George W. Lyon (1871-1914)

LYON, ROCKFORD, SMITH, KNIGHT

Posted By: Anne Hermann (email)
Date: 1/23/2009 at 12:29:50

Maquoketa Excelsior-Record
March 19, 1914

Died.

Geo. W. Lyon, who has been confined to his home for many weeks passed away Sunday morning shortly after six o’clock.

George W. Lyon was born in Green Castle, Ind., May 30, 1871. He was a son of Valentine Lyon and Zurelda Myres Lyon. His boyhood days were spent on a farm in Owen county, Ind. Where he grew to manhood, receiving a common school education from the public schools.

At the age of eighteen he obtained a teacher’s license and began to teach in the public schools of Putnam county, Ind., where he taught for fourteen years. He attended the high school at Danville, Ind., State Normal School at Terre Haute, Ind. And was finally graduated from the Northern Indiana Normal school at Valparaiso.

He was first married to Eva L. Rockford of Camanche, Iowa, in 1891 and to this union was born one son, Leonard Lyon, who now lives with his aunt, Mrs. Leonard Smith at Camanche.

The subject of this sketch moved to Clinton, Iowa, where they resided until the health of Mrs. Lyon became so bad that they removed to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where after eighteen months of intense suffering Mrs. Lyon passed away. Soon afterwards George was employed as bookkeeper by the Gas Company at Maquoketa where he has resided ever since. In May 1912 he was married to Edna Grace Knight at Maquoketa, Iowa, who survives him. He is also survived by eight brothers and two sisters.

The ancestors of George Lyon originated in Arcadia and were part of those French Arcadians who were banished by the British and cast ashore in Maryland, afterward they passed over to Fluvama county, Virginia, where the father of the subject of this sketch was born on April 3, 1798. He afterwards moved with his father, Samuel Lyon, to Shibeyville, Kentucky, and in 1820 moved to the wild woods of Owen county, Ind., where he raised 23 children, one of whom was our subject, George Lyon.

Mr. Lyon in early life, was converted and joined the Presbyterian church. He was a man that believed in being honest and upright and once a friend always a friend. He was a true and devoted husband and a kind and loving father.

Funeral services were held at one o’clock Tuesday afternoon from the Knight home on West Platt street, Rev. V. H. Ruring officiating, and the body was shipped to Camanche, Iowa, for burial.