Margaret Phoebe Snow (aka "Phoebia Margaret" Snow) was born on 14 July 1850 on her parents' farm in Athens Township, Athens County, Ohio, USA. She was the first-born child of Elijah Wesley Snow Jr. (aka "Morris" Snow) and his wife, Elizabeth (Bougher) Snow. They had married in January 1849 in Athens, Ohio.[1]
Margaret's paternal grandfather was Elijah Wesley Snow, Sr., born on 23 June 1792 in Bridgewater, Plymouth, Massachusetts. Shortly after 1800, when he was still a boy, his parents, 1st cousins: Seth Snow Jr., and Mary (Snow) Snow, and others of their extended Snow family, left Plymouth Massachusetts, migrating across New England to Oneida County, New York, where they set up several farms. About 15 years passed, then, after the War of 1812 and subsequent American victories over local Indian tribes "opened" the area to pioneers, Seth Snow Jr. and most of his children, including Elijah Wesley, left Oneida NY, crossed the Appalachian Mountains, and settled on new land in Cranberry Township, Butler County, Pennsylvania. Elijah Snow Sr. was listed on US Census reports there in both 1830 and 1840. He had married his 1st cousin, Phebe Snow, b: 1794 in Massachusetts, while in Oneida, New York.
Finally, around 1845, Elijah W. Snow Sr. and his family, including his son: Elijah Wesley Snow, Jr, moved south-west again, trekking 215 miles across the Ohio River to Athens Township, Athens County, Ohio, where they were recorded living and farming on the 1850 US Census:[2] [3]
Ten years later, Elijah W. Snow, Jr., was still living and farming in Athens County, Ohio. The 1860 US Census recorded the household:[4]
Name.....Role.....Age...Sex.....Birthplace.....Occupation (if any):
Elijah W Snow, Head, M, 34, Pennsylvania, Farmer
Elizabeth Snow, F, 29, Pennsylvania.
Ebe [sic=Phebe] M. Snow, F, 10, Ohio.
Elias M. Snow, M, 4, Ohio.
Elijah W. Snow, Sr., and his wife, Phebe Snow, ages 65 and 64, both born in Massachusetts, were living on the farm next door in 1860 as shown on the hand-written copy of the 1860 Census. [5]
Phoebe Margaret Snow came of age during the decade of the US Civil War (1860-1870). Her namesake grandmother, Phebe Snow, passed away in 1868, so Phoebe Margaret and her parents moved in with her widower grandfather (or they amalgamated the adjoining farms). A family of Snow relatives that had been living nearby in Butler County, Pennsylvania, back in the 1850s, Salmon Snow and his family, including 22-year-old Madison M. Snow, moved to a neighboring farm in Athens Township, Athens, Ohio, around 1867. There was a mutual attraction, so these 2nd cousins, Phebe Margaret Snow and Madison Miles Snow, were married in Athens, Athens County, Ohio, on 12 August 1869. [6]
On The 1 June 1870 US Census, Madison M. Snow and Phebe M. [Margaret] Snow were recorded living with their first-born son, Frederick Elsworth Lawrence Snow, b: 21 March 1870, with her parents in the farm household of her grandfather, Elijah W. Snow Sr., age 79, born in Massachusetts.[7] [8]
The June 1, 1880 US Census reported that both Salmon Snow and his son, Madison Snow, had left Ohio with their families. The men were working as Carpenters and farming in the town of Ozark, Franklin County, Arkansas, USA. Salmon's eldest daughter, Carrie May Snow, had married and left home:[9]
Name.....Role......Sex....Age....Birth-Place....Occupation (if any):
Salmon Snow, M, 69, New York, Carpenter
Mary Snow, F, 63, Pennsylvania, Keeps House
Hannah Snow, F, 24, Pennsylvania, Milliner
Steven [Lansing] Snow, M, 22, Iowa, Carpenter
Levi Snow, M, 20, Iowa, Carpenter
"Linnie" [Clara Lynn] Snow, F, 18, Iowa, At Home
Robert L. Snow, M, 15, Ohio, At Home
The 1 June 1880 Census also recorded Madison M. Snow's family in Ozark, Arkansas. He and Margaret had 3 children. She was now working as a Milliner / Dressmaker:[10]
Name.....Role......Sex....Age....Birth-Place....Occupation (if any):
M. M. Snow, Self, M, 33, Pennsylvania, Carpenter
M. M. Snow, Wife, F, 30 Ohio, Milliner
Fred Snow, Son, M 9, Ohio
Alice Snow, Daughter, F, 8, Ohio
Willie [William Wesley] Snow, Son, M, 6, Ohio
Madison and Margaret (as she now called herself) Snow had 3 children together:[11]
About half a dozen years after 1880, this Snow family group moved again, this time north from Franklin County, Arkansas, to Spirit Lake, Dickinson County, Iowa. Their son, Steven Lansing Snow, had married in Arkansas and did not move with them. Although Salmon Snow's 1903 Obituary states that Salmon and Madison Snow and their families moved to Spirit Lake, Iowa, around 1880, no record has been found for them on either the 1885 or 1895 Iowa State Census reports. The 1890 US Census report was accidentally destroyed in the 1920s and thus not available. It's possible they did not make the move until 1886 or that they were visiting elsewhere in 1885.
