Leinbaugh, Eleanor

LEINBAUGH, WADE

Posted By: Ken Wright (email)
Date: 3/7/2008 at 16:08:39

Jackson Sentinel
Centennial Edition, 1938

Mrs. Eleanor Leinbaugh

The oldest living citizen of Elwood is Mrs. Eleanor Leinbaugh, who has been a reader of the Sentinel for more than 60 years. An afternoon spent with her recently brought rich memories of early days.

Now nearly 82 years old, she was born September 11, 1856, on a farm two miles south of Elwood, one of three children of Mr. and Mrs. George Wade. Her father, born in New Jersey, had come here from Ohio in 1852, with his parents, and her mother was Sabra, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Barnabas Clark, who were among the first settlers near Elwood.

Mrs. Leinbaugh recalls being in the home of her grandfather Clark, a staunch Republican, one day when he returned home from Maquoketa and hearing him say, “Well, I subscribed for a Democratic paper today.” He had subscribed for the Sentinel as there were no papers of the Republican faith in Maquoketa at that time. That was sometime in the sixties, and Mrs. Leinbaugh herself has taken the Sentinel continuously since she started to keep house 63 years ago.

For seven years the Wade family lived in Lucas county, in southwestern Iowa, and Mrs. Leinbaugh recalls that during that period the family returned to Elwood to visit several times, making the 200-mile trip in a covered wagon, with one team. After a week’s visit here the family returned home by the same slow method.

When relating interesting stories of early church, school, and social life, Mrs. Leinbaugh told how the first church services were held in the school building. She has a framed certificate, earned 70 years ago which states that she was made a life member of the Methodist Missionary society for her activity in soliciting funds for missionary work.

She was married July 23, 1874, to T. B. Leinbaugh, and seven years later they built the home where she has lived ever since. Of her six children, four are still living, and she has a brother, Charles, who lives in Lake View. Her husband died in 1914.

-Mrs. Fred Schepers.