Page 73 - Armstrong Bloodline - ebook_Neat

that he did not even tell his friends when he married and that they only found out when someone noted
women's garments hanging on his clothes line!

In about 1904 or 1905, Frank married Edna Merle Bulen 251 – most likely after she and her family moved to
Watertown, SD. Their first daughter, Merle Marie (Bloom) Armstrong, was born on May 11, 1905 in
Watertown. 250 If the baby was full-term, Edna probably conceived in August or September of 1904, leading
one to surmise that they were probably married sometime earlier that year. However, I have located no record
of Frank and Edna's marriage in Pipestone or Wright Counties, MN or in Codington County, SD in the 1904 to
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1906 timeframe. Other records show that she and her family moved to South Dakota in 1904, so it is
possible that she knew Frank when she lived in Minnesota. Her sister Ethel was also married in Watertown to
Fred Middleton of that city, in 1905. 253 & 254

Apparently, Frank had kept in touch with his uncle Jerome, as family sources related that Frank and Edna's
second daughter, Verna Gertrude was born and died the same day in Blanchard, IA in 1906 255 & 256 (located
south of Shenandoah). This would mean that Frank would have moved from South Dakota to southern Iowa in
late 1905 or early 1906. Recordkeeping in the Midwest during this period was abysmal, to say the least, and no
record of her birth or death is available from Page County records available for this period.

Several years ago, my father gave me a copy of a Warranty Deed for a cemetery plot purchased by Frank in
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Coin, IA on March 5, 1907. Subsequently, I verified the purchase with Mrs. Margory Henning, who kept the
cemetery books for Elmwood Cemetery, in Coin. However, there is no record of whether anyone is buried in
the plot. The deed shows that Frank resided in Page County, IA at the time. My father related that Frank
supposedly purchased six such plots. However, I was unable to verify that the other plots actually exist. Frank's
uncle Jerome is said to have owned a harness shop in Coin and several farms in the area – is it possible that he
worked for his uncle during his stay in Iowa? The town of Blanchard, IA is located right on the Missouri border,
and has a current population of only about 100 citizens. Coin is only about 5 or 10 miles north, and
Shenandoah another 10 or 15 miles to the northwest.

Although I have no record of Frank's activities over the next few years, I assume that Frank, Edna and their
family continued to reside in the Blanchard/Coin area of southern Page County as another daughter, Olive
Lillian, was born there in 1907. Apparently, he did not find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that his
uncle had found, as Hennepin County Probate Court records in Frank's Senility Hearing on October 4, 1949,
reveals that Frank and his family first moved to Minnesota in 1910. In further support of this, the 1910 Federal
Census taken on April 19, 1910, shows that Frank and Edna were living with Edna's parents (Willis and Lillian
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Bulen) in the township of Otsego, Wright Co., MN. It is appears that they migrated from Iowa to Minnesota
earlier in the year and at that time had not yet found a place of their own to live. The Census also indicates
that they had been married five years and that they had two children (Merle M., age four, and Olive L., age
two. Frank's occupation is shown as general farming and his birth place as SD. If you can believe they had been
married only five years, (which is likely as not incorrect), this further complicates fixing the actual date of their
marriage as it would then have been at some point after Edna conceived, or perhaps even after their first child
was born. Interestingly, the undated 1905 South Dakota State Census doesn’t clear things up at all, as it shows
both Edna and her younger sister Ethel living with their parents (Willis and Lillian) in Watertown, SD, but shows
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both sisters as being married. Neither husband is shown as a member of the household, nor do they appear
on their own in the census. As Ethel was married toward the end of October, it is possible that the State census
was taken shortly thereafter. Why neither of the young husbands was shown is unclear. Some family
researchers maintain that Willis and his family moved to South Dakota around the time that their youngest
daughter Faye was born. However, according to the above state census, they had lived in South Dakota for
only about one year at that time.

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