Lynn Family History
LYNN FAMILY HISTORY
by Thelma Lynn Scott
My father, Lewis Murphy Lynn, came to northern Goshen County in 1913, and took a homestead Apr. 6, 1914. The homestead adjoined the property of Fae Harvey, my mother. They were married in Lusk, Wyo. at the D. E. Goddard home on Oct. 27, 1915.They made Wyo. their home for the balance of their lives, but for a short time spent in Florida. They went to Florida in Dec. 1925, due to Fae's health and he came back to Wyoming, returning to Florida that fall and returning to Wyoming in latter April of 1929, where he remained.
Daddy was the son of Francis Marion Lynn and Mary Jane Barkley. He was born June 4, 1878 in Kampsville; Ill. in Calhoun County. His father was born Oct. 19, 1848 and grandma on Mar. 3, 1856. She died Mar. 25, 1886 leaving six small children, a husband, sister and brother. She was buried in Lynn Cemetery near Fox Creek. Her children were: Nellie Leticia, born Aug. 8, 1873, died Apr. 30, 1957; Mollie Er Dena, born May 3, 1875, died March, 1945; Georgiana, born Aug. 28, 1876, died May 26, 1922; Lewis M. Lynn, my dad, died July 20, 1940; Francis Wm., born Nov. 21, 1979, Chester o., born Feb. 19, 1882, died Mar. 14, 1884; and Jesse Douglas, born Dec. 29, 1883, died Feb. 12, 1917.
After the death of his first wife, F. M. Lynn married Rebecca Dare, born Nov. 30, 1856. She died Mar. 7, 1950 They were married on Oct. 10, 1892. She raised the children of her husband and had three of her own. Marion Homer, born June 2, 1893, died Oct. 28, 1917; Arthur Dare, born Oct. 26, 1895, died, Mar. 26, 1972; and Herbert Morin, born Sept. 19, 1897, died Dec. 12, 1947. He came to Wyoming to live for a while and married Mrs. Carrie Hansen Wheaton, a widow, of Node, on Sept. 6, 1920. They lived near Chicago Ill. and moved to Davie, Fla., now Ft. Lauderdale. in 1927 and have lived there from then on.
Great Grandfather Lewis Francis Lynn. was born in Carolina Territory· in West Virginia or South Carolina June 12, 1800. He was of Irish decent and died June 18, 1856. He married Mary Jane Morin, born Dec., 17, 1811, and she died Feb., 8, 1878. He had two large families. Of the family I came from known children were; Grandfather F. M., Uncle Lew, Aunt Mollie, and Aunt Martitia.
The family, as it migrated westward, soon lost track of each other. Grandfather F. M. and his two sisters, Mart and Molly, migrated to near Kampsville, Ill. and brother Lew to Chautauqua Springs, Kansas. Aunt Mart married Geo. W. Lumley. She was born on Sept. 2, 1851 and he on Mar. 22, 1845. They were married Apr. 12, 1874 at Silver Creek and both died Nov. 6, 1923, both ill and in separate rooms. She was 72 yrs, 4 mo, 2 days old; he 78, 7 mo. 14 days; they had 10 children, 5 each, boys and girls.
Aunt Molly Lynn married Emmet Bennett. Their child Charles born in Calhoun County, Ill. June 5, 1869 died at 18 from complications following the measles. He was survived by his parents and two younger brothers and was buried in Lynn Cemetery. Son John Bennett died from an accidental gunshot wound while hunting. Frank F. Bennett died at 61 having been born and reared in Calhoun County, Illinois. He was a teacher for 14 yrs. in public schools. He was survived by his wife Nellie, one daughter, Mrs. Richard Beuttel and a foster son, Robert Beloit of Alton.
Uncle Lew Lynn of Chautauqua Springs, Kan. was murdered by Jack Quinn. Uncle Lew was a city attorney and Quinn held a grudge against him for sending him to jail for a misdemeanor. He threatened to kill him when he got out and he did. He knifed him in the back and he died July 28, 1891. He left a wife and children. He was a member of Odd Fellow Lodge. Grandfather F. M. Lynn taught school for over 47 yrs. in that part of Illinois. He visited us once in Wyoming in the summer or fall of 1924. I remember he wore a beard.
