Mills County, Iowa

Family History Stories

Maria West

Maria West was born in Independence, Missouri on March 20, 1833, the daughter of Nathan Ayres West and Mary (Hulet) West. The Wests were early pioneers in the Church of Latter Day Saints, having come to Missouri from Ohio in 1832, one year before Maria was born. As a child, Maria and her older sister Tryphena experienced all of the trials and tribulations that the early Mormons had to endure while in Missouri and Illinois. The West family crossed Iowa from Nauvoo, Illinois in 1847 and settled in a part of Pottawattamie County that later became Mills County in southwest Iowa. At the age of 17, she was living in Atchison County, Missouri with her sister Tryphena and Tryphena’s husband George Doughty, per the 1850 US Census. Manley W. Green, her future husband, was also living in the area and is not unlikely that she first met him there.

Maria married Manley Green on April 25, 1853 in Linden, Atchison County, located in extreme northwest Missouri, near the Iowa border. At the end of the same month, they moved to Glenwood, Iowa, where Manley had set himself up as a merchant, going on to be successful in a number of enterprises in Glenwood and in nearby Plattsmouth, Nebraska, just a few miles away on the other side of the Missouri River. Manley, in fact, was one of the organizers of the town of Plattsmouth in 1854.

Manley and Maria had 3 children:

1. Albert W. Green, born in Glenwood on July 31, 1855, died October 21, 1857
2. Charles Marion Green, born in Glenwood on May 3, 1858, died in Omaha, Nebraska in September 1929. He never married.
3. Katherine Mary Greene, born October 7, 1860 in Glenwood, died January 3, 1911 in Seattle, Washington. She married:
   1. Hardin H. Wilkins
   2. Hanlin B. Williams

Sadly, her husband Manley died on June 18, 1860 at the young age of 36, four months before the birth of Katherine. The cause of death was “heart failure”.

On June 15, 1862 Maria married William Kempton, a Glenwood lawyer and real estate agent, who had been a friend and business associate of Manley’s. Soon afterward, they moved to Nebraska for a short while after William’s election to Nebraska’s first territorial legislature. As with Manley Green, William’s various enterprises often took him to Plattsmouth, Nebraska, just 7 miles from Glenwood across the Missouri River. Maria and William apparently did not stay there long, eventually moving back to Glenwood and remaining there for the rest of their lives. William and Maria had 4 children:

1. Bertha Kempton, born October 2, 1866 in Iowa, died November 1953 in Los Angeles. She married William H. Baldwin and had at least one child.
2. Julia Kempton, born May 1869 in Iowa, died between 1870 and 1880
3. Jerome Morris Kempton, born October 17, 1871 in Glenwood, died September 11, 1947 in St. Joseph, Missouri. He married Ella Simpson in 1902
4. Shelby Kempton, born April 25, 1875, died June 4, 1947 in Los Angeles.

Maria lived in Glenwood until the death of her husband William in February 1899. She then moved to Omaha, Nebraska, only about 15 miles from Glenwood to live in the large household of her unmarried son Charles. In this household also dwelt a number of her Wilkins, Baldwin, Greene, and Kempton relatives, 11 in all.

Maria remained in Omaha until her death there on April 25, 1917. Cause of death was listed as paralysis, with contributory cause arteriosclerosis. Burial was at the Glenwood Cemetery next to her husband William.

Source: Submitted by John Wilkins