Benjamin Franklin Jennings

JENNINGS JONES

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 8/27/2010 at 20:56:38

History of Woodbury County, Iowa 1984

Benjamin Franklins Jennings
By Loraine E Washburn

B F Jennings was born 16 January 1834, Hamilton County, Ohio. He died 23 December 1893 at Hornick, Woodbury County, Iowa. His father was born in Pennsylvania and died when B F was about five years old. The family moved from Ohio to Illinois, and on to Eastern Iowa by about 1839. A biography of B F appears on pages 351-352 of ‘Past and Present of Woodbury County’.

B F farmed in Marion County, Iowa, until the Civil War when he enlisted at Red Rock, Iowa, and spent over three years in Company H, 40th Regiment, Iowa Infantry, serving in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. His military records described him as five feet and nine and one-half inches tall, black hair and eyes, complexion dark. He returned to Marion County in 1865.

On 14 December 1865, he married Mary E Jones, born 29 November 1839, Hancock County, Indiana, a daughter of Thomas P Jones and Eleanor Boyd, long time Jasper County, Iowa, farmers. She died 31 January 1906 at Hornick, Iowa. She and B F are both buried at Willow Township Cemetery, Holly Springs, Iowa.

In 1866 B F and Mary moved to Pitcher Township, Cherokee County, Iowa. Here their eight children were born. Sometime between 1881 and 1883 they moved to Woodbury County, one and one-half miles north of Hornick where he was proprietor of Jennings Hotel, and served as first Postmaster of the town, until his death at age fifty-eight. Mary continued to operate the Hotel for a few years.

Their children were: (1) Laura E, born 23 October 1806, married 1881 at the Jennings home, Cherokee County, to George Lewellyn Washburn, and had a family of twenty-one children. She died 1841 in South Dakota, but has many descendants in Woodbury County, Iowa; (2) Minnie E, born about 1870, married 4 March 1891 in Woodbury County to Jay Branan; we have no further records of her; (3) Wesley Glenn, born 1871, married 5 April 1893 in Woodbury County to Hulda Jane Scott. Wes worked on WPA, and drove a stock truck. His family lived on the Jennings farm at Hornick. His children were: Hazel, born 1894, married Ephraim Renville; Hazel’s daughter, Arlene, married in 1933 at Anthon, Iowa, to Ival Smith, and resides at Correctionville, Iowa. Arlene has four children and eleven grandchildren. Glenn Preston, born 1896, married 1919 at Sergeant Bluff to Odetta Betts, and resided at Sergeant Bluff until his death in 1983. He was a veteran of World War I. Odetta is confined to a nursing home. Parents of three children: Mehrle, Roy Wesley, and LaVonne (Mrs Melvin Pronneke). They have seven grandchildren and at least four great grandchildren.

Faye, the third child of Wes and Hulda, was born in 1897; he died before 1978. Married to Louise Allen, he had one daughter, Leota.

Garrett, born 1899, married (1) Bessie (last name unknown), and had two daughters, Bette and rose Elaine. Garrett married (2) Zelda (last name unknown), and (3) Lorena (last name unknown), (4) Cora M, born 1873, died 1956, Iowa City, Iowa; married about 1907 at Kodaka, South Dakota, to Joseph J Russell, 1863-1946. This couple lived in Sioux City from 1922 until their deaths, and are buried in Memorial Park Cemetery, Sioux City. They had two sons: Joseph, deceased after his mother; and Wayne who is a resident of Sioux City, and has at least three sons and four grandchildren.

(5) Elmer Claud, born 1875, died 1936 at Hayden Lake, Idaho. He lived with his parents at Hornick, Iowa, when he was a youngster, and was married in South Dakota, in 1910, to Myrle H Ward (died 1974). This couple lived in South Dakota until at least 1926, then moved to Idaho. Parents of seven children: Neva, Dorothy, Harold, Elmer, Avon, Ohmar and Billy, none of whom lived in Woodbury County.

(6) Margaret Grace, born 1877, died 1964, Sioux City, buried in Graceland Cemetery there; she married (1) William Batman of Moville, and (2) Jack Christie. Three children of marriage one: Maude, married 1936 in Sioux City to Mark Menard lived at Sergeant Bluff, Oxnard, California, currently in Corpus Christi, Texas. Parents of two daughters probably born in Woodbury County, Jeanette and Kathleen; Vera married Mr Thom and had two sons. (They lived at Los Gatos, California.) A son, of whom we have no further record. All three were born before 1904.

(7) Eva M, born 1880; in 1900 she was living with her mother at Hornick, Iowa. In about 1904 she was working in the County Recorder’s office in Sioux City. She married a Mr. Cadwallader (after 1904) and was said to have one daughter. In 1942, she was a resident of Los Angeles, California. Her photo appeared in the Sioux City Journal Friday, July 31, 1942, as a houseguest of the Elder family of 21 Gilman Terrace. We have no further information of her.

(8) Infant Jennings, no further information of this child.