🏨 Widow at the Iowa House

From Civil War Widow to Matriarch of a Large Iowa Family: Aseneath Margaret Ross 

🔎 At a Glance

• Born: 25 Oct 1848, Irwin, Venango Co., PA
• Parents: Ayers Ross & Catherine Steffy
• Came West: 1853, on family-built raft to Cedar Co., IA; later Honey Creek (Koszta), Iowa Co.
• 1st Marriage: 1865, Koszta — John Greaser (Civil War vet)
• Children: Nathaniel K. (1866–1938), infant son (d. 1868)
• Widowed 1869 (John’s war-related death)
• 2nd Marriage: 1871 — George Henry Rossman
• Children: 10, incl. Franklin, George E., Jessie, Leo, Bessie, Allie, Addie, Kate, Sara, Samuel
• Later Life: Farming in Honey Creek/Warren, then retirement in Victor
• Died: 2 Jul 1928, Victor, IA (IOOF Cemetery)

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River to Prairie

Aseneath Margaret Ross entered the world in oil-country western Pennsylvania in 1848, the surviving fourth child of Ayers Ross, a blacksmith, and Catherine Steffy. In 1853, the Ross and Steffy families undertook a dramatic move west. According to a family biography, they built a raft, loaded it with tools, furniture, and livestock, and floated the Allegheny–Monongahela–Ohio–Mississippi river chain before heading up to Muscatine, Iowa. From there they crossed the open prairie to Sugar Creek/Honey Creek Township near Koszta. Catherine finished the journey pregnant; baby Catherine (“Kate”) was born that August.

Aseneath Margaret Ross 1920s

The Iowa House Years

By the mid-1860s, the Rosses were well rooted in Honey Creek Township. In 1866 Ayers and Catherine purchased the Iowa House Hotel in nearby Hartford (Victor P.O.). It became a community hub—and a crucial safety net.

Seventeen-year-old Aseneath married John Greaser in 1865; they welcomed Nathaniel Kitterage the next year, then lost an infant son in 1868. When John died in 1869 from the after-effects of his Civil War service with the 28th Iowa Infantry (Co. B), Aseneath returned to her parents’ hotel to live and work. 

Life at the Iowa House Hotel

By 1870, the Ross family was running the Iowa House Hotel in Hartford Township, at the edge of what would soon be the incorporated town of Victor (1869). The hotel stood along the corridor of the old National Road and near the new railroad, making it a natural stopping place for farmers, tradesmen, and travelers moving west.

Ross Siblings Circa 1910s-1920s

The census that summer recorded nine boarders under the Ross roof. Imagine the dining room on a hot July evening: John Jenkins, a 55-year-old laborer, swapping stories of decades on the road; Robert Garver and William Steele, both in their twenties, talking about the day’s work with the rail lines or farms nearby. James Barlow and Levi Lamb pulled up their chairs with the weary gait of men who spent their lives on the move. Around the same table sat itinerant blacksmiths, farmhands, and a handful of younger men trying to find their place in the fast-changing economy of post–Civil War Iowa.

The clatter of dishes and the aroma of stew or bread would have filled the room. For the guests, the hotel was a brief pause in their journey. For Aseneath, just 21 years old and widowed with a three-year-old son, the hotel was both home and workplace. She helped her parents keep the beds made, meals on the table, and order amid the bustle.

Family lore holds that it was here, amid the constant churn of travelers and townsfolk, that George Rossman walked through the door. Perhaps he arrived like so many others — weary from the road, looking for a meal and a clean bed. But for Aseneath, his arrival marked a turning point: the beginning of her second marriage and a new chapter in her life.

A New Chapter with George Rossman

In 1871 a young blacksmith named George Henry Rossman came through Victor. Family lore says he met Aseneath at the hotel; they married that October. The couple briefly lived in Constantine, Michigan (near George’s mother and siblings), where their son George Edward was born in 1874, then returned to the Victor/Koszta area. Over the next two decades Aseneath raised a large blended family: her son N.K. (who often used the surname Ross) remained close by with her parents, while she and George welcomed ten Rossman children—from Franklin (1873) to Samuel Lewis (1892).

Work, Loss, and Longevity

The Rossman years spanned farms in Honey Creek and Warren Township (Poweshiek Co.) and, later, a comfortable home in Victor. Aseneath endured the drowning death of her brother Columbus (1869), helped her parents run a hotel, and saw her children scatter and marry across Iowa and the Midwest. She outlived both her parents (Catherine in 1888; Ayers in 1893) and her husband (1924).

On 2 July 1928, Aseneath died in Victor. Her death certificate names her parents, Ayers Ross and Catherine Steffy, and lists cause of death as cardiac (myocardial) disease. She rests at Victor IOOF Cemetery.

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Aseneath’s life threads together migration, widowhood, work, and community. The same grit that carried the Ross/Steffy raft down the rivers shows up again in a teenage widow supporting her little boy in a busy hotel—and later in a matriarch guiding a very large family into the 20th century.

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Sources 

• 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920 U.S. Federal Census entries for Aseneath/Ayres/Catherine Ross and household (Irwin, PA; Honey Creek/Koszta; Hartford/Victor; Warren, Poweshiek).

• 1870 U.S. Census, Hartford, Iowa Co., IA: Ayers & Catherine as hotel keepers; Aseneath and son Nathan present; multiple boarders.

• Civil War Pension Index cards for John Greaser

• Iowa Death Certificate, 1928 for Aseneath M. Rossman (Victor, IA).

• Family papers and compiled timelines (Ross/Rossman family notes).

📖 This post is part of my Bowman Family Stories series, which follows four generations from Pennsylvania and Maryland to Iowa and beyond. You can read the full series here →.