Edward Morrison
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|---------William MORRISON (1805, Ireland - 1879, Ireland)
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|------James MORRISON (1841, Ireland - 1912, Iowa)
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| |---------Mary Jane THOMPSON (1807, Ireland - 1879, Ireland)
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Edward MORRISON (1874, Iowa - 1938, Iowa)
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| |--------David Washington MORGAN (1775, Virginia - 1835, Indiana)
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| |---------Thomas MORGAN (1814, KY - 1903, Iowa)
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| | |--------Sarah HUGHBANKS (1775, Maryland - 1844, Indiana)
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|------Harriett Ann ``Hattie'' MORGAN (1854, Iowa - 1884, CA)
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| |--------John BALLARD (1779 - 1848, Iowa)
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|---------Polly BALLARD (1814, Indiana - 1856, Iowa)
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|--------Jinney COX (1775, Kentucky - Indiana)
Edward Morrison lived most of his life very close to where he was born. Evidently Ed and brother Jesse went on the trip to California when their parents moved there for their mother's health. Shortly after their mother died (1884), the father James went back to Ireland for a year. According to a letter written by Ed's daughter, Mary Ferne (Morrison) Franklin, Ed and Jesse ``were left in an orphanage out in California for a while. They ran away and got a ride on a hay wagon. Somehow they and their dad and new wife did get together again in Iowa''.
However, in the 1885 Iowa census, taken in March, Edward and Jesse live with the Wm. H. Cheney on the location of the Morrison farm in Adams township, Keokuk County. From this, it appears that James left the Cheney's in charge of his children and farm while he returned to Ireland. (It's possible the Cheneys rented the farm while James was in California, also.)
I don't know exactly where Ed lived with his first wife Nellie Struble, but it was in Adams Township of Keokuk County since Ed and family are there in the 1900 census. Ed didn't live with his father at this time. Their census entries are several pages apart. Comparing the other families adjacent to Ed on the 1900 census with an 1895 map of Adams Twp showing farm owners names, it appears Ed was living about 2 miles west of his father James. (That'd put Ed even closer to the place of Aurora.) There is a story that Nellie and Omer got sick from contaminated well water, so it makes sense that Ed would have lived someplace (other than his father's farm) that he abandoned due to contaminated water.
After he married for the second time, Edward took his family to Adair county for a few years, leaving in 1902 and then came back to Keswick in 1906, when he took over his father's farm. March was the usual moving day for the farmers in the Midwest, as a farmer can't move with crops in the field. A letter written by Ida (Scott) Medlin (sister of Ed's wife Mary Etta Scott) discusses where Ed Morrison and family lived. Ida states how Ed lived near Creston, Iowa for a while and then moved back. In the following, ``the old place'' is the Morrison farmstead:
Orville was first born at the old place --- they moved there March 1st and he came in April, they lived in North English one year before that.
The following account of Edward Morrison was written by Lyman Morrison in 1993:
I (Lyman) can remember ``Grandad'' real well, even though I was only 7 years old
when he passed away. I can't remember him going to the fields to
work, just chores around the house and barn. He used to let us kids
take turns pulling the milk and butter up out of the well at meal
time. Of course it had to go back just as soon as the meal was over.
I can remember him laying in wake at Uncle Ellis's home in Keswick. I
think that is one of the two or three times that I saw Uncle Bert
Morrison and Uncle Albert Scott.
Edward Morrison rented his father's farm when they moved
back to Keokuk county. His father, James moved his family to North
English at this time, where he remained until his death in 1912. I (Lyman)
believe Ed bought out most of the other heirs,with the exception of
Uncle Bert who still owned his forty when he died in 1952. He went to
Eldora in the winter of 1920 to see Aunt Alice about buying her forty.
My Uncle ``Pete'' and Uncle Roscoe took over the farm in 1936 for one
dollar, subject to a $20,000 mortgage, held by the Northwestern Mutual
Life Insurance Co. but did not assume same (whatever that means).
