Tom & Demis Fowler

FOWLER JOHNSON ELLYSON WATKINS MOORMAN BLAINE SWANGLE HANSBROUGH MOODY

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 9/7/2010 at 19:17:24

History of Woodbury County, Iowa 1984

Tom and Demis Fowler
By Elsie Fowler Newman

Demis Fowler

This is the direct line form 1696 to 1833 on Demis’ mother’s side. These Johnsons originally came from Scotland. They were Protestants and Quakers. John Johnson came to Virginia in 1696. He married Elizabeth Ellyson. A John Johnson, born in 1732, married Lydia Watkins. Samuel Johnson, born in 1761, married Susanna Moorman. John Johnson, born in 1899, married Martha Blaine. John Cloice Johnson married Sarah Ann Swangle.

Cloice and Sara were Demis’ grandparents. John Cloice was born Novembe 19, 1833, a blue-eyed blonde. Sarah Ann Swangle was born April 14, 1833. Her parents were from Germany and she was dark haired with dark brown eyes. John and Sarah were married at Jamestown, Ohio, August 22, 1854. They had twelve years, nine boys and three girls.

Demis’ parents were George Washington Hansbrough, born November 21, 1859, in Douglas or Vermillion County, Illinois. He married Martha Viola Johnson, born September 16, 1868, on December 24, 1886, at Blue Mound, Kansas. Martha passed away April 24, 1902, and is buried near Princeton. George passed away, March 30, 1934, and is buried near Dierks, Arkansas.

In 1902, when Demis’ mother died, she left a husband and seven chidlren: Mary, Lee, Demis, Dennis, Fred, Clara and Dorothy. Each parent was insured for $1,000, so if either was left with the children, they could get a home and keep them together.

They were living on a rented farm, but her Dad wanted to buy one now. The first farm he bought had a small house. He had a chance to sell it at a profit and bought another farm with a larger house. They moved around 1904, before school was out.

Mary, the oldest, stayed to finish Normal School, so the responisbility of cooking and washing fell on Demis. Somehow she didn’t seem to mind. Never again at the age of eleven, would Demis live the life of a normal child. Her Dad gave her the privilege of bossing all the others and everyone had to help her. Demis did not know how to bake bread or biscuits, but she could make cornbread and stir up pancakes. As her sister, Clara recalled, eleven year ols are not good pancake bakers, but what a relief form cornbread.

Her Dad decided to sell his farm he bought 100 acres in Memphis, Tennessee, but after buying it, he found out the water on it was unfit for human use. At this time the family moved to Mapleton, Kansas, from Preston and the children went to different homes. Her Dad never adjusted to managing a family and broke up housekeeping.

Demis went to the Eaton home, wehre she learned the art of seasoning food and became a remarkable cook at a young age. When her Dad put off moving to Memphis, he rented a vacant building on a farm several miles from Mapleton, owned by a Mr Stark. He bought a team, harness, wagon, a milk cow and a dozen hens and collected Fred and Clara. Now Fred and Clara went to the same school as Demis. Then her Dad decided to go to Wellsford around 1909. They left Mapleton in a covered wagon. It was a long slow trip with many hardships and Demis had to do all the cooking outdoors.

At Wellsford, her Dad put up a tent at the Walter Brillhart home. Again he decided he couldn’t keep the family together and started looking for places for them. It was easy to find a place for Demis, who was capable of taking care of a kitchen and could cook aobut anything you could mention or bake. Demis worked for the Howard Gum family and the McFarlands. Then she went to Preston and worked for the Cannons. It was while living there that she met and married Tom Fowler when she was nineteen.

Tom and Demis were married over sixty-eight years when she passed away January 1, 1981, and was laid to rest at Smithland, Iowa. She was a good Mother to her nine kids and the three grandkids she reared, or anyone else who needed a Mother.

The day after her funeral, Dad said to me, ‘I feel better about Ma now as I dreamed I saw her in Heaven’. My reply was, ‘Of Course she’s in Heaven and she’s already mothering someone up there. She has always beena dn will always be a Mother’.

Tom Fowler

Tom Fowler was born August 24, 1884, at Bronson, Kansas, the son of Colonel Alexander and Lucinda (Moody) Fowler. Col. Fowler was in the Civil War. After the war, inpartnership with two other men, he went down the Arkansas River and raised a crop of cotton making a great deal of money. The next year, just as they were ready to pick the cotton, a levee broke and all was a total loss. His money gone, he returned to South Bend and sold some property there for $2,000 and with this as capital, went into the lumber business as Fort Scott, Kansas, in 1868. He did well and made money until the grasshoppers came and ate up Kansas. Lumber sales stopped as welllas collections and even though he owned fifteen houses in Fort Scott, he could not get enough out of them to pay the taxes. He traded them the next year for a farm fifteen miles northwest of Fort Scott and started farming.

