Haskins, Dora

DORA HASKINS (1881-1936)

Stitched Together: The Life of Dora M. Haskins, my current brick wall beyond her marriage to Robert Clemens Fueston.

Dora M. Haskins was born on March 6, 1881, in Holden, Missouri, a place where the flatlands stretched endlessly and life was woven from grit and perseverance. Of her parents, little is known—just fragments and shadows that refuse to form a whole. But what we do know about Dora is that she was not one to be defined by what was missing.

At 17, she married Robert Clemens Fueston, a man 23 years her senior, on October 14, 1898. By 1900, the couple was living in Tebo, Henry County, Missouri, and Dora was already piecing together a family of her own. They would have four sons—Leonard, Cecil Ellsworth, Glen Millard, and Robert Clem Jr.—each a new thread in the fabric of her life.

The Fuestons moved west to Spokane, Washington, where the landscape was different but the struggles were familiar. Dora’s life was marked by upheaval. In 1916, she divorced Robert, a separation noted in the local papers with a detail that must have stung: Robert had struck her. Despite the turmoil, Dora remained resilient, setting out to sew a new path for herself and her children.

That same year, Dora married Hugo George Kuehl in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, but the union unraveled quickly. By 1921, she was back in court seeking a divorce, citing desertion. Her search for stability led her further west to San Francisco, California, a city that offered the promise of a fresh start amid its hills and fog.

San Francisco brought a new marriage to Jack Weldon in 1924, but once again, the seams did not hold. Divorce followed in 1926, leaving Dora to navigate the remainder of her life independently.

She spent her final years in San Francisco, a city as complex and layered as her own story. Dora passed away on March 11, 1936, at the age of 55, leaving behind her sons and a legacy of resilience. The mystery of her origins remains unsolved—a loose thread waiting to be tied.