Sadie’s passing at age 72 was chronicled in 2 articles in the Halstead Independent: February 20 and 27, 1930. She died on February 18, following a bout with spinal meningitis. Her services were at the Methodist Church. The first article announced the upcoming funeral events, and the second long article was her obituary. The second article mentioned surviving family, including: Husband W.H. Lentz; son Harold L. Lentz of Salina; step-sons E.C. Lentz and F.G. Lentz of Medina, Ohio; H.C. Lentz of Chicago; W.A. Lentz of Halstead. Step-daughter Ivy E. Carson of Orosi, Calif. Three brothers: F.B. Muffley of Hannibal, Mo.; Joseph Muffley of Kewanee, Ill.; Wm. E. Muffley of Washington DC.
I didn’t realize it during my visit, but Ivy E. Lentz Carson had lived just across the street at 703 Main in Halstead in the 1940 census. By 1930, Ivy was already the widow of Charles C. Carson.
According to the obituary, Sadie was born near Tylersburg, Pennsylvania, on March 17, 1857. We know that Tylersburg was the closest large town to the family farm and mill on Muffley Run in Clarion County,Pennsylvania. Sadie was a small child when she was “…taken to Quincy, Illinois, by her mother, her father having died several years earlier. She grew to womanhood at Quincy, where she spent the happy years of childhood under the influence of those who cared for the best in life.”
So, Joe Muffley (1854-1955) lost his grand-daughter Mary Louise Muffley in 1926, then his wife Emma Jane McCreary Muffley in 1928, and then his sister Sadie in 1930. In 1930, Joe was living in Kewanee,Illinois, with his son Albert (normally an electrician), who was temporarily a confection salesman. Things were looking up by 1941, when Joe, his son Albert, and Joe’s daughter-in-law Edna Jagger Muffley went on a road trip. There was a stop in Salina, Kansas, at the home of Sadie’s son Harold Leland Lentz.
On the December 2013 trip, this writer photographed the Harold L. Lentz former home at 212 West Jewell Avenue, Salina. At this location on Sept. 2, 1941, Harold and Evalyn Shriver Lentz were visited by Illinois kin Joe, Albert, and Edna Muffley (Harold’s maternal uncle, 1st cousin, and cousin’s wife, respectively), who were en route to kin in Denver. They then went onward for a drive into the Rockies, and then returned toIllinois via the Robert Muffley family brand-new home in McCook, Nebraska.
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| Joe, Harold, Evalyn and Edna |
