John Benoit was born on the family farm in Webster County, Iowa January 24, 1875. He married Alice Loehr in Moorland, Iowa in 1896. They lived most of their lives near Humboldt, Iowa where they raised three sons and a daughter. Clyde Edward was born August 7, 1898, in Barnum. , Leo born, January 19, 1901, in Terra Junction and Sophie Marie was born there, April 9, 1904. Adolph was born December 19, 1908 in Gilmore City. Two additional children died in infancy.

In 1918 Clyde married Delores Merle Gardner in Spencer, Iowa. A daughter Virgene Faye was born in 1919. Clyde and Delores divorced in 1921. Delores remarried and moved to Des Moines where she had additional children. Clyde eventually remarried and moved to Michigan where he died in 1957.

Leo married Gladys Spencer in Rolfe, Iowa on October 22, 1921. In the early 1930s they moved to Winterset, Iowa where they raise two sons, Robert and Jack. Among their other endeavors, the two sons were involved in the operation of concessions at the Iowa State Fair Grounds. Leo died in 1981 at age 80. Gladys died in 1986.

Sophie Marie was married in the early 1920s to Donald Bay, a young man from Flora, Illinois who had come to Gilmore City to work as a kiln operator at the local cement plant. Their first two children were born in Gilmore City, Doris on January 21, 1922, and Carl Edward on July 13, 1923. In the mid 1920s the family moved to Dixon, Illinois where Donald worked for the Medusa Cement Company. Four additional children were born in Dixon, Harriet in 1925, Darlene in 1930, Patty in 1934 and John in 1936.

Adolph, known as Jim, was the youngest of the four children of John and Alice Benoit. He was born in Gilmore City, December 19, 1908. Adolph never married. In 1932 John and Alice followed Leo and his family to Winterset and Adolph moved with them. John Benoit died in Winterset in 1934. Alice lived until 1959. Adolph died in 1979, at age 72.

HOME

INDEX