A Few Genealogical Explorations
Hello! This website is a labor of love built from decades of research. Be aware that it is always a work in progress, and is being continually updated as I discover new data. I am constantly revising source citations and verifying relationships.
I'm a former librarian/archivist with a degree in history, and doing genealogy is my cup of tea. I wish I could work on researching and documenting all these families 24 hours a day, but alas, I am only human. Progress is slower than I'd like, but I want to share what I have.
Our ancestors come from Germany, Switzerland, England, Scotland and Ireland. Some migrated through Canada, some through New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois, and all converged in a small town in Iowa, or else I wouldn't be here! I enjoy gathering information about the time and place of each family to learn more about them as people--they are not just names and dates. Their stories describe good times and difficult times. Please contact me if you have questions or additional information.
We are the chosen. In each family there is one who seems called to find the ancestors. To put flesh on their bones and make them live again. To tell the family story and to feel that somehow they know and approve. Doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but, instead, breathing life into all who have gone before. We are the story tellers of the tribe. All tribes have one. We have been called, as it were, by our genes. Those who have gone before cry out to us: Tell our story. So, we do. In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How many graves have I stood before now and cried? I have lost count. How many times have I told the ancestors, You have a wonderful family, you would be proud of us. How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow there was love there for me? I cannot say. It goes beyond just documenting facts. It goes to who I am, and why I do the things I do.
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Harry's Kentish roots. Text in progress
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Johnnie lived his entire life in southwest Iowa. This picture was taken in 1915 while he was working at the Red Oak Stock Powder Co., makers of medicines and powders for farmers' livestock. Johnnie had two children with his first wife, Louise Liddick. He lived to the age of 79 in the same town he grew up in.
Jane was the daughter of an Irish immigrant who settled in Perry County, PA. She married Jacob Schriver, who died tragically in a railroad accident in 1883. For several years Jane lived in Iowa where her sister lived, and later moved to her son's place in Missouri.
Charlie and Mae were married 3 December 1899 in Shenandoah, Iowa. They lived on a farm in Morton township, Page County. Their 3-year old son Carl died in 1910, leaving three older children: Harry, Clara and Alice. Mae died in childbirth in 1916. Charlie married again and had five more children plus a step-daughter.
Richard Samuel Pike was born in Glens Falls NY and lived there until he and his wife, Adaline Amelia Jackson, moved to Iowa with their seven children. There they had twins, only one of whom survived. Richard worked for the railroad in Iowa, but moved back to Glens Falls two years after Adaline passed away in 1903.
The bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It goes to doing something about it. It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish. How they contributed to what we are today. It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up, their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family. It goes to deep pride that the fathers fought and some died to make and keep us a nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us. It is of equal pride and love that our mothers struggled to give us birth, without them we could not exist, and so we love each one, as far back as we can reach. That we might be born who we are. That we might remember them. So we do. With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are they and they are the sum of who we are. So, as a scribe called, I tell the story of my family. It is up to that one called in the next generation to answer the call and take my place in the long line of family storytellers. That is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up and restore the memory or greet those who we had never known before. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us. It is of equal pride and love that our mothers struggled to give us birth, without them we could not exist, and so we love each one, as far back as we can reach. That we might be born who we are. That we might remember them. So we do. With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are they and they are the sum of who we are. So, as a scribe called, I tell the story of my family. It is up to that one called in the next generation to answer the call and take my place in the long line of family storytellers. That is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up and restore the memory or greet those who we had never known before. by Della M. Cummings Wright; Rewritten by her granddaughter Dell Jo Ann McGinnis Johnson; Edited and Reworded by Tom Dunn, 1943.
We make every effort to document our research. If you have something you would like to add, please contact us.
