Margaret Neal (1947)

NEAL, HICKS, TRASTER

Posted By: Pat Hochstetler (email)
Date: 8/20/2006 at 15:36:55

Winterset Madisonian - Wed., February 10, 1947

Mrs. Margaret Neal, who came to Madison county in a covered wagon as a child, died Friday, Feb. 14, 1947, at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Lou Traster of near Earlham. She was 88 years of age and had been in failing health for some time.

Mrs. Neal was a native of Putnum county, Indiana, where she was born March 31, 1858, the daughter of James Alfred and Mary Ellen Hicks. When her parents moved to Iowa about 1869, she made the trip with them in a covered wagon, crossing the Mississippi river on a ferry boat. They settled in Madison county.

She was married at Patterson on April 4, 1885, to W. J. Neal. They were the parents of five children, three of which died in infancy, and one son, Guy, dying in 1935.

About 1902 Mr. and Mrs. Neal and their two children moved to Missouri, then to Kansas, and later to Scott's Bluff, Neb., where they lived for many years. They celebrated their Golden Wedding anniversary there in 1935.

After the death of her husband in 1941, Mrs. Neal returned to Iowa to make her home with her daughter, Mrs. Traster, at Earlham.

Mrs. Neal had been a member of the Baptist church since young womanhood.

She is survived by her daughter, Mrs. Traster; two grandchildren; and two brothers, H. C. Hicks of Emerson and J. W. Hicks of Steele City, Neb.

Funeral services were held from the Ramsey-Richards funeral home in Winterset last Saturday, in charge of the Rev. Reed Kessler of Lorimor. Burial was made at Scott's Bluff.