Research Opportunity
In the 1880 census of Grove, Adair County, Iowa, Reuben Vining and wife Maria were living in a household with two sons, James (13 y., b. Illinois) and Almon (12 y., b. Illinois). Also in the 1880 census of Grove, Adair County, Iowa, a Lydia Vining (29 y., b. Illinois) was living with two sons Thomas (8 y., b. Illinois) and Edmund (4 y., b. Iowa), a daughter Myrtle (2 y., b. Iowa), and a laborer Martin Felkey (58 y., b. Ohio). Was Lydia a first wife of Reuben and the mother of all his children, while Maria was a second wife of Reuben who helped him raise two of the children (James and Almon)?