Palmer Howard-Melott

HOWARD MELOTT MULLINEX

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 9/22/2010 at 17:20:25

History of Woodbury County, Iowa 1984

Palmer Howard-Melott
By Genevieve Howard

Many early settlers came to Iowa by way of Cedar County. Daniel and Sophia Moore Howard were there in 1865, because our grandfather, John W Howard was born there that year. Jarvis Mullinex, his second wife, Sarah Townsend, and some of Jarvis’ children were there also. Louisa Mullinex and Hugh Melott, my maternal grandparents, were married in Cedar County in 1878, and their first three children were born there.

The Howards went to Pottawattamie County, Iowa, and then north to Woodbury County. Daniel and Sophia Howard’s Calvin and Ziba lived in Oto. Their daughter, Elizabeth ‘Lizzie’ never married, but went from family to family helping with the children. I met her once when she was helping in an Oslin home in Sioux City. Mary Howard had married James Oslin.

Daniel and Sophia’s son, Grant Howard married Rilla Phillips. She had been born near Oto in 1865 and died there in 1910. Grant and Rilla’s children were Mark, Lula (married Ray Campbell) and Lela. Our grandfather, John W Howard married Mary Elizabeth Palmer in 1886. Our Dad, Emery Earl Howard, was born in Woodbury County, 19 May 1890. Dad and our mother, Edna Melott, were married 23 August 1908. They both lived in Oto but went up to Sioux City to be married by Rev Chipperfield in the Morningside Methodist Church. They operated a confectionary store in Oto until they went early in 1910 to join the John W Howards in Morton County, North Dakota. I was born there. Then they returned to Oto in 1912 and went to work for ‘Tink’ Wendell on a place east of town.

That place figured prominently in the history of our family in two generations. Mother’s folks, Jahue and Louisa Mullinex Melott, had moved from Cedar County to Crawford County by 1883 where six more children were born. Their last two children were born at the place east of Oto in 1896 and 1899 after they moved to Woodbury County. The house there was always referred to as ‘the old brick house’. Mother said the house was old when they moved there, and that clay for the brick had been dug, shaped and fired right there on the place. Is the house still standing?

My brother, John, was born in ‘the old brick house’ in August 1912. Mary Louise was born in Oto in January 1917. Then we moved to Cherokee where Dorothy was born in 1919. Dad worked on the railroad. After he came home from World War I, we moved to Hot Springs, South Dakota in March 1920. Dad died there 3 February 1953, and Mother died there 29 January 1979.

Many of Mother’s family, the Melotts, remained in Woodbury County. Stewart married Agnes Smith. For many years he operated a store at Calumet, Iowa. Victor married Alma Phipps. Emily married Jay Prichard. George married Sarah --. Their daughter, Captola, is the mother of Dave Kingman, the baseball player. Genevieve Melott had a millinery shop in Oto about 1916-1917.

Jahue and Louise Melott were divorced, and Jahue later married Mabel Burkhead and lived in Sioux City. They had two sons, Harold and Raymond. Harold was swept to his death on a cake of ice when the young boys were playing along the river one spring.

Dad’s mother’s parents, William ‘Billy’ and Cora Sinclair Palmer were in Woodbury County also. In 1882 they moved from Pottawattamie County, Iowa, to Peiro near Oto where ten of their children were born. They lived on various farms in Grant Township and in the ‘McClusky’ neighborhood.

William and Cora Palmer’s oldest child was Mary Elizabeth, Dad’s mother. She taught school in Woodbury County. Pupils in her school for the term commencing 31 August 1885 at the Brittain School, Peiro, were Johnnie, Lizzie and Mattie Corrigan, Nellie, Albert and Ardo Brittain, Willey and Alva McClusky, Susie Whiteman and Lou Howard. I have Grandmother Mary Elizabeth’s autograph book of 1885 and 1886, and many of the persons writing in the book showed their addresses as Peiro or Correctionville.

William Palmer’s sister, Eliza, married Duncan Malcom. They were in Woodbury County in 1883. Their daughter, Mae, married John Behrens in 1912, and their daughter, Mabel married Walter Scott Harshfield. Both families lived in Sioux City. The youngest Malcom girl, Opal, married Robert Grier. Eliza is buried in Bethel Cemetery at Peiro, as is William and Cora Palmer’s daughter, Emma, who married Adolph Hargen.

I loved to listen as Mother and Dad would reminisce about early days in Woodbury County, and especially about the folks who lived in and around Oto. They would mention the families of Benton, Brooks, Green, Livermore, Wise, Parkhill, Coyne, Allman, Gambs, and many others.