The summer my dad came to homestead, his sister, Georgiana L. Joseph and small son, Leslie M. came and homesteaded just to west of him. His sister, M. Er Dena Lynn also homesteaded north of him adjoining Fae Harvey’s homestead. Most of this land plus other land owned or bought by the W. W. or F. W. Harvey's plus Lige and W. S. Church, Aunt Dena Lynn's is now owned by the children of L. M. and F. M. Lynn. After my folks were married they moved onto the homestead of my father, L. M. Lynn, and they had a two room house 12 X 36 where we were born and lived until we went to Florida in fall of 1925. The wash house was at the foot of the hill and water was packed up the hill to the horses in a bucket. We had a pole corral, straw covered sheds, and chicken house. Mom had a garden, raised chickens, turkeys, pigs for meat, cattle, horses and a few sheep. We milked cows, she churned butter and sold this and the excess cream to help out in the line of cash. She also made cheese. Daddy did most of the shopping. He would go to Jay Em, Node or Van Tassell a couple of times a year in a wagon and bring back the staple supplies. Mom canned by cold pack, washed clothes on a board, and boiled clothes in a boiler.
They dug a pit, cut ice cakes and put straw in around the ice and had ice to make ice cream during the summer time. Mom had "Vinegar Bees" she ordered back east, in a barrel in the cellar and made enough vinegar to sell the neighbors, made lye soap, hominy by boiling corn in lye water first to remove the hulls. She also dried corn by boiling and then cutting off the cob and drying on the clothes line in a flour sack. We raised potatoes and corn to eat, pumpkins, squash, and other vegetables. She made homemade mincemeat. They butchered hogs or beef and sometimes the neighbors helped. They would string up a butchered hog and drop it into a boiling barrel of water to loosen the bristles.
They also cured bacon and hams. Mom put up sausage in lard, cooked first.
Our house had an old fashioned cook stove which also served for heat; she baked bread, rolls, and ironed with a sad iron. We had a heavy rectangle table my brother still uses and a fold-away double bed, by day, was used at night. It had curtains in front. I have the old wooden rocking chair and a glass front book case desk and these were shipped out from St. Louis, Mo. in 1914 .We also have the piano that was aunt Eleanore Harvey’s. She brought it out during homestead days. She played it the fall of 1970 when visiting here. Marion has the old fashioned clock and I still have the oak dresser that was Aunt Dena's in her homestead.
My father’s nationality was predominantly Irish and he looked it. He was asked many times when he came over from Ireland and he always said, "Well, it has been a while." My grandfather was born in South Carolina in 1880. We have no family records before 1800. Mom’s people were English, Irish, German, Scotch and French. I always said I belonged to the League of Nations. Daddy’s two sisters lived here from 1914 until Aunt Georgia died in. Node and is buried there May 26, 1922. She was Post mistress of Pleasal post office just north of us near the Niobrara County line from
Sept. 28, 1917 to Oct. 2,1918. Aunt Georgia Lynn Joseph and small son Leslie later lived in Node after she married Uncle Fredrick Christensen. He was born Aug. 31, 1869 at Necitvid, Selan, Denmark and came to the U.S. when a young man. They were married July 15, 1918 and lived on the homestead just east of Node. He homesteaded in 1909, where they lived until their death. She is buried in the Node cemetery beside two still-born children.
After her death he returned to Amery, Wisc. to live with a sister, Leslie. Also, he later moved to Chicago, Ill. and then to Stanwood and now Everett, Washington.
Uncle Fred visited here only once, in 1943 and he died at 77 on Mar. 9, 1948 in Amery, Wisc. and was buried there.
Leslie was born Feb. 3, 1903 in St. Louis, Missouri. Aunt Georgia was house keeper for her brother L. M. Lynn in St. Louis. He provided a home for her, her son and for other relatives who went to school there. He spent most of those eight years helping build the Panama Canal to its completion as a pipefitter. After he came back to the U.S., he came to Wyoming.
Daddy's sister, Dena Lynn, was assistant superintendent of the Samaritan Hospital in Sioux City, Iowa. Daddy came to visit her and there met Mom, Fae Harvey. They corresponded while he was in Panama, then both came to Wyoming to homestead. Aunt Dena was a nurse and met her husband, Lewis Victor Lundblad, when he was a patient.
