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John Yeo died in Centerville, Iowa in 1940. The local newspaper published his obituary in January 1941, referring to him as John Yoe. It stated that he was born in Devon on 20 August 1860 and had married Jane Simmons before emigrating [note 1]; the birth date is inaccurate and no record of the marriage has been found. According to the obitiary, Jane died and John was left with three young children; he married again. No record of his second marriage has been found. The obituary mentions surviving children Mae Ambler and William Yeo [note 2] – John also had a son John Thomas Yeo [note 3].
John Yeo married Rebecca Workman at Seymour, Iowa in 1913 [note 4].
Even though the dates and some of the names given in the American records are inaccurate, it is clear that John Yeo was a son of Henry Yeo and Jane Dunn. He was born at Milton Damerel in 1854 before Henry and Jane moved to Camborne, where the men in the family became miners. The 1841 obituary refers to John as a member of the United Mine Workers of America and states that he worked as a miner ‘as long as his health permitted’.
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Notes
1. John Yeo, son of labourer Henry Yeo, married Emma Jane Semmens at the parish church of Bolton-le-Moor, Lancashire in 1879. Might this be John’s first marriage? They are a good match for the parents of William Henry Yeo, see note 2 below.
2. A ‘delayed certificate of birth’ for William gives his name as William Henry Yeo, his year of birth as 1891, and names his parents as John Yeo and Emma Jane Simmons.
3. Died in Iowa in 1922, aged about 30.
4. A licence for the marriage, issued the previous month, records John’s age as 57 and Rebecca’s as 58; it was stated to be the third marriage for each of them. The licence gives John’s birthplace as ‘England, Devonshire’, his occupation as ‘miner’, and names his parents as Henry Yeo and Jane Dunn (his stated age is a good match to their son’s 1864 birth). It gives Rebecca’s birthplace as Ohio, names her parents as William H. Shocknesse and Elizabeth Wingard and indicates that her birth surname was Shocknesse.