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| The Women in John Deere's Life |
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Ellen Deere Webber |
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1832-1897 |
The third child of John and Demarius Deere, Ellen Sarah was born in Royalton, Vt., in 1832. There are no accounts of Ellen during her childhood or throughout most of her teenage years. However, in 1851, Ellen married Christopher Columbus Webber, a New York native who had moved to Geneseo, Ill., where he operated a dry goods store with his brother, and eventually to Rock Island, Illinois. At the time of their marriage, Ellen Deere was 19 and Christopher Webber was 32.
Christopher Webber was brought into his father-in-law's business in 1857. In 1865, after only 14 years of marriage, he died, leaving Ellen with five small children. One of those children, six-year-old Charles C. Webber, went on to become a vice president of
Deere & Company.
Ellen Deere apparently had an interest in music, as evidenced by an entry in her father's account book. It shows that John spent $350 for a piano for her when she was 23.
Ellen was the first of the surviving Deere daughters to die. She was 65 at the time of her death, had suffered a stroke several months earlier, and had apparently been an invalid for some years. She was remembered as "a lady of many excellent qualities, a true wife and mother, and one who will be sincerely mourned by many warm friends."
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