Yale Meek Finley

FINLEY

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 8/28/2010 at 00:12:32

History of Woodbury County, Iowa 1984

Yale Meek Finley
By Dorothy Glover

Yale Finley’s great grandfather, James N Finley, was born in Ireland about 1810. He, his wife, Suzanne, and eldest son, James Graham, came to the United States and settled in Cecil County, Maryland, where Samuel and Margaret were born. In 1836, the family migrated to Woodford County, Illinois, where William, John W, Robert J and one other girl were born. Their log cabin stood on, or near, the site of the present Eureka College grounds. There was no town there at that time. The family moved later to Versailles and again onto a square section on the Mackinaw River, where a neighbor and his ox team broke prairie for them in 1850. William, the third son, was a volunteer in the twenty-sixth Illinois Infantry, died in the service and lies buried at Nashville, Tennessee.

Samuel was born about 1832 or 1833. He married Katherine Laytin about 1852 or 1853. She was of Holland extraction and was an heir to the Anneke Jens Estate. She was born in Monmouth County, New Jersey, where her father was a boat builder before moving to Illinois. They landed at Pekin and then settled about five miles from the town of Mackinaw, close to an old Indian trail and camp. Samuel was the nimrod of the family and kep the larder filled with venison, turkey and other wild game. He also trapped minks, skunks and muskrats. They had nine children – Jaems Carleton, Emma, Clara, Sadie, Hannah, Charles, Effie, Emory and one other.

James Carleton was born in 1864. He married Geneva Moore in 1887. She was born at Eureka, Illinois, in 1872 to Sarah Search, born 1850, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, and Luther Moore, born 1844, Todd County, Kentucky. James and Geneva lived in Eureka where he was a barber by trade. He died in 1911 and she ran a boarding house to support herself and younger children. They had five children – Bess, Ralph, Yale M, Claude S and Floyd T.

Yale came to Sioux City, Iowa, aobut 1912. His mother’s cousin, Reverend Search, had started the Helping Hand Mission in Sioux City and he came to keep the books. Several years later his brother, Claude ‘Red’, also came to Sioux City. He married Grace Hamel and they had six children – Claude, Jean ‘Mrs Robert Jones’, James, Janice ‘Mrs James Benjamin’, Robert and Joan (Bourret). Claude worked for the Sioux City Transit Company for many years and passed away in 1976.

Yale married Hazel E King in 1915 and in 1916 went to work for the Great Northern Railroad where he worked until 1943 when ill health forced his retirement. He passed away in 1947 at the age of 53. They had one daughter, Dorothy. Hazel worked as hostess in Younker’s Tearoom form 1946 until 1961 when she married Edgar Twogood and moved to Kingsley, Iowa. Mr Twogood died in 1973 and she returend to Sioux City where she still resides.

Dorothy’s marriage to Randall Tracy produced two daughters, Randy Lee and Toni Jane. Randy lives in Ashland, Nebraska. Toni is married to David Cooper. They farm near Moville, Iowa, and have tow children, Traci Fern and David Jon. Dorothy married John W ‘Bill’ Glover in 1950 and they farm at Lawton, Iowa. Their son, Mark, is married to Karen White and they have one child, Brandi Holm and live near Lawton, Iowa.