Cora Bell: My Ancestral Doppelgänger

Doppelgänger: an apparition or double of a living person.

Cora Bell Ellis 

1862-1939

Image from Ancestry.com

When I first "met" my great great Aunt Cora Bell Ellis, she was living on a farm in Willow Township,  Cherokee, Iowa, being counted in the 1870 U.S. Federal Census. She was there with her father Robert; mother  Eleanor; older sister Helen; older brother Henry; and her two little brothers, Elsworth and Robert. (1,2)

When I had done a lot more research, I learned that Cora had been born in Maine, and that some time after her baby brother Robert was born the Ellises moved with their extended family members to Cherokee, probably by covered wagon. The same page of the 1870 census shows that their neighbors next door were the ones who had also come with them from Maine: Two Rankins families, and a Rankins daughter, Lydia, married to Obed Wells. Everyone was related, as Cora Bell's mother Eleanor was also a Rankin, daughter of Joseph and Joanna.

Cora's mother, Eleanor Rankins Ellis, with Eleanor's three sisters: 

Cora's Aunt Lydia, Aunt Mary, and Aunt Adah.

They all had moved to Cherokee, Iowa from Maine.

Image from Ancestry.com

The more I looked at Cora's blurry old photo, the more I recognized someone. It was me! Neither of us is a great beauty, but we share the same facial structure, the same weak eye muscles (mine corrected in early childhood by a stern ophthalmologist threatening surgery if I didn't do my eye exercises), and--now that I've been thinking about Cora so much--the same hairstyle, more or less. Cora just looks a little more stern than I do, but her life was much harder than mine, of course. 

There are more things that we have in common. Cora was born in Rome, Maine in 1862. Just 90 miles away and 82 years later, I was born in Biddeford, Maine in 1944--five years after Cora died.

When Cora was around seven years old, she was walking beside a covered wagon, heading west to Iowa. When I was a seven year-old living in San Francisco, I was playing covered wagon, my favorite "let's pretend" game. It's true!

I've thought about Cora a lot since I am reminded of her every time I look in a mirror. I wonder what she was like, and wish that I could find someone's personal memories of her. In the meantime, the documents available to a family history researcher do tell the outline of Cora's story. 

Next time: Silas enters the picture...

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Sources and Notes

1. 1870 U.S. Federal Census. Census Place: Willow, Cherokee, Iowa; Roll: M593_381; Page: 478B; Image: 182; Family History Library Film: 545880

2. How I am related to Cora Bell:

Cora Bell Ellis (1862 - 1939)
2nd great-aunt

Robert Winslow Ellis (1821 - 1876)
father of Cora Bell Ellis

Oscar J. Ellis (1852 - 1907)
son of Robert Winslow Ellis

Eva Josephine Ellis (1888 - 1943)
daughter of Oscar J. Ellis

Daniel Lawrence Harris (1907 - 1972)
son of Eva Josephine Ellis

Clair Marie Harris
I am the daughter of Daniel Lawrence Harris

From Rome to Cherokee, Part 2

Children of Joseph and Joanna Rankins, circa 1886 [17 years after the trip to Cherokee]
Back: Lydia 41 years, Adah [49] years
Front: Eleanor 64 years and Mary 59

Continuing the story of my great great grandparents' trip from Maine to Iowa in 1869.

In the last post, I tried to list the members of the traveling party going from Rome, Maine to Cherokee, Iowa in 1869. I kept having to go back and add to the post as I found more and more relatives making the move at the same time. Bear with me, I think I might have it now. Ages are approximate and in parentheses.


Joseph (68) and Joanna Rankins (70)

Their grown children who also traveled to Cherokee:
 Harriet (46), her husband William Bickford (52) and their two children: Melinda (25) and Edwin (15)

Mary Carroll (42), her husband Isaac Whitehouse (54) and their four sons: Julius (22), Samuel (20), Eldorous (17), and Joseph (10)

Eleanor Ruth, my great great grandmother (48), her husband, Robert Winslow Ellis (50); and their five youngest children Helen (15), Henry (12), Cora Bell (8), Ellsworth (6), and Robert (2)

Adah (32), her husband John Louis Burgess (41), and one child, Anna (9).  Adah was pregnant during the trip, giving birth to her son, Johnny, in December 1869.

Lydia Frances (25), who would marry Obed Wells (also from Maine) in Iowa in 1869.

At this point in my research, I would say that at least 23 members of the extended Rankins family made the trip in 1869.

