The girls attended school in Benton and Mount Ayr, but the family were active members of the Immaculate Conception Church in Maloy.

In a community predominately of German and Irish descent, George and Eleanora broke the pattern. George's parents came England and lived in North Carolina and Indiana before pushing further west to Fremont, Nebraska, where George was born in 1898. They then moved on to the sand hills of northwest Nebraska.

As a young man, George went back east to Chicago, where he met and married Eleanora Grace GRUSALSKI. She was the daughter of Charlotte HAGANSEE and Bartley Karl GRUSALSKI, natives of Warsaw, Poland.

The couple lived in Chicago for several years before moving to the Iowa farm.

Doralee was married in the Immaculate Conception Church in Maloy. She has two daughters and one granddaughter.

Barbara is now Mrs. Paul ORTIZ and has four children. The children live in Carlyle and West Des Moines in Iowa, and in Cabot, Arkansas and Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

The CAVENDERS lived on the farm for many years. After retiring, they moved to Benton where George passed away.

Eleanora continued to be involved in church and community work. She was chairman of the Parish Council in Maloy for eight years. She was later a trustee and a member of the Regional Council. She was appointed president of that group by Father Larry HOFFMAN. The Head Start program occupied her for eight years, and she was a volunteer worker at the Area Agency XIV congregate meal site.

When her eyesight failed, she moved to a retirement condo, McCauley Terrace in Des Moines, where she continues to be active.

NOTES: George A. CAVENDER was born in 1898, and died in 1967 with interment at Rose Hill Cemetery, Mount Ayr. Eleanora was born in 1905.

SOURCE: Maloy, Iowa Centennial History: 1887 - 1987 p. 106. 1987.

Courtesy of Mount Ayr Public Library

Transcription and Notes by Sharon R. Becker, August of 2011