Cox Characters
Conclusions to Confusions

Part 3: Chapter 15

I found it extremely interesting that Ken, in his introduction, reports that he was exhorted to watch his behavior because of his family's reputation and roots. When I was growing up, I was told that since I was a Cox, I had to be careful what I said and did. I also understood that I was to apply myself to my school work and "amount to something".

Perhaps all parents use this tactic. But as Ken says, of course it worked and we are all now practically perfect in every way, just like Mary Poppins.

It seems to me now, looking back, that my Cox uncles were a literate bunch. My great uncle Arthur (Milton Arthur) with the help of his wife Julia and their daughter, published the Ayrshire Chronicle, a weekly newspaper. My uncle Roy was a minister. My father, Stanley, had little formal education, only a few semesters beyond his eight grade diploma, yet I still consider him one of the most intelligent, literate men I've ever known. He was an avid reader of the Des Moines Register at a time when it was Pulitzer Prize material, he could do math like a whiz, and he was interested in the world and its politics. I know that my great Uncle Arthur was a dyed in the wool Republican while my father was a Roosevelt/Truman Democrat. My father often stopped in the print shop to talk away an evening with Uncle Arthur. I surely wish I could have been a mouse in the corner for those discussions.

My Uncle Roy served in both World War I and II. An excerpt from a recorded memory of his experience in World War I (he was twenty-three) reads:

In 1942, he was pastor of the Methodist Church in Spirit Lake and, at the age of forty-six years, he certainly would not have had to serve again. Yet he says:

The story now shifts to Mr. Egbert Peters, a man who had met Miriam, Roy Cox's daughter, at Morningside College and asked her to marry him. Mr. Peters says:

Uncle Roy arrived home safely from World War II and, presumably, gave his belated blessing to his daughter's marriage. He served as pastor in Methodist churches in Iowa until his retirement in 1961. He died in 1986 at the age of 91.

Uncle Homer was a "tinkerer" and was the first man in Palo Alto County to get his amateur radio license. Uncle Homer had the first "home recording studio". He was also one of the first people to sell television sets in the late 1950's and also, I believe, one of the few people who could-or would-climb the roof on a big, old, two-story farmhouse to install an antenna. I remember our first television set. We were so far from any major station that mostly we sat about watching dim outlines of people covered by snow. Uncle Homer and Aunt Elsie were also among the first "snowbirds". They journeyed regularly to Arizona to escape the cold Iowa winters. Unfortunately, during one of their winter sojourns, their RV was hit by another vehicle which failed to stop at a stop sign and both were killed in Mesa, Arizona in 1971.

Grandfather Franklin also "tinkered". His specialty was violins. He made over a hundred in his shop during his lifetime, always trying to get each one to sound better than the last. He would have been extremely interested in the new discoveries about the Stradivarius violins, that the wood had been soaked for years, and that the varnish was a special preparation that contained minute quantities of stones.

If Grandfather played the violin, it must have been early in his career. I never remember him picking up the instrument. My father was the musician. How he loved music. He played the violin, the trumpet, and had a passing understanding of the baritone, the trombone, and the tuba. I remember that he says he went to Emmetsburg, the county seat town in Palo Alto, and learned to play from a man who used to play with John Philip Sousa. He also sang in quartets, both male and mixed. He could read music and hold a part very well, and it frustrated him to try and sing with people who could not read or hold the pitch. He passed along both his love of words and music to all three of his children. I have a degree in music education, as does my daughter. All three of my children are active in music; Kara and Kris play professionally in bands, and Keith is a regular member of the Cocoa Village Playhouse where they present four musicals a season.

As for literacy, I have written twenty six romance novels, modern and historical.

As I have been working on Ken's book with him, it has been revealing to me to look at the women's signatures on the deeds. Notice how many women's signatures have "X" as their middle name? Perhaps the reader has already deduced the truth. That X indicates that the women could not write their name. More and more, I become eternally grateful to those women-and men-who fought for the right to be educated, fought to win the vote, fought for equality. We owe them a debt that is much larger than we can repay.

While Peter Cox settled just outside Dalton in Wayne County, Ohio, his brother Jacob Cox settled in Darke County, Ohio. Eli Cox (Peter's grandson by son Jacob, not to be confused with the above Jacob) took his wife Margaret and children westward to Kendallville, Indiana. Thus, northeast Indiana became the home of Eli Cox and the Echard(t)s. Eli's wife Margaret had a sister named Susanah who also married an Echard(t). They too settled in Kendallville, Indiana.

Samuel Cox, son of Michael Cox Jr., moved to Illinois with his son Milton Hupp Cox.

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