Robert Wayne & Jessie Frankes

FRANKES FLOWER

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 9/22/2010 at 20:41:24

History of Woodbury County, Iowa 1984

Robert Wayne and Jessie (Flower) Frankes
By Robert L Frankes

Robert Wayne Frakes was born April 29, 1859 in Milford (now Grant), Iowa. His ancestors came from England settling in the Northern Neck of Virginia in the mid 1600’s just a short distance form the John Washington plantation, the grandfather of our first President.

At the Indian lands of southwest Pennsylvania were opened for settlement, the family moved to Green County, Pennsylvania. Remaining a very short hime, until Kentucky was opened for settlement, and moved the family down the Ohio River to Hardin County, Kentucky, the birth place of Abraham Lincoln.

John Frakes, Sr, brought the family by barge to their new land of 200 acres of good Kentucky farmland. John had seven children all migrating to Indiana as it was opened for settlement. Almost every branch of the Frakes’ ancestors, descended from Indiana.

Philip Frakes, the sixth son of John S, Sr, married Elizabeth Dobson in 1808. John S accumulated 400 acres of Perry County, Indiana where the total Frakes’ faimly acreage surpassed 950 acres. Most of the 400 acres was left to Philip who married Sarah Ransom in Perry County and continued to farm until he left with his wife, Sarah and six children for Montgomery County, Iowa. The family settled in Milford (now Grant), Montgomery, Iowa where they bought and managed a hotel.

When Sarah died Robert Wayne and his sisters sold the hotel and each married and went their way. Robert Wayne married a New York state girl, Jessie Fremont Flower in Red Oak, Iowa. They moved to Dunlap, Harrison County, Iowa where they lived about ten years and raised six children. Robert Wayne was a salesman-construction worker by this time, and followed the railroad movement, west to Nebraska where Robert Hazel ‘Hazel’ was born October 20, 1893, in Laurel, Nebraska. Four years later the family moved to Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa, where Althea Beatrice was born, the last of nine children.

Robert Hazel, son of Robert Wayne and Sarah, married Gladys Marguarite Maxfield, September 21, 1919, in Sioux City, Iowa, after his discharged from the Army. Gladys was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, later moving to Sioux City with her paents, William B and Katheryn Maxfield, long time Sioux City pioneers. Gladys was born November 9, 1898.

Robert Hazel and Gladys had one son, Robert LeRoy Frakes, born 1920 in Sioux City, Iowa, and he married Frances Louise Nordenson, 1946, daughter of Alfred and Sophia Nordenson. Robert and Frances have four children: Constance Louise Driscoll, Robert Frederick, James Paul and Kathleen Marguarite, all living. Robert and Frances now reside in Harrisonburg, Rockingham, Virginia.