Frank Abner SLOSSON

Male 1864 - 1919  (54 years)


Personal Information    |    Sources    |    Event Map    |    All    |    PDF

  • Name Frank Abner SLOSSON  [1, 2
    Birth 20 Nov 1864  Northwood, Worth County, Iowa Find all individuals with events at this location  [1, 2, 3
    Gender Male 
    Census 1880  living with parents in Kensett Twp., Worth Co., Iowa Find all individuals with events at this location  [1
    Occupation 1880  [1
    Works on the Farm 
    Census 1900  Living in Colorado Springs, El Paso County, Colorado Find all individuals with events at this location  [4
    Occupation 1900  [4
    Coal Miner 
    Census 1910  Living in Monrovia, Los Angeles Co., California Find all individuals with events at this location  [5
    Occupation 1910  [5
    Real Estate Agent 
    Death 30 Jan 1919  Monrovia, Los Angeles County, California Find all individuals with events at this location  [2, 6
    Burial Live Oak Cemetery, Monrovia, Los Angeles Co., California Find all individuals with events at this location  [6
    Notes 
    • "George Slawson: An American Pioneer" - by Harold D. Slosson
      Frank was the adventurer, who, with his wife Nellie Dye, raised a family of six children. In spite of doing this, in his lifetime he was able to take part in many exciting things. Examples are holding down a Dakota timber claim, joining in the Oklahoma land rush, staking mining claims in Colorado's Cripple Creek gold camp, and developing sagebrush land near the Mojave Desert.....
      After completion of elementary school, for a time Frank went to Osage Academy, located in Iowa's Mitchell County. Finally he attended Iowa State University at Ames, which had courses in agriculture, engineering, mechanical arts, etc. While there, he was a membe of the National Guard. Still preserved is a badge he received reading "Best Drilled Company, College Battalion, I.A.C., 1885".
      Frank attended Iowa State University one year, it is known, and he may have gone there longer. Next, for three terms he taught school, with possibly a part of the time being in the Slosson country school....
      Frank teamed up with another young Northwood man, an old family friend believed to be named Atwood. These two ytoung men took adjacent timber claims, located somewhere in the Dakotas, not then divided into North and South Dakota. It was rugged country, too, with some Sioux Indians, it is believed, still in the area.
      Frank Slossn and young Atwood, living in cabins at adjacent corners of their respective "160s," did their cooking ("batching") together. It was an enjoyable period, but perhaps without the challenge of social contacts. After the prescribed year of work, Frank relinquished his claim and went back to Northwood.....
      Frank accepted a position in the Railway Mail Service tht had benn offered to him. He would travel on the train and see that the mail went through. Earlier, all mail had been sorted at the respective post offices along the railroad line. Time-consuming for the postmasters, that method had slowed down mail collection and delivery as well. Then came the concept of having trained men traveling on a special mail car. They would continuously sort mail picked up in bags stationed by the tracks. The sorted mail would next go into other bags which were tossed off at new stations in succession. This railway mail service, it is recorded, worked well from the start.
      Frank became a guardian and classifer of the U.S. Mail, with a chance to see that part of the country....
      Frank was granted a leave of absence from the railway mail service to go to Oklahoma. To enter the land race..... Troops stood guard on the borders of this land to hold back the horde of prospective settlers. Then, on April 22, 1889, at the prescribed hour, bugles blew, and the big Oklahoma land rush was one.....According to the plan of this land opening, the entrant had the option of lots or of land. Frank chose lots, going right where the train took him - to what turned out to be the center of Oklahoma City....
      Frank staked lots, camped on them, and held off all usurpers. He lived there for a while, probably "batching" in a tent. Around him in that immediate area almost instantaneously 15,000 people had come.....
      It was probably a month or two before Frank had sold out and returned to Northwood. Frank's position was still open, and he continued with the railway mail service for some years thereafter.
      Before going back to work for the railway mail service, he did have a moment of glory in this hometown of Northwood. After purchasing a new suit, it is recorded, he went around visiting old friends who immediately, in a grand welcome, dubbed him "Oklahoma." Frank was someone; he had participated in perhaps the greatest land rush of all time......
      He had a romance with a pleasant young Northwood woman by the name of Nellie Dye. A popular member of Northwood's first high school graduating class. Nellie was also an artist, using crayons and oils for painting portraits and landscapes.....Interested in poetry, too, Hamlet had been her junior class essay assignment. Additionally she played the organ, having, one of the old pump types with tremolo and other stops for various effects....
      Frank had an adventurour spirit and so, in 1894, after the depression of that year, he decided to leave the railway mail service... He decided to go to Colorado Springs, close to Cripple Creek.... Their new home, Colorado Springs, was over a mile high, the elevation being 5,980 feet....At first, according to Nellie in later years, they lived in La Verne, a place not now existent, on the Cripple Creek side of Colorado Springs. Here was born Harold Dye Slosson.... Eventually the family moved to their permanent home in Colorado Springs at 828 Spruce Street, near Mesa.
      Frank, having friends in Colorado Springs, and some savings, went into the business of selling real estate and mining stocks. This latter helped the prospector to commercialize his mineral discovery. One of his business cards shows "McGill & Slosson, Real Estate, Mining Stocks, Loans & Insurance," with its location at 107 South Tejon Street. For a time, also, he was associated with C.S. Wilson, with the Colorado Springs Board of Trade & Mining Exchange, listing these partners in their directory as members in good standing.....
      Partnership was common in those mining days.... He had a couple of mining claims with his father-in-law, Nelson T. Dye, in te rugged Tarrall area of Park County....In partnership with tow other Colorado Springs businessmen, mark L. Dorr and Alexander Merideth, Frank purchased some 160 acres just north of town....The partners soon surmised that down below the land surface was a layer of coal.....A Mr. Corley, who had come into the area with considerable means, leased the property from Frank and his associates on a royalty basis. A two-carpartment shaft was sunk some 477 feet deep, where they found the coal layers, as predicted...
      In 1903, for the best interests of their family, Frank and Nellie decided to leave Colorado to make a new start in California.... It was just in tiem, too, for here is a quote about what happened in Cripple Creek: "In 1903 and 1904, one of the bloodiest strikes in the annals of labor started the decline of the (Cripple Creek) Gold Camp. Miners moved their families over night from the terror, and fear turned lose in the district"...
      Finally the Slosson family came to the end of their travel at monrovia, California......On his arrival in Monrovia and for a while thereafter, Frank was associated with his brother, Charley, in the latter's real estate office on the main street in the center ot town..... Frank, however, had left the railway mail service in order to have his own independent business. Thus, after a time, he opened his own real estate office in Pasadena, nine miles west of Monrovia.....His first office was just north of the main street, close to a public park. Later he moved into a large, newly constructed office building on the main street, Colorado Avenue.
      Frank soon became associated with business groups. He was a member of the Pasadena Board of Trade, which played an important part in the growth and development of the city. He was also a member, taking an active interest in the pasadena Realty Board. Meanwhile, in his residence town, always loyal to his political part, for a time he was president of the Monrovia-Duarte Democratic Club......
      In 1918 came the great flu epidemic, one of the most disastrous of all time. And so it came about that on january 30, 1919, Frank Slosson - adventurer, developer, and father of six children - passed one, being laid to reast in Live Oak Cemetery in Monrovia.....
      Nellie was a member of the WCTU, having seen woe and sorrow caused by liquor in the Colorado miners. Additionally, always of first interest was her church, which fortunately was within easy walking distance. For many years she had been a regular member, serving on various commitees as well. Now, on the east wall of that church she had fathfully served for a half century, is located a beautiful stained glass window, the "Moses" window, which was dedicated to the memory of Nellie Dye Slosson in a special ceremony.
      Although Nellie, with her small frame, had appeared frail, nevertheless, she had a surprising amount of quick energy, with much endurance as well. She was also blessed with longevity, remaining active and mentally alert until just past her eighty-eighth birthday. Then she had a hip fracture, with complications from which she never recovered. And so, on August 20, 1953, she was called Home, with her buiral place being beside Frank in the Family plot in Live Oak Cemetery, Monrovia.
    Person ID I52704  Main Tree

