Eleanor Pring

Eleanor PRING, daughter of Mary Ann Kear and Richard PRING, was born in Licking County, Ohio on 4 July 1820 . She died 24 January 1888 in Polk County, Iowa [note 1]. Eleanor married Anthony McQueen, Jr. on 2 August 1849 in Van Wert County, Ohio [note 2]. Anthony died on 14 April 1869 in Altoona, Iowa [note 3]. Eleanor and Anthony are buried in the Franklin Cemetery in Santiago, Polk County, Iowa.

Eleanor, who was known as Ellen, and Anthony may have moved to Iowa around the same time as the rest of the family. According to Grace Crane, ". . . they apparently eventually lived on the farm that Jeremiah Pring had settled, as this land was always later referred to in the family as the "McQueen land," and was a part of the complex problem involving Ellen McQueen's children."

Anthony was enrolled on 14 August 1862 in Company A, 331st Regiment of the Wisconsin Volunteers as a Private for three years.

He contracted chronic diarrhea at Goldsboro, North Carolina, which rendered him incapable of working the rest of his live and caused his death [note 4].

Again from Grace Crane's account, ". . . his death left Aunt Ellen with five children (see note 1) under the age of 12, with the youngest only a few months old, and apparently left her also the small farm on which they lived. They had befriended a boy named John David Fair, who had lived with the through his childhood and was in his teens when Anthony died. . . . John Fair stayed on and helped Mrs. McQueen to run the farm and she would have had a hard time to survive without whom, She had a loom and wove carpets for the neighbors . . ."

Notes:

1. Pension Record, Civil War, Iowa, File No. C2662-553, The National Archives, Archives and Records Service, Washington, D.C. (See footenote 2)
2. Marriage Records, Van Wert County, Ohio, Book 1, 1840-1855, p. 70.
3. Pension Record.
4. Ibid.

The Franklin Cemetery photo is shown at right.

Footnotes:
1. Records show six children instead of five. See McQueen children

2. Birth data for the Eleanor Pring children are from her application for widow's pension in the note pension record.

Copyright

Information on this site related to the Kear family is from The John Cears Kear Family compiled, written and edited by Donald L. Kear, copyright © 1984. Copyright © 2000 - 2006 by Donald L. Kear. All rights reserved. Portions of the pages on this site may be reproduced for nonprofit use only. Credit shall be given to the note.