Caleb Ernest Cushing

CUSHING KING

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 4/12/2010 at 18:29:31

Woodbury County History 1984

Caleb and Lillian (King) Cushing
By Lillian Bremer

Caleb Ernest Cushing was born June 24, 1861, at Rochester, Strafford County, New Hampshire, son of Enoch Cushing and Charlotte Buzzel-Bugel. (See 1883 History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa.) Enoch was born in Tamworth, New Hampshire, in 1829. He lived in different areas of New Hampshire, the 1850 Federal Census showing him in Dover, New Hampshire. In 1949, he married Charlotte Buzel-Bugel of Barrington, New Hampshire.

In 1862, when Caleb was just a baby, the family moved to Boston, Massachusetts. While there, Enoch did different kinds of work that included working in a shoe factory, raising vegetables for market, carpentry, and dairying. In 1868, Enoch came to Pottawattamie County, Iowa. Several families came by train to the end of the railroad line, which was then Council Bluffs. While the women and children stayed in a boarding house, Enoch and the other men turned back east in search of land to purchase. He bought 80 acres from the Chicago-Rock Island-Pacific Railroad Company in 1869. Eventually he increased that amount to 240 acres. Enoch and Charlotte had three daughters, one of whom was Caleb. Enoch died in 1920, Charlotte in 1925. Both are buried near Avoca, Iowa.

In 1887, as a young man, Caleb began farming with his brother, Ervin, in Monona County near Ute. Then in 1890, he married Lillian Gladys King in Onawa, Iowa. Lillian, the daughter of Joseph and Mary (Brumby) King, was born November 29, 1867, in Ohio.

Caleb and Lillian’s first four children were born near Ute, Iowa, the last in Sioux City. Claude was born in June 1892, married Martha Anderson, and died about 1971. Bernice was born May 8, 1894, married Marion Cagley, and died near Nashua, Iowa, about 1977. Bessie is a twin to Bernice. She was born May 8, 1894, and still lives her home on Stone Avenue in Sioux City. She married first, Robert Alberts, and second, Elson Brown. Lillian was born November 24, 1897, and married first, Harry Anderson, and second, Joseph Bremer. She lives at Sunrise Manor in Sioux City. (See Bremer, Lillian.) The youngest child, Carlyle, was born in Sioux City, March 9, 1904, married Sarah Bray, and still lives in St Joseph, Michigan.

Caleb Cushing, his wife called Lillie, and their four oldest children moved in December of 1903 to the 80 acres they purchased in eastern Morningside. They moved into the frame house already on the land, and farmed there until about 1909-1910. At that time, poor health forced Caleb to quit farming and move into town.

Caleb and his wife built a large, lovely home at 3814 Peters Avenue. At that hime, Morningside College had no dormatories. Three of the bedrooms in the Cushing home were rented out to college students. The children slept in the spacious attic.

Even after Caleb moved to town, he would walk back and forth to the farm to milk the cow, carrying milk back to town. About 1913, the abandoned house on the farm burned down. Daughter Lillian, recalls watching the fire from a stairway window of the Peters Avenue house. Although the house was destroyed, memories could not be. Those memories included seeing smoke pouring from the chimney while Cushing children walked home from Whittier School. Curls of smoke indicated their mother had baked her famous round loaves of bread; done to avoid argument about which ones would get the crust! Another memory involved Caleb sitting in front of the pot-bellied stove after supper. His children would race to get the place of honor on his lap, in order to hear his wonderful ‘bear stories’.

Caleb Cushing died in 1923 in Sioux City, and is buried in Graceland Cemetery in Sioux City.

Shortly after Lillian Cushing became a widow, she moved from her large house on Peters Avenue and bought an almost new house at 4201 Garretson Avenue. This lovely sturdy home still standsy, housing a new family as of 1983.

Painful arthritis necessitated a change and in 1940, Lillian’s daughter and son-in-law, Harry and Lillian Anderson, moeved into the house with her. Daughter, Lillian, lived here until 1982.

Lillian King Cushing died December 25, 1943, in Sioux City. She is buried in Graceland Cemetery beside her husband Caleb Cushing.