 Hoover's mother died in 1884, leaving Hoover, his older brother, Theodore, and his younger sister, May, as orphans.After a brief stay with one of his grandmothers in Kingsley, Iowa, Hoover lived the next 18 months with his uncle Allen Hoover in West Branch at a nearby farm.In November 1885, Hoover was sent to Newberg, Oregon to live with his uncle John Minthorn, a Quaker physician and businessman whose own son had died the year before.