Wallace & Mary Short

SHORT NOE

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 10/16/2010 at 16:48:01

History of Woodbury County, Iowa, 1984

Wallace and Mary Short
By Mrs R F Hunter

The families of James Black Short and Eugenia Noe came from Ohio and Illinois to settle in Page County, Iowa, in the mid 1850s. James and Eugenia attended Amity College in southwestern Iowa and were married, November 7, 1861. Their children were Wallace, Jessie Frank and William, all of whom attended Amity College. Wallace was born June 29, 1866, attended country school, worked in a cheese factory, took post graduate work at Amity College, then went to Beloit, Wisconsin, where he graduated from Beloit College.

James Gillespie Birney Morse and Jennie Smith were teachers in the farm community of Racine, Wisconsin. They were married October 9, 1867 and started farming and built a house near what isd now Johnson Park. Their children, May, Samuel, Royal and Harriet, graduated from Ripon College, Ripon, Wisconsin. May, born September 19, 1868, attended rural schools and taught at Franksville before attending Ripon College.

Wallace Short participated in many debates and oratorical contests. In fact, he often said the prize money attached to winning contests helped pay his way through college. He and May Morse met at a meeting of Oratorical Societies held at Ripon College the winter of 1893. Before he left for Yale Divinity School, New Haven, Connecticut, that fall, May had promised to be a minister’s wife. Their wedding took Place at the Morse family home in Racine July 8, 1896, and they went to their first home and pastorate at Evansville, Wisconsin.

After seven years there, they were called to Beacon Hill Church, Kansas City, Missouri, where their daughter, Emily Vesta, was born June 9, 1908. In 1910 the First Congregational Church called them to Sioux City, Iowa. Here they adopted sons, Burton Harrison, born September 24, 1911, and John Wallace, born November 23, 1916.

‘So much has been written about the Short family in Woodbury County that I will not repeat here, but refer the reader to books which are in the Sioux City Public Library and the Museum files. Mrs Short wrote Just One American and Professor W H Cumberland of Buena College wrote Wallace M Short – Iowa Rebel’. Emily Short Hunter.