Pike Township Family Stories
JOHN D. NASH FAMILY
Nichols, Iowa Centennial Book 1884-1984, pages 206-208
By Berniece Nash HadleyThe early ancestors of John D. Nash and Ida Brockway Nash were from Pennsylvania, Ohio and Vermont. When the area west of the Mississippi opened up to settlement, Muscatine county was settled by many people who claimed and bought land in Pike township.
John Dillon Nash was the son of Elizabeth O’Neil and Isaac Nash, who resided in the Brighton, Iowa, area. John met his future wife when they were students at the Grandview academy, Grandview, Iowa.
Ida Olive Brockway was the daughter of Albert Judson Brockway and Mary Nichols Brockway, who lived in the Conesville neighborhood.
John D. and Ida Olive came to live and farm on the “Nash” farm east of Nichols after their marriage in the late 1880s. They had a family of twelve, nine of whom lived to be adults and resided in the Nichols area.
On June 18, 1898 John D. Nash met his death in a runaway horse and buggy accident east of Nichols as he was going home from a meeting he had attended in Nichols. This was a few months before the birth of his youngest child, Ila.
Ida Olive continued to live in Nichols until 1916, when she moved to Des Moines. She died in 1933. Both are buried in the Nichols cemetery.
Laura Nash, the oldest child of the family, was a rural school teacher. In 1916 she married William E. Loeb, who was a businessman in Nichols. He served as mayor for several terms. She died in 1944, and he died in 1954. They had a son, John Loeb, who was a high school teacher and counselor until his retirement in 1982.
Lee Nash married Marie Travis. They lived on the farm east of Nichols until their children were grown. They moved to Des Moines, Iowa, in the 1920s, where Lee died in 1965 and Marie in 1970. Their two children were Marion (Jack) Nash and Alberta Nash. He became a Methodist minister, his death occurring in 1973. Alberta married Damon Sherwood.
Albert “Bert” Nash married Bertha E. Shew of Nichols in 1906. They lived in Nichols, where their children were born and raised. Bert was a rural mail carrier and farmer. He died in 1928. Bertha lived in Nichols, Champaign, Illinois and Pasadena, California, until her accidental death in California in 1973.
Their children were Bernice Nash, who married James Hadley and lived on the Hadley farm southeast of Nichols; Beula Nash, who married Millard Berry of Champaign, Illinois; Edwin Nash, who married Leona Freerksen and retired from Wisconsin State University at Superior, Wisconsin as a professor in 1983; and Albert Nash, Jr., who died at the age of 15 years in an auto accident.
Fred Nash was born near Nichols. He was educated at Nichols and The University of Iowa. He became a dentist and settled at Moorhead, Iowa, where he married Edith Van Scoy. He died during the flu epidemic of 1918. Fred and Edith had one son, Allan Nash.
Edgar Nash and Alice Nash were born near Nichols and were educated there. Edgar went to Des Moines, graduated from a commercial college and was associated with the Des Moines YMCA. In 1916 his mother and sisters, Alice Nash and Ila Nash, and brother Reuben Nash moved to Des Moines and established their home. Neither Edgar nor Alice married. Edgar Nash died in 1942 and Alice Nash died in 1936. Both are interred in the Nichols cemetery.
John Nash lived in Nichols until a young man. He married Marie Armbright of Columbus Junction. They located in Cedar Rapids, where he worked until his retirement. John died in 1919. One son, John Nash, Jr. survived.
Reuben Nash was born near Nichols. At various times he resided in Nichols, Des Moines and Muscatine. He married Gladys Hartrum. Reuben died in 1937, his wife died in 1975. They had five children: Walter Nash, Dan Nash, Margaret Nash Stump Holt, Alice Nash Kinikan, and Verda Nash Braun.
Ila Olive Nash, youngest of the twelve children, was born at Nichols in 1898. She was a lifelong teacher, moving to California about 1945. After her retirement from teaching, she devoted much of her time to working with the Laubach Literacy program from her home in Pasadena, California.
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