Caroline Mary (Barnard) Goodman (1879 - 1918)

Born 3 Jun 1879 in Sloan, Woodbury, Iowa, USA

Ancestors

Wife of Thomas Elmer Goodman — married 25 Sep 1901 in Hot Springs, Fall River, South Dakota, USA

Descendants

Died 13 May 1918 at age 38 in Riverton, Fremont, Wyoming, USA

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Clarke Goodman [send private message]

Biography

Caroline was the youngest of 9 children in the Barnard family. She was very close to her sister Catherine and they married Goodman brothers (Thomas Elmer and Benjamin Oscar). Her nickname was Carrie. In 1894 she was one of the first to graduate from high school. She attended normal school and and taught school in Loveland, CO. She attended University of Colorado in Boulder. She always had a new poem to recite at family gatherings. She was a loving mother who often took time to read to and play with her children. She died at a young age in 1918. Her husband (she called him by his middle name Elmer) recalled the following from her bedside: When she regained consciousness, her face lighted with a heavenly glow. She exclaimed :"I have seen heaven. It is beautiful! the angels are singing with such beautiful music! Elmer, as much as I love you and my family, I must go. I cannot stay." Her loss was a real shock to the family.

Excerpt from Family Paper by Mark Goodman ca 1990 based on family stories. The original contained many errors which I have corrected.

The Barnards were very prominent in the historical records of New England and the middle states. They can trace their ancestry to the colonial days, and the Barnard name was also common in England before then. Several of the Barnards were business men and entrepreneurs. Our family settled outside Washington D. C. and built a Devonshire cottage called Normanstone on their 24 acre farm in Georgetown. Robert Barnard, Caroline's grandfather, was treasurer of the C and O canal Company which built a canal alongside the Potomac River, from Washington D.C. to Cumberland, MD. The C and O Canal is now a National Park mostly due to the efforts of Justice William O. Douglas.

My grandmother [Fannie Lois Briggs], and your great grandmother, married Mr. R. C. Barnard. She was born about 1837 on a plantation outside Richmond, Virginia; they were married in 1856. The Briggs family were slaveholders, and grandmother Barnard was assigned her own personal slave to care for her every need. It is said she never had to dress herself until she married and left home. R.C. Barnard was a young visionary who was caught up in the westward movement. in 1857, he led a group of Germans to an area in central Nebraska where they founded the town of Grand Island, his bride joined him there a few years later. The family later moved to Omaha where R.C. was the city engineer. About 1870, the family settled in Sloan, Iowa. R. C. Barnard and his sons built a large grain elevator in Sloan, a building which still stands. The main street of Sloan is Barnard Street. Gravestones in the cemetery record the names of several of the Barnard family, as well as names of several in the Goodman family.

There were 9 children in the family. The youngest Caroline Barnard, Carrie, who was one of the first girls to graduate from Sloan High School in 1894, along with her brother, John. Carrie attended a normal school after graduation and secured a teaching position in Loveland, Colorado, a real pioneer town then. In the summer break she attended the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Sources

• Personal family information
• 1900 US Federal Census - Sloan, Iowa
• 1910 US Federal Census - Fall River, South Dakota