He began to do well again as the corn began to grow and he raised hogs. He had a fine drove of hogs ready for the market when, in steps, cholera took them and every hoad to be buriedc instead of sold. Not to be discouraged, he went into raising cattle for a number of years until he found himself with a good farm well stocked and $3,000 surplus in the bank. He decided to use this cash to build a pleasant home, but a few days after it was finished and the family had moved in, it burned up. Undaunted, he built again. The Colonel was married four times, having lost his wives by death.

He was a well-loved Colonel in his regiment. He was strict but kind to his men. In a story written about his regiment by an Army Chaplain after the Civil War, this was said of the Colonel, ‘W heard the fifes and drums playing a great commotion in camp, with the men shouting, Father is back, Father is back’. Colonel Fowler had returned to his regiment.

Tom’s mother died when he was quite young and he was cared for by a Negro woman, whom he loved very much. (Dad visited me at my home in Carlton when he was in his early 90’s. One thing he recaleld was that when he was about twelve, theis substitute Mom of his, took hom in her arms, hugged him and siad, ‘You my boy, Tom, you always be my boy.’) Tom always felt that he was her boy.

Tom left home at any early age to explre the states. He roamed around the country doing an assortment of jobs until he was twenty-eight. Wherever Tom went, he played baseball. It was his love for baseball that led him to his future bride. He was playing a field near Preston, when he first saw Demis Fowler. Tom took one lok at this lively black-haired slip of a girl (she was about four feet, eleven years tall), who could run like a deer and he knew he’d found the girl to marry.

He wrote to the Cannons, where Demis worked to see if he could call on her. Call on her, he did, and they were married October 12, 1912, at Pratt, Kansas. That flame of love for Demis burned in tom’s heart until he passed away on August 4, 1983, at the age of ninety-eight. He was laid to rest on August 8, at Smithland beside his black-haired slip of a girl. Tom was the last Fowler of his generation. (It is with deep regret that I write that I never personally met anyone on the Fowler side.)

Tom and Demis lived in Arkansas, Missouri, Washington and Iowa. They lived in the Climbing Hill, Luton and Sloan areas before moving to Smithland. At Smithland, they bought a few acres on the hills above the Charlie Cox farm between Smithland and Oto. Their neighbors were Charlie and Jennie Cox and Joe and Flossie Jones. They managed through farming, raising some livestock and having a big garden, to make a living for the bare necessities for their family. Tom was also a caretake and grave digger at the Smithland Cemetery. Upon retirement, they moved to Oto, Iowa, until they both went to the Billy Sunday Retirement Home in Sioux City.

Tom and Demis had a deep faith in God, not so much by their words, but by their actions. They lived a good simple life. They believed in people and loved them. They never locked a door. They had so much faith in people that they believed no one would rob them or harm them. Their belief was so strong aht they were never robbed or harmed through their unlocked door. Of course they didn’t have much to steal as that is an advantage to being poor in worldly possessions. No matter what they had, they’d share it. They believed you should as Demis would say, ‘Break bread with people.’ Whoever came, they offered them a portion of whatever they had in a loving manner.

Tom and Demis developed a comical format in their late years. They kept this kids and grandkids laughing many a Sunday afternoon, after Demis had cooked dinner for maybe fifteen univited guests, without batting an eye. One comical situation developed when Tom would walk down to the post office in Oto, to get the mail and when he’d get back, Demis would ask, ‘What took you so long?’ Tom would then reply, ‘Well Ma, all the women on the way down and back had to hug and kiss me.’ (Sometimes they kissed him in th post office too). With her impish grin, Demis would then say, ‘I don’t know what all those women see in you, you old fool.’ ‘You old fool’ was an endearing term at this stage in their life.

After we laid Dad to rest and we were at Harold’s house, I the kids that Dad and Mom’s meeting probably went something like this: First of all, Dad was late getting to Heaven. There was Mom waiting at the top of the stairs saying, ‘Tom, what took you so long getting up here?’ Dad replies, with a twinkle in his eye, ‘Well, Ma, I cain’t help it if aa the Angels had to hug and kiss me on the way up here.’ To this Mom says, ‘I don’t know what those Angels see in you, you old fool.’ She grins, they embrace and thus they are reunited again and in this fact I rejoice. I’ve reunited again and in this fact I rejoice. I’ve always said that Heaven would never be the same when Dad and Mom both got there. I wonder how many Sunday afternoons they have the Angels rolling in the clouds with laughter by their antics.

