Walter Pettit & Idella Chase Heath

HEATH CHASE MCMULLIN SHURTS

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 9/21/2010 at 21:46:50

History of Woodbury County, Iowa 1984

Walter Pettit and Idella (Chase) Heath
By Marjorie Heath Ellis

Walter Pettit Heath, son of Vellorus and Jane McMullin Heath, was born 2 July 1866 in Grant County, Wisconsin, and moved with his family to Pottawattamie County, Iowa in 1871. In 1882, they moved to Woodbury County, Iowa, and lived on a farm one mile south and one-quarter mile east of the Rock Branch Methodist Church.

Idella Mary Chase was born 16 November 1868, in Bureau County, Illinois, daughter of Lyman J and Mary Shurts Chase. The family moved to Benton County, Iowa, when she was about one year old and came to Woodbury County about 1881. Her parents owned the farm one mile south of the Rock Branch Methodist Church. The family built a barn on the farm and lived upstairs in it until the house was completed.

Walter and Idella ‘Ida’ were married 25 September 1888, and their honeymoon consisted of a trip to the Corn Palace in Sioux City. They started married life on a farm near Lucky Valley. They had two sons, Harry Clinton and Elmer Ray.

Most of their lives were spent in the town of Bronson where they operated a restaurant and then a hardware store and where Walter id carpenter work with his sons in later years. They were members of the Odd Fellows and Rebekah Lodges in Bronson. Wally, as he was affectionately known, like to garden and in his early years played the ‘fiddle’. Ida was a meticulous housekeeper and devoted her life to the raising of her two sons and in later years to being mother as well as grandmother to her granddaughter, Marjorie. Holidays and visits were often times spent with Walter’s brother and Ida’s sister, Chad and Jennie Heath and family in Anthon.

Ida died 2 April 1943 and Walter died 29 January 1951. They are buried in Fairfield Cemetery, Rock Branch.