Mary Elizabeth Bawden

BAWDEN, WOODWARD, SMITH, ELY

Posted By: Carol Bawden (email)
Date: 4/10/2007 at 14:50:36

MARY ELIZABETH BAWDEN born 31 March 1870 in Rockingham Township/Davenport, Scott County, IA, the only daughter of Stephen Douglas and Mary Ella Woodward Bawden. She attended Davenport schools and took training at the Teachers Training School. She taught at Old Number One Elementary School in Davenport. (now Madison School, Eastern & Locust).

Mary married Samuel Leander Ely on 22 March 1900 in her family home at 1315 4th Avenue (E. 11th St. now).

Samuel was born 2 December 1864 in Chambersburg, Franklin County, PA. In 1874, when we was 9 years old, his family moved to Mt. Carroll, Carroll County, IL He attended the Iowa State Normal School (now University of Northern Iowa) in Cedar Falls, IA. He graduated from Davenport Business College. He first worked as a bookkeeper for the Iowa Soldier’s Orphans’ Home in Davenport, Scott County, IA.

This was a facility originally set up for Civil War orphans by Annie Wittenmyer, a friend of Clara Barton. Both women were nurses in the war. It is on the site of Camp Kinser, a military encampment. It still exists although the last orphans left in the 1960s and it was turned over to the City of Davenport where several of their maintenance facilities were housed until the 1990s. It is now owned by Family Resources, a social service organization, that includes a State of Iowa juvenal court-sponsored “boot camp” – Summit - for offenders under 18 years old who have not graduated from an approved high school program..

Samuel also worked for A. J. Smith & Son furniture store and finally rose to the position of Cashier at the Union Savings Bank.

Samuel Ely suffered from tuberculosis and spent several winter months in the South where he contracted typhoid malaria. He died at age 39 on 6 June 1904 in the Bawden home just two months after the death of their first child, Edward Weiland Ely. Mary Elizabeth gave birth to a second child, Stephen Lee Ely, born 2 January 1905.

Mary Elizabeth did not remarry. She devoted herself to care for her son, mother and teaching. Mary Ely died 15 August 1946 in her childhood home at 1315 E. 11th St. The Elys were members of St. John’s Methodist Church. Mary, Samuel and Edward are buried in Davenport’s Oakdale Memorial Gardens, Sec 17, Lot 13.

Son Edward Weiland Ely: born 16 July 1903 in Davenport, Scott County, IA, died 21 March 1904 age 9 mos of spinal meningitis. Son Stephen Lee Ely, born in Davenport: cremains are interred in a Madison, WI, suburb, Roselawn Memorial Gardens, Monona, WI.