Here's a tip: If you don't already have access to Newspapers.com, make sure to at least get on their mailing list. About once a year they provide free access to the site for an entire three-day weekend, but you can only take advantage of the offer through the link in the email.
A little over a month ago, for President's Day Weekend, the offer appeared. It was an inconvenient time for me; my laptop had just died. And by died, I mean died. I could not get it to turn on. I bought a new one, but my genealogy program with all its tasks was still on the old one. There was no way I was going to miss out on free newspapers, though! I just couldn't be as strategic as I would have liked. My searches would have to be based on the bits and pieces I have in the cloud, and pure, fitful memory. Inevitably, searching this way resulted in finding some things I have found before, but I still made a considerable number of new discoveries.
In the past couple of years since I first began taking advantage of these Newspaper.com weekends, I have developed a process. I clip and download as many relevant articles as I can in the time available, and when the weekend is over I go through the tedious work of transcribing and creating citations. That is what I have been doing every evening in the intervening days.
So anyway, that was a long-winded way of saying that I have a whole new batch of obituaries, and they may be pretty random as to who they are or to which branch of family they belong.
Let's begin with my 2great-grandfather, Louis Arthur Fox. This was my Grandpa Jack's maternal grandfather, and the only grandparent whose name Grandpa Jack was able to tell me. The reason he knew his name, he explained, was that one day when he was visiting, a package arrived that needed to be signed for. Louis Fox had lost an arm, and was holding something in his other arm, so he had Grandpa Jack sign for it. He told him his name and how to spell it.
Incidentally, I also discovered a number of newspaper articles from the time that Louis Fox lost his arm, but I'll save those for another post.
Services at Elliott For Louis Fox, 87
ELLIOTT -- Services were held Wednesday, Dec. 3, for Louis Fox, 87 of Elliott, who died at his home here Monday, Dec. 1.
He was born July 3, 1871, at Lebanon, Ohio, and came to Iowa when he was quite young. He was married to Cora Jones at Coburg in December, 1896. He lived in the Elliott community a number of years as a farmer, retiring in 1943.
Services were held at the Elliott Methodist Church with the Rev. Clarence Landis, officiating.
Survivors are four children, Mrs. Hazel Hoyt of Council Bluffs, Mrs. Viola Leighton of Griswold, Mrs. Mabel Peck and Clyde Fox of Elliott; seven grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
I realize as I paste in the citation that this article did not come directly from Newspapers.com. I discovered it as an indirect effect of the Newspapers.com weekend special. Searching for this family and not finding them on that website, I did a search for newspapers from Red Oak, Iowa, and discovered that there is a free website of newspapers for that area! My finds from there and from Newspapers.com are all jumbled up in my head, and will continue to be all jumbled up in the order I present them.
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