Did you happen to receive obituary clippings from an older relative? Thanks to my grandmothers, I was fortunate to receive several obituary clippings.
As I was updating my research of John N. Crandall, I found that I have cited such a clipping but cannot find the actual obituary in my files. Thus, I started looking for an obituary for John N. Crandall in Oregon where he was living at the time of his death. I found a short obituary in the Oregon Daily Journal.
John N. Crandall
“John N. Crandall,” The Oregon Daily Journal (Portland, OR), 28 December 1914, page 10; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : viewed online 13 April 2022).
Lebanon, Or., Dec. 28 – The funeral of John N. Crandall, aged 78, was held last Wednesday with Masonic ritual. Mr. Crandall crossed the plains in 1852 from Iowa, but returned later and served in an Iowa cavalry regiment during the Civil war. About 25 years ago, he brought his family to Oregon and had lied here since. He was born in Ohio September 13, 1826. A widow and seven children survive. The children are Lewis A., Ira M., Albert I., Mrs. Flora L. Brown, Mrs. Lulu Williams, of Lebanon; Mrs. Emma Wiley of Portland, and M. Harley of Roseburg.
While this obituary provides some of the same information in the original clipping, it does not provide any information about the buildings John Crandall built in Smith Center. Since I had cited the original clipping for an 1884 occupation fact, I continued searching for another obituary. I was able to find a copy of an Oregon obituary published in the Smith County Pioneer.
John Crandall Dead
“John Crandall Dead,” Smith County Pioneer (Smith Centre, Kansas), 31 December 1914, page 4; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : viewed online 14 April 2022).
John Crandall, formerly a well known citizen and an early settler in the Cora vicinity, and the builder of the court house that yet stands in this city, died at his home in Lebanon, Ore., December 21st. the biographical sketch given below is from the Lebanon, Ore., Criterion:
John Nafus Crandall was born near Columbus in Franklin county, Ohio, September 13, 1836, and died December 21, 1914, aged 78 years, 3 months and 8 days. He was the fifth child in a family of ten children, all of whom have preceded him in death. He moved with his parents to Keosauqua, an Buren county, Ia., in the year of 1841, where he lived until 1854, when he crossed the plains with an emigrant wagon walking the entire distane, except for one-half day, to Sacremento, Calif., where he labored in the gold mines at Placerville and Angel Camp until in the year 1859, when he returned to Iowa by way of the Isthmus of Panama and New York City, reaching Iowa in October of that year and lived on a farm near Bentonsport.
“He enlisted in the Union Army February 20, 1864, being a member of Company G., 3rd Iowa Cavalry and serving to the end of the war a period of 18 months. He was mustered out at Atlanta, Ga., on August 9, 1865, and returning home worked at the carpenter trade until September, 1877, when he removed with his family to Smith county, Kans., where he settled on a farm near the town of Cora. He, together with his sons did a general contracting business, moving to Smith Center, Kans., in the year 1884, where he built the Smith Center school building, court house and other business buildings there. In 1890 he moved to Lebanon where he has since resided.
“He was married to Charlotte Jane Brown at Bonaparte, Ia., April 4, 1861, who survives him. To this union seven children were born, four sons and three daughters as follows: Lewis A., Ira M. and Albert Il, of Lebanon; M. Harley of Roseburg; Mrs. w. M. Brown and Mrs. A. G. Williams of Lebanon and Mrs. L. A. Wiley of Portland, all of whom were with him during his last sickness and death.
“During the grater part of his life he was an active member of the Masonic and Odd Fellow fraternities.”
While I haven’t found the Lebanon Oregon paper online, the obituary posted in the Smith County Pioneer provides a lot of detail about the life of John N. Crandall.