Spouse:
Myrtle Leora Bowen 1873 – 1949

Children:
Mabel Rosalie Taylor 1890 – 1978
May Violet Taylor 1892 –
Edwin A Taylor 1894 – 1947
Alverzo O. Taylor 1896 – 1990
Floyd Arthur Taylor 1898 – 1995
Howard M. Taylor 1900 –
Julia G. Taylor 1902 –
Betty Alice Taylor 1904 – 1960
Owen Lloyd Taylor 1907 – 1963
Nathaniel Franklin Taylor 1909 – 1999
Ruth Florell Taylor 1911 – 1987
Paul F. Taylor 1915 –
Clarence B. Taylor 1916 –
Bernard L. Taylor 1919 –


Edwin Thomas was born Nov 29, 1866 in Helena, Tama Co., Iowa. He worked for A.A. Bowens during the year of 1888. The next spring Mar 17, 1889 he married Myrtie Leona Bowens, A.A. Bowns's oldest daughter. The first couple of years they lived with her parents and where their first child Mable Rosalie, was born Jan 25, 1890. In 1891 Edwin bought the eighty acre farm joining the Bowen land, and moved into it by fall. The dwelling was a dug-out built into the north side of the hill. Here the second child May Violet, was born Feb 14, 1892. In the summer of 1890 Edwin Thomas bought a raffle ticket and he won a solid oak sideboard; which is still in the family, it is owned by a son Ernest Taylor who lives in Montana. By fall, 1893 they bought a little three room shack which stood across the road and which William Ballard had built for his family. Edwin moved the shack to the top of the hill. In this shack the following children were born: Edwin, Alverso, Floyd and Howard.

The summer of 1901 a new house was built, it was 24" x 24". It was never lathed and plastered. Four rooms had been planned for the first floor but their were no partitions just the studdings. The upstairs was one large room. In this house two daughters were born, Julia and Betty. In the summer of 1902 Edwin Thomas' wheat crop was totally destroyed by a hail storm just before it was ready for harvest.

In 1904 Edwin Thomas traded the eighty acre farm tor one containing 300 about 15 miles northwest of Sioux City, in Plymouth County, Iowa. In the spring of 1905 the family moved by team and wagon the sixty miles to the new home. The house was old and had only two rooms on the first floor and three small sleeping rooms on the second floor. Owen was born in this house. The summer of 1907 a new house 24 x 26 and two stories was built. In this new house Nathaniel, Franklin, Ruth, Paul and Clarence were born.
The family stayed on this farm until the spring of 1917 when they moved to Fallon County (later became Carter County) Montana, where Edwin Thomas, Mable Rosalie, May Violet and son Edwin Aurelius had taken homesteads. Another son was born to them, Bernard Lowell on Oct. 24, 1918. Edwin and Myrtie returned to Plymouth Co. Iowa in the spring of 1920.

Mable Rosalie returned to Iowa in the late spring of 1919 to live with her grandfather A.A. Bowen near Smithville to keep house for her grandfather and brother Floyd who was farming with their grandfather.

In the fall of 1916 Edwin Thomas and son Edwin Aurelius went to Montana and built shacks on four homesteads to have them read for occupancy in the spring of 1917, when the rest of the family would arrive.
That spring, 1917, Edwin Thomas hired two rail cars to ship livestock, machinery, and furniture to Baker, Montana. Edwin Thomas, Edwin Aurelius, Floyd Arthur, and Howard Milton came to Baker, Montana but the snow was too deep to go to their homesteads, so they rented a house and barn in Baker and stayed until the snow melted. When the roads were dry enough for travel they loaded their wagons for the sixty mile trip to their homesteads. Later that spring the son, the rest of the family arrived. The shacks they lived in were not warm enough for the winter so the families moved to a more comfortable house a few miles northeast of the homesteads for the winter. The house was near Chalk Buttes, Montana.

source: Keith Taylor



On 6 Jun 2012 I spoke with the manager of the Beaver Lodge cemtery in Ekalaka, Montana who said the records do not show an Ernest Taylor died 1952 buried in the cemetery. The only Ernest Taylor buried in the cemetery died in 1990 and is not the same person.

I cannot determine if the year of death was 1932 or 1952. He was not buried in the IOOF/Beaver Lodge Cemetery.