Mary Melinda Swain
Submitted by: Mary Rohrer Dexter, Local County History Project
Mary Melinda Swain born around 1893. Mary Swain served in World War 1 with the United States Army . The enlistment was in 1918 and the service was completed in 1919.
Story of Service
The facts around Mary’s life seem to be full of contradictory dates and locations when the records are examined. This biography contains the author’s best interpretation of the conflicting data.
Mary Melinda Swain was born in Dublin, Ohio in the fall of 1893. Her mother was Rose Grogan, who was born in Illinois as the child of Irish Immigrants. Rose married Mary’s father, John Swain, and they had five children. Mary’s mother passed away when Mary was five years old. Although the Swain family were Ohioans, in the 1880 census John was with his parents and siblings in Grundy County, Illinois. This was the same county in which Rose was living with her family.
After Rose died, John married a woman named Anne who was an immigrant from Sweden. When Anne died he later married a widow named Belle. John died when Mary was 39. Although it has not been determined exactly when Mary, her parents, John and Rose, along with her siblings, all migrated to Indiana, it was sometime before her mother’s burial in 1898, as Rose’s grave is in Cass County. The family was living in Deer Creek Township, Miami County, Indiana by 1900 in the little cross roads called Bennetts Switch. Deer Creek Township, named after the Deer Creek which runs through it, is in the Southwest corner of Miami County, with Howard County bordering it to the South and Cass County on its Western border. Bennetts Switch had one of the two post offices in the township, and Mary’s father worked for the post office.
Read the entire article on the Miami County, Indiana Worth Remembering web site:
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