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his bride went to house keeping in Downs where he continued as foreman on the Downs Times, until sometime in 1854 when the town of Almena, this county, was started on the north side of the creek.
He and J. F. Garner were looking for a location to start a newspaper and concluded that was the place and started a newspaper there and named it the Almena Star.
In six months he bought Garner's interest and continued to run it three years, when he sold out and moved to Jennings, Decatur county, a town half way from Norton to Colby, where he started the "Echo" which he is still running, besides being a notary public, justice of the peace, insurance agent etc.
He is also agent for the Kansas Town and Land Co. at that place and school treasurer of that town.
He owns a fine farm in Smith county and also one in Cheyenne county. They have one child, a bright little boy seven years old, named Stanley.
James Dickey Curry, son of R. B. Curry, whose biography has appeared in these columns, was born February 26, 1836 in Union County Ohio.
In 1854 he moved with his parents to Keokuk county, Iowa where he was married April 5, 1856 by Rev. Mr. Elliot to Julia Florence Connely.
She was born March 22, 1836 in Ashland county, Ohio and came to Iowa in 1854.
Her father, James Connely, was from Pennsylvania and was of Welsh descent, a music teacher and a farmer.
Her mother, Sedalia Bushnell was a descendant of the early English settlers of that name in Connecticut, taught school in her youth and is still living in Iowa, a hale old lady of ninety years.Julia taught school in Ohio and also in Iowa until her marriage with Mr. Curry. They had seven children: Olive M. born February 10, 1857; James R. born October 10, 1858; Della S. born July 17, 1861; Homer W. born August 2, 1866; Linnie M. born February 7, 1868; Ulysses S. born July 17, 1870; A. Charley born May 30, 1872. Mr. Curry enlisted in company D, 13 Iowa infantry October 13, 1861; he was discharged at Vicksburg, Mississippi, December 31, 1863, but reenlisted at once. He took part in the siege of Vicksburg, was in the battles of Corinth and Shiloh and many lesser engagements. From Shiloh he carried away a bullet hole cut through his hat and another cut through his coat, but was never wounded. He was one of the sixty thousand who started with Sherman on his "march to the sea." but was taken prisoner at Atlanta, Georgia, July 22, 1864, and sent to Andersonville prison. He entered the pen with the firm resolve to see his wife and children again, who heard nothing more of him for six months than that he was missing. This resolution never failed him even when his daintiest article of diet was corn, ground cobs and all, and mixed with water, more often raw than cooked. Sickened by the water of the |
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