Ida Trautvetter Neill (1910-1994)

Dates of birth I can remember--dates of death not so much.  For some reason, the time of the year is easier for me to remember than the precise date of the event. I remembered that my Grandma Neill died in July--mainly because it was during summer school. A quick look up told me that today, 21 July, was the anniversary of Grandma's death in 1994. I knew she died before my youngest daughter was a year old, but somehow it did not seem like it has been that long.

We lived in Galesburg, Illinois, then and my Mother called me to tell me Dad had found Grandma. It wasn't unexpected, Grandma was 83 at the time and had had several strokes in the last years of her life and her memory towards the end was not what it used to be.

The picture in this post was probably taken the year Grandma died. There's no date on it, but Katherine (who is with her in the picture) was born in September of 1993. Most likely it was taken in the summer of 1993.

Grandima was born Ida Laura Trautvetter on 1 September 1910 in Wythe Township, Hancock County, Illinois, the daughter of George and Ida (Sargent) Trautvetter. The family lived in several locations in Wythe and Walker Townships in Hancock County, before settling on the farm near Loraine, Adams County, Illinois, that is still owned by one of grandma's nephews.

Grandma graduated from the 8th grade in Hancock County--there's a picture of her at the courthouse for the countywide graduation. Her parents must have been living in Hancock County still when Grandma was that age.

Grandma was living near Loraine when she met my Grandpa Cecil Neill and they married in Keithsburg, Mercer County, Illinois, in December of 1935. They rented a farm near Plymouth, Hancock County, Illinois, for a year or so (from a relative of Grandpa's) and then purchased the farm north of Carthage where they lived for the rest of their lives and where my parents live today.

Grandma babysat me from the time I was 6 weeks old until I went to kindergarten. We were never to play in the front yard because the highway (the "slab") was too dangerous. I'll have to blog more about Grandma later.

Grandma's buried in the West Point, Illinois, cemetery--where three generations of Neills are buried.