Location: Sec. 16 - T 99 N - R 17 W - Is located 1 grave. (Mitchell Co., Iowa)

SMITH, Edith; dau. of S. & A.; died June 1, 1863 - Age: 1 yr & 1 Mo.

In the fall of 1961 Mrs. McGill and I (Mary Wellner) called on Mrs. Moss the widow of Doc. Moss, as someone had told us of this grave.

Photo of Edith's Tombstone

Mrs. Moss told us this story about the little child, Edith and her father, Sidney Smith, more often called Cap Smith. Edith died and was buried across the road, just south of the now Moss home. The Smith family was living in the old house that still stands. Cap was a truck gardener at that time. Be built the house over one hundred years ago, There were more children in the family, also his wife, who drove to Osage every morning with fresh vegetable and berries, when in season, with one old horse hitched to a spring buggy. His wife died some time later and Mrs. Moss was not sure where she was buried.

A short way north, on the Cedar River is a spring and over this there used to be a red brick building. This was where Cap Smith made his, quite famous, grape wines. He used the spring water in the process. Sometimes the Revenue Officers would go out for a raid, but Mrs. Moss thought they never caught him, as someone in town would go tearing out horseback to warn him and be would hide the barrels of wine and other evidence in a catch under the floor and quickly scatter straw over the trap door and set a fanning mill over all.

Closeup of Edith's Tombstone Click here for much more detailed version.

Then he married again, but soon parted from his family. This was when he moved to the place where Dr. and Mrs. Moss bought and she still lives. He hired a young boy to work for him, by name of Andy Ryan, whose parents lived in the first place across the field, east.

In the meantime, Mr. Smith had removed little Edith to this place and buried her east of the house -- which he was then building.

Mrs. Moss, said, as a child she loved to go fishing with her father and they would walk out across the fields, from Osage. She always visited Little Edith's grave and it left her feeling sad, as her imagination

Present location of stone--Fall 2003

conjured fanciful things in connection to the grave. But it was always so beautifully cared for and all summer flowers bloomed on her grave, planted there by her father.

Mr. Smith's second wife kept the other children and raised them. Through the years the purchase of some of the land from what Cap Smith had owned, left the little grave of Edith out in the field of the farm east of the old home.

The Moss's bought the place where Gap Smith had owned in 1939 and found it in a sad state - as it had been used as a dumping ground. In the process of cleaning up, they hauled fourteen loads of old car bodies, and boxes etc. off. Mrs. Moss found the little grave marker and foot stone under the Lilac hedge her father had planted many years before.

The Iron Spring, beside the River Road

So out near the well she reset the little marker with a lamb on top and planted flowers as she had remembered it.

While out by the grave, she told us about the fire in Osage, around 1890.

 

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Note: The tombstone is now leaning against the well house on the Kloberdanz farm on the river road, approximately 1/2 mile southeast of the Iron Spring.

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Author: Mary Wellner; given to Neal Du Shane by Dolores Weinberger

Webization by Kermit L. Kittleson, SEP 2003

Updated, JAN 11, 2004

Updated, SEP 23, 2004