Franklin County, Nebraska

For Another Day

Letters and phone calls came pouring in when I wrote from the list of obituaries in my brown notebook. The response was so good I have decided to write about a few more I have.

Obituaries

Alvrine (Graff) Ott: born September 11, 1862 in Switzerland, the third of eleven children born to Jacob and Judith (Schegg) Graff. From Nauvoo, Illinois to Atlantic, Iowa. Came to Franklin County in 1878. Married May 1881 to Phillip Ott. They had ten children.

Anna Obering: born in Germany, 1873. Came to Dewitt Nebraska 1915 to 6 miles south of Bloomington. Died 1945. Her sister was Mrs. Fred Stolting. Her parents were Henry and Margaret Hofhenke.

William H. Nichols: of Warren County, Indiana. Born February 22, 1849. Died 1928. Married Martha Whitney September 7, 1872. Martha died in 1890. Family came west in 1873 to Phillips County, Kansas near Phillipsburg until 1903, and then moved to southwest of Franklin. He was in the Civil War.

Rev. Ed L. Hutchins: died in Balden, Kansas, 1949. He was the first of 6 children born to Fredrich Hutchins. Ed was a brother to Fred Hutchins of Franklin. Fred homesteaded on a farm south of Franklin, just below the Kansas line. Part of an old sod house that they built still stood on the farm in 1949.

Katherine Koch Hawboldt: born Pike County, Ohio November 16, 1846. Married in 1865 to William Hawboldt. He died in 1923. They had ten children. Four died before Katherine. Member of Macon Methodist Church from 1886 until 1900. She died in 1928. I have a note by her name that says: “Rodney Frerichs Farm?” I was wondering if she didn’t live previously on his farm.

Sydney G. Herrick: From Massachusetts. He lived near Macon and built H. W. Stephenson’s house in Franklin. He was a sailor. Died in 1923.

Daniel B. Guthrie: From Princeton, Indiana. He was here in 1900. Came from Iowa and purchased the Blackledge homestead. He then went on to Trenton, NE., and died in 1938.

Carl William Fritz: St Francis, Kansas for 1 year. He was from Wheeler, (?) and was born March 26, 1867 at Council Bluffs, Iowa. Came here to Franklin County in 1872 when he was five years accompanied by his parents. They settled on a farm 9 miles northeast of Republican City, Nebraska (Section 6, Farmers Township). Carl passed away in 1931. I wrote Faye Bashford of Oregon. She told me about the Fritzs that lived in Franklin Township-up around the old Graff place. That’s a story for another day. Faye has told me so much and I appreciate all her help. I could write a small book complete with maps about what she has told me.

Lydia Graff: of Naponee. Located on a homestead near Naponee in 1920. Back to Kansas again to Wheeler. Lydia and her husband lived by Carl Fritz in Farmers township.

Abraham L. Fox: born December 14, 1869 at Parkersburg, Iowa in 1872 he came with his parents to Naponee in a covered wagon at the age of three years old. Married in 1897 to Nellie Mae Gordale. To Tiler, Idaho in 1937, then to Twin Falls, Idaho. He died in 1955.

Henry A. Foster: born Livingston County, Michigan May 25, 1837. Married Sarah Steadman in 1865. Came to Franklin County in 1872, and then to Orleans, Nebraska in 1907. Died 1923.

Ed. H. Foster: born New Hampshire December 14, 1845. Married Nancy E. Goodall. She died in 1902. They had one son, Fred, and three daughters: one was Lillie Williams Franklin. Fred died in 1916.

Habbie Diener: 72 years old. Died at home November 6, 1912 at 12:00. Suffered from rheumatism for several years and was bedfast the last two years. He was born in Germany on September 19, 1840. Came to America in 1868, to Petersburg, Illinois, and lived there until 1872, he then moved to Franklin County, near Macon. Married Frake Loschen on April 1, 1883. They had 11 children and 9 lived.

J. D. Cook: living south of Franklin. Learned his grandson, son of Earl Cook of Oregon, died of appendicitis at 15 years old in 1938.

Ida J. (Fox) Clegg: born Freeport, Stephen County, Illinois, November 26, 1866. Died 1927. When a child moved to Iowa with parents and then to Naponee April 14, 1872. In the spring of 1888 she and brother John came to Haigler, where she filed a homestead in Dundy County. Married Harry Clegg. Four children born to them.

It is so easy to tell you about a person’s whole life in just a few sentences. Obituaries sum up their deed and experiences, and they never say a bad word about them. We only read the very best about the people. It’s just a small road trip for me to go to the Franklin Public Library. Inside an oak cabinet are drawers full of these obituaries. What a quick source for me to find all I can about anyone who had died in our county. But only you who might have known them personally can tell me the story that counts. For those who have called me or written me telling me just how these people walked down the street or what their middle name was, you are such help to me and to the future historians of Franklin County. But most important of all, you might be giving a future family member a special enlightment to the personality of these individuals.

They made her a grave, too cold and damp for a soul so warm and true;
And she’s gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp where,
All night long, by a firefly lamp. She paddles her white canoe. Thomas Moore.

Rena Donovan, For Another Day.

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