Oliver Lee Neer

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28. Oliver Lee Neer [11], son of Eden (Edon, Eaton) Neer [15] and Phebe Neer [411], was born on 15 Jan 1858 in Williams County, OH, Milburn and died in 1935 in Los Angeles, CA at age 77.

General Notes: Oliver Neer: Attested so in the 1870 federal census entry (mis-indexed under ’Nees’).

Oliver L Neer: Attested so in various census entries.

Oliver L. Near: Attested so in the 1880 census.

1860: Oliver Lee Neer first appears in the 1860 census of Williams County, Ohio, at the age of one, listed under Eden and Phoebe, who was born in Pennsylvania.

1878: We have a copy of the certificate of his marriage to Ida J. Johnson in our possession, dating to 1878 in Ohio. If my analysis of Paul Neer is correct, they must have gone on to Wyoming quite shortly thereafter.

1879/1880: Oliver’s first son Paul is born in Wyoming in 1879 or 1880.

1880: I did not find Oliver Neer and his family in the 1880, 1890 or 1900 census records, which led to searches for alternate spellings. He appears as "Oliver L. Near" in the 1880 census, where he appears as a "school teacher" with Ida and Paul in Laramie, Wyoming. He does not appear under this spelling in later years, which means I do not find him in a census again until 1910.

1882: Oliver’s second son Claude Neer’s World War I draft registration card gives his date of birth as 5 October in this year, in Denver, Colorado. But Claude’s 1920 census entry gives his birth place as Wyoming. The latter is sequentially more likely.

1885: Oliver’s third son is born in this year, we believe in Garrison, Montana. If Garrison, Montana, is in fact the birth place of Lee Neer, they then left Wyoming and went to Montana before 1885, with an unlikely attested stop in Denver in between.

1890s: Since Lee makes reference in his diary to Angola, which I take to be Angola, Ohio, they then must have gone from Montana back to Ohio in perhaps the 1890s.

1900: I am unable to find Oliver in the 1900 census under any search variation, but I do find Paul Neer in Bisbee, Cochise County, AZ, alone, listed as a copper miner.

1909:

Oliver and Ida Neer were living in Douglas, Arizona. Oliver visited the mines in Mexico every now and then.

1910: Oliver Lee Neer next appears in the 1910 federal census in Douglas Arizona, where he is listed as a promoter and engineer, and his mother’s birth-place is given as Pennsylvania.

1920: Oliver Lee Neer appears again in the 1920 federal census listed as a mining company promoter in Chicago’s Third Ward. In this period, Claude is living with his family in Denver.

1925: The December 20, 1925 article I’ve described under "Agnes Neer" gives Oliver’s address as 1104 Ninth Street.

Charlotte thinks that in this period, the Neer family under Oliver was well off economically, perhaps due to income from mining in Mexico. After the attack in Mexico, apparently those activities ceased. Oliver then moved the family to Ahwahnee, near Yosemite, in California, for work on a new mine he had heard about. This was the Enterprise mine. Peggy says they were looking for gold, and recalls, "Daddy always said, ’We went broke and been broke ever since.’"

1927: Peggy says they moved to Ahwahnee when Leone Jane had graduated in 1927, when Peggy herself was only two.

Charlotte thinks this may have been the start of an economic downturn. Lee Neer stayed at Yosemite, but Oliver ultimately moved to Los Angeles after living in Ahwahnee for a brief period of time. Ida became ill, and he hired a nurse for her. Ida died in 1928 and was buried in Douglas. Oliver eventually married the nurse.

1930: The 1930 census supports this outline. Oliver L. Neer appears in District 975 of the Glendale, Los Angeles, California census. His age is given as 72, his wife Mabel E., who is 49 years old at the time. Her parents were living with them; they were a year or two older than him. Therein his birth place and that of both his parents is given as Ohio. His occupation is that of "Mining Promoter" and he "Owns Mines".

Peggy remembers going to visit him in Los Angeles, even describing it (perhaps erroneously) as going to see her grandparents. "When we went to see them, it was in a huge house, with a spiral staircase... with a fish pond in the back." Is it possible that this was Mabel’s parents’ house?

His death certificate lists his profession as miner, stating he held that occupation for fifty years. But what period would that refer to? 1885 on? This death certificate also lists his mother’s name as Saba Trugan, born in Ohio. I believe this to be adequately contradicted by the combined evidence of the 1860 and 1910 census entries. Charlotte Quinlan’s notes from conversations with Peggy indicate Oliver’s cause of death as "black lung" disease. Check this against the death certificate. Peggy believes he died a pauper.

Leona Jane Neer, who lived with him during her youth, used to tell Charlotte that he would alternatively go by "von Neer" or "van Neer" depending on the context, that he used to wear full-length silk shirts, and was a skilled marksman, shooting bottles he had thrown in the air. CAQ recalls Lee Neer saying that Oliver always looked well dressed, even when he was working hard.

Peggy reports that she was unable to find his burial place, but she assumes it was in Los Angeles. She went to Cypress Lawns but did not find it there. Her records say that it was a crematory. Failure to find a burial place was one reason why Peggy thinks Oliver died a pauper. Peggy believes that he shipped Ida back to Arizona to be buried because he had already purchased plots there, but by the time he died, there was no money to return him there to be buried with her.

Moved to Colorado.

Census: Listed as a promoter: roll T625.312, page 73, ED #142, 1920, Chicago, Cook County, IL.

Lived in Douglas, AZ: 1920s, Dougas, AZ. Leona Jane Neer lived with them attending high school in this period. This date-range is based on the years LJN would have been the right age.

Moved to Los Angeles.

Married also Mabel (Trugan?): Bef 1935.

Death: of chronic myocarditis, 1935.

Oliver married Ida Jane Johnson [387] [MRIN: 7] on 16 Mar 1878.

Children from this marriage were:

14	i.	Lee Neer [10]
	ii.	Claude (Claud) Neer [394] was born on 5 Oct 1882 in Wyoming and died on 7 Aug 1925 at age 42.
	iii.	Paul Neer [397] was born circa 1879 in Wyoming and died on 16 Nov 1924 in Guanacevi, Mexico at age 45.

Oliver next married Mabel Neer [410] [MRIN: 232].