This cemetery began with the death of a real pioneer woman, Hannah Ellis Morton."

Hannah Ellis was born in Maine about 1793 and lived here in the Iowa Union Neighborhood in 1876, in the home of her son Ben Morton. She was the mother of 12 children and three, Alvin, Ben and Zalmon served in the
Civil War. They first moved to Wisconsin in Green Co., in 1853 and came to Chickasaw Co., Ia in 1855. They lived there for 18 years. Her husband died there after which she lived with her son, Ben Morton and family.

In 1873, Grandma Morton, son Ben and family, a daughter, Mrs Gil Vincent and family, and a bachelor son, George, all came to Kansas. The trip was in covered wagons. When she left someone in her old home said,k "Why, you'll never live to get back," and she replied, "Well, after I've seen Kansas once, I won't mind dying. When on the road from Iowa, they met someone who was 'going back to his wife's folks." He told them of the grasshoppers and drought here. Seeing the old mother, he said to her, "What are you going out there for, Grandma?" She replied, "Oh, I guess to start a graveyard."

And that is just what she did, for she quietly passed away in January, 1876, at the age of 84. Her son, kBen laid a few acres of his farm for a cemetery. She was the first one buried in this cemetery. Many of her descendants and relatives, the Mortons, Viscents, Hams, Hopsons, Tannahills, and others are buried here.

This is one of the larger country cemeteries, if not the largest in the county. There are about 324 persons buried here, 45 of whom were before 1900. There are 18 Civil War veterans, 3 WW1 veteran, and 1 WW2 veteran. One Civil War veteran is buried back east, but has a stone erected with his name engraved on it. A large number of the early burials were children."

This story was told on the 100th Anniversary of the Iowa Union Cemetery which was observed on Memorial Day, May 31, 1976. Phillips County Review 6/3/1976