ANN ELIZA WESTGATE

Mrs. Fred Earl Westgate, 97, (photo) former county resident, died Monday
at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Loyal Nelson in Green Bay, with whom
she made her home.
Funeral services will be held at 2 p.m. Wednesday at the Fendien-Greiser
funeral home in Green Bay, the Rev. William Riggs of the First Methodist
church of that city officiating. Burial will be in the family lot in the
Mishicot cemetery at 3:30 Wednesday afternoon.
Mrs. Westgate, nee Ann Eliza Riley, was born in the town of Mishicot and
after her marriage to Mr. Westgate in this city in 1873 they moved to
Boston, where they resided six years. They returned here to locate on a
farm in Mishicot, where they lived for more than 50 years.
Mrs. Westgate taught school in this county for a number of years and was
the oldest living school teacher in the state.
Since the death of her husband in 1931 Mrs. Westgate had resided with her
daughter in Green Bay. A son, Dr. Hugh Westgate, died at Rhinelander in
1946.
Survivors are a son, Clifford of Tacoma, Wash.; four daughters, Mrs.
Nelson, Mrs. Cary Burt, Mrs. G. K. Jarstad, and Miss Viola Westgate all
of Green Bay.
Manitowoc Herald Times, Tuesday, September 28, 1948 P. 2
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Taught School Class In 1868
Among the leading contenders for the honor of being one of the earliest living
Manitowoc county teachers is Mrs. Fred Westgate, 84, who makes her home with a
daughter, Mrs. Loyal E. Nelson, Green Bay.
Mrs. Westgage, the former Eliza Ann Riley, taught in the old Westgate school on
the upper Mishicot road on the way to Larrabee for eight months in 1868. Jere
Crowley was superintendent at that time and his daughter taught the same school
the year before Miss Riley was appointed to the position. The school was a log
building opposite the Adoniram Judson Westgate home. The salary was twenty
dollars a month. The school was in the district later divided into Mishicot and
Gibson.
Mrs. Westgate was born in Neshoto September 9, 1851. She was the oldest of seven
children born to Hughin Riley and Martha Burgess Riley, who came from Manchester,
England, in 1848. Mr. Riley served in the civil war under Captain Joseph Smith
and marched with Sherman to the sea. After the war he was mustered out of the army
and marched with his fellow soldiers in review before President Lincoln in
Washington. Lincoln shook hands with all of them, Mrs. Westgate recalls.
After her marriage to Fred E. Westgate in 1874, Mrs. Westgate live in Boston with
her husband for six years. The couple then returned to Wisconsin and purchased a
farm near Kings Bridge, where they lived for some fifty years. Mrs. Westgate's six
children all started out as teacher, following her life-long hope.
Mrs. Westgate is hale and hearty and hopes to attend the Manitowoc Centennial
Celebration this year. She expects her six children home to visit and plans on
making this a real summer for celebration.
An interesting sidelight about Mrs. Westgate is the fact that she has been a
passenger in almost every mode of transportation. As a girl she rode in an ox-cart.
Since then she has ridden in a horse cart, a side wheel boat, horse and buggy,
horseback, automobile and airplane.
Of her tirp in the airplane, which she took in Marshfield in 1931, she says:
"It was fine--but not long enough."
Manitowoc Herald Times, Tuesday, June 23, 1936 P.24.