Lydia Agnes (Hughes) Dodds (1847-1937)

HUGHES, DODDS, MORRIS, CLARK

Posted By: Dorian Myhre (email)
Date: 5/19/2022 at 18:09:24

From Nevada Evening Journal April 17, 1937 (page 4)

Mrs. Robert Dodds; Real Pioneer Woman Is Dead

Special to the Journal:
Ames, April 17--Mrs. Robert Dodds, 90, for over four score years a resident of this community is dead.

Funeral services will be held Sunday afternoon at 2:00 o'clock, at the Adams Funeral chapel here, after which the body will be laid to rest in the family lot a Pleasant Grove cemetery, northeast of here, by the side of the husband who died in 1924.

Death occurred at her home 631 Clark street at 6:00 a. m. Friday, after an illness of several weeks, she having suffered stroke after her ninetieth birthday on February 25.

Born Lydia Agness Hughes, daughter of Thomas and Eleanor Hughes, in Green county, Pa., she was one of a family of 11 children.

In February, 1856, the family, then consisting of the parents and five children left their home in Pennsylvania for the prairie lands of Iowa.

After traveling for five weeks in a covered wagon the family arrived at the banks of the Skunk river northwest of the present site of Ames April 5, and established a homestead. There was no town of Ames at that time, and only a few modest cabins at Nevada.

First Sawmill

Mr. Hughes erected the first sawmill on the banks of the river and later made a grist mill. The children attended the Bloomington school, remains of which Iowa may now be seen northeast of Ames.

Agnes Hughes and Robert N. Dodds were married in 1886 and started housekeeping on a farm two and one-half miles east of Gilbert. Mr. Dodds was born in Pennsylvania and came to Story county when young.

Prior to her marriage Mrs. Dodds taught at the Pleasant Grove school, which had at that time. All during her life, even after the couple retired in 1905 and moved to Ames, Mrs. Dodds was active, reading being her special hobby.

Surviving Mrs. Dodds are eight children, Mrs. Frank Morris and Mrs. Robert Clark of Ames, Ross of southwest of Gilbert, Harry of Ontario, Bert of Ortonville, Minn., Clarence of Britton, S. D., George of Ocean Park, Cal., Ira of north of Gilbert. Also surviving are 22 grandchildren and 24 great-grandchildren.