Jim & Edna Mae Wright Moss

MOSS WRIGHT THORNLEY

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 9/23/2010 at 16:59:54

History of Woodbury County, Iowa 1984

Jim and Edna Mae (Wright) Moss
By Edna Mae Moss

Edna Mae Wright was born on March 1, 1932, the only child of Lena Thornley Wright and John T ‘Jack’ Wright.

Lena Thornley, November 14, 1898 to October 3, 1949, was the daughter of Walter and Anna Weaver Thornley. She was born and raised on a farm three miles east of Moville along with a brother, Clifford, b 1904, and a sister, Edna, 1900-1936. The farm had been homesteaded in 1864 by Walter Thornley’s father, Hiram, who had emigrated to the U S from Liverpool, England, in 1856, because, as his diary states. ‘…there was no hope for the common working man in the textile mills of England. The masters was so cruel and the wages was so mean that a family couldn’t exist so we set sail for the new world, putting the old behind us.’ Hiram also tells a story in his diary about building an addition to his home ‘made of the finest cottonwood lumber.’ The carpenter was furnished with ‘the best of room and board, worked only ten days and still had the audacity to charge $10 in hard cash!’ Hiram carried this same diary through the Civil War and it is still read and enjoyed by his descendants.

John T ‘Jack’ Wright, January 4, 1900 to March 9, 1951, was one of seven children of Charles and Anna Wagner Wright. His sisters were: Nellie (Mrs Fred Montang), Retta (Mrs Guy Murray), Hazel (Mrs Fred Jahn), and Bessie (Mrs Leslie Steffe). His brothers were Jesse and Arthur Wright.

Jack Wright and Lena Thornley were married 1917 and lived for some years in Cottonwood, Minnesota, where their first child, Charles, was stillborn. They returned and lived on the Thornley’s farm which they had purchased from Lena’s parents for $50 an acre. In a letter written to her parents concerning the sale of the land, Lena’s sister, Edna, wrote, ‘You are saddling the kids with an unrealistic debt which they will be able to repay.’ Later, they bought a home in Moville where Jack ran a livestock trucking business and a service station until his death in 1951.

Jim Moss was born on November 24, 1928, in Smithland, Iowa. He was one of eight children born to Clifford and Myrtle Rea Moss. His sisters are: Vona (Mrs Frank Leney) of Alvin, Texas; Inez (Mrs DeWitt Beem), deceased; Jeanette (Mrs Robert Clift) of Holly Springs, Iowa; Robinette (Mrs Earl McCabe) of Palos Verdes Estates, California; Bonita, deceased; and Joan (Mrs William Oder) of Sacramento, California. His brothers are: Bryan ‘Bud’ of Denver, Colorado; and Joe of Lawrenceville, Georgia.

The Moss family farmed near Smithland and Oto until 1942 when they purchased a farm northwest of Moville, Iowa. In 1949, she elder Mosses retired to Moville after the marriage of their son, Jim, to Edna Mae Wright.

Jim and Edna Mae farmed the Moss farm until the death of her father in 1951 when they moved into the ancient house on the Thornley homestead which was described in Hiram Thornley’s diary. They are still farming this ground, but the old house has been replaced by a new one in 1972. The giant old barn, the scene of many rollicking neighborhood barn dances in its day, is the only old building left on the farm.

In the years from 1951 to 1960, seven children were born to Jim and Edna Mae. They are: John ‘Jack’, Jim, Jane (Mrs Jane Jamison), Jerry, Janet (Mrs Steve Thomas), Jeannie (Mrs Ronnie Krueger), and Jeffrey. They have all settled in the Sioux City-Moville vicinity and the old homestead bustles with thte activity of seven children, in-laws, and ten grandchildren, who all visit frequently.

In recent years, the male members of the family have all expanded into the trucking business. All five of them own or drive large over-the-road tractors and semi-trailers, hauling meat to the west coast and produce back to the mid-west.

In August of 1976, a Moss family reunion was held on the Moss farm and at the home of Mr and Mrs Robert Clift of Holly Springs. 132 members of the family attended from every corner of the United States. Two steers (the better parts, at least) were consumed along with many bushels of good Iowa sweet corn. The family attended the county fair and a tractor pull and just generally had a great time, sleeping in the hay in the barn and doing old-time country things. Everyone reminisced about growing up on the farm and decided that an Iowa farm is still a darned good place to be.