This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: ANDREWS, FRALEY, NELSON, PALMER, REEVES, SLOCUM Classification: Obituary Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/ZFC.2ACI/508 Message Board Post: >From the Daily Tribune [Wisconsin Rapids, Wood Co., WI],Tuesday, March 25, 1941, Page 1 (not the complete obit due to copyright restrictions) Lavinia Rablin, Last of Pioneer Family, Dead Miss Lavinia RABLIN, 83, daughter of one of central Wisconsin's earliest families and among the first white children born in the Tri-Cities community, died Monday at the home of her niece, Mrs. Clara Rablin NELSON. Her parents were Mr. and Mrs. John Rablin, who came here in 1856, and she was the last survivor of their ten children. Miss Lavinia Rablin was born in this city April 25, 1857. Her parents were of English stock and had come to Wisconsin in 1843 where they settled on a LaFayette County farm. John Rablin followed the westward movement of the 49'ers but returned to Wisconsin and ultimately opened lumber activities here. He established the foundry and machine shop that later became the Grand Rapids Foundry Company, and was the builder of the Rablin House, an early hotel and center pf business and social life in the growing Grand Rapids community. Miss Lavinia Rablin had been a switchboard operator when the first telephone system was installed in this city by the Wisconsin Telephone Company in 1887. She went with her sister to Superior in 1889, living there until 1930 when she returned to Wisconsin Rapids to make her home with her sister, the late Mrs. F. J. Wood. For the past year she has lived with Mrs. Nelson, one of four nieces and three nephews surviving. Other survivors are: Hart B. SLOCUM, Duluth; Guy WOOD, Eau Claire; E. A. ANDREWS, Wisconsin Rapids; Shirley SLOCUM PALMER, Portland Oregon; and Laura A. REEVES and Mrs. Edith FRALEY, Wisconsin Rapids. Funeral services will be held March 26 at the Baker Funeral Chapel, Miss Bess Bradford will read the Christian Science rites and burial will be in Forest Hill Cemetery.