Elsie Eugenie Bemis Bevan 1876-1955

BEVAN, BEMIS, FIKE, SPICER, EGELAND, YOUNG, WEIR, WATKINS

Posted By: Merllene Andre Bendixen (email)
Date: 7/2/2010 at 22:03:07

Rites To Be Monday for Mrs. Bevan
Mrs. Sergeant Bevan, 79, a resident of Estherville for many years, died yesterday morning of a heart attack at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Lee Fike, in Lake Park. Mrs. Bevan had been ill from influenza but was recovering when stricken suddenly with a fatal heart attack.

Funeral services will be held Monday at 2 p.m. at the Spirit Lake Baptist church. Burial will be in Oak Hill cemetery in Estherville.

Mrs. Bevan was born and reared in Estherville and made her home here until recent years when she and her late husband made their home in Spirit Lake. Mr. Bevan preceded her in death six years ago. Survivors include two sons, Jack of Highland Park, Ill., and Robert of Tacoma, Wash.; four daughters, Mrs. Annie Spicer of Denver, Mrs. Jens Egeland of Estherville, Mrs. Lee Fike of Lake Park and Mrs. William Young of Spirit Lake; two sisters, Mrs. George Weir of Dunnell and Hazel Bemis of Estherville; one brother, Ernest Bemis of Spirit Lake; 21 grandchildren and five great grandchildren. (Estherville Daily News, Estherville, IA, April 23, 1955)

Mrs. Sargent Bevan
Lake Park – Mrs. Sargent Bevan died of a heart attack at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Lee Fike, at Lake Park Friday, April 22, at the age of 79 years and one month. She had been at the Fike home for two weeks where she was cared for by her daughter.

Elsie Eugenie, daughter of Simeon E. and Eliza Watkins Bemis, was born March 23, 1876, at Estherville. Her girlhood was spent there except for one year when she went to school in New York. She taught rural schools in Emmet county several years.

On Aug. 6, 1902, she was united in marriage to Sargent Bevan and they went to Highmore S.D. to prove up on a claim. That same year, the day before Christmas, Mrs. Bevan was lost in a blinding blizzard. Both her feet were badly frozen and she was taken to the hospital at Fort Dodge where both legs were amputated below her knee and ankle.

Mr. and Mrs. Bevan lived at Highmore and Harold, S. D., near Omaha, Neb., and in Dickinson and Emmet counties.

Mrs. Bevan was the mother of seven children. The second child, a daughter, Alice Grace Bevan, died in 1927.

Her husband died March 4, 1949. Since that time she has been with some of her children.

She leaves her six children – Mrs. M. B. Spicer, Denver, Colo.; Mrs. J. S. Egeland of Estherville; Mrs. Lee Fike, Lake Park; Mrs. W. E. Young, Spirit Lake; B. Jack Bevan of Highland Park, Ill.; and Robert M. Bevan, Seattle, Wash. There are 21 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

She also leaves two sisters and a brother, Mrs. George Weir of Dunnell, Minn.; Hazel Bemis of Estherville.

Funeral services were conducted Monday, April 25, at the First Baptist church in Spirit Lake where she was a member. The Rev. Virgil Peterson, pastor of the church, conducted the service and burial was in Oak Hill cemetery at Estherville beside her husband.

Special music for the service was provided by Louis Obye of Estherville and Mrs. Iva Slagle of Spirit Lake. Pallbearers were six grandsons, Jerry Young and Kenneth Inbody of Spirit Lake; Richard, Donald, James and Jon Egeland, all of Estherville. (Spirit Lake Beacon, Spirit Lake, IA, April 28, 1955)