The children of Tom and Demis are Dorothy, Jack, Fred, Mildred, Harold, Betty, Eva, Raymond (died in infancy), Everett and Elsie (twins), and a stillborn.

Dorothy May Fowler was born July 21, 1913, at Kansas City. She married Marvin Blackford. They had a son who passed away. After they divorced, Dorothy went to California. She was divorced, Dorothy went to California. She was last heard from in the 1930’s as Dorothy or Mrs. Robert McCann. We are still searching for her.

Allen Lee ‘Jack’, was born January 14, 1916, at Wellsford, Kansas. Jack worked for the railroad before going in the Army for World War II. He was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident going to camp and received disability. He lives in Sioux City, and he never married.

Frederick Arthur Fowler was born January 10, 1919, at Waitsburg, Washington. He passed away December 6, 1874, at Smithland. Fred never married. He served in the Army in Australia during World War II, as a Frog Man. Fred was also in the CCC Camp. After the war, he farmed his land plus some rented land. Due to ill health, he retired early. Fred was a gentle and kind person. His folks inherited his land and it was later bought by family members.

Mildred Viola Fowler was born April 13, 1920. She married Everett Wilson in 1935 in Council Bluffs, Iowa. They farmed near Crescent, Iowa, and Everett also worked at Landscaping. They are retired now on their farm. They have three children, Viola, Carl and Rose.

Viola was born September 27, 1937, in Council Bluffs. She married Floyd Lawrence in 1954 in Council Bluffs. Floyd was born July 23, 1934, in Sioux City. Floyd is an Engineering Technician and Viola is a Homemaker and partment Manager. They have four children, David, Teri, Patricia and Sharon.

David was born December 22, 1959. He is a student at Student Pacific Christian College and will graduated December of 83, as a Youth Minister. He lives in Fullerton, California.

Teri was born May 20, 1961, in Norwich, Connecticut. She married Darwin Tiffany in 1979. Darwin was born September 6, 1952, in L A. Teri is a Homemaker and Darwin installs High Rise Elevators. They live in Ontario, California, and have a son, Timothy, born Janaury 26, 1981.

Patricia was born June 18, 1963, in Lancaster. She is a student at Cal. Stte, Long Beach, where she is taking accounting.

Sharon was born September 25, 1972, and is a sixth grade student.

Carl Wilson was born November 21, 1941, in Council Bluffs. He married Judy in 1963. Judy is a Clerical Sales Assistant and Carl is a Landscaper. They have three children.

William was born February 2, 1964, and is a college student. Neil was born February 1967 and is a high school student. Ryon was born May 26, 1871, and is a junior high student.

Rose Wilson was born March 2, 1946, and lives by Mildred and Everett. She is a bookkeeper.

Harold Charles Fowler was born February 10, 1923, at Luton, Iowa. He married Ruth Ann Scott in 1947. Ruth was born September 10, 1924, at Moville. Harold and Ruth had one daughter, Linda. Linda Kay was born October 5, 1948, in Sioux City. Linda married Ron Lee Jensen born April 26, 1949, in Sioux City. They were married in 1969 in Sioux City. Ron and Linda have one daughter, Shawn Lyn, born March 3, 1972 in Sioux City. Linda works for Blue Cross Insurance and Ron works for Prince Manufacturing Company.

Harold served in the Army during World War II. After the war, he purchased a grocery store in Smithland. He quit that and did construction work for awhile. He became a rural mail carrier in Smithland, a job is is still doing and enjoying. He likes to do volunteer for the Legion, and other organizations. It was because of his volunteer work that a park near Smithland was named for him. Fowler Preserve Park is nestled in the beautiful foothills a short ways out of town. Ruth taught school for many years and is now a homemaker.

I sat in the Fowler Preserve a few times and dreamed of a big family reunion in that park. After six months preparation that dream came true. We held a Hansbrough Reunion there in June 1981; with around 130 people form many states. Aunt Clara, Harold, cousins, and myself workedon the reunion.

Betty Jean Fowler was born October 17, 1924, at Climbing Hill, Iowa. She married Donald Dale Sulsberger in 1942. Don was born April 15, 1924, at Holly Springs, Iowa. They had two sons, Robert Ray and Edward.