She came to Wyoming to homestead in 1914, the same year her sister Georgiana and brother Lew did. L. V. Lundblad came to Wyoming and they were married. I remember the day. They lived on her homestead until his health worsened and they moved in the early 1920’s to Stanwood, Washington, where she nursed and he was in a sanitarium there. He was born in Denmark July 23; 1885 and sailed around the world as a young man as a sailor, coming to. the U.S., also to Alaska, and discovered one of the famous gold strikes. Aunt Dena nursed until in her later years. After her death in March of 1945 her ashes were returned to Calhoun County, Ill. in the Otterville cemetery by others of her family. I never saw her after they left Wyoming, though my folks and two brothers did in 193,9 My father took his sister Nell out to see her the first time they had all been together in 25 to 35 years. They also took Uncle Marion Rightmire out to see his sister Martha E. Harvey and her family at the same time.
We visited Uncle Victor in August of 1946, in Stanwood, Washington. He had re gained his health despite being bedfast for many years due to tuberculosis. He was cremated and buried at Stanwood on his death on Nov 5, 1954.I have a shawl he knit for me. He knitted and crocheted many items while he was ill and also was an artist and painted several pictures,.
Fae M. Lynn had nursed in her home and did private nursing for Mrs. Emma Marsh at the Lusk Hospital from 1930 thru fall of 1934, then private nursing until fall of 1942, when she began as night nurse for Dr. Walter E. Reckling at the Spencer Hospital. She then nursed until Dec. 15, 1955 when she fell while on duty and broke her right knee cap and was hospitalized for six weeks. She also had nursed for Dr.· Milton in the Douglas Hospital in the teens. She was a Rebecca at one time and in later years, an Eastern Star. Daddy was a Mason when a young man; brother Dale is a Mason and has received the 32nd degree. Mom was a Methodist when young, then a Baptist and was active in the church. When I was small we had Sunday School in our house, as we had a piano, and there was· no church or Sunday School close.
When Daddy was young he worked in a mattress factory in St. Louis, Missouri. We had a barbed wire telephone line between close neighbors in the early '20's. Besides family gatherings on Sunday or special holidays we had many at Aunt Minnie Rightmires or Grandma Harveys or our house. They occasionally attended a box social or dance, drove in a buggy many miles and often stayed all night. The first car I remember we had was a 1916 Ford pick-up. Later we drove a ruxel (Ruckstell) axle truck, Ford, back from Florida in 1926. Daddy had built one of the original trailer houses on it and it was quite a topic of conversation those days, now a common sight. We had driven down to Florida in the fall of 1925 in a Ford Touring car, Model T. In the fall of 1928, we drove a new '28 Chevy back to Florida, our first new car.
Daddy broke his arm, the right wrist when a horse fell in a hole, in the early '20's. While it was mending he herded sheep for Robert Ord at the Rawhide Buttes, and found many Indian relics. Mom was teaching at the Eisler School east of Jay Em that winter. She also taught at Pleasant Dale School one year as well as at Uncle Herbert Lynn's, daddy's brother, one year in the early '20's.
Despite blizzards, droughts, electric storms, grasshoppers, rattlesnakes, runaways, and being hailed out, we managed to survive the depression years. In early ‘30s we sold calves to the Government for $5 a head and killed pigs as there was no market for them. One spring in the early '20's it rained, then heavy snow and the stock got pneumonia and died by large numbers. Daddy hauled them off to the draw and covered them over. We three children helped Daddy break horses, would help harness them, and hitch up to the plow or to a wagon with another gentle team, and let them run. Once he told me he had a runaway with a water wagon, so when he filled it, he made them run all the way home.
In the summer of 1925, the hired man and we three kids went over to Highway 85 to get the mail some four miles west of where we lived. On the way home, the gentle team spooked and I crawled to the back of the spring wagon as he had made us get down off the seat, I jumped out, got up and ran to the fence and the team dumped the wagon soon after, throwing the others out. Dale, only six, struck his ankle on the gate post and was unable to walk on it for a month. The team headed for me then turned and the hired man caught them. He packed Dale and we walked to the Chuck Vondras and borrowed a wagon to go home in, as ours was demolished.