Grandad had also bought some other land in the twenty's at a very high
price. He must have been a wheeler dealer type, for he had 14 land
transactions that I know of between 1898 and 1935. In all fairness,
part of them were in conjunction with the land they inherited from his
father James. He was in danger of losing it to the banks after the
Great depression hit the nation. Clem Seiwert farmed it until after
Grandad died, after which ``Pete'' and Roscoe sold it to the Axmear
family. Some of the family members were a little upset about Pete
selling the farm to an Axmear (they got over it). I think Pete had
held onto it for as long as he possibly could for times were very hard
then.
I (Lyman) think Uncles Bert and Morley stayed with Edward part of the time at
least. This was probably during the summers after their father died.
I can remember my dad (Forrest) telling about one of them getting in trouble for
trying to carry two pails of milk on the handlebars of his bicycle.
Needless to say it did not end well.
Ed's birthplace of Springdale was two miles west and three north of Keswick. But it isn't on many maps and shouldn't be confused with Springfield near Delta, nor with the incorporated towns in Iowa named Springdale in Cedar and Woodbury counties. This place's name came from the fact that there was a spring in the field a little to the east, and the ``dale'' was added to round out the name and make it more descriptive of the location. It was a beautiful spot on a slight rise, with many trees and shrubs for shade and protection. Adams Township school number 9 was opened on the southwest corner of the crossroads in 1874, the third school to stand on that spot. There were many activities held at the school, that being the hub of the community.
According to Ed's daughter Ruth, Ed got his first car around 1915-16. It was a big brown Michigan with an open top that'd hold the whole family. Ed smoked cigars and the ashes would blow onto the kids in back. They complained, but it never did them any good. Ruth says this was only about the second automobile in the Keswick area, the first belonging to a doctor there.
The Michigan was produced in Kalamazoo, Michigan in two different runs between 1903--1914. The later models were often referred as a Mighty Michigan and fit Ruth's description.
Ed's half-sister Alice wrote the following account of Ed in 1979:
Ed looked like his dad --- around the eyes especially! Ed had that miserable broken nose which was never set right; otherwise he would have been a nice looking guy. What he lacked in looks, he made up in personality. I remember the year Etta died, Ed came up to Eldora, Iowa to see me about buying the forty acres I had inherited from Dad, which he had been renting from me. I ate at the town Hotel with five other teachers and when Ed came in all dressed up in a floor length fur coat he had made out of the hide of one of horses that had died --- straight from the farm and with hayseeds coming out of his ears, for a moment, I wondered!! But only for a moment --- because Ed proceeded at once to mesmerize those ritzy teachers with his stories --- he had all of us in stitches in spite of the fact that he had only recently lost his wife and had a family of ten on his hands!! When Ed explained to them with the usual Morrison braggadoccio that there wasn't another man in the State of Iowa who was a better judge of good looking women and fast horses -- and he knew he had hit just the right spot. We all of us really had a ball for the three days he spent with me.
The following was contributed by Ed's daughter Mary Ferne (Morrison) Franklin:
Dad was the oldest in the family so he stayed on the farm and helped the father.
The others seemed to go to college. I think the boys all worked at
Racine Cigar store in Iowa City to help pay the bills.
As I mentioned, Dad's brothers and sisters went to college. The value of
education must have been pounded into them. As long as I can
remember, Dad always saw to it that you didn't miss school for
anything. We always had newspapers which a lot of my friends didn't
have. During the depression he took two daily papers. One was the Chicago
Daily Grower's journal and the other was the Des Moines paper, and
then he got a couple weekly papers and he took magazines. He did a
lot of reading and he really boned into us that we had to take
advantage of learning when we had the opportunity. I remember when we
got our first radio, it had a headset on it. Dad always said he had
to use it because he had to listen to the markets. But I'd gone
past and sort of turned one around and he'd have some cowboy music
on it, somebody singing. And then we got a great big speaker it was a
Atwater Kant radio. And the speaker was oh, probably 18 inches if it
wasn't a little bigger than that, stood on top of it. Years later my
brother-in-law Clem took the cabinet it set on and turned it around
and made a cabinet about it.
Sources for this individual: @S10@ @S11@ @S12@ @S13@ @S14@ @S1731@