Now, how do 23 people travel from Rome to Cherokee in 1869? Here is what I have found out about westbound travel in those days.

The routes of travel by which the pioneers gained access to the haunts of our beavers and to our fertile acres were mainly three:  First, via the Great Lakes to Green Bay, thence up the Fox river to Lake Winnebago, thence across to the Portage, and down the Wisconsin river; second, via the Ohio river, thence up the Mississippi and Missouri rivers; third, overland by wagon.  The degree of use of these routes before the advent of the railroad can only be surmised.  Prior to 1845 certainly the river routes were the highways chiefly used by the westward bound emigrants.  From 1845 overland travel by wagon became increasingly common until the railroad became a practicable mode of travel, round about 1860.  ~from The Nativity of the Pioneers of Iowa, by F.I Herriott, Iowa Official Registers, 1911-1912. http://iagenweb.org/history/oir/11-12/pioneer.htm

I searched and searched for an answer as to how my relatives traveled--by steamboat, canal boat, train, or covered wagon? Then I was lucky enough to have some correspondence with another family history researcher (known only to me as "Norma from Albuquerque"), who is descended from the Burgess family. She offered a clue: There was a family story that the granddaughters of Adah Rankins and John Burgess had written an account of their grandparents' journey to Iowa in a covered wagon.  We don't know if such an account was ever published, but it gives us something to go on. Thank you, Norma!

My next subject for research: What was it like to travel in a covered wagon in those days? Next time...

***

Note about the Rankins family: There were two more children of Joseph and Joanna Rankins who didn't make the trip and never did join the family in Iowa. Sarah (1835-1908) was married to Frederick Morton and settled down in Augusta, Maine raising her own large family.  

And then there was Thomas (1830-1892). At one point, I had imagined that he just stayed behind and farmed in Maine. Nothing could have been further from the truth! I'll tell his story another time.

From Rome to Cherokee

This is the continuation of the story of how my great great Grandfather, Robert Winslow Ellis, traveled with his family from Rome, Maine to Cherokee, Iowa in the late 1860s. They were introduced in the last post. 

***

After finding that the Ellis family had moved from Maine to Iowa, I had a question: Who did they travel with? After all, this was a journey of at least 1400 miles, and that estimate is the direct mileage now via I-90 West. The journey was no doubt much, much longer in the 1860s, before the advent of paved roads and bridges, etc. 

So, we have the Robert W. Ellis family consisting of: 

Robert, the father, age 50; and Eleanor, the mother, age 48
Helen, age 15
Henry, age 12
Cora Bell, age 8
Ellsworth, age 6
Robert, age 2


Looking at the 1870 U.S. Federal Census again, we find that in Cherokee County they are living right next door to three families that were related to them, and who had all lived in Rome, Maine previously.

Living in Dwelling #26, we find Eleanor's brother, Joseph Rankins, Jr., together with his wife Abby and daughters Adella and Lula. Next door in Dwelling #27, are Eleanor's father and mother, Joseph and Joanna Rankins, who are living with Eleanor's sister, Lydia, her husband, Obed Wells, and their child, Zula.*

Note (added 6 May 2017): I just discovered that Eleanor had another older sister, Mary Carroll Rankins, who married Isaac Whitehouse and apparently also made the journey to Iowa with the rest of the family members. Mary and Isaac were accompanied by their sons, who were listed in their household in the 1870 U.S. Federal Census as Eldward (Eldorous), age 17; Joseph, age 11; and Samuel, age 22. Their oldest son, Julius, must have made the trip also. By the time of the census, he was married and in a household of his own. His marriage took place in Iowa on 12 Aug 1869, which may indicate that the family had traveled to Iowa sometime earlier than that date. 

Yet another Rankins sister, Adah, her husband, John Burgess, and their two children also made the trip. Neighbors Bickford and Whitehouse families, also intermarried with the Rankins, went to Cherokee at the same time. The group is growing!


We can assume that they all made the journey together. It gives me a real feeling of kinship to discover that Robert's family of seven wanted to travel with more family members. When heading off to a strange and possibly wild place, it seems like a very good idea to travel in larger numbers, and that's what they did.

Next: From Rome to Cherokee, Part 2

*Off-topic note: Lydia and Obed's child, Zula, is shown as being three months old, the same age as Lula in the Joseph Rankins, Jr. household. Were they twins? I suppose it's possible, though Lula was later referred to as Emma L. Rankins, always giving her parents as Joseph and Abby, and Zula always gave her parents as Obed and Lydia.