Simon Elias Routh was born 12 December 1871 in Tippecanoe County,
Indiana. He was the fourth child of Benjamin Hopkins Routh
and Barbara Ann (Summers) Routh.
Simon's paternal grandparents were Jacob Routh (1821-1846) and
Elizabeth (Hopkins) Routh (born 1824).
Simon's maternal grandparents were John and Elizabeth Summers
(both born in 1812).
Simon was the great-grandson of Issac Routh (born 1775) and
Sarah (Sloat) Routh (born 1781), who married in Jefferson County,
Tennessee; and of Benjamin Hopkins and Mary C. (Skeen) Hopkins (born
in 1787).
Simon was the great-great-grandson of Jacob Routh (1745-1827) and
Martha (Redfern) Routh (1747-1837).
Simon's great-great-great-grandfather was either Zacheus Routh (born
03 December 1717) or Edward Routh (born 25 March 1713).
Simon's great-great-great-great-grandparents were Lawrence Routh (born 1687)
and Mehitable (_______) Routh.
Simon's great-great-great-great-great-grandparents were Lawrence Routh
(born 1660) and Ann (Metcalfe) Routh (born 1665).
Simon had three older brothers, John Daniel Routh, Jesse Michael Routh,
and David Ira Routh. Simon's two younger brothers were Francis Leroy Routh
and Orval Clifton Routh. Simon's two younger sisters were Elizabeth Alice Routh
and Nora Estella Routh.
The Routh home in which Simon was reared was a prosperous farm family in
Tippecanoe County, Indiana.
Simon experienced the death of siblings when he was 10-years old. Simon's sister,
Nora, died at the age of 13-months that year. The following month, Simon's
3-year old brother, Francis, also died. Simon's oldest brother died at the age of
18-years, when Simon was only 11 years old. This must have been a very difficult
period for the Routh's as the family lost three children within a 6-month period
between September 1881 and March 1882.
Simon's father, Benjamin, died when Simon was 27-years of age. Simon's mother
remarried a few years later to George Grubb. When Simon was 37-years old his
youngest brother, Orval, died at the age of 26-years. When Simon was 55-years
old, his brother Jesse died in an unusual accident, falling off of a railroad
car. Elda recalls that her usually-stern father cried upon learning of the
death of his mother, Barbara Ann (Summers) Routh. Clearly, the pain of death
was a frequent visitor in Simon's life.
Simon's sister, Elizabeth Alice, know as 'Aunt Alice,' was reported by many
family members to have possessed powers of levitation and spirit writing.
It is also said that she stopped using these powers later in her life for
religious reasons.
At the age of 27-years, Simon enlisted in the Army on 19 September 1899.
He was in Company I of the 38th Regiment of Infantry during the Spanish-American
War. His honorable discharge on 30 June 1901 described him as 5'-11" tall
with dark complexion, brown eyes and black hair.
The war took Simon across the Pacific Ocean. During the Spanish American War,
Simon fought in at least ten significant battles in the Philippine Islands.
He was not physically wounded in these battles, but he did contract Malaria
during his service. He received a government pension for his military service.
After the war, Simon remain single for a few more years. Coming from an
affluent family and having been a very independent bachelor for several years,
Simon was accustomed to selecting his activities and pursuing his own fancies.
He did not have financial or familial demands to distract him from pursuing
his own interests.
Simon was meticulous about his physical appearance. Throughout his life he would
only wear Stetson hats and he shined his shoes so thoroughly that he could see
his reflection in them. This history of privilege, combined with his overseas
combat experience and multiple deaths of close family members during his childhood,
surely affected his outlook on life.
Simon was usually an emotionally reserved man who isolated himself in his room
to write articles for publication. Nevertheless, he was also a man of strong
temperament whose adjustment to family life was complicated by his stern approach.
A strict father, he did not expect defiance or unfinished chores.
More positively, Simon is also remembered as a brilliant and creative man.
He was a talented writer. For many years his political commentaries were
regularly published by the National Tribune. In the evenings he sat for
hours at his roll-top desk, fully absorbed in his political writings. A public
stenographer typed his handwritten articles.
