Today would have been my Grandma Neill's 99th birthday.
According to Grandma she was born 1 Sept 1910 in "Tiogee." She meant Tioga, but she always said it to sound like "Tiogee." Actually Grandma was born in Wythe Township, Hancock County, Illinois, somewhere near the metropolis of Elderville. She wasn't born in Tioga. Wythe Township is the location given on her birth certificate and christening record. Her family was living in Wythe Township in the 1910 census as well. I've got scans of those records I'll have to post on the site when I get time. Grandma listed her birth place as Tioga on every record where she provided the information.
Grandma's father's family was from Tioga and that's where she was christened, which is probably why she thought she was born there. Her parents were George and Ida Trautvetter.
Grandma's in the SSDI http://ssdi.rootsweb.com/. There are only 7 Ida Neills in the index at the time this post was written.
She married my Grandpa Neill in December of 1935. They travelled from Loraine, Illinois, where Grandma lived, to Keithsburg, Illinois, to get married. According to the newspaper, Grandma wore a light blue dress for the ceremony. According to Grandma, she and Grandpa split a Snickers bar sometime later in the day. Times were hard and money was tight. They went back to their respective parents' homes until they set up housekeeping in the spring of 1936. Grandpa rented a farm near Plymouth, Illinois for the first few years or so after their marriage. They later moved to Carthage.
Grandma rarely left the farm and lived most of her adult life on the farm she and Grandpa bought north of Carthage, Illinois. She passed away at home in July of 1994 and was buried in the West Point [Illinois] Cemetery. The chickenhouse still stands.
[I'm having difficulties posting images with blogger.com so I'm just posting text for this post.]