KIRLEY, Matilda 1827-1924

KIRLEY

Posted By: County Coordinator
Date: 12/22/2011 at 00:49:59

Mrs. Matilda Kirley was born in New York in the year 1827, and died at her home in Rudd, Iowa, April 3rd, 1924, at 12:20 o'clock p.m. in the arms of her son Alexander, at the age of 96 years, 3 months and 15 days.

At the age of seventeen she married Michael Kirley, and settled on a farm in Louis county, New York. To this union were born five sons, George, Joseph, William H., Alexander and John M.

George, William H. and John M. preceded their mother in death.

At the age of 27 years, Mrs. Kirley was left a widow with five sons, the youngest a babe two and one half years of age, but she never lost faith in God. Her husband left her a home and sixty-five acres of land, but his father, who had previously gone from New York City to Sheboygan county, Wisconsin, and settled in the town of Holland, insisted after the death of her husband that she come to the parental home to live. His brother, John, came from the east, and her effects were loaded on "The Lady Elgin," and she and her family sailed down the St. Lawrence River to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was here that the hardships of her life truly began, as his parents were very poor, and she took up work as a practical nurse for a year, and then later worked as a domestic for four years, at $7.00 a month, it taking a month's wages to pay for a calico dress and a barrel of flour, the latter being used to feed her band of little boys at his father's home.

She later purchased a yoke of oxen and rented a small farm on halves, and was later informed that she must pay the taxes on the land or move, and as she was only barely making a living for her little family, which was during the Civil War. In 1864 she emigrated to Floyd, Iowa, in a prairie schooner, reaching Floyd in January of the same year.

She remained in and around Floyd for about three years so she could send her boys to school. She rented a farm for two years, from which good crops were raised, and later procured 160 acres of land and moved onto the same, remaining there for 57 years. Three years ago last November she moved to Rudd, with her son, Alexander, who tender . . . (trunctated)

[ Charles City Twice-A-Week News - Apr. 22, 1924, page 4; from a document at Mason City Public Library -- Genealogy Library ]