Herman Walter Belville

1876-1901 · Mondawmin MD

Born 1876, Mondamin, Harrison County, Iowa

Died 1901

Father: Isiah Belville

Mother: Hattie E. Morrill

Children include Orval

Herman Walter Belville was born on 21 April 1876 at Mondamin, in Harrison County, Iowa, by one account; his death notice gives his age as 25 years and 6 months in October 1901, which agrees. His parents were Isiah Belville and Hattie E. Morrill. He passed his boyhood at Tekamah, in Burt County, Nebraska, on the Missouri River north of Omaha. By one account his father died in 1881, and his mother married again; in 1885 Herman, 9, and his younger brothers Harvey and William were living with her at Tekamah, and in 1901 she was Mrs. William Reynolds of Tekamah.

On 20 January 1898, at Belvidere in Thayer County, Nebraska, Herman, 21, married Edith Sarratt, 19, a daughter of A. B. Sarratt and Anna Robertson. They made their home at Hebron, the county seat, a few miles away. Their daughter Delpha was born in 1899 and their son Orval on 25 August 1901.

Two months after Orval's birth, Herman was killed. The Tekamah Journal of 31 October 1901 told it under the heading "Killed by Lightning":

"The evening of his death he left his house about 7:30 to go to the barn to do his chores. His wife almost immediately retired to bed and fell asleep. About 10 o'clock she awakened and found he had not returned. She awoke a lady relative who was in the house and they went in search of him, finding him lying about midway between the house and the barn."

The paper went on: "It was storming when he left the house and a bolt of lightning had struck him on the head, gone down his body and torn off one shoe." It was Friday evening, 25 October 1901. He was 25.

His body was taken home to Tekamah on the Monday. After a funeral at his mother's house, "a large number of friends" followed him to the Tekamah cemetery. The notice called him "an industrious and honest young man" and said he left a wife, two children, his mother and several brothers and sisters. By one account his grave is unmarked and lies beside the stone of his father, Isaiah.

His widow married Herman Baumgart in 1904 and raised the two children near Lincoln.

Parents

Hattie E. Morrill (d. 1925)

Isiah Belville (d. 1881)

Children

Orval M. Belville 1901-1985

Sources

Tekamah Journal, Tekamah, Nebraska, Thursday, 31 October 1901, "Killed by Lightning"; clipping on Find a Grave memorial 30378154.

Nebraska, Marriages, 1855-1995, Herman Walter Belville and Edith Sarratt, 20 January 1898; FamilySearch 1:1:Q2ZG-WZPT.

Nebraska, State Census, 1885, Tekamah, Burt County, page 17, line 48; FamilySearch 1:1:X3XF-J2X.

Nebraska marriages, Herman Walter Belville and Edith Sarratt, 20 January 1898 (FamilySearch 1:1:Q2ZG-WZPT); Tekamah Journal, Thursday, 31 October 1901, "Killed by Lightning"; Find a Grave memorial 30378154; Nebraska State Census, 1885, Tekamah, Burt County, page 17, line 48 (FamilySearch 1:1:X3XF-J2X).

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Cite: Heirology, "Herman Walter Belville (1876-1901)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/herman-walter-belville-1876-1901-05d08f.