Hughes

HUGHES MARTIN

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 9/22/2010 at 17:37:53

History of Woodbury County, Iowa 1984

Hughes Family

George Elliott Hughes was born December 2, 1873, in Muckallo County, Nebraska. His mother died when he was fourteen. The youngest member of his family, he had four brothers and five sisters.

Eva (Martin) Hughes was born August 27, 1871, at Columbia City, Indiana. The oldest child in the family, she had two brothers and two sisters. She started her schooling in Indiana and stayed with her grandmother after completing school to attend finishing school, for sewing. As a young lady, she moved to Nebraska with her family.

George Elliott enjoyed dancing and playing cards as an active young gentleman. Miss Eva Martin was a Baptist who believed in neither cards nor dancing. How they met, probably an adventure in itself, is not known; but their children, knowing their father, are reasonably certain that it was not a church social. A romance developed and they were married on August 24, 1893, in Red Cloud, Nebraska.

They honeymooned in a covered wagon pulled by a team of horses that was a wedding gift from the groom’s father. They traveled through Missouri and Arkansas. The groom’s father and stepmother and his brother, Asia, and Asia’s wife, Mabel, accompanied the honeymooning couple, forming a caravan of three wagons. They took with them several cows as a source of food. This trip, which lasted three months, was unusual, as people in those days did not take honeymoons or vacations.

They returned to Nebraska and began farming. They lived in the area of Nebraska and Kansas where their first children were born. They had three daughters before moving to Iowa in 1900. They moved to be near his brother, Constantine, near Logan, Iowa. They hoped to find better farmland there. By the time they moved to Monona County in 1906 they had six daughters. They settled near Whiting, Iowa, on a half-section and raised corn, wheat, and daughters. In 1916, during a measles epidemic, they lost their second daughter, Myra, at the age of eighteen. They had four more children born near Whiting, two of which were sons.

The children all attended the Whiting school and the two oldest daughters, Nellie and Clarissa, were married during this period. Nellie married Franz Hacker, and they had three children. Clarissa married Harry Fosnot and they had five children.

The rest of the family moved to Woodbury County in March of 1919. This move was prompted by the fact that Mr Hughes came down with pneumonia and it was recommended that he leave the bottom grounds, due to the moisture in the area of Whiting. The children attended various schools throughout Woodbury County. The remaining children graduated from high schools in Woodbury County.

Maude, who graduated in 1922 and then taught school for two years, married Frank Crocks in 1925 and had three children. Katherine graduated in 1922 and married Edward Ahlquist and had four children. Carry graduated in 1925 and married Gordon Dean Powell in 1933. They had one son. She later married Lloyd Reed in 1944.

Milo graduated in 1927 and took up farming. He married Marie Carstenson in 1930 and they had two children. Ruth graduated in 1927 and married Otto Meister in 1928. They farmed in Woodbury County and had five children. Floyd married Helen Kearnes in 1931 and had three children. Dorothy married Delbert Henshaw in 1932 and had three children.

Mr Hughes died in Woodbury County in April, 1946, and Mrs Hughes died in 1948. Both are buried at Whiting, Iowa. They have twenty-five grandchildren and twenty-five great grandchildren at the time of Mrs Hughes’ death.