Biography of Mrs. Eliza Spensley History of Walworth County Wisconsin by Albert Clayton Beckwith 1912 B. F. Bowen & Company Indianapolis, Indiana Pages 1337-1339 MRS. ELIZA SPENSLEY Wholly devoted to home and domestic duties, doing through all the best years of her life the lowly but sacred work that comes within her sphere, there is not much to record concerning the life of the average woman. And yet what situation so dignified, what relation so endearing, what office so holy, tender and ennobling as those of home-making wifehood and motherhood? A celebrated writer and biographer once said that the future destiny of a great nation depended upon its wives and mothers. May this not also be said concerning the future that is blood of her blood, and which is incalculable of results and will never be fully known until eternity solves the problem? In the settlement of the great Middle West woman bore her full share of hardships, sufferings and vicissitudes, helping man in the rugged toil of wood and field, cheering him when cast down and discouraged, sharing his dangers, mitigating his sufferings, in the end quietly and unostentatiously rejoicing in his success, yet ever keeping herself modestly in the background and permitting her liege lord to enjoy all the glory of their mutual achievements. In a biographical compendium, such as this work is intended to be, women should have no insignificant representation. As a man's equal in every qualification save the physical, and his superior in gentle and loving amenities of life, she fully merits a much larger notice than she ordinarily receives, and the writer of these lines is optimistic enough to indulge the prediction that in a no distant future she will receive due credit for the important part she acts in life's great drama and be accorded her proper place in biography and history. The foregoing paragraph was suggested after a perusal of the leading facts in the life record of the worthy and highly respected lady whose name furnishes the caption of this article, a lady who has done well her part in the world and whose career from the beginning has been a simple, but beautiful poem of rugged, toilsome duty, faithfully but uncomplainingly performed as maiden, wife and mother. Mrs. Eliza Spensley, of the village of Walworth, widow of Robert Spensley, deceased, is a daughter of Deacon John Reader, one of the leaders in pioneer times in Walworth county. A complete sketch of this noble character appears on another page of this work. His daughter, the subject, well remembers the conditions prevailing here during the early settlement of Walworth and talks interestingly of life in those remote days. She was born in Oneida county, New York, and came to this county in the fall of 1837 with her parents and the rest of the children, all constituting a large family. The father had been here in 1836 and entered land and proved it and did all he could toward erecting a log cabin and getting ready to bring his family here. Being the first settler in that part of the county, he had no neighbors, consequently no one to help him. Thus in the western part of Walworth township, which was wilderness, the haunts of wolf, deer and other kindreds of the wild and "watchers of the trail," Eliza Reader grew to womanhood. In 1856 she was united in marriage with Robert Spensley, who was born June 14, 1825, in Lincolnshire, England. He was the son of John and Sarah Spensley, both natives of England, where they lived and died, and there their son, Robert, grew to manhood, finally emigrating to America and taking up his abode in Walworth county, Wisconsin, in the year 1850, boarding with Deacon Reader. He followed farming and after his marriage bought part of the Reader homestead and there he and his wife lived until 1884, then moved to Del Rapids, South Dakota, where Mr. Spensley bought a farm of two hundred acres, for which he paid eleven dollars and fifty cents an acre and lived there sixteen years, reaping his usual large rewards as a general farmer and stock raiser. A church house had been erected in his neighborhood, but the congregation was heavily in debt and were discouraged, ready to give up the struggle. At this crisis Mrs. Spensley felt that she had been guided there providentially. She was much in earnest in her desire that the church continue, for she wanted her children to grow up under Christian influence. So she went back and solicited funds for this church, doing her work with zeal befitting the motives that actuated it, and she deposited the sum of eighteen hundred dollars for the church, in her own name, in order to insure its proper use in liquidating the debt. This church is now a power for good in its community. She also took and abiding interest in the public schools and for eleven years was treasurer of the school board at Dell Rapids. Her own chances for schooling had been meager, she having to learned to write from copy written for her on the ground by her mother, and these copies the young girl had practiced on while herding cattle in the early days of the family home on Walworth township. She was very earnest in assisting the children of a latter generation on obtaining the advantages which she lacked. Mr. Spensley's health began to fail and after sixteen years in Dakota he sold his farm and returned with his family to Walworth county and here spent the rest of his life, dying on June 22, 1907. Five children were born to Robert Spensley and wife, namely; Dallas married Ora Sawyer and they had two children, Erma and Elma; his first wife died and he married Elizabeth Tabor; the death of Dallas occurred on April 10, 1903, at Walworth, at the age of forty-five years and seven months. Deloss Spensley, who married Melissa Hunt, of this county, went to Dell Rapids in 1884 and is farming there still; his family consists of four children, Carrie, Rena Belle, and Earle. Clara Spensley married Thomas McConnell and they have three sons, Robert, Claude and Clifford; this family lives at Toma, Wisconsin. Herbert Spensley married Etta Adams of Walworth, and he is an electrician here. Frank Spensley married Edith Sizer and they have two children, Walter and Nina; he is farming at Toma. The first two children of the subject, Dallas and Deloss, were twins. Robert Spensley was a man of upright character who took great pains in the rearing of his children. He was a worthy member of the Walworth Baptist church, to which Mrs. Eliza Spensley also belongs. Mrs. Spensley now resides in Walworth with her sons. She is a woman of strong character, neighborly, hospitable, always ready to help in times of need or distress, and she has a host of warm personal friends wherever she is known. Submitted By: Allan Reader (areadr@excite.com)