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Elza Josiah Wilson, the firstborn child of James Harvey and Susanna Martha (Martin) Wilson, was born 13 September 1862 in Fremont County, Iowa. The 1870 and 1880 censuses show him as Josiah and Josiah E., respectively, so it appears that his parents originally named him Josiah Elza Wilson, and he decided later in life to switch his first and middle names. Most likely, he was named after two uncles: (1) his father’s brother Josiah B. Wilson, who had died in Arkansas while serving in the Union Army, 3 months before Elza was born; and (2) his mother's brother Elza L. Martin. Elza remained in his parents’ home into his 30s. He is shown there, in Prairie Township of Fremont County, by the Iowa State censuses of 1885 and 1895. Those censuses, like all other available censuses, show his occupation as farming.
On 23 February 1898, Elza married Emma Florence Strait (known as Florence) in Prairie Township. She had been born on 9 October 1869 in Gallia County, Ohio, the daughter of Edwin and Martha J. (Hively) Strait, and she had come to Fremont County with her parents when she was 8 years old. The 1900 census shows Elza and Florence in their own home in Prairie Township, along with their son James, just 4 months old at the time. By 1903, all three of their children had been born there in Prairie Township, and they were:
After Elza’s father died in 1900, his mother moved to Delta County, Colorado, about 1902. Seven years later, 1909, Elza and Florence also moved out to Colorado, although they chose to go to Montezuma County, more than a hundred miles south of where Elza’s mother had settled. There, Elza homesteaded 160 acres of land (NE¼ of Sec. 30), about 2 miles west of the community of Yellow Jacket. However, recollections written by some of his nieces and nephews relate that he also had an apple orchard down near Cortez. The 1910 census shows Elza, Florence, and their three children in Precinct 8 of Montezuma County. Elza’s brothers Isaac and Charles apparently lived nearby then, as they are listed immediately after Elza’s household in the census. While Elza busied himself with farming in this new location, Florence began teaching in the local schools. Her name (“Mrs. E. J. Wilson”) appeared on a list of Montezuma County teachers in the Montezuma Journal of 18 June 1914, and the same publication, on 1 May 1919, mentioned that she was serving as the deputy county superintendent. The 1920 census shows Elza and Florence still in Precinct 8 (Cortez), with all three children still in their home, and it confirms that Florence then was employed as a teacher. What became of Florence after 1920 has been a point of genealogical confusion for many years. She is buried at Arriola Cemetery under a marker showing that she died in 1962, and yet she cannot be found in the censuses of 1930 or 1940, and the 1930 listing for Elza shows his status as “widowed.” Just recently, though (~2020), an Ancestry contributor shared an image of an old obituary that had been pasted into the family bible of Susanna M. Wilson (Elza’s mother). It shows clearly that Florence passed away on 28 February 1926, so the date on the grave marker is wrong — by 36 years!
This error becomes more comprehensible when one realizes that the grave marker was obviously assembled from a set of interchangeable letters and numbers, which were locked into a pre-existing bronze frame. The worker who assembled the marker picked up all the correct digits to show Florence’s year of death, but somehow got the 2 and the 6 switched! What’s more puzzling is why the error wasn’t immediately noticed and corrected, and, indeed, why it still hasn’t been corrected after all this time. The 1930 census shows Elza still in Precinct 8, in a household by himself. Immediately above him in the census is the household of his son Emory, which includes Emory’s wife and two children, plus Elza’s mother Susanna Wilson (which is surprising, since she had lived consistently in Delta County, Colorado, since 1902 and also moved back there before she died in 1932). Elza died on 2 February 1936 and was buried at Arriola Cemetery, next to Florence’s mismarked grave. The Montezuma Valley Journal published an obituary (which, among other things, reaffirmed that “Mrs. Wilson” had passed away in 1926 — not 1962). If you can suggest any corrections to the information above or provide any further details about the lives of Elza, Florence, and their descendants, please contact me at the address shown in the image below:
Thanks,
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