Nancy Arney Neff 1840-1936

NEFF, ARNEY, BOYLES, HAUSER, ELSBERRY, MOSIER, FULK, NICKLE, HILSABECK, WEATHERLY, GRIGGS

Posted By: C. Tucker (email)
Date: 11/19/2010 at 17:06:40

Times Republican
Marshalltown, IA [Thursday 4-9-1936] p. 17

OLDEST PIONEER RESIDENT PASSES

---“Aunt” Nancy Neff Dies at Liscomb---

LAST OF SETTLERS COMING HERE IN ’49

---One of First Settlers in Bethel Grove Neighborhood – Would Have Celebrated 96th Anniversary of Birth in June – Endured Hardships of Early Days---

Death at 3:30 Wednesday afternoon claimed “Aunt” Nancy Neff, the oldest pioneer of Marshall county and the last of the 1849 settlers of the “Arney bend” neighborhood, near Bethel Grove, remaining in the county, who passed away at the home of her foster son, Mayor C. H. Neff, of Liscomb, where she had been living for the past five years. “Aunt” Nancy, as she is affectionately known by a wide circle of relatives and friends, would have been 96 years old had she lived until June 28. She had been in failing health for some time and had been bedfast since May 12. She had been cared for by Mr. Neff and his wife. The body was brought to the Estel funeral home in this city where it will remain until 10:30 Friday morning, when it will be taken to the Neff home at Liscomb where a prayer service will be held at 1 o’clock. Funeral services will be held from the Liscomb Church of Christ at 2 o’clock, in charge of Rev. Loren E. Works, assisted by Rev. George W. Biersborn, who will also conduct the prayer service. Burial will be on the family lot in Bethel Grove cemetery. - - Native of Indiana - - “Aunt” Nancy was born near Arney Postoffice, Owen county, Indiana, June 28, 1840, the youngest of 10 children. The family included parents, John and Mary (Boyles) Arney; Lucinda who died at the age of six months; Noah, who was scalded to death at the age of 3 years, when he fell into a kettle of hot water before the fireplace; Rebecca, who married Jacob Hauser; Martha, who became Mrs. Ayres Elsberry; Mary, who married “Timber John” Hauser; William, who married Betsy Boyles; Frederick, who was killed by a falling tree when he was 14 years old; Andrew, who married Elmira Mosier; Solomon, who married Eliza Fulk; and Nancy Jane, who became the wife of Henry Neff. The entire family lived in a three-room log house with a kitchen attached by means of a small porch, and there was one large upstairs room. In the summer of 1849 John Arney called a family council of his three sons and his three sons-in-law, and it was decided to move to Iowa. Preparations for the 400 mile journey were immediately got under way. Flax was broken and woven for the covers for the five prairie schooners. The caravan of 17 persons, with three teams of horses and five yoke of oxen, started for Iowa in September, 1849. Of the 17 persons in the group, Mrs. Sarah Jane Nickle of Des Moines, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Hauser, who was a babe of three months, is the only remaining member since the death of “Aunt” Nancy. The incidents of the trip and the struggles and hardships of the pioneer years in a new country have been told and re-told by “Aunt” Nancy at the reunions of the Arney clan, and of the Beeson-Arney-Hauser group, where she was always an honored guest. - - Journey of Four Weeks - - The Mississippi was crossed at Keokuk and they came immediately to the Timber Creek settlement in Marshall county, where they were given a hearty welcome by the Brush, Ferguson, Cooper, and Jackson Smith and William Smith families, who were friends from Indiana. The 400-mile journey was completed in four weeks. A claim across the river, was selected and staked, and within two weeks the men of the party, with the help of the settlers, had chopped down trees and built a log cabin and the family had moved into their new home. “Aunt” Nancy said that at this time there was one cabin located at what later became Marshalltown. This cabin was occupied by the John Braddy family. Land was cheap in the early days and horses were at a premium. John Arney traded a horse to John Ballard for the improvements on what is now the C. E. Arney farm, northwest of Albion, and when the land came on the market, entered on it at $1.25 an acre. A one-room cabin of split logs was on the claim, and to this was added a two-room addition of hewn logs, and the family moved in during the fall of 1850. - - School in Arney Cabin - - One room of the John Arney cabin was equipped with a board for a desk and benches along the wall for seats, and in 1851 it became the first school in the neighborhood. John Arney was so well pleased with the farm land of the fertile Iowa prairies that he gave to each of his sons 80 acres of land, and to each daughter $100, provided they remained here. This they gladly promised to do, and the settlement became known as the “Arney bend”, because it was located at a bend in the Iowa river. - - Center of Religious Life - - The Arney home provided the religious center of the “bend” and itinerant preachers always found a ready welcome. “Aunt” Nancy was converted at a meeting held in her father’s home and was happy in her religious faith during all of her life. George Patton, a Reformed Dunkard, who had settled at Marietta, started an organizations of the Christian church at a meeting held in the school house, and in 1858 the organization was completed at a meeting in the Arney barn, and took the name of the Bethel Christian church, having no creed but the bible for their faith and practice, and making Christian character a test of fellowship, with communion and the feet washing ceremony observed once a year. “Aunt” Nancy was a charter member of this church, which became known as the “Old Bethel” Christian church, which flourished for a number of years, but which fell dilapidated because so many of the original members died or moved away from the community. “Aunt” Nancy had always left her membership in this church, altho she was an active worker in the Methodist church at Albion during the long years of her residence in that village, and always took an active interest in all religious services wherever she happened to be, as long as her health permitted. On July 7, 1861, her father’s sixty-fourth birthday, “Aunt” Nancy became the wife of Henry Goodwin Neff, a young man from Champaign county, Ohio, who had come to Iowa in 1856. They were married at the Arney home by Rev. Joseph Ferguson, a Christian minister from Timber Creek. Perlina Hauser (Price) and John Lockard, a young soldier in the civil war, “stood up” with them. - - Wedding Trip to Ohio - - After a wedding trip to Ohio, Mr. and Mrs. Neff bought 80 acres of land, now part of the Henry Leise farm, southeast of Liscomb, for which they paid $3 an acre. The lumber for the house was sawed at the Dr. McRill saw mill, west of Albion, and the house was one of the first frame houses in this part of the country. A large eight room house was later built on the farm, and the farm was sold to Henry Leise in 1894 for $51 an acre. Mr. and Mrs. Neff moved to Albion in 1894 where Mr. Neff passed away Jan 10, 1918. After her husband’s death “Aunt” Nancy continued to live in Albion. She spent three winters with her foster son, C. H. Neff, at Liscomb before going there five years ago to make her permanent home. - - Reared Three Children - - “Aunt” Nancy was never blessed with children of her own, but she found a place in her heart and home for three motherless children, two of who were adopted. A grand nephew, Carey Hilsabeck Neff, of Liscomb, was adopted in 1865, when he was 9 months old. Rosetta Weatherly Neff, now Mrs. M. A. Hauser of Marshalltown was 2 years old when she was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Neff in 1873, and Bert B. Griggs of Marshalltown was 19 months old when he was taken into the Neff home in 1886.