Bob was born July 28, 1943, at Sioux City. He married Linda Kay Mead in 1966 at Elk Point, South Dakota. Linda was born September 2, 1947, Brainard, Minnesota. They have three children: David Edward, born December 24, 1970, Donald Derrick, born December 20, 1972, and Jonessa Jean, born September 1, 1983.

Bob was in the service from 1961 to 1964. He then worked on construction and now farms on the old Charlie Cox farm, where Betty and Don started farming.

Ed farmed with his Dad until his death in an auto accident in August 1970. Ed was a good kid and we all loved him. A flag pole in the Fowler Preserve Park was dedicated to Ed and his best friend who was also killed in the car crash.

Don and Betty moved from the farm to their present home in Smithland. Don still farms and Betty is a homemaker. Betty likes to get on her riding lawnmower and mow lawns.

Eva Mary Fowler was born February 21, 1926, at Luton, Iowa. She married Lavern C Duhigg in 1945, at Portland, Oregon. Lavern was born April 21, 1925, at Fremont, Nebraska. Eva is a homemaker and Lavern works for Boeing Company in Vancouver, Washington. They have two sons, Michael and Thomas.

Micheal J was born September 20, 1951, at Council Bluffs, Iowa and he married Jean Bailey in 1979. Jean was born January 3, 1950, in Omaha, Nebraska. They have one daughter, Shawna Marie, born March 1, 1982, at Vancouver. Mike works for the Times Publication as Circulation Director. Jean works as a Hospital Housekeeper.

Thomas James was born August 29, 1958, and married Lynelle Rublelke. She was born May 24, 1958. Tom is a chef in a seafood restaurant. Lynelle is a bookkeeper.

Everett Fowler was born September 24, 1928, in Owego, Iowa. He married Geneva Hammond of Oto, Iowa. She died during child birth and the baby girl died also. They are buried at Smithland. They have one son, Gary Lee. Gary married Lana and lives at Kansas City, Missouri. Gary was reared by his grandparents, Tom and Demis Fowler. Everett later married Goldie. They had three sons, Tom, Raymond Lyn and Everett, Jr.

Ray was born June 3, 1958, at Ida Grove, Iowa and is employed by a TV station in Des Moines as an Electronic Technician.

Everett and Goldie live at Galva.

I’m Elsie and I was born September 24, 1928, at Owego, Iowa. First of all I’d like to say that after Mom’s death, I talked to Aunt Clara and she told me these facts; she said I was born sickly cried all the time and wasn’t expected to live. Mom and Dad made up their minds that I would live and they fed me Eagle Brand Condensed milk and took turns rocking me day and night. Thanks, Dad and Mom, for that love.

I married Donald Alfred Newman, born May 7, 1928, in 1947. We had four children.

Gloria Jean was born December 24, 1947, in Sioux City. She married Martin Gilbert Kloster in 1967. Marty was born July 17, 1948, in Watertown, South Dakota. Gloria and Marty have two children: Michelle Renee, born April 12, 1968, in Brookings; and Martin Donald, born August 11, 1976 at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Marty is a Major in M.I. and they are now living in Sierra Vista, Arizona. Gloria is a homemaker and paints.

Patty Ann was born October 26, 1952, and died shorty after birth. She was laid to rest in Memorial Park in Sioux City.

Susan Lynn was born June 19, 1956, in Sioux City. She married Gary Lee Oja in 1974. Gary was born May 29, 1954, in Coguet, Minnesota. They wer divorced on June 22, 1982, with Susan retaining full custody of Tina. Tina was born Augsut 12, 1975.

Donald was born Septembe 2, 1962, in watertown, South Dakota. He is now in training at Fort Jackson, North Carolina, for the Army Reserve. When he finishes his training, he plans to go to school in Texas to be an Occupational Therapist.

Don, my husband has worked at Northern Natural Gas Company for thirty-two years. He plans to retire June 1, 1984, and we’ll move to the Charlie Hall house in Smithland. We’ve moved a lot, in fact we’ve moved so many times that when the moving van backs up, they open the van door, we open our doors up, and the furnitiure just flies out the door by itself.

I’m a housewife; we’ve had eleven foster children and I like antiques. I enjoy giving massages, doing foot reflexology, accupressure and making herbal formulas.

Mom’s only living sister, Clara Spurgeon of Couer d’Alene, Idaho, gave me the dates, information and pictures. She has kept me interested in family history. Aunt Clara, I love you and thanks.