Mabel and Mildred are twin sisters. They were born on April 10, 1913 in Coldwater, Ohio to Clarence Arthur and Sarah (Sadie) Elizabeth Hoel Ransbottom. Sadie (Walt’s aunt) had three sets of twins.
Category: Family History Page 14 of 22
Genealogy, family lore, memoirs, and so forth.
Isadore Link was born on April 4, 1860 to William J. Link and Mary Ann Sauter in New Vienna, Iowa. Isadore was Walt’s great-grandfather.
Martha Ann Fisher was born in Celina, Ohio, on March 28, 1869 to John Benjamin Fisher and Ann Redmond.
Eleanor Anna Johnson Hoel was born on March 23, 1910, in New London, Iowa. Her parents were Walter Carl Johnson and Ellen Lorraine McCabe.
As the weather starts to change, the maple tree in the back yard starts to drip sap. It’s not a sugar maple, so it wouldn’t make a sweet syrup. Plus you need a lot of sap to make syrup.
Georgie talks about making syrup in the notes she wrote about growing up in West Point. On the Bruegenhempke place, there was a row of soft maples north of the house. Sometimes they collected the sap and cooked it down.
Her great-uncle Ben Wellman had a sugar camp in the timber, and in the spring collected maple water. In February, when it froze at night and warmed in the daytime, they collected maple water in buckets. Maple season in Iowa lasts 3 to 4 weeks.
Aunt Teresa would make maple sugar candy in a pan with molds which all had different designs on the bottom. You can buy or make your own maple sugar candy today. It is often shaped in molds that look like a maple leaf.
Digging Deeper
This is an interesting article on the history of making maple syrup posted by the Maple Valley Syrup cooperative.
Arthur Link was the only son of William and Elizabeth Link. He was born on December 11, 1930, and died of pneumonia on March 11, 1932, aged fifteen months.
He was, of course, Mom’s little brother. And she spoke of him pretty often. Losing a child is a traumatic thing for a family, and it was no less so ninety years ago than it would be today. It’s just that back then it was more common.
I’ll just let the photo speak for itself.
Charles Todd Durfee and Anna Harms were married on February 20, 1889 in Rock Port, Missouri. They were my (Michelle’s) great-great-grandparents.
Henry A.N. Hole was Walt’s great grand uncle, brother to his great grandfather, John Swisher Hole.
Henry was born in on February 13, 1834 in Preble County, Ohio to James Anderson Hole and Mary Ann Swisher. By the time of the 1850 census, the family had moved to Darke County, Ohio. By the 1860 census, Henry was working as a farm laborer on the farm of Jacob and Eliza Pratt.
It’s a few days early, but we wanted to be sure to celebrate a special anniversary. This February 14, Carl and Georgie would have been married 80 years.