Nellie Pauline (Corliss) Lake (1886 - 1969)

Ancestors Descendants

Biography

Nellie Pauline Corliss was born on 30 November 1886 near Gilead in Thayer county, Nebraska.^[1] She was the daughter of Mirza George Corliss (M.G.) (1850-1941) and Rebecca Jane Jackson Corliss (Becky) (1864-1944) and she was the oldest of the six children they had, two girls and four boys. Nell was probably named after M.G.’s mother, Paulina Skinner Corliss (1822-1895). Her father M.G. was a farmer, stockman and land owner, besides being a school board member, church board member and county commissioner at various times, which is to say that he supported his family very well and was an influential leader in their community. All of his children achieved their high school diplomas, which was becoming more common in the early 1900’s in rural communities, but no less was expected by M.G.
As a teenager, Nell was becoming a young woman who enjoyed her family and wider social circle which included her school classmates and neighbors. She loved posing for photographs and collecting pictures of family and friends. After graduation from Hebron High School with the class of 1906, she taught school for three years.^[2] Because she knew, and was known by, many people in Thayer county and nearby Hebron, it would certainly be interesting to learn more about how and why she accepted the courtship of the son of a poor dirt farmer, recently moved from North Dakota and who had lived in Chicago with his aunt while finishing high school. Those seem like insurmountable obstacles, but there were obviously several greater attractions involved. That young man was Frank Lake, who came from a family in which the men were romantic overachievers, generation after generation. It may have been Frank’s aunt who influenced him to aim high during his early adult years, if not directly, but surely indirectly, in choosing a mate, in his religion and his vocation. Nell probably saw that desire in him and believed he would achieve his dreams.
Nellie married Frank Lake on 16 February 1910 in Hebron and then they took their honeymoon trip to Iowa, where Frank had several cousins in the Iowa Falls area of Hardin county. A man from Nebraska named Moses Kinkaid was elected to Congress and won an amendment to the Homestead Act in 1904 which allowed 640 acres instead of 160 acres to be claimed in the non-irrigable counties in the Nebraska Sandhills. Nell went with Frank to the Sandhills to claim a homestead near Hekla,^[3][4]

Frank & Nell Lake Homestead 1910-1940

or a few miles south and west of Mullen, one of the few and later the only town in Hooker county. They must have moved in 1910 because their oldest son, Mirza Joseph was born in Hooker county on 1 January 1911. Somewhere in their travels the 1910 US Census missed them. It is not known if a temporary sod house was built upon arrival, as homesteaders usually did. They did purchase lumber to build a frame house, but a prairie fire burned it all up. They bought more lumber and the house was completed, probably by the time their second son, Harold Eugene, was born on 2 September of 1913. Nell’s father had helped organize a community church and Frank’s mother was Irish Catholic, but in 1918, Frank and Nell were baptized into the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and they remained members for the rest of their lives, attending church in Fairbury after 1940.^[2]

Nell and Frank had known the life they probably could have had in Thayer county, even briefly saw how Frank’s cousins were doing in Iowa, but they chose the life of raising livestock in the Sandhills on a homestead. Their third son, Wallace Wayne, arrived on 18 February 1921. Three sons could not have been any more different. Mirza Joe, their oldest, became a teacher and married a teacher, Grace Hackett, and lived in many parts of the country. Gene married a Sandhills girl, Irene Folk, and they raised stock there for many years. The youngest, Wallace, had a love for flying, but had a short career that ended in China in 1944. Homesteading and stock raising changed in August of 1940,^[5] when they left their ranch in the care of Joe and Grace and moved back to Hebron to care for their aging parents.

The Lake Mansion about 1940

Nell’s father, M.G., died the next year, 1941, and Frank’s father, Joe, died in 1942. Nell’s mother, Rebecca, died in May of 1944 and her son, Wallace, died in October. Frank’s mother, Mary, died in 1947. This series of family deaths in such a short time took a toll on Nell and probably the hardest for her was Wallace. She kept his bedroom exactly the way he had left it before shipping off to the war.

At the same time, she probably took much comfort in being back in Thayer county where she had grown up, surround by many family members and friends that she had known all her life.
Twenty-four years she lived in her father’s home in Thayer county. Thirty years she lived in Hooker county with her husband and sons. It was 26 years that she lived in the big Lake mansion in Thayer county, enjoying her life on a small 80 acre farm, being close to her sister and brothers and their families, having frequent visits by many friends, and the occasional visits of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Mirza Joe had a son and an adopted daughter, who had several children. Gene and Irene had five children who were just getting their families started. Nell had seven grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren by the time she died in 1969. She had a series of strokes and was in failing health for several months.^[2] Her body was laid to rest beside her son, Wallace, in the Rose hill Cemetery north of Hebron.^[6]

Sources

1. ↑ FamilySearch.org, [1], 1900 US Census.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2} WikiTree Image, [2], Nell's Obituary.
3. ↑ FamilySearch.org, [3], 1920 US Census.
4. ↑ FamilySearch.org, [4], 1930 US Census.
5. ↑ FamilySearch.org, [5], 1940 US Census.
6. ↑ FamilySearch.org, [6], Burial Index.

• P Nellie Corliss in household of M Corliss, "United States Census, 1900"

"United States Census, 1900," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/M313-BC1 : 20 January 2015), P Nellie Corliss in household of M Corliss, Gilead Precinct, Thayer, Nebraska, United States; citing sheet 10B, family 189, NARA microfilm publication T623 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm 1,240,941.

• Nell P Lake in household of Frank M Lake, "United States Census, 1920"

"United States Census, 1920," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MCKC-R38 : 14 December 2015), Nell P Lake in household of Frank M Lake, Hecla, Hooker, Nebraska, United States; citing sheet 1B, NARA microfilm publication T625 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm 1,820,992.

• Nell P Lake in household of Frank M Lake, "United States Census, 1930"

"United States Census, 1930", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/XQKP-Z5T : 8 December 2015), Nell P Lake in entry for Frank M Lake, 1930.

• Nellie P Lake in household of Frank M Lake, "United States Census, 1940"

"United States Census, 1940," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/K9MW-3FR : 17 May 2014), Nellie P Lake in household of Frank M Lake, Mullen Election Precinct, Hooker, Nebraska, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 46-3, sheet 3A, family 48, NARA digital publication T627 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012), roll 2250.

• Nell Pauline Corliss Lake, "Find A Grave Index"

"Find A Grave Index," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/QVGQ-BCL6 : 11 July 2016), Nell Pauline Corliss Lake, 1969; Burial, Hebron, Thayer, Nebraska, United States of America, Rose Hill Cemetery; citing record ID 110230434, Find a Grave, http://www.findagrave.com.

Memories: 1