IOWA WOMEN’S ARCHIVES
UNIVERSITY OF IOWA LIBRARIES
IOWA CITY, IOWA
ALMIRA AMES FARNHAM
(1800-1896)
BIOGRAPHICAL
SKETCH, undated
1 item
|
ACQUISITION: |
The
biographical sketch (donor no. 166) was donated by Maureen Williams in 1993. |
|
ACCESS: |
The memoir is open
for research. |
|
COPYRIGHT: |
Copyright has not been transferred to the University of Iowa. |
|
PROCESSED BY: |
Marnie Schroer, 1995. |
Scope and
Content Note
This four-page biographical sketch was
found among Edith Miller's papers. It is undated but chronicles the period
from 1800 to 1896. The biographical
sketch describes the life of Almira Ames Farnham as related by her
granddaughter, Leslie Dunn.
Biography
Almira Ames Farnham was born in Andover,
Massachusetts, in 1800. She married
John Farnham at the age of twenty-five but was widowed fourteen years later,
leaving her with five children. Later
the family moved to Lowell, Massachusetts, where several of the children worked
in the mills while Farnham took in boarders.
Two of these boarders, Tom Hall and Tom Dunn, eventually married into
the family.
In 1855, several members of the
family, including Farnham, traveled to Minnesota to homestead. A financial panic in 1857 caused foreclosure
on the land owned by
Dunn
and Hall. In response, most of the
family members decided to move to Colorado.
Upon hearing reports of Indian uprisings, however, the caravan stopped
in Iowa, and the family decided to settle there. In later years, Farnham alternated living with her son Hiram
Farnham's family, near Morley, Iowa, and her daughter Mary Dunn's family north
of Anamosa. She died at Dunn's house on
June 8, 1896.
Folder no. Description
Folder 1
Memoir, 1800-1896