Amiel Ben Cain

CAIN WILCOX

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 4/12/2010 at 18:17:05

Woodbury County History 1984

Amiel Ben Cain
By Virginia Cain

Amiel Ben Cain went by Bennie or Ben. His father was John Milton Cain, who might have been born April 1860 in Wisconsin. John married Susan (Wilcox) con December 25, 1884, in Sioux City, Iowa. According to Susan’s obituary, she was born in Madison, Wisconsin, February 18, 1864 or 1865. She was a resident in Sioux City, Iowa, for fifty years. She was 72 years old when she died. Also, according to the 1900 census, John’s father was born in Ireland and his mother was born in England. Susan’s father and mother were born in New Jersey. It lists John as a plumber. On the census it named the following children: Georgie bore November 20, 1886; Claud born June 1889; Jerry born August 1891; Rob born February 1894; Bennie born September 2, 1891; and Glayds born February 7, 1899. There was a John, Tony and a Grace that we known of, too. Tony was born August 11, 1884, and died December 14, 1888; Glayds died August 24, 1905; George ded April 9, 1945. He was in World War I.

According to Beulah’s obituary, Bennie married Beulah Vivian (Austin), February 18, 1925, at LeMars, Iowa. She was born in South Sioux City, Nebraska, January 7, 1906. They had the following childen: Leo; LeRoy; Marylou; Milton John, born March 11, 1932; Raymond; and Rosemarie. There was also a Baby Melvin, born and died in 1927.

Bennie worked for the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad. His son remembers hearing that Bennie started working as a boiler maker in the Round House. They learned that he could bank a boiler so they asked if he wanted to be a fireman on the engines. He accepted and they put him on the extra board and then when his name came up he worked on the engines as a fireman. He used to deadhead to Worthington, Minnesota, and would work for a week or two at a time. He would come home for a few days and then go back. When Bennie was working here in the Sioux City Yards he used to tell his kids that they could come over and have a ride on the engine. His son, Milton, remembers going over and riding the engines and getting to ring the bell. He really enjoyed those times. When the Diesels came out Bennie took the test to be an Engineer. He was one of the top highest scores at this time of the test. Due to ill health he retired in 1944.

After his retirement he enjoyed sitting on the front porch and watching what was going on in the neighborhood. He loved to read detective magazines and he enjoyed watching TV. He also played the harmonica. He used to like to go to town at least once a week. He loved to go with his sons hunting and ride around with them. If the sons would decide to walk a field, Bennie would bring the car to them up the road.

The family lived on the Westside, on 10th and Grandview St, on Highway 75, and then moved in what they call the Springdale Addition. Bennie and Beulah had a chance to buy a house pretty reasonably so they decided to buy it. It was a two story home. Upstairs had two bedrooms, a store room and a landing that was used for a bedroom too. The downstairs had a kitchen, living room, a bedroom and another room. There was a full size dirt basement with a coal furnace. There was a front porch that went across the whole house and it was an open one. The back porch was good size and all enclosed. There was an outside toilet. The family got together and cemented the basement. In aobut 1950, Bennie and Beulah got sewer and put in an inside bathroom, in the extra room downstairs. In later years they screened in the front porch.

In 1953, the Floyd River flooded and everything was ruined that was in the basement or first floor. It reached nine feet high on the outside of the house. The basement was completely full of mud. They had to take it out in five gallon buckets. It was a mess. The bulldozers pushed the mud out of the yard in the street and hauled it away.

In the middle 1950’s they converted the coal furnace to gas. The kids used to say their dad had only two heats, either real hot or cold, with the coal furnace. He’d stoked up the stove and almost run you out of the house, then let it burn down very low and it would get cold. They said he never came up with a happy medium.

Bennie and Beulah lived in this house till their deaths. Bennie died August 31, 1962 in Sioux City. Beulah died September 22, 1970, at the Iowa University Hospital in Iowa City. They both were at the Jack Becker Funeral Home in South Sioux City, Nebraska.

Melvin, Ben, Beulah, Tony, Glayds and George and buried in the Sloan Cemetery. Grace died in California.