Joseph Trimble Cowles

Joseph Trimble Cowles

I have been on a mission to obtain a photograph of every direct ancestor of mine back to my 3rd great grandparents, sixty-two pictures in all not counting myself. Maybe a couple years ago, I wrote about finding a photo for the last remaining missing photo of my 2nd great grandparents, completing all 16 of them. Of my 32 3rd great grandparents, I'm over halfway there with 20 of the 32 possible photos located but I was still missing 12 of them. 

Recently I was sorting downloaded photos from my phone for my youngest to use to create photo albums, and I came across a series of photos that I took over two years ago after the death of my paternal grandmother. At a memorial for her, I took a number of pictures of old photos from her albums that were of interest and somehow forgot I had them. Going through them, I came across the above photo of my 3rd great grandfather Joseph Trimble Cowles, one of the missing photos I have been seeking, meaning I have only 11 remaining to find.

Joseph was born to a Presbyterian minister who started one of the first Presbyterian churches west of the Mississippi river, Rev. Salmon Cowles and wife Polly Miner Cowles. Joseph was the eighth of ten children born to this couple in Belmont, Ohio on the western side of the state.

Six years before Iowa became a state, the Cowles family set off to seek new fortunes in the very southeast corner of the state. Joseph was only 14 years old at the time. At the age of 25, Joseph would marry Elizabeth Chapman and they would move north to Louisa county, Iowa near the confluence of the Iowa and Mississippi rivers. There Joseph and Elizabeth would build a house, farm and raise four kids of their own, three surviving to adulthood. They remained on that farm the rest of their lives.

Joseph's wife Elizabeth, whom just minutes ago in a search I learned, died of abdominal dropsy at the age of 50 in 1883. The youngest child, my 2nd great grandmother Jane Elizabeth Cowles, was already 17 at the time and so there was no reason for Joseph to quickly remarry as some of my other male ancestors with young children would do, and so five years would go by before he remarried to Delia A. Hupp in 1888. At 30 years of age, she was half the age of Joseph who was 60 years old at the time. I guess some things never change.

Delia had four children from a previous marriage but due to the 1890 Census being destroyed by a fire, I don't know how many moved into Joseph's house after their marriage. By the 1900 Census, only two of Delia's four children were still alive and they were still living in Joseph's house at 20 and 17 years of age.

Joseph died a few years later at age 77 though the recently located death notice in the newspaper doesn't say of what ailment, so I presume natural old age. Second wife Delia received one third of his estate and the remaining two-thirds was itself divided into thirds and given to each of his surviving three children with my 2nd great grandfather William being named the executor.

  

Joseph and Delia Cowles In Front of the Farm House.