Joseph and Mary (Brown) Atkinson & Family

ATKINSON, BROWN, OCONNOR, HEALY, SMALL, DALY, SULLIVAN, KNAPP

Posted By: cheryl Locher moonen (email)
Date: 3/14/2020 at 22:11:52

Joseph and Mary Brown Atkinson were the first Atkinson’s to live in Farley, they and their nine children moved from Rickardsville to Farley in 1882 and lived at 103 6th Ave. N.W. They celebrated their 52nd wedding anniversary in 1914. Joseph died in 1914 and Mary in 1923

In 1890 their son William H. married Fannie Small, daughter of John and Catherine Small. Fannie worked as a typesetter at the Farley Advertiser before her marriage. They built the house that is at 107 6th Avenue N.E. William was a section foreman for the Chicago Great Western Railroad. Their only child, Verna Lee, married Frank O’Connor, a farmer from Bankston, in 1912. Their three children were Elizabeth, Kathryn and John.
Mr. O’Connor died in 1921.

In the 1920s Verna Lee and Susie Daly ran a millinery in Farley which was directly south of the three story brick building on Main Street. Later Verna Lee married George Sullivan and they had a daughter Ann. In the 1930 Elizabeth and John O’Connor ran a tavern that was on the northwest corner of Main Street & 4th Avenue. John ran a tavern until he entered the service in 1942. He died in 1943 and Elizabeth (O’Connor) Healy died in 1985. Kathryn (O’Connor) Gill lives in Topeka, Kansas, and Ann (Sullivan) Schmitt lives in Dyersville.

Jonathan and Margaret Atkinson came to Farley in 1903. They celebrated their 63rd wedding anniversary in 1930, shortly before Jonathan’s death. They lived in the house at 202 6th Avenue N.W. Some of their twelve children lived in Farley for many years. Their son’s Dick and Harvey worked as section men on the railroad. Another son, William E., a general laborer, married Bertha Harris in 1911. His step-daughter Geneva married Charles Knapp.

Jonathan and Margaret’s youngest child, Rosena, married Nicholas Wilgenbusch in 1908. They had fourteen children and lived in Farley for many years.

The History of Farley, Welu Publishing, Copyright, 1996.