Dennis J "Shorty" Rush

RUSH CORDELL

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 10/14/2010 at 20:59:13

History of Woodbury County, Iowa 1984

Dennis J ‘Shorty’ Rush
By Neal Rush, as given to Frances Fymbo

Josephus Rush was born September 11, 1835, in Newport, Vermillion County, Indiana. He married Frances Melvina Cordell, December 26, 1863. They had one child, McClelland ‘Tell’, born July 10, 1865. Tell married May Titterington ‘Jennie’ on July 10, 1889, at Stockton, Kansas. Tell died in Sloan, Iowa, March 29, 1923. Jennie died December 1, 1945, in Sloan.

Josephus then married Mary Jane Walden, who was born in Ohio in 1950, in 1865. They had twelve children:
Dennis, born March 2, 1870; Thomas Lovay, born December 25, 1871, died August 30, 1899, unmarried;
Alta, born December 30, 1873, married Wallace Sisson, 4 March 1894, died at Whiting, May 28, 1965;
Theodore ‘Doc’, born November 23, 1875, married twice, died September 30, 1938;
Olive and Ora were twins, born April 15, 1881. Olive Adell married John Watson, October 1902, died February 2, 1920 in McIntosh, South Dakota; Ora Ellen never married, died July 4, 1977.
Jestie Caroline, born September 27, 1885, married Don Camerodn, June 14, 1904, died June 3, 1914;
Vida Kate, born June 18, 1888, married Eli Dansereau, she died April 1939, in Selfriege, North Dakota;
Amy Gertrude, born June 18, 1878, married Edward Lamoureux, she died October 10, 1949, Akron;
Arthur, born December 3, 1868, married Brosis Walden, November 16, 1895, he died in Merrill, Iowa, January 12, 1934; and
John Edwin, born December 27, 1891, married twice, died March 22, 1958.
Dennis was born in Eldorado Springs, Missouri, and moved with his family to Rook County, Kansas, when he was eleven years old. In 1890, he came to Sergeant Bluff to work in the brickyard. According to the 1900 Census, his parents were farming in Sloan, Iowa, then. Dennis was called ‘Shorty’, maybe because he was six feet three inches in height?
Ruth Secor was born in Greenfield, Illinois, but when both of her parents died, she came to Iowa to live with her brother. Dennis met her when he worked for him. They were married in Elk Point, South Dakota, April 4, 1904. Their wedding trip took them back to Illinois to visit her sister. Both couples then journeyed on to St Louis for the World’s Fair Exposition. They decided to locate in Eldorado Springs, Missouri. A son, Ivan Neal, was born to them, February 14, 1906. They farmed, but when the crops were poor, Dennis did any kind of work he could find. Mr Hollenbeck, the jeweler, offered to teach him how to repair watches and clocks. (Neal has the tools which his father used.)
Dennis and Ruth came to Sergeant Bluff, in 1911 staying with his parents until they could find work and a home. Dennis did carpenter work with Rube Cooley, Bill Mather and others, building a number of homes, most of them in use today. In 1920, Dennis made a trip back to Eldorado Springs and stopped to visit Mr Hollenbeck, the jeweler he had worked for. He was warmly welcomed. He was presented with three watches –one especially for Neal. He still carries it and it keeps accurate time.
Neal graduated from high school in 1925. While he was in school he worked in the Signal Department of the Northwestern Railroad, and carried mail to the post office. Next he worked for the Westfall Telephone Company, which later became the Centel West Public Telephone Company. He went to work for the Tolerton Grocery Company in 1929. He married Arvilla Travers, April 2, 1934. They had no children. Neal served overseas in England and France in the second World War from May 5, 1943, until his discharge, November 15, 1946. He and Arvilla were divorced. He married Maude Elvera Holt-Ballard, August 27, 1963. He had worked with her at Toltertons. They both retired and lived in his home on Crockwell Avenue, 1983-303 D Street. She died March 7, 1977. He still resides there.