JOHNSTONE, Bess Sumner - Fountain County INGenWeb Project

Hillsboro friends have learned thru a newspaper clipping that a former local resident, Mrs. Bess Sumner Johnstone has willed the greater part of her estate to the “free milk fund,” of the Ottumwa, Iowa public schools. She and her husband, the late Harrison C. Johnstone former principal both taught in the school.  Mr. Johnstone died Nov 10, 1939.  Mrs. Johnstone had operated a magazine subscription business in her home.  An attorney filing an inventory of the estate stated that $7500 of her will had directed the money to go to the free milk funday which had been established for the benefit of underprivileged children of the city school.  Mrs. Johnstone died Sept 24, 1959 at the Ottumwa Hospital. She was born in Hillsboro Ind Oct 11, 1884 the daughter of Austin and Jennie Sumner and attended the Hillsboro school.  She taught school for a number of years and was married to Harrison Johnstone in 1912. She had been a resident of Ottumwa since 1916 and was a member of the Presbyterian Church. - kbz