Notes for: Lucy ("Lulu") Madeleine Bodine
Frank Bodine, born 1882, said she was the youngest girl. She never married. Lucy entered a convent, but had to leave to take care of her father before she could take her final vows. There was a Lucy Bodine who homesteaded in South Dakota. In Frank's obituary, she was listed as being from Porterville, California and was still living.
This Lucy Bodine is in the 1880 Census of Fayette, Fayette Co., IA living with her sister Lydia's family. She is 20 and born in MN. She is listed as a domestic servant. Neither she nor her sister seem to know their parents' birthplaces.
From Ronny Bodine:
The Minnesota State Census of May 1865 recorded Luu Bodine living with her parents in Freeborn County. Ages were not recorded. In June 1870, Lussie Bodine, age 10, was living with her parents in Freeborn County and in May 1875, Lucy Bodine 15 lived with R. J. McDonald & Ernestina in Austin, Mower County, Minnesota. Her father's birthplace was noted as Kentucky. In 1880, Lucy Bodine, 20, lived with her sister and brother-in-law, Lydia and Patrick Carr in Fayette Twp., Fayette County, Iowa. Lucy is next found in 1930 in Spokane, Spokane County, Washington as Lucy Boudine, 70, born in Minnesota, single, living with her niece, Lydia McDonald, 65. In 1940, Lucy M. Boudine, 80 was living with Mydia McDonald, 75 in Portland, Multnomah County, Oregon.
Upon the death of Frank Bodine in April 1954, his newspaper obituary reported his only survivor out of 21 children borne to his parents was his sister Lulu Bodine, 95, of Porterville. Porterville is located in Tulare County where Frank lived at the time of his death. The California death records record the death in Tulare County on 1 May 1956 of Lucy Madeline Boudine, born 19 March 1860 in Minnesota. It noted her father was named Boudine and her mother was Creegan.
The censuses report the age of Lucy as 10 in June 1870, 15 in May 1875, 20 in June 1880, 70 in April 1930 and 80 in April 1940, and at her death as in May 1956 as 95. Her birth was reported as 19 March 1860, which would be one year earlier and in conflict with an elder sister of the same name, born in 1856, who was living in June 1860 and who died soon afterwards. Her actual birth date would have to have been 19 March 1861. Her mother's name of Creegan from her death record is incorrect as Creegan was the maiden name of her brother Frank's wife, but all of these details make it a certainty that Lucy Boudine was the same Lucy Bodine who was the sister of Frank Bodine.