I was not looking forward to this week’s writing prompt. I have zero direct ancestors with a flower name, and not really any gardening stories to share of any ancestors I know about. So, I decided to branch out to cousins of my ancestors, and I found quite a few cousins named after flowers. The ones I considered were Daisy May Armstrong Tunis Diemart, my 1st cousin, 2x removed; Daisy Mae Marihugh Lewis, my 2nd cousin, 3x removed; and Daisy Delight Prindle Curtis, my 2nd cousin, 2x removed.

I decided to write mostly about my cousin Daisy Delight Prindle Curtis but will include a bit about the other two Daisys as well. I always loved her name! Named Daisy after the flower, her middle name Delight is delightful! I have not been able to locate very much information about the word delight used as a girl’s name, but I believe it was a name used by the Puritans. Her parents were not Puritans, she was born in farming country on the prairies of Clarksville, Merrick County, Nebraska on December 17, 1879, to Amos Prindle, a farmer, and his wife Susan Jane Moore.

Within a year of her birth the family migrated to Orchard, Antelope County, Nebraska. The family are found in records between 1881 to 1888 living in Orchard, Neligh, and Glen Alpine, all places found in Antelope County. Her sister Clara Belle Prindle Harvey dies in March of 1888 and her mother Susan Jane Moore Prindle dies seven days later in 1888 in Glen Alpine and both are buried there. By 1895 her father had migrated to Arkansas City, Cowley County, Kansas, and is found there in 1898. In Arkansas City her father Amos remarried by 1895 to Lydia Rice, the widow of Henry Fast and Daniel Tooman. By 1900 he is living in Carthage, Jasper County, Missouri and lists himself as single, and I see that his wife returned to Arkansas City. I am sure there is a story there, but it has been lost to time. He dies in Carthage in 1910.

Daisy Delight Prindle did not migrate to Kansas with her father.  On December 28, 1898, in Neligh, Antelope, Nebraska, she marries James Harry Curtis, the son of Albert Curtis and Mary Adelaide “Addie” Brownell. She and James had seven children. Five of which lived into adulthood.

Daisy dies at the age of thirty-two on May 30, 1912, in Elgin, Antelope, Nebraska, leaving behind five children all aged ten years or younger. Her last two children were a set of fraternal twins: J.C. Curtis, a boy, and a girl Muriel May Curtis, born on December 1, 1911. The girl Muriel May dies seventeen days later on December 18th. The boy J.C. dies a few days later on December 22nd.

I do not know much about Daisy or her life other than what I was able to find in records. Did she love daisies? Was she delightful as her middle name could imply? Possibly. She certainly was pretty, and I love her choice of hair comb in the photo.

Her father Amos Prindle was named after his grandfather Amos. He was the son of Adolphus Prindle and Sally ___. My ancestor, David M. Prindle, Sr. who married Hannah Elizabeth Greatsinger/Kritsinger, was a brother of Adolphus. They were both the sons of Amos Prindle and Esther Canfield.

To the left is Daisy May Armstrong, my 1st cousin, 2x removed. She was born August 22, 1875, in Benton, Butler County, Kansas. The daughter of Edward Eben Armstrong and Nancy Isabella Wallace. She married on February 10, 1897, at her parent’s home in Kansas to William Taylor Tunis. In 1910 they are found living in Van, Woods County, Oklahoma where are husband is farming. They did not have any children. In 1920 she is found in Walker, Lincoln County, Nebraska, living with her husband and living with them is a nephew Henry Long aged fourteen. She is working as a schoolteacher.

Her husband dies in January 1923 in Wichita, Sedgwick County, Kansas, and she returns home to Benton, Kansas. In 1930 she is found living there with her sister Elma Armstrong Pitcher, her brother-in-law, and a niece. She is working as a clerk in a grocery store.

Later that year in October 1930 she marries Glenn E. Diemart, a widower. She dies a little over six year later on 19 January 1937 in Towanda, Butler County, Kansas. To me Daisy May is a breezy, carefree name. Did she have a carefree personality? That information is lost to time. But her life was not an easy one, having no children of her own, being left a widow at the age of forty-seven. Maybe she enjoyed being a schoolteacher and working as a clerk in a grocery store? This was at a time that married women did not often work as schoolteachers. She was a widow by the time she was working at the grocery store.

Her father Edward Eben Armstrong and my great-grandfather George Pendleton Armstrong, who married Alice Elizabeth Nutick, were half-siblings. Edward was the son of Bradford Carroll Armstrong and his first wife Catherine Parker. George was the son of Bradford Carroll Armstrong and his third wife Martha A. Knight Lyons.

Pictured above is Daisy Mae Marihugh Lewis, my 2nd cousin 3x removed. We share ancestors Phineas Merchant and Submit “Mitty” French. She was born January 7, 1889, in Bay View, Skagit County, Washington, to Silas Wright Marihugh and Emily Merchant. Her mother Emily was a first cousin to my 3rd great-grandmother Cordelia Merchant Cole, who I wrote about last week. Daisy Mae Marihugh married July 7, 1912, in Skagit County, Washington to Grover Cleveland Lewis. They had five children born to this marriage. Two died as infants, one as a young child, only two lived to adulthood, Ray Andrew Lewis and Fern Nadine Lewis Coultas Scott Bullett. Both married and have descendants today.

Daisy Delight Prindle died rather young, when her children were quite young, and Daisy May Armstrong has no descendants. More is known about Daisy Mae Marihugh and her life, and I intend to reach out to her descendants alive today who would have known her before her death in 1967; so, I believe I will save writing about her in more detail for another day.

There are no references to list, all information is based on my own research.

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