Lizzie Liming Fellows, Van Buren County, Iowa 1890's

"Mother thinks this is
Lizzie Liming Fellows,
your grandmother."

If "Mother" is correct, this is Elizabeth Peacock Liming, who was born on April 16th, 1871. As written in her birth records, she was born on her father's farm in Douds, Van Buren County, Iowa. Her father was William H. Liming, a farmer from Ohio. Her mother was Mary J. Peacock, who had immigrated from Ireland with her family as a baby. Elizabeth was the second oldest child after her brother Arthur and had 4 younger siblings: Chloe, Paul, Della, and Mary. Not long after Mary's birth, their mother became ill with pneumonia. She died in 1880 at only 33 years old. Elizabeth was only 9. The next year, her father was remarried to 18 year old Alice Viola McCullough and in the following years, Elizabeth would gain 3 half-siblings.

On April 21st, 1892, Elizabeth married Clay D. Fellows. He was a young doctor who, like her, had been born and raised in Van Buren County, Iowa. He had just graduated from Keokuk Medical College in Keokuk, Iowa that year. Their first child, Hazel Josephine, was born in February 1893 and their second, Esther Elizabeth, arrived in 1904. By the 1900s, the family had settled in Algona, Iowa. In 1913, 21 year old Hazel married Roy Keen and began a family of her own.  Esther never married but instead persued a career in advertising. Around 1920, their father began to suffer from a heart condition. He passed away from it in 1925 at age 58. Though Esther soon went away to work in Des Moines, Elizabeth had the company of her eldest daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren, who all lived on a farm just outside of Algona.

When Esther was offered a position as the advertising manager for a cosmetic company in Hollywood, Elizabeth sold their house and joined her a few years later.  Elizabeth, now in her 60's, seemed to thoroughly enjoy her time in California. Even when Los Angeles was rocked by an earthquake in March 1933, she wrote home that "she was experiencing everything California had to offer, and she was glad to have had the experience." Hazel's oldest daughter, Eleanor, stayed a summer in Hollywood with her grandmother and aunt in 1936. (Eleanor and her two younger siblings, Richard and Marilyn, were Elizabeth's only grandchildren. This photograph must have belonged to one of them at some point.)

Elizabeth lived with Esther in their Hollywood apartment until she passed away on Christmas Eve, 1951. She was 80.

If you know who this may be, let us know in the comments!