Roberts Family, Daniel Family, Murrell Family (Click for Family Tree)

Our last post featured some photos of schoolhouses and quite a few cute kids, and we have more! Following are additional unidentified photos in the treasure trove of the Roberts Family Album. These folks could also be a part of the Daniel or Murrell families that married into the Roberts line. We estimate the time period to be from about 1910-1920s.  Again, we hope that someone out there might be able to help us learn who these kids are, so that the images can be shared with their descendants.

We have started the numbering of these photos with #11, to avoid any confusion with other posts. If you do recognize some of these people, or have these photos, even if unidentified (knowing the family line that inherited them gives us info too), please let us know in the “Comments” section!

Perhaps these images, along with some posted yesterday of other groupings on a log, were taken on a family outing or a school trip.

And here are some other images of children from the Roberts Family Photo Album, possibly not associated with the above trip to the great outdoors or a school:

The back of photo #2 from yesterday’s post stated, “Lea on pony. Me.” That picture was actually 3 boys kneeling along a fence, possibly in a schoolyard or at their home- there was no horse or pony in the picture. Could that caption have been meant for this photo, or another? If so, who is “Lea”?

We have shown a lot of cute kids, so we are probably contractually obligated to show a cute dog too:

Again, if any of these children or the woman in #14 look familiar, please let us know in the “Comments” section. Thanks in advance.

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. Roberts Family Photo Album from the 1910s-1920s era, probably Jasper County, Iowa.

 

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We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.

Original content copyright 2013-2022 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted. 

Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly, i.e, reference this blog.

 Please contact us if you have any questions about the copyright or use of “Heritage Ramblings” blog material.

ROBERTS Family (Click for Family Tree)

Today we head farther back in history from our previous post of Edith M. ROBERTS, (later McMurray, then Luck), when she was a part of the Prairie City High School Class of 1918. Four years earlier, on the 26th of June, 1914, Edith had graduated from 8th grade in the “Public Schools of the State of Iowa.” But what school was it?

We know that Edith could see her brother, George A. Roberts, Jr., and their sister Ethel Gay Roberts, later Robison, coming home from school- she wrote about this in stories to her family. The Mound Prairie schoolhouse was just a quarter of a mile down the road from their farmhouse. Edith adored her older sister and brother. Being the youngest by eight years, she would be at home with her mother, and could stand on a chair and watch out the window for her siblings to leave their one-room schoolhouse.

This is the schoolhouse down the road from their family farm as it looked in the 1970s. If memory serves, the schoolhouse was along W 60th St S, between S 60th Ave W and S 68th Ave W.

This building that housed eager (!?) scholars for many years was used for storing hay in the 1970s.

Edith’s father, George Anthony Roberts, Sr., was on the local school board and hired teachers- and the family also boarded them, more often than Edith’s mother, Ella V. Daniel Roberts, would wish. One more mouth to feed and another person in the small house was a challenge, especially if the schoolteacher had a difficult personality. (We have written earlier about some of those, and need to finish up those thoughts in some new posts. See notes.)

Finding this very old picture- 100 years old!- of the same or a similar schoolhouse in with Roberts family pictures was interesting. These photos were taken possibly in the 1920s, or even back into 1910 or so.

We believe that Edith attended this school, Mound Prairie, for her first eight years of schooling. She may have attended another school for the latter part, however, as her father had built a second house in Jasper County where he and her mother moved, but we do not know if Edith was already graduated by that time or if there was another school closer to the new place. We do know that in high school she rode her horse to her paternal grandparents’ house, that of John Roberts and Elizabeth Ann Murrell Roberts, in Prairie City. (They had moved there when John sold their farm and retired.) She would leave the horse at their house and go on to Prairie City High School, and she did the same for church on Sunday.

We also found some old pictures that we think may be children by this old school, or perhaps by another school. (Click to enlarge any of them, or request a higher quality picture.) It is likely that the same floor plan was used for many of the county schoolhouses, and similar exterior materials. Foundations may have been just what was around, especially if the soil was rocky, so those differences may help to differentiate schools.

We do know that Edith Roberts taught in some of the rural schools after she graduated either high school or college, so they could have been the children in her class. They might have instead been family or neighbors who attended this school near the homeplace, or another Jasper County school. Some of the Roberts, Daniel, and Murrell family lived in nearby, or in nearby counties, with some family as far away as northwestern Iowa, Missouri or Illinois- even out into the Dakotas. Some of the same children, especially four handsome boys that look like an energetic handful, are in multiple pictures we have. While the pictures are quite evocative of a very different time and lifestyle and enjoyable in their own way, we surely would like to identify the people and share with other descendants who would also enjoy these pictures. So if you can identify any of these children or the place, please let us know in the Comments section!

 

More images to come- please do let us know if you can help identify the people in the images or the places.

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. Family treasure chest of photos, the “Roberts Family Photo Album, circa 1910-1920s.”
2.  “Those Places Thursday: Jasper County Schoolhouse.”  https://heritageramblings.net/2018/04/19/those-places-thursday-jasper-county-schoolhouse/

 

Click to enlarge any image. Please contact us if you would like an image in higher resolution.

We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.

Original content copyright 2013-2022 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted. 

Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly, i.e, reference this blog.

