Alzina was a pioneer woman with a lifespan of over a century of American history. She was raised in upstate Jefferson County, New York where she taught in a small pioneer schoolhouse as a teenager. Her father Needham was a veteran of the War of 1812 that served as a musician in the New York State Militia and both her grandfathers served as soldiers in the American Revolution. When she was 13 years old her father Needham died and she was taken in to her Revolutionary War veteran grandfather Nathan Holly's home to live.
At 18, she left for Ohio with her mother, sister Alvina and Alvina's husband traveling by sail vessel via the Welland Canal and Lake Erie where they encountered five days of dangerous storms. She settled outside Cleveland in Copley, Ohio where she married her husband Orville in 1836. There she raised four children while her husband farmed a little and worked as a Cooper. In 1856, the family moved west via wagon train to Wisconsin where they purchased 40 acres of public land from the U.S. Land Office in Leon, Wisconsin. There the family farmed the land which included horses, sheep, cattle and other livestock.
In 1861, the American Civil War commenced and her family answered the call to service and experienced loss. Her brother Ora served in the Army of the Potomac and was killed in action outside Richmond, Virginia in the Peninsula Campaign. Her brother William served with distinction in both the Army and Navy where he participated in the Battle of Antietam as an infantryman and later as a Sailor abord the U.S.S. Benton, an ironclad, in the Western theater of operations. Prior to the war in the 1840s, she lost another brother Owen to Yellow Fever on a whaling expedition to the Pacific Ocean. Four of her nephews also served in the Civil War, to include nephew Ira Burr who died a hero fighting on Cemetery Ridge at the Battle of Gettysburg.
Her husband Orville passed in 1876 and Alzina sold the family farm and moved to Sparta where she lived the remainder of her live as a widow. She died on the eve of WWI, where her grandson Captain Orville Arnold would die during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in France.
At the age of 95 in 1910, a newspaper article reports how she still rises at 4:30am each morning, takes a bath, makes her beds and sweeps her rooms and sidewalk, tends to her garden for dinner and reads the newspaper without aid of eyeglasses. She still entertained the idea of someday riding on an airship and moving far west to take on a new homestead and ranch of her own. She passed at the grand old age of 102 years old passing on a legacy of many children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Alzina was a pioneer woman with a lifespan of over a century of American history. She was raised in upstate Jefferson County, New York where she taught in a small pioneer schoolhouse as a teenager. Her father Needham was a veteran of the War of 1812 that served as a musician in the New York State Militia and both her grandfathers served as soldiers in the American Revolution. When she was 13 years old her father Needham died and she was taken in to her Revolutionary War veteran grandfather Nathan Holly's home to live.
At 18, she left for Ohio with her mother, sister Alvina and Alvina's husband traveling by sail vessel via the Welland Canal and Lake Erie where they encountered five days of dangerous storms. She settled outside Cleveland in Copley, Ohio where she married her husband Orville in 1836. There she raised four children while her husband farmed a little and worked as a Cooper. In 1856, the family moved west via wagon train to Wisconsin where they purchased 40 acres of public land from the U.S. Land Office in Leon, Wisconsin. There the family farmed the land which included horses, sheep, cattle and other livestock.
In 1861, the American Civil War commenced and her family answered the call to service and experienced loss. Her brother Ora served in the Army of the Potomac and was killed in action outside Richmond, Virginia in the Peninsula Campaign. Her brother William served with distinction in both the Army and Navy where he participated in the Battle of Antietam as an infantryman and later as a Sailor abord the U.S.S. Benton, an ironclad, in the Western theater of operations. Prior to the war in the 1840s, she lost another brother Owen to Yellow Fever on a whaling expedition to the Pacific Ocean. Four of her nephews also served in the Civil War, to include nephew Ira Burr who died a hero fighting on Cemetery Ridge at the Battle of Gettysburg.
Her husband Orville passed in 1876 and Alzina sold the family farm and moved to Sparta where she lived the remainder of her live as a widow. She died on the eve of WWI, where her grandson Captain Orville Arnold would die during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in France.
At the age of 95 in 1910, a newspaper article reports how she still rises at 4:30am each morning, takes a bath, makes her beds and sweeps her rooms and sidewalk, tends to her garden for dinner and reads the newspaper without aid of eyeglasses. She still entertained the idea of someday riding on an airship and moving far west to take on a new homestead and ranch of her own. She passed at the grand old age of 102 years old passing on a legacy of many children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
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