Luella Gibe was born in Bonpas, Illinois in 1869 to Adam and Elizabeth Gibe. Adam was a German farmer who had immigrated to the United States as a young man. Ella was the third of Adam and Elizabeth's seven children. At the time of the 1880 census, Ella was living with her parents and her siblings, Sarah, Jacob, Ida, Willie, and John, as well as their 80-year-old grandfather, Henry Gibe. 11-year-old Ella is also marked as being "maimed, crippled, bed-ridden, or otherwise disabled." I wonder what had happened to her?
Ella married George B. Ruark, a druggist, on October 16th, 1889. George was the co-owner of the Stokes & Ruark drugstore in Sumner, Illinois, until he established Ruark & Co. early in 1900. Ella and George had 8 children, though tragically none of them survived past childhood. I could only find record of one of the children, a 6-year-old boy named after his father, in the 1900 census. In 1910 George was no longer working as a druggist and was taking odd jobs to support his wife and himself. Then, in 1915, he was admitted to Anna State Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in Anna, Illinois. He died there six years later at the age of 63.
By this point, Ella had disappeared. I'm not sure where she went after her husband was institutionalized, as she doesn't seem to appear in any records after 1910. She may have moved to a different state, or remarried and changed her name. George's death records state that he was a widower, though no one is exactly sure when Ella died.
I would love to be able to complete Ella's story, so if you know anything else about her, let us know in the comments!
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