Maude Frances Dyer was born on May 23, 1898 in Knox County, Indiana to Asberry Dyer and Harriet Caroline Hougland.  Asberry supported the family through farming, and with his wife Carrie had a total of seven children:  Ellis, Maude, Ora, Emma, Evalena, Cecil, and Eva.  All of the siblings lived to adulthood except Evalena who died of cholera at seventeen months.  The family lived on the Knox County side of the White River, not far from Plainville and Edwardsport.

In 1907, the Dyer family lost their patriarch when Asberry died of ascites.  According to the newspaper account, he had been ill for several months and had refused medicinal treatment.  About a year later, with a large family to raise, Carrie married Charles W Barnes and they made their home farming in the Sandborn area.  Maude acquired four half-siblings from her mother’s second marriage: Martha, William, Harvey and a still-born sister.  William would only live a couple years, having been afflicted with a fatal bout of pneumonia in 1915.

Maude met William Miller from the Plainville area of Daviess County and married him on May 11, 1916.  They made their home in the Plainville area where William worked as a farm laborer.  They had three children, Ruth, Ollie, and James, all who lived very long lives.  In 1928, William died at the age of thirty-two from tuberculosis.  As a means of supporting herself and her three children, Maude worked as a seamstress at the Reliance Manufacturing Company, which was located in Washington, Indiana.  They made workshirts during the 1930s and shifted to parachute manufacturing during World War II.

On June 28, 1933, Maude married her second husband, widowed farmer Joseph Haskins.  At the age of thirty-seven, Maude died on November 3, 1935 from a thyroid disorder.  She was buried in the Plainville Cemetery, likely next to her first husband William.

Maude Dyer was my 2nd cousin 3 times removed on my dad’s side.

REFERENCES

• The Daviess County Historical Society & Museum website

• United States Census: 1910, 1920, 1930
• Indiana Birth Certificates
• Indiana Death Certificates
• Indiana Marriages
• Vincennes Commercial, May 12, 1916
• Western Sun, April 5, 1907