Eunice Jane Banks Robbins (1960)

ROBBINS, BANKS, CRAWFORD, DEBUTTS, RISHER, CAMPBELL, MCKEE, MCCOY

Posted By: Treva Patterson (email)
Date: 3/3/2006 at 19:03:04

Winterset Madisonian
March 1960

FALL FATAL TO MRS. C. A. ROBBINS

Member of Prominent Family Here Dies at Age of 91 Years

Mrs. C. A. Robbins, member of a pioneer Madison county family and widow of the prominent Winterset attorney was fatally injured last Fiday in a fall on the stairs leading to her second-floor apartment in the First National bank building here. She was taken to Memorial hospital, but her death occurred Sunday, March 13.

Mrs. Robbins was 91 years of age. She was the former Eunice Jane Banks, daughter of Josiah and Elizabeth Crawford Banks. Both of her parents had come to Madison county in 1855 from Indiana, where they were born. Both the Banks and Crawford families had originated in North Carolina, where her great grandfather, Malachi McCoy, served as a private in the 6th North Carolina regiment in the American Revolutionary war.

Mrs. Robbins was born in Scott township Sept. 1, 1868. She attended the old Rogers school and Winterset high school. She was married Dec. 28, 1890 to C. A. Robbins, young Winterset attorney. Her life was spent in this community, with the exception of the years 1911 to 1920 when the family lived in Des Moines, while Mr. Robbins served as assistant Iowa attorney-general.

In Des Moines, she served as president of the Des Moines Political Equality club and was one of the last surviving members of the Iowa Suffrage commission. She was a member of the Sorosis Chautauqua circle there and president of the Polk county W.C.T.U.

Her church affiliation was with the Methodist church. In Winterset she was a member of the Current Topic Club and the Madison County Antique association. At one time she served as secretary to the county Farm Bureau, and as a rural school director.

Her husband died here in 1941. She is survived by two daughters, Mrs. Vivian DeButts of Sioux Ciyt and Mrs. Blanche Risher of Des Moines; three grandson, William DeButts of Chicago, Gordon Risher of Des Moines, and Robbins Risher of Monrovia, Liberia; and three sisters, Mrs. Charles Campbell, Mrs. Frank McKee and Mrs. W. J. McKee all of Winterset.

Funeral services were to be held this Wednesday at 2 o'clock from Anderson home for funeral, conducted by the Rev. John C. Porath, pastor of the Winterset Methodist church. Burial was to be made in the Winterset cemetery.