Researching my husband's Steiner ancestors, this social item on page 1 of the Crawford County News (Bucyrus, Ohio), August 28, 1884, caught my eye:
Addie Steiner, formerly of Nevada [Ohio], was recently married at Plankinton, Dakota to C.S. Deering.
Adda "Addie" Forrest Steiner (1860-1915) was my husband's 1c2r. She grew up with her parents and siblings in small-town Nevada, Ohio, according to the US Census of 1870 and 1880.
Why Go from Ohio to Dakota?
Somehow, in 1884, Addie managed to travel to Plankinton, Dakota Territory and marry Charles Sawyer Deering (1839-1899), a widower who had served in the 13th Maine Infantry on the Union side of the US Civil War two decades earlier. He was born in Maine and farmed in Maine before embarking on a different work life.
From Addie's Ohio hometown to her new home in Plankinton is a distance of 950 miles. How she got to Dakota is a mystery. Remember that Dakota Territory wasn't split into the two states of North Dakota and South Dakota until very late in 1889. Plankinton is in the south of South Dakota, as shown on the map above.
My guess is that Addie met Charles on one of his trips to or from Dakota and his family's home in Maine. Addie lived close to several busy railroad hubs. From my knowledge of Addie's family, they had no relatives in Maine and didn't travel there themselves. (If they had visited Maine, local newspapers would probably have mentioned their comings and goings in the social items that filled many columns.)
Charles Deering in Dakota
Charles's marriage to Addie in August of 1884 came a decade after the death of his first wife, Abbie Flood, in their home town in Maine. Abbie sadly died shortly after giving birth to a baby boy, and their son lived just a few weeks longer, sorry to say.
Maybe these terrible losses prompted Charles to seek a fresh start in rapidly-growing Dakota. In 1879, a few years after his first wife's death, Charles went to Plankinton to work on a telegraph line for the United States Signal Service. He returned to Maine following that telegraph work, then went out west again to continue the telegraph line in 1880 (Portland Press Herald, Maine, April 17, 1880).
Charles settled down in Plankinton, later running a furniture store and heading up a farm insurance firm. As a Union veteran, he was especially active in the Grand Army of the Republic, serving as an officer in local and regional groups.
Charles and Addie had one child: Marie Pauline Deering, born in Plankinton in October of 1889, only a month before Dakota Territory became two states.
What happened to Charles and Addie
Charles died in March of 1899 due to stomach cancer, at age 60. His brief obit appeared in many newspapers throughout the Dakotas, and even in a Minneapolis paper that covered the South Dakota region. His GAR activities were prominently mentioned in the obit.
Addie was now widowed in Plankinton with young Pauline, only 9 years old. By 1900, the two had moved to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where they were boarders in the home of an insurance executive while Pauline attended school.
By 1910, mother and daughter had moved to Lima, Ohio, to continue Pauline's education. They boarded with the family of Edward V. Wells. Addie fell ill in 1915 and went to Cleveland for surgery, which didn't go well. She passed away and was buried in Nevada Cemetery in Ohio, near other Steiner relatives. Pauline was left an orphan, not yet finished with her college degree at Oberlin.
More about Pauline in my next post!
Plankinton is a "place that matters" in my husband's family tree. "Place that matters" is this week's 52 Ancestors prompt from Amy Johnson Crow.
