When you think about a small town, do you imagine that it’s a quiet place? I certainly do. And, for the most part, West Point was a pretty quiet place. You might hear a teenager’s hot rod once in a while. And there was certainly some noise from the grain elevator down the street, at least at certain times of year. But much of the time all you would hear is birds singing, and the wind through the trees.
Category: Family History Page 17 of 22
Genealogy, family lore, memoirs, and so forth.
When I was looking through some pictures this week, I kept noticing pictures of kids looking adorable, so I decided to share a few good ones with you today.
Bill and Bea are Walt’s aunt and uncle. William Era Hoel was born on February 5, 1904. Lillian Beatrice Burritt was born July 14, 1907.
Bill and Bea were married September 1, 1925. I thought it would be nice to remember them.
When we get to this time of year, I always think of back to school. I thought I would share a few pictures from Georgie’s collection from 1934 in West Point, Iowa.
Noel Edward Manley was my (Michelle’s) great-uncle. He was born August 18, 1924 in Rapid City, South Dakota to Joe and Bessie Manley. He was part Oglala Lakota and supported organizations that gave back to the Native American Community.
In a few posts, I have been discussing some of the challenges of identifying people when you are doing genealogical research. I covered immigration and census records in this post. I talked about some of the difficulties encountered in translation and working with older documents in this post.
Today, I am going to look at some naming conventions that can make it difficult to determine exactly who you are looking at.
“Can you be a brave boy for me?”
When you’re an eight year old boy there’s really only one answer to that.
We were standing in Grandma’s kitchen. It was usually a busy place, especially when there was family visiting. And there was a bunch of family – my aunt and uncle had brought Grandma’s cousin Elanor from Germany out to visit, so they were there, along with their kids. There were other relatives there too. I don’t really recall who, exactly. But it was a pretty full house that night. The place should have been full of noise and laughter, and the kitchen should have been full of people. Earlier that night it had been. But now Mom and I had the room to ourselves. Strange.
Isadore Link was born in New Vienna, Iowa, on April 4, 1860, and lived most of his life on a farm northwest of West Point. He was the son of William J Link and Mary Ann Sauter.
Isadore married Teresa Kempker on April 17, 1882. Teresa was born on October 10, 1859, the daughter of John and Catherine Kempker.
A picture of Isadore as a young man (not sure of the date) and Teresa from the 1890s.
They had a large family and most of the family stayed in southeastern Iowa, living in and near West Point and Burlington.
Isadore died on February 24, 1944. Teresa died on March 21, 1913, when Robert was just 10 years old.
Isadore and Teresa are Walt’s great grandparents.
Last week, I showed Maria Catherina Krumpelmann’s birth certificate and the process used to translate it. That was not the only document that was translated for us. Today, we’ll take a look at Gerhard Wellman’s service record. The same process was used as in the other document.
