| Jessie Payne | |
|---|---|
 ' | |
|
Full name |
Jessie Dickens Payne |
|
Alternative names |
Jessie D. Payne |
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Presence on Earth |
1861–1930 |
|
Role(s) |
Seminary period alum |
Jessie Payne, nee Jessie Dickens, was a student at Shimer College during the Seminary period. She resided for much of her life in Nevada, Iowa, where she is buried.
Shimer connections[]
- Niece of alum Andrew Downing
Profiled[]
- in History of Story County, Iowa, volume 2, 1911, p. 42:
- Jessie Dickens Payne, wife of William O. Payne, was the daughter of William and Maria Ellen Dickens and was born at Linwood, Minnesota, June 22, 1861. Her mother died while she was small and her father removed from his farm to the neighboring town of Anoka. In 1869 the family removed to Aurora, Illinois, and in 1875 to Winterset, Iowa. After two years at Winterset, the father's business having been burned out, the family removed to Kansas; but she and her older sister, Ella, remained in Iowa and made their home with an uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Downing of Boone. She attended the Boone high school and also spent a year at Mt. Carroll Seminary at Mt. Carroll, Illinois. She taught country schools in Story, Polk and Madison counties, her first school being the poor farm school in this county. Later she accompanied the Downings to St. Joseph and Kansas City, Missouri, and in 1885 returned to Madison county, Iowa, where her sister Ella, then Mrs. C. C. Bancroft, resided. It was at this sister's home that she was married, on December 15, 1886, to W. O. Payne. Their home has since been in Nevada, though one year was spent in Washington city. She also was a charter member of the Woman's Club and she was the first president of the local chapter of the P. E. O. sisterhood. She was for many years active in the affairs of the Ladies Nevada Cemetery Society and it was during her presidency thereof that the society purchased and conveyed to the city what is now the west half of the cemetery.
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