Simon's writings reflected his strong
allegiance to the Democratic Party, and it was an ongoing source of frustration
for Simon that his wife, Nannie (Martin) Routh, defined herself as a Republican.
Simon invented many labor-saving devices for his farm after he moved his family
to Stanford, Indiana, such as a device which automatically dispensed hog feed
in measured amounts. He made with his own hands beautiful furniture for his home.
He was a skilled farmer and on an 8-acre farm he maintained a thousand chickens,
hogs, a Jersey cow named 'ol' Rhone, orchards (pears, peaches, cherries and apples),
strawberries and vegetable gardens.
Simon Elias Routh met his future wife in a novel way. In those days, it was
acceptable for a young woman to indicate her willingness to meet a suitor by
writing her name and address on an egg before the egg was shipped to market.
A young woman named, Jesse Martin, wrote on an egg at her Blair County, Pennsylvania
farm. The egg ended up in the possession of Simon Routh. Simon began a correspondence
with Jesse and eventually travelled to Blair County, Pennsylvania, with the idea
that he would marry her. When Simon visited at the Martin home, however, Simon and
Jesse found that they were not compatible. Instead, Simon was attracted to Jesse's
younger sister, Nannie Martin. He pursued Nannie's interest, promising her a
year-long honeymoon if she would marry him.
Although Nannie Martin had previously cared for another man in her native
Pennsylvania, she did ultimately accept Simon's proposal. On 11 March 1907
in Hollidaysburg, Blair County, Pennsylvania, Simon Elias Routh married Nannie
Martin, the daughter of James Frederick Martin and Eliza Jane (Lowmiller, Plank)
Martin. They were married by Pastor W. F. Schwartz.
Nannie was 29-years of age when she married the 35-year old Simon. It was the
only marriage for each of them. As each of them had experienced part of their adult
lives as single people, they were both fiercely independent and inclined to state
their positions directly. Nannie described herself as being "as independent as a
hog on ice." There were, needless to say, some bumpy rides ahead for the strong-willed
couple, neither fearing to speak their mind to the other.
Simon and Nannie embarked on a year-long honeymoon, as Simon had promised. During
this time, they toured the continental United States. Nannie, however, became
pregnant immediately after the marriage and wanted to establish a home. Simon,
however, was an affluent man who didn't have a financial imperative to work, and as a
bachelor for several years, he did not have experience with putting down the kind of
roots that Nannie desired for their family. During that first year, Simon sometimes
took brief jobs, such as doing landscaping work on Texas ranches, but Nannie sometimes
found him sleeping behind the very hedges he was supposed to trim.
Simon and Nannie's first child, Velva Delilah Routh, was born nine months after the
marriage, on 17 December 1907 in Springfield, Greene County, Missouri, which is near
the Ozark Mountains in southwestern Missouri.
Further information about Simon and Nannie's children is presented below.
There were difficult moments for Simon. On the occasion of one of his birthdays,
a cold December morning, he fell through the boards of the outhouse, being
fully immersed in the icy waste water. His daughter, Elda, recalls that when
Simon yelled for help, both she and her sister refused to help him 'because he
smelled so awful' after his plunge. Simon had to burn his clothing and spend the
rest of that birthday building a new floor in the outhouse.
Simon Elias Routh was ill during the last ten years of his life. His daughter, Elda,
moved in with her family to care for him. Simon suffered from diabetes, dropsy,
mitral insufficiency and chronic myocarditis. The last two of these conditions
were the cause of his death at 61-years of age on Tuesday morning, 25 April 1933
in Monroe County, Indiana. His body was initially taken for preparation to the
Weir Funeral Home in Bloomington, Indiana, but then returned to his home where he
laid in state until funeral services at his home. Simon was buried at the Greene
County Chapel Cemetery, just across the county line from his Stanford, Indiana
home community. At the time of his burial, a volley of shots was fired by a firing
squad over his grave to commemorate his status as a veteran of the Spanish American War.
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