Grandparents meet in South Dakota - farmer Shephard's son and the miller's daughter

 From the last post, we found how my great-grandfather's family wound up in Howard, South Dakota where my grandfather was born. But how does the son of a corn farmer in the 1880s meet and fall in love with a young woman who lived about 40 miles away. What chance encounter could they have had?

My grandmother's father, James Cox also came to South Dakota as it opened up in the early 1880s, He took up residence in Alexandria, in neighboring Hanson County. I'm sure he knew many of the farmers in the area because his occupation listed on the 1880 census in Illinois was Miller. I'm sure he saw the frontier as a way to start a new life being one of the first millers in a land opening up for farming.

In 1900, the Coxes moved to Howard. Elroy and Madeline were married in Howard in 1908. So did they meet earlier? Probably not, they probably met after the move for the first time and had a normal courtship. Though I cannot find a tie through their occupations, it was agriculture that brought both families to South Dakota and set up the opportunity for Elroy and Madeline to meet, fall in love and wed.

By 1910, Elroy and Madeline had moved back to Spring Valley, Minnesota where Levi Shephard had once lived. But they didn't return to Minnesota to farm, Elroy was a banker. He and Madeline raised 5 sons in Spring Valley. A funny family story is that they ran out of boy's names that they liked, which accounts for why the two youngest sons did not have middle names.


James Cox, 1882

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