Dorcas Faye (Wilder) Wohrer (1892 - 1988)

Born 7 Jan 1892 in Spencer Township, Jennings County, Indiana

Ancestors

Wife of Fielding Estey Wohrer — married 27 Nov 1913 in Hayden, Spencer Township, Jennings, Indiana, United States

Descendants

Died 6 Sep 1988 at age 96 in Hoffman Estates, Cook, Illinois, United States

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Cheryl Kotecki [send private message]

Biography

[adapted from the biography written in the first person by Alice Wohrer Yarnal in her book, They Came to Spencer Township.]

Dorcas Faye Wilder was born on January 7, 1892, in Spencer Township, Jennings County, Indiana. She started school in a one room school near the farm where she lived with her father, mother, sister May, and her grandmother, Dorcas Wilder. Her grandmother died the year that she started to school.

The family moved to Hayden when she was in the third grade. In Hayden, they lived on a ten acre property with two houses, a barn, and a small out building. They kept a cow, chickens, and had a garden. Her mother was a seamstress, and gave a few piano lessons.

Faye graduated from Hayden High School in 1910, the only member in her class. That summer, she took a 12 week teacher's training course at the Indiana State Teacher's College in Terra Haute, Indiana. That fall, she started teaching in a one room school in Spencer Township. She lived with a family near the school. She taught one year in the grade school at Hayden, and the year 1912-1913 in a one room school at Patoka, Indiana near the Wabash River. In March, 1913, the Wabash River flooded the whole area. the school was closed for the remainder of the school year. this was one of the most exciting events of Fay's life, as they had to be evacuated from the roof of the house by rowboat.

In 1966, she received a letter from a Mr. C.C. White, who had been one of her pupils. He wrote: "I was in the sixth grade when you taught at the White school in 1912-13... I wanted to tell you this years ago but I was unable to locate you. Your teaching of kindness and understanding to school pupils has guided me many years in my work." He became a teacher. She was pleased when he finally visited her in Elburn.

Faye and Fielding went together for several years. They broke up once for a year, and Fielding went with another girl. Faye never mentioned going with anyone else. [Fielding's sisters] Ethel and Ella were among Faye's closest friends, and she was at the Wohrer home often from the time they moved to Hayden. She never mentioned when she first became attracted to Fielding, or when they had their first date.

Faye and Fielding were married at her home on November 27, 1913. They spent their wedding night in the little house on Fielding's farm about a mile from the Wohrer homeplace. That night, their friends surprised them with a charivari (pronounced chivaree, a mock, noisy serenade to newlyweds). The friends set of charges of dynamite which shook the house and broke some pieces of the good china that had been wedding gifts. It was a night they never forgot!

Daughter Alice was born in the little house on December 19, 1914. Fielding farmed the Wohrer homeplace as well as his own farm, and the family moved back and forth between the two houses. Sons FIelding W. and John C. were born in the big house. John C. was born in 1918 during the flu epidemic, and died a few hours later. May was born in the little house. The family moved back to the big house the day Alice started school. Loris and Myra were born in the little house. Alice did not remember which place they were living in when the still born baby was born, and when Faye later had a miscarriage.

Somehow, Faye preserved the papers Alice used for her history though all of these moved, and those to come in Illinois! Like all farm wives, she helped with the chores, took care of the children, and did the housework, sometimes cooking for hired help.

All her babies were born at home. Usually, Alice Wells, Fielding's second cousin, who was a widow, came and stayed at the house a couple of weeks, helping deliver the baby, then caring for Faye, baby, and doing the housework.

It had been hard to make a living on the farm during the 1920's and by 1927, they lost the farm to the mortgage holders. Fielding had taken out a mortgage to buy his farm from the other heirs of his father's estate.

In the fall of 1927, Fielding, with several other Spencer Township men, went to Northern Illinois to husk corn. All corn husking was done by hand at that time. He found a job on a dairy farm in Homer Township, Will County, Illinois. in January, 1928, he moved his family to Illinois, leaving Alice to finish her freshman High School year in Hayden.

The family would move six more times before they moved to their house in Elburn in 1962. when Alice was home from college one time, she asked Faye if she was happy. She didn't even stop to think about it, but said, "I'm too busy to think about it."

After they bought the little farm near Waterman, and sold the gravel from it, they had the time and the money to travel some. Often they traveled with another couple, the Hap Davises of Elburn, or the Williams of Waterman. these were happy years, even after Fielding's heart attack.

