Tope Family Page

living. at that place, Clarence C. Price, to see if anybody by the name of Tope lived there, and he replied (July 8, 1895), that there were none. And we know nothing further.
    7. Maria Tope married William Moles; they moved to Marion county,
Iowa, where they lived a while and then moved to Lettsville, Louisa county, Iowa. He was at one time a hotel-keeper, but later he ran a blacksmith-and-wagon-maker's shop. They had seven children: Hiram, William, George, Mary, Elizabeth, and two others whose names we do not know. It is proper to state that before going west Mr. Moles lived at Tope's Mills and worked with Eli Tope at the blacksmith trade.
    8. Eli Tope was born May 10, 1815, in Carroll county, 0. He was married
to Catharine Davis, daughter of Joshua and Isabel Davis, March 23, 1837,
who was the mother of ten children, five of whom died in infancy and five now living. His wife died Sept. 15, 1858, and he married again, April 29, 1854, Margaret Tope, daughter of John and Mary Tope, of Jackson
county, 0., by whom he had eleven children more, one of whom died in infancy and the rest are still living. He worked at blacksmithing for over sixty years. In 1853 he moved from near the old homestead at Tope's Mills to Jacksoncounty and settled almost in the woods, there being only a small lot cleared around a log cabin. He felt himself in rather close circumstances, as his means were limited;
but still greater tribulations were to follow, for in the fall of the same year he lost his wife, and in May 1859 his house burnt down, destroying considerable property with it, which was followed on the 5th morning of June, same year, by the memorable frost that killed nearly all the wheat. In 1861 he built a brick house, which burnt in the spring of 1873, entailing another severe loss. But he rebuilt and just as he was ready to retire from wielding the heavy hammer another calamity still followed, it being the failure in business of one of his sons, which involved him to a considerable extent. In all of these trials he never yielded to discouragement, but at his ripeness of age, the last one on top of the others, with all of the others, with all of his hard work, overpowered his nerves so that his hands, as stated in a letter written to us by Wm. W. Tope May 10, 1893, "are shaking all the time;" notwithstanding that, his general health was then at his 78th birthday quite good. But he did not remain on earth much longer. A letter from Davis Tope, Geneva, Nebraska, dated Jan. 15, 1896, says his "father died about two years ago at the age of about 80 years." His second wife died Aug. 11, 1890. The address was Cove, 0. The account of the
children is as follows:
    Wm. W. Tope, who married Catharine Rapp April 16, 1865; they had six
children, three of whom died in infancy, and three are now living. Address is Coalton, 0.
    Isabel Tope, who married James H. Heath, now of Geneva, Nebraska. They have had seven children, one of whom died in infancy.
    George F. Tope, who married Lucinda House, and they have five children, all living.
    Hiram M. Tope, who was married to Eliza Coy, and have three children, all living.
    Davis Tope, who married Mary C. Rapp, and has four children all living.
They live at Geneva Neb., and he is general agent for the Neidhart Marble Works, of Beatrice, Neb.