    Father John Marean SLOSSON,   b. 29 Mar 1835, Maine, Broome County, New York Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 28 Mar 1900, Grove,Worth County, Iowa Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 64 years) 
    Relationship Natural 
    Mother Jennie Roxy FINCH,   b. 19 May 1840, Broome Co., New York Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 1919, Monrovia, Los Angeles County, California Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 78 years) 
    Relationship Natural 
    Family ID F05458  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Nellie Miranda DYE,   b. 16 Aug 1865, Wisconsin Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 20 Aug 1953, Monrovia, Los Angeles County, California Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 88 years) 
    Marriage 10 Oct 1889  Northwood, Worth County, Iowa Find all individuals with events at this location  [2, 7
    Children 
     1. Glaydice Lucille SLOSSON,   b. 01 Jul 1899, Colorado Springs, Colorado Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 04 Dec 1971, Los Angeles County,California Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 72 years)  [Natural]
     2. Dorothy Mildred SLOSSON,   b. 26 Aug 1904, Monrovia, Los Angeles County, California Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 02 Aug 1961, Santa Paula, Ventura County, California Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 56 years)  [Natural]
     3. Ruth Marean SLOSSON,   b. 03 Jul 1892, Albert Lea, Minnesota Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 06 Sep 1967, Long Beach, Los Angeles County, California Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 75 years)  [Natural]
     4. Ralph Delano SLOSSON,   b. 22 Oct 1901, Colorado Springs, El Paso, Colorado, USA Find all individuals with events at this locationd. Sep 1982, Monrovia, Los Angeles County, California Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 80 years)  [Natural]
     5. Jane May SLOSSON,   b. 17 May 1894, Albert Lea, Minnesota Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 05 Jun 1988, Los Angeles County, California Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 94 years)  [Natural]
     6. Harold Dye SLOSSON,   b. 06 Mar 1896, La Verne, Colorado Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 24 Jul 1986, Los Angeles County, California Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 90 years)  [Birth]
    Family ID F10698  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  • Event Map
    Link to Google MapsCensus - 1900 - Living in Colorado Springs, El Paso County, Colorado Link to Google Earth
    Link to Google MapsCensus - 1910 - Living in Monrovia, Los Angeles Co., California Link to Google Earth
    Link to Google MapsBurial - - Live Oak Cemetery, Monrovia, Los Angeles Co., California Link to Google Earth
     = Link to Google Earth 

  • Sources 
    1. [S00650] 1880 Census Kensett Twp., Worth County, Iowa.

    2. [S03336] Slason-Slauson-Slawson-Slosson Family by George C. Slawson dated 1946.

    3. [S03691] "George Slawson, An American Pioneer" by Harold D. Slosson.

    4. [S00826] 1900 Census Colorado Springs, El Paso County, Colorado.

    5. [S01113] 1910 Census Monrovia, Los Angeles County, California.

    6. [S03516] USGenWeb-Archives: Live Oak Cemetery, Monrovia, Los Angeles County, California.

    7. [S03519] USGenWeb-Archives: Worth County Iowa Marriages.