Caroline A. "Carrie" Barrows Fezler (1832-1910)

BARROWS, NELLIS, BILLINGS, BELLINGS, FURNAS, FEZLER, BURDICK

Posted By: Dorian Myhre (email)
Date: 2/1/2017 at 17:22:04

From Nevada Representative May 17, 1910 (front page)

OBITUARY

Death of Mrs. Carrie Fesler Barrows

Mrs. Carrie Fesler, twice well known in Nevada but perhaps now remembered only by the older generation, died on Saturday, the 14th at Muscatine, where in recent years she has been residing. Mrs. Fesler was a sister of the late Mrs. Hattie A. Burdick, and she came to Nevada from Muscatine with the Burdick family as Miss Carrie Barrows not long after the civil war. She taught then for several years in the Nevada schools and later married a Mr. Nellis* from Cambridge. She was gone from Nevada for a dozen or fifteen years and then returned here with her second husband, a Mr. B. P. Billings*, who was very much an invalid, and they lived for some time in the '80s on the corner where the Addison residence now stands. They removed from here, we think to Muscatine, where Mr. Billings died, and later she had two husbands more, Mr. Benjamin Furnas and Mr. Fesler, the latter of whom committed suicide in Kansas. Since being last widowed she has resided at Muscatine, a sister living there with her. In all her career it appears that her dearest memory was of a soldier lover, who died on his way home to claim her as his bride, and it is by him that she is now buried. This detail with that of her death is given in the following report from Muscatine to Sunday's Register and Leader:

"To be married four times and then to be buried at the side of her soldier lover who was killed just as he was to return from the Civil war to claim his bride, is to be the lost of Carrie Barrows Fesler, who while living was the oldest Muscatine school teacher, and who died today. The groom to be was Capt. George E. Burmeister of Company I, Thirty-fifth Iowa Infantry, who at the time when he was to return from on furlough to be wedded to the girl was struck by a stray bullet and wounded. He died shortly afterward in St. Louis after arranging for embalming and sending of the body home to a waiting sweetheart."

*SUBMITTER'S NOTE: I believe "Mr. Nellis" is Abram Nellis who married Carrie Barrows (1) 15 March 1872 in Story County, Iowa. Their daughter, May Nellis (1872-1873), is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Muscatine so the dates make sense. Despite the fact that Abram and Carrie's divorce was not final until 23 July 1880 in Story County, she apparently remarried (2) David Billings/Bellings prior to his death ca. 1876. She married (3) Benjamin Furnas 19 April 1877 in Muscatine County, Iowa and lastly (4) Philip B. Fezler on 11 December 1890 in Louisa County, Iowa.