Find A Grave memorials for the Snow family, who were Baptists, are, nonetheless, available. They show that Salmon Snow's eldest son, Madison M. Snow, passed away in Dickinson County, Iowa in 1893 and was buried in Iowa. Madison Miles Snow, only 46 years old, died unexpectedly in an agricultural accident when he fell off a hay derrick on 13 July 1893, on his farm, a few miles north-east of Spirit Lake, Dickinson, Iowa. He left Margaret P. Snow a widow with their 3 children. He was buried at the Lakeview Cemetery, Spirit Lake, Dickinson County, Iowa, USA. [12]
Shortly after her husband's untimely and unexpected death, his widow, Margaret P. Snow, 43 years old, moved about 15 miles north over the Minnesota state line to a farm in Jackson County, Minnesota. Her daughter Alice had just married, on 12 August 1893, less than a month after her father's passing, to Frank D. Terwilliger, a farmer in Dickinson County, Iowa.[13] Her 2 sons, Fred L. Snow, age 23, and his family, and "Willie" W. Snow, 19 years old, joined her in Jackson County, Minnesota. They were all recorded on the 1895 Minnesota State Census: [14]
Name.....Role......Sex....Age....Birth-Place....Occupation (if any):
Fred Snow, Head, Male, 25 years, Ohio, Farmer
Vallie Snow, Wife, Female, 25 years, Pennsylvania
Alice M Snow, Daughter, Female, 2 years, Ohio
Mary Snow, Daughter, Female, 2months, Iowa
Margaret M Snow, Mother, Female, 44 years, Ohio
William Snow, Brother, Male, 21 year, Ohio, Farmer
Fred and Vallie Snow did not stay in Minnesota for long. Between July 1896 and January 1899, they moved their growing family back East. They settled in Fairmont, Marion County, West Virginia, where Fred worked in a Coal Mine and they were recorded on the 1 June 1900 US Census there.[15]
Widow Margaret Snow and her youngest son, William Wesley Snow, who was still single, continued to farm in Minneota Twp., Jackson Co., Minnesota, into the 20th Century. They were recorded there on The 1 June 1900 US Census: [16]
Name.....Role......Sex....Age....Birth-Place....Occupation (if any):
Wm. W. Snow, Head, M, 26, Ohio, Farmer
Margaret M. Snow, Mother, F, 50, Ohio, Keeps House
Between 1900 and June 1, 1910, widow Margaret Snow left Minnesota and returned to her siblings and roots in Athens Township, Athens County, Ohio. The 1 June 1910 US Census recorded her living with her 80-year-old mother and 4 younger siblings, none of whom had married, in the household of her next-younger-brother, Morris Elijah Snow: [17]
Name.....Role......Sex....Age....Birth-Place....Occupation (if any):
Morris E. Snow, Head, M, 54, Ohio, Owns Farm
Margaret Snow, Sister, F, 59, Ohio
Charles F. Snow, Brother/Partner, M, 48, Ohio, Owns Farm
Mary Snow, Sister, F 46, Ohio
Ella Snow, Sister, F 40, Ohio
Elizabeth Snow, Mother, F, 80 Pennsylvania
The 1910 Census also revealed that one of Margaret's 3 children had passed away between 1900-1910; it was Alice Lillian (Snow) Terwilliger, who died 24 October 1902, at 30 years old, of Bright's Disease (acute nephritis), leaving 3 small children and her husband, who later remarried. Alice's obituary discussed her family's Baptist faith in the face of a long, debilitating illness.[18] Alice's death, along with the September 7, 1907, marriage of her youngest son, William W. Snow, to Lydia Rebecca Tritle, in Spirit Lake, Iowa, may have influenced Margaret's decision to return to Ohio to help out her 4 younger brothers & sisters, all still single, running the family farm there, living with their aged, invalid mother.[19]
The 1 January 1920 US Census reveals that Margaret Snow had moved again, this time to Center Grove Township, Dickinson County, Iowa. Now living in town, at 69 years old, she was recorded living with a couple, James & Sybil Drawford (ages 56 & 53). Margaret was said to be the "Mother" of the household but this may be a Census error as nowhere else was she reported to have a 1st child at just 17 years old and she married Madison Snow when she was 19. James A. Drawford was working in the local grocery store.[20] Margaret's mother: Elizabeth (Bougher) Snow, now 90 years old, and her 4 single brothers & sisters, were recorded in 1920 as still living together on the family farm in Athens County, Ohio. [21]
Margaret Phoebe Snow returned to Athens County, Ohio, during her final illness. She passed away there on 15 February 1923 of artery disease (arteriosclerosis). She was 72 years and 7 months old.[22] Her body was shipped back to Spirit Lake, Iowa, where she was interred next to her husband, Madison M. Snow, at the Lakeview Cemetery, Spirit Lake, Dickinson, Iowa, USA, Plot: 0-251-3 on 20 Feb. 1923. Her Obituary was published in The Spirit lake Beacon, Feb. 22, 1923. It stated: [23]
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