Robert Alexander "Alex" Robison (1822-1907)

ROBISON, GREER, MOORE, MAXWELL, PROCTOR

Posted By: Dorian Myhre (email)
Date: 4/18/2017 at 18:34:52

From Nevada Representative January 25, 1907

OBITUARY

DEATH OF ALEX. ROBISON

Robert Alexander Robison, generally spoken of Alex. Robison, died at his home in this city, late Wednesday afternoon in the eighty fifth year of his age. Mr. Robison had been failing for some time and for the past two or three weeks there had been a continuing and doubtful struggle between the forces of decay and those of his great natural tenacity for life. He held out longer than to those about him seemed possible, and his end came as that of the patriarch whose enjoyment of the scenes of this world was over.

Mr. Robison was born in Mifflin county, Pennsylvania, May 15, 1822, and died at Nevada, Iowa, January 23, 1907, aged 84 years, 8 months and 8 days. he was of the race of the early settlers of the country, his great-grandfather having settled at or near Wilmington, Delaware. He grew up in Pennsylvania and was married Mercer county of that state in March 1856, to Miss Nancy Greer who survives him after a married life of nearly fifty-six years. Mr. and Mrs. Robison moved to LaFayette Indiana, in 1854 and two years later came to Iowa. The journey was made by wagon the start being made with an ox-team but in Illinois, it was found that the neck-yoke galled the oxen and a trade was made fro horses. The journey to Iowa was made in company with George and John Maxwell and their families, and they arrived in the vicinity of Iowa Center in September, 1856. The Robisons had brought withthem a good many supplies; but their ready money when they got here was reduced to ten dollars. Mr. Robison built a one-room cabin, in which himself and wife and the three children that they then had spent the severest winter that has ever been experienced in Iowa. Their sufferings during that winter were very great; two or three men visited them at one time or another; but no woman was able to get to their home until Mary Maxwell, since Mrs. F. M. Baldwin, came to see Mrs. Robison the next spring. But they survived the winter somehow, and in the spring Mr. Robison traded for his first ten acre piece of land. A small inheritance from his father's estate came to him soon after and bought more land. Then he drifted from carpentering, which had been his original occupation, into livestock, and bought more land. As the years progressed he continued to prosper and bought more land so that when his children grew up he was able to set each of them up on a good farm, and in time he moved to town to take life more easily. He and Mrs. Robison located on what used to be the Ross place west of the creek in Nevada fourteen years ago, after a winter in California, they bought the cottage upon Linn street in Nevada, where they have since resided.

Mr. Robison was a type of the pioneers he came to this country when it was new, got a start, accumulated land, shared in the development of the country, worked hard and saved, reared large families, and have spent their old age in comfort. It is of such that the country had grown to its present state, and the respect and esteem in which they are held is genuine. It is not to be expected of such a man that he should live forever; but it has been a pleasure to note the peacefulness of his later years, and his end has come as he and those who were near and dear to him would have wished it to come. Mr. and Mrs. Robison have had nine children, of whom one, William, died in infancy, and the other eight are still living. They are Mrs. Ida Moore of Union township, George of Nevada, Mrs. Emma Maxwell, Roland and Charles of Indian Creek, Mrs. Fannie Proctor of Union township, Edwin of Maxwell and Robert A. of Nevada. There are also ten grand children and two great-grand children.

The funeral will be held today in charge of Rev. A. M. Boyd of the Presbyterian church. There will be brief services at the house here at noon, and the remains will then be taken, to Iowa Center, and the funeral will be in the church there, in the vicinity where the family had lived for forty years. The interment will be in the churchyard there.

The children of Mr. and Mrs. Robinson are all in attendance upon the final rites as are also Mr. and Mrs. Cerwenske of Rockford, and Mr. Edwin Brunson of Council Bluffs.