Nora E. Neely

1894-1924 · Iowa

Born 1894, Iowa

Died 1924

Father: John Neeley

Mother: Susan Neeley

Children include Helen

Nora E. Neely was born on 19 January 1894 in Iowa, the fourth child of John Neeley and his wife Susan, both Illinois-born. Her family did not stay anywhere long. Her older brothers Prentise, Dennis and Clifford were born in Iowa between 1888 and 1892; her brother Guy was born in Arkansas in 1896; her sisters Hulda and Hazel in Kansas in 1900 and 1902; and the two youngest, Hallie and Blanche, in Oklahoma in 1906 and 1907. The census of April 1910 found all eleven of them on a farm in Cimarron Township, Payne County, Oklahoma, a few miles from the Lincoln County line.

Across that line, at Chandler, about 1912, Nora, eighteen, married Orville R. Smith, twenty-four, a Kansas-born farmer of Osage Township. Their daughter Helen Faye was born at Agra on 12 January 1913, a week before Nora's nineteenth birthday, and a son, Glen, in 1915. The surname is spelt Neeley on her marriage licence and Neely on her stone.

By January 1920 the Smiths had moved to Dolores County, Colorado, where the census found Nora, twenty-five, with Orville, Helen and Glen. She died on 25 May 1924, aged thirty, and was buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Pueblo, three hundred miles from Dolores County on the far side of the mountains. Her obituary was printed in the Pueblo newspaper the next day. Why she was at Pueblo is not known. Her grave is marked by a flat grey granite stone of recent cutting, NORA E. (NEELY) SMITH, with her dates, which gives her the maiden name her daughter's obituary also gave her eighty years later.

Helen was eleven when her mother died, Glen nine. Orville took the children back to Lincoln County and never remarried.

Parents

Susan Neeley (b. 1868)

John Neeley (b. 1862)

Children

Helen Faye Smith 1913-2005

Sources

Obituary of Helen Faye Risenhoover, Cortez Journal (Cortez, Colorado), March 2005

Find a Grave, memorial 102685956, Nora E. Neely Smith, Mountain View Cemetery, Pueblo, Pueblo County, Colorado, Blk DR, Row 36; photograph added 2023.

United States Census, 1920, Colorado, Dolores County, household of Orville Smith, FamilySearch https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MX2Z-TJY.

Oklahoma, County Marriages, 1890-1995, Lincoln County, Orville R Smith and Nora E Neeley, FamilySearch https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2Z5-GFLY.

United States Census, 1910, Oklahoma, Payne County, Cimarron Township, household of John Neeley, FamilySearch https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MLW9-ST2.

Obituary of Helen Faye Risenhoover, Ertel Funeral Home, Cortez, Colorado, published 27 March 2005, https://www.ertelfuneralhome.com/obituaries/helen-faye-risenhoover.

1910 census, Cimarron Township, Payne County, Oklahoma (FamilySearch 1:1:MLW9-ST2); Oklahoma county marriages, Lincoln County (1:1:Q2Z5-GFLY); 1920 census, Dolores County, Colorado (1:1:MX2Z-TJY); Find a Grave memorial 102685956, Mountain View Cemetery, Pueblo, with a photograph of the stone; obituary of Helen Faye Risenhoover, Cortez Journal, March 2005; Pueblo City-County Library, Pueblo Obituary Archive, Nora Smith, died 25 May 1924, Pueblo Chieftain 26 May 1924 (pueblolibrary.org/obituaries-search)

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Cite: Heirology, "Nora E. Neely (1894-1924)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/nora-e-neely-1894-1924-06ad51.