Turner, South Dakota, United States. Emma married 4 Edgar Titus ELY on 11 May 1869 in Clinton, Clinton, Iowa, United States.
Emma resided 5 in 1860 in Fond du Lac, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, United States. She resided 6 in 1880 in Mason City, Cerro Gordo, Iowa, United States.
Hi Tim ...Here is some info on my 3rd great grandmother, Freeman & Caroline Farr's 1st (and only child who survived to be an old person), Emma Elizabeth Farr.
Birth info is from the Nathaniel Ely history, which states she was born in Middlebury, VT on 22 June, 1846. Death date is from the S.D. Death Index, 1905-1955, found on Ancestry. Also from family memorabilia - a newspaper clipping from 26 Feb. 1914, Turner County (S.D.) Herald printed after her death. She died in Hurley, Turner County, S.D. on 18 February, 1914.
My father told me his great grandma was a teacher in Indian schools during the later part of her life. Emma died at the home of her daughter, Mary Lydia Ely who was married to A. J. Cairy (Andrew Jackson Cairy). The copy of my newspaper clipping is bad, so I transcribed it:“Emma Elizabeth Ely died at the home of her daughter, Mrs. A.J. Cairy, at 1:20 last Thursday morning.
She graduated in Fond du Lac, and a few years after moved with her parents to Clinton, Iowa, where she was married on May 15, 1867, to Edgar T. Ely.
They moved to South Dakota in 1887. Mrs. Ely spent seventeen years of her married life teaching in various Indian schools, first at the Crow Creek school in South Dakota, then at Pipestone, Minnesota, and lastly, at Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Since retiring from her work she has made her home in Hurley with her daughter, Mrs. A.J. Cairy
Mrs. Ely was a member of the Eastern Star and of the Episcopal church. While she was not a woman that went out a great deal, she leaves many warm friends who will greatly miss her. But, most of all, will she be missed by her husband, her daughter, and by her grandchildren, to whom she especially endeared herself by her kind care and wise counsel. She was the mother of three children, one dying in infancy, the other two, Frank of Midway, North Dakota, and Mary Lydia Cairy, of Hurley, who with her husband, Edgar T. Ely, survive her.
Funeral services were held at the Episcopal church last Saturday at 11 o’clock forenoon. The Herald, with the entire town and community, extend sympathy to the bereaved family.”
***Emma was 15 when Freeman enlisted in Co. K, 1st Wisconsin, in the fall of 1861, and he didn't return home until she was almost 17, in May or June of 1863. Sometime during those years she worked as a typesetter for a local newspaper called The Commonwealth. I don't know the exact years she worked there, but I found out when I saw her mentioned in a book (see attached) I found at the Wisconsin Historical Archives on the campus of the Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison. The book is entitled "Incidents and Anecdotes of Early Days and History of Business in the City and County of Fond du Lac from Early Times to the Present, Fond du Lac: P.B. Haber Printing Company, 1905, Glaze, A.T.
Thanks much, Tim! I will do Freeman soon.
Jean Marie
