Monday Is for Mothers: Rufina Ellen "Fina" Tomlinson (1863 - 1943), Part 1

One Monday last month I posted some photos of this maternal great grandmother but deferred writing a more complete profile to a later date. Today I'll cover roughly the first half of her life, up until she was widowed in 1905.

Born in Washington County, Iowa, during the Civil War, Fina lost her mother very soon after she was born. Her father, George Marion Tomlinson, married a second time in 1866* and by 1870 the family, which now included two more children, had relocated to the Fall River Township in Greenwood County, Kansas.

[Detail from Colton's Kansas. Published By G. W & C. B. Colton & Co. No. 172 William St. New York.

Source: David Rumsey Historical Map Collection]

[Year: 1870; Census Place: Fall River, Greenwood, Kansas; Roll: M593_434; Page: 208B; Image: 433; Family History Library Film: 545933. Ancestry.com. 1870 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: 1870 U.S. census, population schedules. NARA microfilm publication M593, 1,761 rolls. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.]

We can track the expanding Tomlinson family through Iowa's 1875 Census and the 1880 U.S. Census.

[Kansas State Historical Society; Topeka, Kansas; 1875 Kansas Territory Census; Roll: ks1875_7; Line: 1. Ancestry.com. Kansas State Census Collection, 1855-1925 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009.]

[Year: 1880; Census Place: Fall River, Greenwood, Kansas; Roll: 382; Family History Film: 1254382; Page: 282B; Enumeration District: 091; Image: 0211. Ancestry.com and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 1880 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010. 1880 U.S. Census Index provided by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Original data: Tenth Census of the United States, 1880. (NARA microfilm publication T9, 1,454 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C.]

By the 1885 Iowa State Census, 22-year-old Fina was a "Milliner & Dressmaker" in Severy, Kansas, although she was still listed as living at home in the same enumeration.

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

[Kansas State Historical Society; Topeka, Kansas; 1885 Kansas Territory Census;Roll: KS1885_51; Line: 1.Ancestry.com. Kansas State Census Collection, 1855-1925 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009.]

[Map of Greenwood County, Kansas Historical Society]

[Kansas State Historical Society; Topeka, Kansas; 1885 Kansas Territory Census; Roll: KS1885_53; Line: 1. Ancestry.com. Kansas State Census Collection, 1855-1925 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. 1885 Kansas State Census. Microfilm reels K-1 – K-146. Kansas State Historical Society.]

[Fina (standing, center) with her father, step-mother and half-siblings, undated. Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy.]

I don't know how they met, but Fina and Lewis Logan Slater bought their marriage license on December 11, 1885.

["Kansas, County Marriages, 1855-1911," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1-16091-19039-85?cc=1851040&wc=M6VS-CM9:166157501,166197301 : accessed 21 May 2014),

Greenwood Marriage records, 1882-1887, v. C image 127 of 198.]

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

By 1893 the couple's four children had been born, all in Twin Groves, Kansas: George Logan "Pete" in 1886; my grandfather Harry Allen years later; Opal May in 1890; and Lewis Cecil in 1893.

[Pete and Harry, Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

[Opal and Cecil, Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

In the 1895 Iowa State Census, Lewis Logan was practicing law and Fina was still working as a dressmaker in Severy.

[Kansas State Historical Society; Topeka, Kansas; 1895 Kansas Territory Census; Roll: v115_54; Line: 1. Ancestry.com. Kansas State Census Collection, 1855-1925 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009.]

In the 1900 U.S. Census it doesn't appear that Fina was continuing her dressmaking business.

[Year: 1900; Census Place: Twin Groves, Greenwood, Kansas; Roll: 482; Page: 5A; Enumeration District: 0062; FHL microfilm: 1240482. Ancestry.com. 1900 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004.

Original data: United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1900. T623, 1854 rolls]

The 1905 Iowa State Census is the last record we have of the family before Lewis Logan's death.

After her husband's short illness and death at the age of 49 on July 19, 1905, 42-year-old Fina was left with four young children to raise.

(To be continued.)

*His second bride Amanda Darling happened to be the sister of my great-great grandmother Mercy Ann Darling Webb.


© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.