Charles August Foote

FOOTE, LINCOLN

Posted By: Marlene Skalberg (email)
Date: 6/8/2014 at 17:46:40

Golden Wedding Anniversary
Mr. and Mrs. C. A. Foote Surprised in Delightful Manner
Married on Thursday, March 1, 1866 at the residence of the bride's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Joshua S. Lincoln, on what was then known as the Robert Schooling farm, three miles north of Quincy, Iowa, Miss Mary Elizabeth Lincoln, aged 20 and Charles August Foote, aged 24, Rev. Lewis House, pastor of the Congregational church of Quincy, officiating. The bride was the second daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J. S. Lincoln, who had moved from Henry to Adams County about 18 months before, but came originally from her McConnelsville, Ohio and can trace their family record back to the same town in Massachusetts from which the martyred president of the same name traces his family.
The groom was the eldest son of Rev. C. C. Foote of Detroit, and had come at the close of the war to assist his uncle H. B. Clark in the store in Quincy. The wedding ceremony took place in the presence of a few friends and relatives. Then came dinner, after which Mr. and Mrs. Foote drove to their new home, which the groom bought a few months before the wedding and was known as the Sprague farm, ten miles northeast of what became Corning.
The Foote family came from England to America in 1630. This member of it was born in Maumee, Ohio, and being the son of a minister, had some of the advantages of travel. He lived in Detroit for some time and was one of the first 100 students to attend an agricultural college. The Michigan agricultural college at Lansing was the first institution of its kind in the United States and Charles Foote was a student there during its first year, and helped clear the ground upon which some of the college buildings now stand and still advocates an agricultural truing for the farmer. Leaving school before the end of the course, he later taught a school for freedmen in Canada and when the rebellion broke out volunteered to serve his country in the Seventh Michigan infantry. He fought with them till wounded by a bullet in the right arm near the shoulder, at the battle of Fair Oaks. While recuperating from that he made his first visit to Iowa, and assisted his uncle in the store at Quincy, where he and Miss Lincoln first met. After two years, he returned to the army, while it was in front of Petersburg, this time in the 146th New York infantry, and fought with them till the close of the war, being mustered out after the grand review at Washington.
Teachers were not numerous in those early days, so Mr. Foote was engaged to teach the district school nearest his new home during the first winter after their marriage and carried an axe to school with him for the purpose of preparing the day's fuel. About all the districts provided was a log house full of active boys and girls, quite the contrast to the school in Philadelphia which he had attended, where everything was provided except the desk cover, to act as "silence cloth," which each pupil was expected to provide himself.
The furniture for the new home was all made in the county. Two of the chars and the original bedstead are still in active service and bear testimony of the sterling character of the time. Most of the clothing of that time was also produced in the county with the exception of shoe buttons and thread. The ply articles on the usual dinner table not produced in the county, were dishes, knives, forks, and spoons.
Mr. and Mrs. Foote have lived on the same farm continuously for fifty years, with the exception of a time spent in "holding down a soldier's claim" in the extreme northern part of the sate, but during that time they retained the management of the place and farmed it part of the time themselves, as they are still doing.
Ten children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Foote, four boys and six girls; but only two of them lived to maturity, Clarissa (the late Mrs. Albert Homan) and Mary Myrtle, who served for 16 years under the Congregational Foreign Missionary Board, but is spending most of the present year with her parents.
Last Wednesday morning being the fiftieth anniversary of the wedding, as Mr. and Mrs. Foote were going about their accustomed tasks, guest began to arrive with boxes and baskets and perpetrated a most pleasant surprise upon all except Miss Foote and Edmund Homan, a grandson, who has been living with the grandparents. The first to arrive was the granddaughter, Miss Edith M. Homan, who attends the Corning High School. When all were assembled there were found present beside the family, Miss Belinda Lute and daughter, Mrs. Sybil Wakelin of North Bend, Nebraska, a sister and niece of the bride; Mr. and Mrs. Willard McCreedy, Mr. and Mrs. S. H. Preston, Mr. and Mrs. T. D. Lincoln and daughter, Clarissa and Flora Alice of Brooks; Mrs. J. C. Gossard and daughters Doris and Delia of Mr. Etna; Rev. J. J. Baynes and son Paul of Corning. Greetings were read from relatives as follows. E. I. Foote of Shingle, California; Mrs. Alice Rogers of Long Beach, California; Mr. and Mrs. R. T. DeWees of Unionville, Missouri; Mr. and Mrs. George W. DeWees of Glouster, Ohio; Messrs Charles and Albert Homan of Roswell, New Mexico; Mrs. F. A. Clark and daughter, Mrs. D. A. Dobbs of Johnson City, Tennessee; and Dr. and Mrs. W. L. Gardiner of Corning, Iowa. The parlor was decorated with the bride's roses, the gift of the grandchildren, Edith and Edmund Homan, and the dining table held a p
large bouquet of yellow jonquils and ferns. Rugs from Ascetic Turkey covered the floor and silver from China was on the table, while music was furnished by a Victrola, which was one of the presents received. A pleasant time was passed by all present.
On Thursday morning, while Mr. and Mrs. Foote were still enjoying the memory of the preceding day, and taking up "the white man's burden," notwithstanding the inclimate weather, friendly neighbors again bearing boxes and baskets, began to arrive and the surprise was even more complete than on the first day. Th company comprised of Mrs. Ellen Homan, of Prescott, Mrs. Lura Dillon of Mt. Etna; Mr. and Mrs. Frank Beath, Mr. and Mrs. John Madison, Mr. and Mrs. William Farris and daughter Miss Letha, Mr. and Mrs. Otto Johnson, Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Gossard, and son Claud, Mrs. Louisa Lawrence and daughter Miss Mary, and Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kessler, Mrs. Lute and Mrs. Wakelin, besides the family.
Mr. and Mrs. Foote wish for all the friends who have so pleasantly remembered them the same long years of wedded life that has been theirs.
Adams County Free Press, March 8, 1916, page 18