Nora Marie (Jarvis) Neufeld (1919 - 2000)

Born 12 Dec 1919 in Rartain, Illinois

Ancestors

Wife of Herbert Arthur Neufeld — married 28 Aug 1945 (to 25 Apr 1958) in Cheyenne, Laramie County, Wyoming

Died 12 Apr 2000 at age 80 in Garden City, Finney, Kansas, United States

Problems/Questions Profile managers: Dewey Neufeld [send private message] and Pamela Nichols [send private message]

Biography

Early Life

Norma Marie Jarvis (GMOL# 879437) was born in 1919. ^[1] She was the daughter of Joseph Jarvis and Bertha Houdeshell. ^[2]

Occupation

Homemaker, Mother and Stepmother.

Family

Family: Family #439918. Spouse: Neufeld, Herbert Arthur (#415146), 13 February 1911, Peabody, Kansas. ^[3] Married: 28 August 1945, Cheyenne, Wyoming. ^[4] They had five children.

1 -- Neufeld, Sandra Marie (#879438), 14 September 1945, Cheyenne, Wyoming

Death

She passed away in 2000. Find A Grave: Memorial #7423346 Burial: Hillside Cemetery, Kinsley, Edwards County, Kansas, USA. ^[5] There is a good biography and pictures on the FindAGrave Memorial.

Legacy & Memories

D.J. recalled those early years: “When my parents were divorced, my mother was given custody of the five of us children. It was during the post-war years and jobs were hard to find. To be able to take care of five children and work was a task which must have seemed impossible to her. Mother’s lawyer advised her to leave us children with our father, if he would take care of us and provide a home for us. She did not have to relinquish custody and could reclaim us when she was in a better position to provide for us.”

The advice of the lawyer produced a situation where the first five Neufeld children were bounced back and forth between their parents. Because Ida had been awarded custody of the children, she could come and get them whenever she desired regardless of the personal upheaval in the lives of the children or their guardians. When Ida could no longer keep the children for whatever reasons whether personal, marital or health reasons, she would take them back to their father and stepmother. The children lived with the threat hanging over them that, if they were not “good” they would be sent to an orphan’s home to be adopted out. This was not a healthy situation.

Herb asked Nora Marie what she thought about the children. She wanted to keep them. She elected to take on the responsibilities of five stepchildren and treated them as if they were her own. Because of Marie’s determination to provide a home for the children, Herb elected to not allow the adoptions to proceed. It would seem Ida would not have allowed anyone to adopt the children since the court had awarded her custody. This in turn produced a situation where adoption would have appeared a social stigma and yet it seemed a continual threat held over the children’s unsettled and sometimes traumatic lives. It would appear that no one was more at fault than anyone else in the way things worked out. The conditions were against any normal childhood for the first five Neufeld children. Much to her credit, Marie tried desperately to hold the family together by sheer force of love, when money was in short supply. She spent many hours weeping in the frustration of having “her” children snatched away to go back with the natural mother, when Ida would declare she was taking the children.

There was a lot of frustration in the hearts of all concerned. It was a painful experience for the children―especially the older ones. It was a heart-wrenching experience for their stepmother. It must have been painful for the natural mother to not be able to keep her children for whatever her reasons. It was either the cause or contributed greatly to Herb’s problem with alcohol―there were many problems and frustrations to try to escape from with liquor.

Dewey remembers, “The first five of us Neufeld children alternated living with our mother, who had legal custody, and our father and his new family. There was always the implied threat hanging over the first five of us that we would end up in an orphan or foster home if the slightest thing went wrong. I do not remember where this threat originated. I can only speculate it was with my stepfather, but I cannot be certain.”

"Mother Marie" tried desperately to keep the children all together, but there was just no way it was going to be possible. With Mother having legal custody, there was a constant "tug-of-war" going on between her and Daddy with us children caught in the middle and "Mother Marie" unable to do anything to help. We never had any doubt about the depth of her love for us. Now I know, she shed a lot of tears in frustration and prayed desperately for something good to come out of all this. "Mother Marie" lived to see her nine children together for several reunions, delighting in one another's company and becoming better acquainted.

Research Notes

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Sources

1. ↑ GRanDMA GM21-07 July 2021, California Mennonite Historical Society (CMHS) Genealogy Database Project GMOL Website: GRanDMA Online v7.0.7. Use reference #879437 as guest or enter # in the surname field. https://www.grandmaonline.org/GMOL-7/login.asp
2. ↑ Records of Dewey D. Neufeld-430 (#1108406)
3. ↑ Tabor Mennonite Church (Newton, Kan.), Membership record book, Tabor Mennonite Church, page 49.
4. ↑ "Wyoming, Reclaim the Records, State Archives Vital Records, 1908-1966," database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:7NW5-CV2M : 24 March 2021), Herbert A Neufeld, 28 Aug 1945; from "Wyoming Marriage, Death, and Divorce Indices," database, Reclaim The Records (https://www.reclaimtherecords.org : 2019); citing Marriage, Cheyenne, Laramie, Wyoming, United States, , Wyoming State Archives, Cheyenne; FHL microfilm 104685713.
5. ↑ Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7423346/nora-marie-neufeld_cole: accessed 28 September 2022), memorial page for Nora Marie Jarvis Neufeld Cole (12 Dec 1919–12 Apr 2000), Find a Grave Memorial ID 7423346, citing Hillside Cemetery, Kinsley, Edwards County, Kansas, USA; Maintained by scrap (contributor 46566254).