Fowles, Jennie Cray – 1849-1928

CRAY, FERGUSON, FOWLES, JOHNSON, KROH, MARSHALL, MCCULLOUGH, NORTON, SHAFFER, SINCLAIR

Posted By: Diana Wagner
Date: 7/13/2021 at 21:35:29

Mound Prairie Pioneer Dies
Mrs. Jennie Fowles, pioneer of Mound Prairie township, died Oct. 11th, 1928. Funeral services were held Sunday with burial in the Rorabaugh cemetery, with Rev. G. C. Williams officiating.
Jennie Vorce Cray, daughter of Christopher and Priscilla Cray, was born near Trenton, N.J., Jan. 20, 1849 and died Oct. 11, at the age of 79.
She came of Holland, Dutch and Scotch extraction, the advent of her ancestors to America rating prior to the revolution. She came to Iowa at the age of six years with her parents and they settled in their frontier home, near Iowa City, where her father was stricken with death in less than a year, leaving the mother with a family of 10 children to rear, which she did and kept them together until they were grown to manhood and womanhood and they were all of a progressive type. She has been preceded in death by all except one sister, Mrs. Mary Sinclair, of Quincy, Ill.
She was united in marriage to Dexter Fowles, Jan. 21, 1870 and they established their first home on a small clearing one-half mile back in the timer, which was destroyed by fire in 1880 and then they located their building on the road on the present site, which has been her home since, except the years she lived in Newton where she was united with the Congregational church of which she was a regular attendant until her infirmities of age prevented.
To this union seven children were born. She was preceded in death by her husband, Dexter Fowles, Dec. 4, 1904 and two years later by her two grown sons, Frank C. and Wilbur B. in 1917 her daughter, Mrs. Abbie P. Johnson and a daughter in infancy.
She is survived by three daughters, Mrs. J. S. McCullough of Colfax; Mrs. Chas. Norton of St. Charles, Ill., and Mrs. J. S. Marshall, with whom Mrs. Fowles had made her home and she is also survived by five grandchildren, Mrs. Bert Shaffer, Mrs. Glen Ferguson, both of Newton, Mrs. Allen Kroh of Galesburg, Ia., Dexter Fowles Norton and Jane Elizabeth Norton, both of St. Charles, Ill., and six great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild.
Source: Colfax (IA) Tribune; Thursday, October 18, 1928, page 4