My great grandparents in 1900: James Lawrence McDaniel and Midia Belle Meeks
This is the third installment of my series of posts on my great grandparents. In this one we're looking at James Lawrence McDaniel (1873-1944) and Midia Belle Meeks (1876-1947) of Spencer County, Indiana. In the 1900 census James and Midia (spelled Mida in this census) are renting a farm in Huff Township, Spencer County, Indiana. Their first daughter, Cora, is 3 years old. James and Midia have been 3 years married at this point. By 1910 they are back in Hammond, Indiana, where James' parents live, and they are again renting a farm. In the 1920 census they are in Vanderburgh, Indiana, and James is a laborer in a flour mill. And somewhere between then and the next census they move to Columbus, in Bartholomew County, where daughter Emma Grace, my grandmother, will meet and marry James Franklin Spencer. The 1930 census-taker put down James as a farm laborer who did not, by the way, own a radio! James was the son of Joseph McDaniel and Margaret Price. In the 1900 census these two a...