Buena Vista County, IA
USGenWeb Project

Mrs. Augusta Carpenter is the owner of one of the beautiful farms of Providence township.  It is situated on section 20, and contains two hundred acres of rich land well tilled.  The buildings are all modern and of pleasing style of architecture and in the management of the property Mrs. Carpenter displays excellent business ability.  A native of Lexington, Kentucky, she was a daughter of Benjamin Ludlow and Jane Morris Burnett.  She is descended from English ancestry.  Her great-grandfather was Daniel Burnett.  Her grandfather, David Burnett, was a native of New Jersey and a farmer by occupation.  He also served as justice of peace in his county and his decisions were strictly fair and impartial, while the many good qualities which he displayed in the relations of life gained the high regard of those who knew him.  His son, Benjamin Ludlow Burnett, was born in Madison, New Jersey, September 27, 1822, and is still living at the advanced age of eighty-six years, now making his home with his daughter, Mrs. Carpenter.  In early manhood he wedded Miss Jane Morris, who was born September 2, 1822, a daughter of Cyrenius Morris, a native of New Jersey and a farmer by occupation.  His wife bore the maiden name of Hettie Evans and both lived to an advanced age.  They reared a family of seven children, including Mrs. Burnett, who died during the early girlhood of her daughter, Mrs. Carpenter.  In the family were six children, who are all now deceased with the exception of Mrs. Carpenter.  She was only two and a half years old when her mother died and she went to Illinois when three years of age to live with her aunts, Catharine E. Morris and Julia A. Bunn, of Warren, Illinois, who were her mother's sisters.  She graduated at Trinity Hall, a young ladies' seminary at Beverly, New Jersey, and in 1886 was also graduated from Oberlin College, completing the classical course.  She afterward engaged in teaching, being connected for a time with the high school at Coon Rapids, Iowa, while later she was a teacher in the public schools of Warren, Illinois.  She proved a capable educator, imparting clearly and readily the knowledge she had acquired, but she left the schoolroom to take charge of a home of her own.

On the 22d of July, 1884, she gave her hand in marriage to Dr. William J. Carpenter, a practicing physician of Warren, Illinois, who died .March, 1896, at the age of thirty-five years.  He was of English descent, his parents being born in England, while for some time they made their home near Lena.  Dr. Carpenter was their only child.  He was a gentleman of culture and intelligence and his loss came as a deep blow not only to his wife but also to the community in which he lived.  There is one daughter of that union, Gertrude Agnes Carpenter, who is with her mother. In l905 they came to Iowa and Mrs. Carpenter came to her fine farm on section 20, Providence township.  In its management she displays excellent business ability and discrimination and at the same time manifests those attractive social qualities and traits of character which have won her many friends, and which render the hospitality of her home most pleasant to those to whom it is extended.