One hot summer day, Daddy went to town, we were ready to start harvesting grain the next day, and a bad hail storm hit, completely destroying all crops. The horses ran away just as the hired man had them in the barn door and they ran through the fence and cut themselves up, but he found them okay.
I especially recall Daddy reading to us at night as we all liked books. We attended our first show Jay Em, a silent picture, probably one of Zane Grey's. We also attended at least one 4th of July picnic and community gathering at Jay Em. There was a lake near there and we drove on the west side of it but later the dam washed out.
We had firecrackers, and a huge carry-in dinner, I remember, and people came for miles away, mostly in wagons and buggies. Mom rode sidesaddle when first in Wyoming and wore a divided riding skirt. We had sand rocks on our land, one is the Hole in the Rock, and one the Twins. We farmed with horse and walking plows, cultivators, discs, harrows, and put-up grain with threshing machines. Art Young and Stanley Hoy put some of our grain up. Once when the men
were eating in the evening, us kids saw a fire on the hill to the northeast of us on the Charlie Fleming place. We told the men, but by the time they got to it, the house was burned to the ground. No one was at home at that time.
When Mom taught school, we walked usually a mile or so to Pleasant Dale. She usually kept extra food on hand and a kerosene lamp in case of storms and also fixed hot lunches for kids--stew, soup, etc. I recall one time Daddy came for us after dark and it was storming outside.
For medical remedies, Mom often cooked up onions and sugar for cough syrup, used goose grease and turpentine for tight chests, made poultices out of available ingredients, and therefore we seldom needed a doctor.
Once brother Marion split his big toe while chopping wood. Daddy was gone, and Mom had no way to get him to a doctor, so took care of it. When she took him to the doctor, he said she did okay. My Uncle Frank cut off his big toe, his mother bandaged it back and the day the bandage came off he cut it off again, so she did it over. They all walked barefoot those days. He is still alive and past 92 and still has that toe.
My two brothers, Marion and Dale, had rabbit fever in 1929. I did not handle the rabbit or would have too. They became quite ill, with high fever and went out of their heads. Once we had potatoes stored in a vacant building and built a fire to keep them from freezing.The roof caught on fire. We three got Mom and put out the fire. We hauled water by the bucket and she threw it up on the ceiling.
We used to help cut, plant, hoe, and pick spuds, hoe corn and help cut corn in the fall. We rode to school part way with our teacher, Mabel Barrett, who lives in Tucson, Ariz., or rode horses. If stormy, we just let the horses have their "head" and they always managed to get us home.
Speaking of horses, when small we had a large horse herd. The lead mare was a small horse, probably a mustang, and we called her "Pockets". No one ever roped and held her and I have seen her jump a six- or eight-foot pole fence without any effort. My horse, Ranger , the first year we tried to break him, stood on his hind feet and went over backwards with the hired man and my cousin. We turned him out and no one rode him. The next spring I told my brothers and two cousins to saddle him (my folks not home at the time) and I would ride him. They did, and held him until I got on and we took off on a running buck, but I managed to stay on him. He never again bucked with any of us, and was a top cow horse, but died of sleeping sickness when a young horse.
Daddy and Uncle Frank attended Humboldt College at Humboldt, Iowa. It was a business college. (The marker is still there, but the college was abandoned many years ago in the '30's.) I have taken pictures of the marker.
Mom lived in a sod shanty and a log house when small, in Nebraska.
I attended one term of school in Node, and lived with my grandparents, the W. W. Harveys. I went to school to Arthur Pend ray at Pleasant Dale and later to High School at Lusk. I graduated from the 8th grade in Lusk in May, 1930 and from high school there on May 15, 1934. My two brothers graduated from the 8th grade at Pleasant Dale and from Torrington High School with the class of 1939.
Robert Scott, my husband, was an only child of Edwin D. Scott and Mrs. Ann Scott Johnson. We were married in Hot Springs, S.D. on Sept. 22, 1934. Bob came to Hat Creek when only two, in 1917, from Kansas and Nebraska.
My dad, L. M. Lynn, was injured on July 14, 1940 when the horse he was riding went over backwards, breaking his leg and some ribs. He died from internal injuries on the 20th at the Lusk Hospital and is buried in Lusk.
