Laura Belle Smalley
Sex: F
Individual Information
Birth: 11 Jan 1894 - Mount Auburn, Benton, IA
Christening:
Death: 26 Dec 1983 - Waterloo, Black Hawk, IA
Burial: 4 Jan 1984 - Mount Auburn, Benton, IA
Cause of Death: cardiac arrhythmia, coronary vessel arteriosclerosis
Events
• She was educated at at the University of Iowa and graduated in 1920 in Cedar Rapids, Linn, IA.
• Soc Sec Num: 481-66-6265.
• She worked as a School Teacher.
Spouses and Children
1. *Charles Sumner Thompson (14 Apr 1893 - 12 Nov 1955) 420,421,422
Marriage: 23 Sep 1916 - Mount Auburn, Benton, IA
Children:
1. Charles Sumner Thompson Junior (1920-1993) 50,422
Notes
Death Notes:
She died in Parkview Gardens Care Center.Burial Notes:
She is buried in Mt. Auburn Cemetery.General:
Source: Our Smalley Lineage by Viola Smalley Miller 1961Medical:
Laura Belle Smalley, only child of Laura Bell Brown (See note below) and Cornelius Austin Smalley, was born January 11, 1894 on a farm near Mount Auburn, Iowa. Her mother died when she was but eight days old and she was taken into the home of her grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. William Brown until their deaths and then into the home of her uncle Add Lupton.
Laura did unusually well in school. She was graduated from Vinton, Iowa High School, attended Knox College at Galesburg, Illinois and later graduated from the University of Iowa at Iowa City. She was a brilliant student and a most attractive young woman. She taught at Spencer, Iowa and at Mount Auburn during 1913-14 school year.
One September 23, 1916 she was married to Charles Sumner Thompson, a civil engineer whom she had met at Vinton. They were married at Mount Auburn but lived in Chicago and Minneapolis.
After the birth of their only child, Charles Jr., on Aubust 21, 1920, Laura Bell did not regain her health. Her mind was affected and on May 11, 1923 she became a patient in the State Hospital at Independence, Iowa. She is able to recognize only a few friends and relatives and has little memory of events since the birth of her son. She was moved to the Benton County Home at Vinton, Iowa on March 30, 1950 and is no longer capable of carrying the responsibilities or bearing the duties of normal life.
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Note: Laura Belle Smalley is the daughter of Laura Bell Lupton (not Brown). Laura Bell's birth father was a Lupton, but Laura Bells's mother remarried a William Brown. Therefore Laura Bell Lupton was also referred to as Laura Bell Brown. Add Lupton, Laura's uncle, would have been her birth father's brother.
Laura was a college professor and she authored a history book.
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I have Laura Bell's original birth certificate.
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Notes from Sandra Taylor:
This is my grandmother, Laura Bell [Smalley] Thompson, who lost her mind in child birth, and was committed to a mental institution for the rest of her life. Her mother died in child birth. I never met her. My father, her son, only met her once. He though the wicked step mother that he had lived with was his real mother. She was kind to his step sister and cruel to him. Step mother sent him away to boarding schools. His aunt raised him until he was 4. They carried a great deal of love for each other all their loves. She never had any children, so she was sort of his only child. He didn't have a living stepmother,and his father, although a kind man, was very quiet and passive.
One time when he was coming home from the boarding school for Christmas, the letters he had sent to his Aunt Ruth, and the letters she had sent to him slid out from under the car seat and he saw that none of the letters had been delivered. The school had been instructed that he was not to send or receive any mail or have any visitors. After that he would sneak out of the school at night and go to the post office and send letters, but he still couldn't get any. One day when his Aunt Ruth came to visit, the school master was away, and the Math teacher allowed the visit. When the head master returned, the Math teacher was fired.
My father didn't know he had a mother living in a mental institution until he was in college. He came home from school, and while his father and step mother were out, he went snooping though family papers and found the court records of their marriage being annulled with testimony that she was insane before the marriage. In those days, in Illinois, you could not divorce an insane spouse. Some day I would like to find and read those records.
By that time, her parents and her grandparents were both dead. Her own mother died in child birth. Hence she is named Laura Bell Smalley after her mother, also Laura Bell [Lupton] Smalley. It would have been other relatives, perhaps her uncle Ad Lupton who raised her after her grandparents died, that probably would have been asked to testify. They did this so the marriage could be annulled, and my grandfather could remarry.
When my dad found the papers, he immediately got in the car and drove from Elmhurst Illinois to Vinton Iowa to get his mother to take her and care for her. He quickly realized that it was beyond his ability to care for her. Until Laura died, Aunt Ruth would write letters to the insane asylum, asking what she could send for Christmas and Birthday gifts, and asking how Laura was doing. She sent Chirstmas and Birthday gifts and cards. When Aunt Ruth died, I picked up that role. When she died, the called me for permission to bury. I was the only living relative they knew of for her at that time. My dad was afraid to reveal himself to them because he was afraid that the state of Iowa would come after him financially for her care all those years. I didn't go to the funeral. I wish I had now. Besides giving permission to bury, I sent money, from my father, to have a headstone placed on her grave.
After her death, they sent me her only remaining possessions, a few cards to her from my Aunt Ruth. So, when I came across her membership information in the middle of the night, when I woke up with a heart craving to look for her, it really touched my heart when looking for matching name information in Ancestry.com, I came across her lineage information and her membership in the DAR. In a sense, it is the only legacy she has left to me, other than my father.
Her DAR lineage:
The National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution Volume 151 page 10
Mrs. Laura Smalley Thompson.
DAR ID Number: 150028
Born in Mt. Auburn, Iowa.
Wife of Charles Summer Thompson.
Descendant of Francis Smalley, as follows:
1. Cornelius A. Smalley (b. 1861) m. 1892 Laura B. Lupton (1861-94).
2. Royal Edwin Smalley (1827-82) m. 1850 Hannah D. Wheelock (1830-95).
3. Abel E. Smalley (1775-1857) m. 2d 1812 Sarah Allard (1785-1866).
4. Francis Smalley m. 1767 Sarah Hutchinson (d. 1780).
Francis Smalley served as private in the Vermont troops under Captains Bush, Hazen and Brush. He died in Norwich,
Her Mayflower lineage:
1. Constance Hopkins & Nicholas Snow
2. John Snow & Mary Smalley
3. Rebecca Snow & Benjamin Smalley
4. Deacon Joseph Smalley & Jemima Ordway
5. Deacon Francis Smalley & Sarah Hutchinson
6. Abel Edwin Smalley & Sarah Allard
7. Royal Edwin Smalley & Hannah D. Wheelock
8. Cornelius Austin Smalley & Laura Bell Lupton
9. Laura Bell Smalley & Charles Sumner Thompson
10. Charles Sumner Thompson, Jr. & Nadyne Artie Greathouse
11. Sandra Sue Thompson & Grant D. Taylor, Jr.
I have the Smalley family lineage well documented through an relative of hers, mine, that was history professor's wife. She and her husband started out their retirement to genealogy on the road and he became seriously ill. She produced a book, that was bound, but never formally published, called Our Smalley family lineage, that has genealogy information and written biographies for all the family members through the about the 1920's.
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Laura was living in Park View Gardens Care Center in Waterloo, Iowa at the time of her death: 319-234-4423
Kearn Dikeman Funeral Home arranged for burial: 319-234-5779
She is buried in Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Mt. Auburn Iowa
She was also diagnosed as senile.