Jennie Mae Comer
b. 1 December 1891, Rensselaer, Jasper County, Indiana, to William Cyrus and Sarah Jane
(Gleason) Comer
d. 2 June 1986, West Chicago, DuPage County, Illinois

m. 1 October 1920, Lafayette, Tippecanoe County, Indiana
Orval Hamilton Crisler
b. 10 October 1893, Mount Ayr, Newton County, Indiana, to William Addison and Clara Delilah (Hopkins) Crisler
d. 17 January 1986, West Chicago, DuPage County, Illinois

Children with Orval Hamilton Crisler:

• William Orval (1922-2005) married Dorothy Helen Olson
• Virginia Mae (b. 1923) married Leslie Alexander Simpson
• John Edward (1924-1994) married June Freida Wilson
• George Hamilton (1925-2000) married (1) Gloria Grover Murray, (2) Barbara Dee Bell
• Emily Jeannette (b. 1927) married Lyle William Seefeldt

Jennie’s father, William Cyrus Comer, was also born in Indiana. Her mother, Sarah Jane “Jennie” Gleason was born in Michigan, but lived in Indiana as a young woman.

Jennie’s mother died following childbirth, and Jennie was sent to her maternal grandparents in Ottawa County, Michigan, to be raised there. She returned to Rensselaer, Jasper County, Indiana, at age nine in 1900 to live with her aunts, Mary and Lizzie Comer, at their boarding house on South Cullen Street. She stayed there until adulthood.

Jennie left Indiana in 1912 to attend nursing school in Chicago but returned again to Rensselaer to work as a registered nurse at Jasper County Hospital following her graduation. There she became re-acquainted with her husband-to-be and former classmate, Orval Hamilton Crisler. They married in 1920 and quickly were parent of five children.

In 1927, the family moved to Waukegan, Illinois. Later they moved to Chicago, then to Glen Ellyn, Illinois. Following her husband’s retirement, they moved to Dunedin, Florida. At her death at age 94, Jennie’s body was returned to Rensselaer, and she is buried there next to her husband of 65 years in Weston Cemetery.

Submitted by:
Leslie S. Hall
Waynesboro, VA
E-mail: geniehall75@gmail.com

Orval Hamilton Crisler
b. 10 October 1893, Mount Ayr, Newton County, Indiana, to William Addison and Clara Delilah (Hopkins) Crisler
d. 17 January 1986, West Chicago, DuPage County, Illinois

m. 1 October 1920, Lafayette, Tippecanoe County, Indiana
Jennie Mae Comer
b. 1 December 1891, Rensselaer, Jasper County, Indiana, to William Cyrus and Sarah Jane (Gleason) Comer
d. 2 June 1986, West Chicago, DuPage County, Illinois

Children with Jennie Mae Comer:

• William Orval (1922-2005) married Dorothy Helen Olson
• Virginian Mae (b. 1923) married Leslie Alexander Simpson
• John Edward (1924-1994) married June Freida Wilson
• George Hamilton (1925-2000) married (1) Gloria Grover Murray, (2) Barbara Dee Bell
• Emily Jeannette (b. 1927) married Lyle William Seefeldt

The Crisler family, headed by Orval’s grandfather, Hamilton Crisler, came to Indiana in 1846 and settled in the Haw Creek Township of Bartholomew County. They moved to Newton County, Indiana in 1861 when Hamilton purchased 240 acres of land in Jackson Township near the later town of Mount Ayr.

Orval moved with his parents to a farm northeast of the town of Rensselaer, Jasper County, Indiana, in 1910. Following his marriage in 1920, he and his wife and their five children, moved to Waukegan, Illinois, in 1927. Orval enrolled in the LaSalle Extension School in Chicago and completed his education, becoming an accountant. The latter part of his working career was as an accountant, comptroller, and secretary/treasurer for the Chicago-based Gulbransen Piano Company.

His wife Jennie was a registered nurse who worked at the Jasper County Hospital in Rensselaer as a surgical nurse and radiology technician prior to her marriage. Orval was a farmer, having taken over the family farm after the death of his father in 1911

After his retirement, Orval and Jennie moved to Dunedin, Florida. They returned to the Chicago area in the mid 1980’s and both died there in 1986. They were sent home to Indiana for burial in Weston Cemetery in Rensselaer, Indiana

Submitted by:
Leslie S. Hall
Waynesboro, VA
E-mail: geniehall75@gmail.com