Life grew harder after Fielding fell [while cleaning the eaves] in 1972. Faye took care of him with help from Myra and a few others, as long as she could.

Faye gradually lost her hearing. Cataract surgery helped her vision some, but macular degeneration finally robbed her of all but a little peripheral vision.

Unable to see or read, or to hear to listen to the radio, or watch television, the last two years of her life were spent at Alice's house in Kaneville, a nursing home briefly, and finally at Myra's. Faye had arthritis, and was sometimes uncomfortable, but was usually cheerful.

Faye was good-natured, optimistic, and stubborn. With five children, she was always busy. She sang or whistled as she worked. I thought that she was a good cook. Fielding loved sweets, so they usually had a dessert with meals. When she baked cookies, she had to hide them from Fielding, or there were none left at mealtime.

Faye was an excellent seamstress. She said that when she was a child, she preferred sewing clothes for her dolls rather than playing with them.

The children had better fitting, nicer clothes because she made over clothes from dresses given to them by [Fielding's sisters] Myra and Susie. Myra sent new material for Christmas and Easter clothes. Sometimes those were the only clothes the children had all year made from new material. Faye made Alice's wedding dress, as her own mother had made hers. Alice thought that after she married, she would be glad to finally have ready made dresses. She soon found that they weren't as well made,, nor did they fit as well as the once that Faye had made for her.

Alice stressed how busy her mother was, but because of her outgoing nature, she also had many friends, and found time for a social life. During Alice's early years in Indiana, she remembered going by horse and buggy with her parents to box socials and oyster suppers at the Mason's Hall in Hayden. Sometimes they went to card parties at friend's homes. Other times, the children were left at Grandmother Wohrer's while Faye and Fielding went to the Eastern Star. Alice hated being bundled up and taken home in a cold buggy - or later, the family's first touring car!

After the move to Illinois, Faye and Fielding continued in Easter Star. They also joined a couples club at the Congregational Church in Elburn. They always enjoyed playing cards at friend's houses, or at card parties. Faye belonged to the Elburn Mother's Club, and to the Women's Guild at the Congregational Church.

In later years, they enjoyed traveling, With Loris in California, and later in Texas, their travels were doubly enjoyable. Altogether, Alice thought that, in spice of some troubles and setbacks, Faye and FIelding had long, fruitful, happy lives.

Note: In addition to the named children attached to Faye and Fielding's profiles, an unnamed son was stillborn on 18 Jan 1922. Faye also had a later miscarriage but her daughter Alice did not know when that was.

Sources

• "They Came to Spencer Township" by Alice Wohrer Yarnal
• United States Federal Census Year: 1900; Census Place: Spencer, Jennings, Indiana; Roll: 379; Page: 11A; Enumeration District: 0110; FHL microfilm: 1240379
• United States Federal Census Year: Year: 1910; Census Place: Spencer, Jennings, Indiana; Roll: T624_359; Page: 2B; Enumeration District: 0112; FHL microfilm: 1374372
• United States Federal Census Year: 1920; Census Place: Spencer, Jennings, Indiana; Roll: T625_440; Page: 12A; Enumeration District: 128; Image: 565
• United States Federal Census Year: 1930; Census Place: Kaneville, Kane, Illinois; Roll: 524; Page: 8A; Enumeration District: 0085; Image: 1075.0; FHL microfilm: 2340259
• United States Federal Census Year: 1940; Census Place: Kaneville, Kane, Illinois; Roll: T627_822; Page: 6A; Enumeration District: 45-101
• United States Federal Census United States of America, Bureau of the Census; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790-2007; Record Group Number: 29; Residence Date: 1950; Home in 1950: Clinton, DeKalb, Ill
• Indiana, Marriages, 1810-2001 Ancestry.com for marriage of Fielding E. Wohrer and Dorcas Faye Wilder 25 Nov 1913
• U.S., Newspapers.com Obituary Index, 1800s-current The Daily Chronicle; Publication Date: 7/ Sep/ 1988; Publication Place: De Kalb, Illinois, United States of America for obituary of Faye Wohrer page 5
• Cook County, Illinois Death Index, 1908-1988
• U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014 Issue State: Illinois; Issue Date: 1955-1957
• Find A Grave: Memorial #109527521