Mom and my brothers ran the ranch until Marion went into the Air Force in November, 1941. They continued to operate it until September, 1942. We had a sale of all the livestock, machinery etc., as Dale had to go to the service. Mom moved to town to work as a nurse, and Dale lived with us at Hat Creek until he went into the Air Force on Feb. 14, 1943.
Marion left the U.S. on the first troop transport, went down around Africa, to the Holy Land, to Cairo, Egypt, across the desert with the 8th AE, a combination of English and Americans. He began in 9th and was also in the 12th AF as an aeroplane mechanic. They also went to Sicily and Italy, where he was injured in the spring of 1945. Dale also went to Italy and they saw each other twice there. Dale was in the 15th AF in a bomber squadron in Italy.
Marion was flown back to the U.S. to New York and by train to Bushnell General Hospital at Brigham City, Utah. Mom and I spent two weeks with him there, shortly after his arrival in Utah. We arrived the day the war was over.
When my cousin, Dean Snider, and I were two and three, we wandered off one afternoon and they did not find us until after dark over a mile away in the northeast corner of the pasture. We were okay, but he had dropped a crowbar on my forehead, and I still have a scar.
Brother Marion attended mechanics school in Denver, Colo. after the war and became an A & F Mechanic (plane) and a private pilot. When he was in the Army he was in the hospital. He had broken his left shoulder and right leg in 3 places, and was in a cast from his waist down for 14 months.
Brother Dale went back to Ames, Iowa, attended Iowa State College and graduated in '49 or '50. He then taught school as an agriculture teacher in Pierson, Odebolt and Gilmore City, and later owned the Lynn Feed
Service in Marcus, Iowa. In 1967 he started to teach again in a high school near his home.
Daddy’s brother Frank Lynn visited here many times from Waterloo, Iowa. His son Francis G. lived at Node for several years, then went to Meeteetse, and he bought a ranch on South Fork, south of Cody. He then sold it and moved to Burlington. Another son, Earl, worked for the Wolfe ranch near the Rawhide Buttes, and sons, Lewis. Art, Bob and Bill F. G. married Nell Wallace on May 28, 1936 at Node. They had a daughter, Mary Ann on Aug. 25, 1941. She married Delbert A. Brown on Aug. 27, 1960. Others in the family; Nell's daughter by her first husband, Patricia Wallace, lives near Cody; Uncle Frank had three girls, Ruth, Marjorie and Doris. He is past 92 now and lives in Woodburn, Ore.
Daddy's brother Herbert M. Lynn was here in the early '20's. He married Carrie Hansen Wheaton, a widow, in 1920. She was the daughter of Peter Hansen and brother of Fred Hansen of Node (now at Lusk). His brother Arthur and Mrs. Lynn also visited here several times and my grandfather Lynn in 1924.
Daddy's mother’s sister was Aunt Viney Barkley Hurst. She had a brother Charley Barkley, a teacher; brother Douglas and Billy Hurst who ran a ferry at Hamburg, Iowa.
In September 1926, we went through a hurricane in Florida. We lost our home and all our possessions I had malaria at the time and was quite ill. The water was a foot deep on the level.
Mom had us crawl under the old fashioned metal beds for protection. We walked three miles barefoot later that afternoon to the town of Davis and took refuge in the Methodist Church until the storm was over.
Daddy was working near Palm Beach and came home and located us. He rebuilt our home in Davis later on.
Alvin Barkley, a Vice President of the U.S. was a 4th cousin of ours.
Great-grandfather Lynn’s first wife was a Talbert. We think she had a sister Sadie and brothers, Tom and Dick Talbert. His second wife was a Mopin. One Mopin lived on the road to Grafton, one was a harness maker. One went to Chicago and was never heard of after that. One Lynn lived upstate, Illinois.
My grandfather Lynn taught school for over 47 years, mostly in Calhoun County, He only had an 8th grade education. They taught with the Hickory Stick.
Those buried in Lynn Cemetery on Fox Creek, Calhoun County, Ill. are.: Uncle George and Aunt Mart Lynn Lumley, their children Marvin, Rexford and baby girl; Aunt Molly Lynn Bennett, Uncle Emmett and son Charley; (Frank and John are not there.) Mother Mary Jane Barkley Lynn and son, Chester; and my G. Grandpa and Ma Lynn.