Lydia Graham Olds

David brought me a document about Lydia Graham Olds (above), William Graham and Margaret McCarroll's granddaughter written by Warren Snider (her grandson):

Lydia Graham was born on January 10, 1848 in Waddoms Grove, in northern Illinois. Her father, Theodore Graham, had gone to California to the Gold Rush just months before she was born. When he returned home two years later, he had enough money to buy an 80-acre farm and a team of horses.

My grandmother, Lydia Graham (Olds) told the story that she was playing in the yard when her father came home from California. He picked up his little two year old daughter, and when he kissed her she cried.

I remember two other stories my grandmother told. When she was six years of age, one day the teacher dismissed the children at 11:00 A.M. because she was very ill. That night the teacher died of cholera. The other story is of hearing about the beginning of the Civil War. The family had gone on a picnic at Sweet Home, near Warren, Illinois. Two men came riding by on horseback and told them of the Battle of Bull Run. This was in 1861.

Kingsley E. Olds served for four years as a volunteer in the Illinois 45th Infantry in the Union Army during the Civil War. He returned home to his home on a farm south of Warren, Illinois in 1864. Shortly afterward he married Lydia Graham, and they moved to a farm in southern Wisconsin. Many years later they moved into the town of Warren, Illinois, where Kingsley Olds died two years later in 1907.

Carrie Olds, the oldest daughter of Kingsley and Lydia Olds was born in southern Wisconsin on May 18, 1865. During the twelve years three other daughters were born. Emma and Ella married brothers and moved to Primghar, Iowa. Lottie attended Warren Academy and later moved to Van Buren, Missouri in 1909.

Carrie attended Warren Academy and another school in Dixon, Illinois and taught school for ten years. She married Edward M. Snider in 1900. four sons were born to Edward and Carrie Snider. Herbert and Ed were born in 1901 and 1902 on the Sllothawer place in southern Wisconsin. I, Warren, was bron on a farm near Laddonia, Missouri in 1904. After two years in Missouri, the family moved back to Warren, Illinois, where Joe was born in 1906.

We then moved to Winthrop, Iowa and lived on three farms, the Carpenter Place, the Murley Place , and the Scheidler Place. In 1910 we moved to Lawrence, Michigan, where my father bought the only farm he ever owned. My father was killed by lightning on that farm in 1912.

After my father's death, Carrie Snider and her four boys went to Van Buren, Missouri to live with her sister Lottie Olds. Two years later my mother died. The boys stayed in Van Buren with Lottie until they were ready to leave home to go on to other pursuits, college, marriage, jobs.

For several years Graandma Olds kept her home in Warren, Illinois. She received a Civil War pension until her death. She spent the summer months in her home in Warren and the winter months in Van Buren with Lottie and the Snider boys. She died at the age of 97 in Van Buren while Warren was in Okinawas and Joe was in Europe during World War II.