James A.
Newberry died July 10, 1880.
He's buried in the old Mormon Cemetery
Grove Township in Pottawattamie Co.
I
In
August of 2004, many members of his extended family of descendants got
together and had
a new gravestone set in his honor. At the time of his death, a
wooden marker was probably
erected, and has long since decayed with time.
Along side of him are four of his grandchildren (Jolana's children)
who died at a young age.
This information is provided in a document written by W.E. Winegar
son of Jolana, provided
by descendant Jeff Farquhar. Grove
Township Cemetery The cemetery held many old wooden
markers back when it was begun - all seem to be gone now. No
one seems to know if there
is a map of this cemetery James' name and Alice's name (see
below) do not show up in the
roster. I believe it is possible that James is buried next to
the stone that is inscribed with Minnie
V., Samuel D., and Emma E. Winegar. When the stone was set it
was placed between two of existing stones where
there was room - those were for Mattie and Mary Newberry his infant
grand daughters.
W.E.
Winegar described the cemetery in 1912 . . .
"Regarding
the relatives who lived in Pottawattomi County, Iowa, and the old cemetery
around Wheeler’s
Grove, he writes:
After the conference of 1912, Mother and I decided to go back to Iowa,
also Nebraska,
to see her brother, Joe Newberry and
other relatives – back to Wheeler’s Grove, where I was born.
I was
now twenty years of age.
We stayed a couple of weeks visiting around.
We went to see two of my father’s
brothers and a sister who were
living in the old home, Uncle John, Uncle Marshall and Aunt Emma
Winegar. John
was a bachelor, Aunt Emma, a maiden lady and Uncle Marshall
was a widower, who lost
his wife some time before.
We visited the old cemetery where several of my relatives had been buried.
My mother’s father, James
Newberry – four of her
children, and Alice Allie, a lovely young girl of 17 years, who died
of spinal
meningitis in 1890."
Probate of the
Will
Another interesting tidbit adding mystery to James' life was his request
of Levi Graybill and Sidney Pitt to be co-
executors of his will. When James
died, they apparently saw a big problem with the fact that he
bequeathed everything
to the RLDS Church. In doing that perhaps they saw problems that
might occur with the rest of the family on some level.
Therefore, they asked to be excused from duty as executors.
The man who took over the duties was Samuel O. Smith.
(Yet another Sam Smith!) We have no idea if he was related to James' first
wife Mary - but we think it was unlikely.
Levi Graybill may have asked to be replaced because of the trouble he
could see coming with James son-in-law Jolana's
husband, Henry Winegar, who went to court after his father-in-law died and
successfully obtained the lion's share of the
estate, under the guise of being repaid for taking care of his
father-in-law during his last years. In the probate information
there is a ledger from Woodmancy's Mercantile showing James'
account. The account was active until a couple of days
after he died. Therefore, showing that the family was
buying on James' credit for his care.5
There were several Smith families intertwined in James' life.
Levi Graybill was married to Patience Smith. These Smiths
were out of Kentucky or Tennessee. There
is supposedly a journal written by Abraham that says that his
grandfather
Smith died in Iowa and was living with James at the time. However,
Abraham's grandfather, Mary Smith's father died in
1811 in Warwick and is buried on the Smith
farm there. A curious
piece of information that may forever remain a
mystery.
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