Iva Was a Bad Girl

Below is the beginning of a fictionalized account of my great-grandmother, Iva. Please humor me while I share some family history.

If you ask Amelia, it started with Silas. He was a little older by about six years. On an upward march toward becoming a U.S. Army officer, Silas was hard-working and focused. More importantly, he was a well-kept and well-groomed sober young man who recognized that a wife and family provided the kind of stability the Army favored.

If you ask Silas, it started with Amelia. Compared to most demure ladies of the Victorian Era, she was outspoken and held a desire to learn. Amelia completed the sixth grade, a fact she liked to pull out and wave around like a kid with a toffee apple when it suited her. At 18, she’d just reached the age when Father worried she’d become one of those much-to-be pitied Spinsters of her day.

Silas was stationed at Fort Brady near Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan. He’d served with honor in the Civil War, and reenlisted with the idea of making the military his career. The discipline suited him just fine. “Better than farming,” he liked to repeat.

Amelia waited for a fitting husband, and Silas fit her just fine. Like her father, Silas had served in the Civil War, a connection she appreciated.

At any rate, the two married in 1867. She was 18, and he was 24. If it wasn’t the ideal marriage, it certainly wasn’t the first time a bride or groom wed out of practicality and under a cloud of lowered expectations.

The facts of what transpired will never be known now, even if they were in 1870. There are no diaries, no biographies, no Facebook accounts or YouTube video postings. Left behind are only the sketchiest of family trees, verbal suppositions and imagination.

Here’s what we do know. Silas Webster McNeil, a U.S. Army officer married Zephra Amelia Coleman, and they had at least one child.

This child, my great-grandmother Iva Elizabeth, is the subject of our story today.

To be continued . . .