James Bruce Lee & Elizabeth Belle (Cook) Lee

LEE, COOK, HARTER, WELCH

Posted By: Susan Kimes Burgess (email)
Date: 11/13/2006 at 21:08:19

Trying to find any info available on this couple. They have some mystery about them since James ran off from his first family of nine children and his first wife living in Douglas County, Michigan in about 1881. Until his death in 1919 and the probating of his will his first family knew nothing about his continued existence. We have found no marriage record of his second relationship. After his second "wife" died he supposedly married a third time in 1915 but divorced very shortly after in that same year.

James Bruce Lee
b. September 17, 1841 near Troy, Wentworth County, Ontario, Canada
d. abt. February 7, 1919 Des Moines, Polk County, Iowa, USA at the home of Stella Harter.
buried: Sec.8 Blk.106, Arlington Heights Cemetery, Leroy Township, Audubon County, Iowa
m. 1) Caroline Eliza Welch in Canada. They moved to Douglas Township, Montcalm County, Michigan in 1865 and had nine children. He abandoned his family about 1881. He turned up in Leroy Township, Audubon County, Iowa in the early 1880's with

m. 2) Elizabeth Belle (Cook) Lee as his wife. (We don't know if they were really married.)
b. October 2, 1842 in England
d. Abt. January 2, 1911 Iowa
buried: Sec.8 Blk.106, Arlington Heights Cemetery, Leroy Township, Audubon County, Iowa

James and Elizabeth lived in Audubon County for over 30 years. In the 1900 census Elizabeth is listed as having no children and none living but in the 1910 census Stella M. Lee, age 19 is living with them and listed as a daughter, another mystery.

WPA cemetery records show James, Belle, and Ralph Lee buried in the same family plot in Arlington Heights in Audubon County.

Ralph Lee could be their natural son and the reason James left Michigan since he was b. May 13, 1881 and d. December 11, 1912 according to the cemetery record. Buried in Sec.3 lot 106, Arlington Heights Cemetery, Leroy Township, Audubon County, Iowa.

How would I go about getting all the probate and will info for James? Since he died in Des Moines, Polk County, Iowa would I need to look for the records there and not in Audubon?

I believe Stella M. Lee married [--?--] Harter. James was living with Stella Harter at the time of his death and she brought his will to the county clerk, John Horning according to a newspaper clipping from an unknown newspaper. I don't know if his will was probated in Audubon or Polk County.