 Please contact us if you have any questions about the copyright or use of “Heritage Ramblings” blog material.

Roberts Family, McMurray Family (Click for Family Trees)

This headline is another prime example of not taking everything at face value in genealogy or historical research, and looking deeper. It is also a lesson to not stop after just the headline or first questionable piece of data- some sources may have multiple concerns, as does this article.

The November 29, 1921 Iowa City Press-Citizen, had the headline “Happily Wed in Athens” on a story on page 11 that day. When looking for the announcement of the Edith M. Roberts-Edward A. McMurray wedding, just scanning headlines might make one skip this article- “Athens”?? Is that Athens, Georgia? Athens, Ohio? Athens, Greece? It is unlikely that these two college students would have had a ‘destination wedding’ to a place 5,600 miles away across an ocean in 1921, however, so we can eliminate the truly Greek Athens, to start.

Family logically thought that the couple was married in Jasper County, Iowa, where they both grew up and their parents still lived, but no marriage license or announcement had been found in Jasper County despite years of looking. Iowa City in Johnson County, Iowa, was the next logical location as they were both attending school there. Since this article was published in an Iowa City newspaper and no other city or state other than “Athens” was mentioned as the place of the wedding, it is highly possible it may have taken place in their college town where all their friends were located. (Whew- they didn’t elope- that would have made it much harder to find records.) But why would the place be headlined as “Athens” in the middle of Iowa?

“Mr. Edward McMurray, of Newton, Iowa, and Miss Edith Roberts, of Prairie City, Iowa, a sophomore medical student, and a liberal arts junior, respectively, were happily wed last evening, at sunset, at the Congregational conference house.”

The details of the couple matched many that were already known, so that helped us make sure we had the correct individuals. Since their standings at school were noted, the Iowa City location was becoming a bit more promising. One interesting tidbit about the word “Athens”- it conjured up other articles previously found about Edith being a member of the “Athena Literary Society” at the University of Iowa. She had also created a very sweet scrapbook with treasures from Athena events, so looking into the history of the college and the town were the next steps. This research provided our answer- Iowa City, Iowa, was and still is known as “The Athens of the Midwest” due to its many educational and cultural opportunities and events. Skimming other newspaper articles and delving into their context revealed that “Athens” or “The Athens” was a regular replacement for the official name of the town. So now we had our first answer- Edith Roberts and Edward McMurray were married in Iowa City, Johnson County, Iowa.

The date of the marriage was the next focus. The article was published in the November 29, 1921 issue, which was a Tuesday. It stated the couple was “happily wed last evening, at sunset” – how romantic! The ‘last evening’ mentioned would have been Monday, November 28. Browsing further through that newspaper issue, because the search software had picked up 2 instances of Edith’s name, was an article listing “Licenses to wed… issued by [the] County Clerk…” The names included “E. A. McMurray (21)” and “Edith M. Roberts (22),”- their ages were after the name. Definitely the correct people, as Edward was born in 1900 and Edith in 1899. No date was given in the paper for the license nor a date for the actual wedding, so Johnson County’s records were the next stop on this quest.

Finding the marriage record was actually quite easy as once the event with date had been put into Ancestry.com, the “Iowa, U.S., Marriage Records, 1880-1951” from the Iowa Department of Public Health appeared in a search. (You don’t have to wait for hints to pop up- just do a ‘Search’ using the button by ‘Tools’ and ‘Edit’ on the upper right of the Ancestry page for that person; Ancestry will use the facts already in your tree to help narrow the hits.) It provided the date of the license, 11/25/1921, and even the license number: 10059. The entry confirmed their names, ages (although it has Edith as 23, which is incorrect), residence (Newton for Edward,  Prairie City for Edith), their parents’ names (the middle initial for George A. Roberts is noted as “M.” which is incorrect), and that both were students and it was the first marriage for each. The record lists that they were married 11/25/21 in Iowa City, Iowa- wait, that is different from the newspaper report! Hmm, what should we do now? Thinking about the date, it is obvious that it was around Thanksgiving of that year, so maybe they married over Thanksgiving break, as students might do so they can have a short honeymoon. A wonderful website called TimeAndDate.com will show us a calendar for that month so we can see that Thanksgiving holiday was celebrated on November 24th that year. So it seems that on Friday (11/25/1921) after Thanksgiving, Edith and Edward went to the County Clerk’s office and received their marriage license. They were married by Rev. Walter Schafer that evening, and the return of the actual marriage was filed by the minister on the following Monday, 11/28/1921.

So maybe Edith and Edward had returned home to celebrate Thanksgiving with family, and then returned to school the next day. Was the wedding planned in advance but they waited until the last minute to get the license because they were so busy with exams? Did they make a spur-of-the-moment decision to marry on Thanksgiving or when they got back up to school? Were their parents or siblings in attendance? Rev. Walter C. Schafer was a pastor for students in Iowa City.  Seeing that the witnesses to the wedding were Brainerd Ullrich and Leon Wiggins, names totally unknown to this researcher, suggests that maybe the family did not attend, because a sibling is often the Maid of Honor or Best Man and officially witnesses the wedding.  We will likely never know, however. Because Edith and Edward divorced in less than ten years, there are no wedding portraits and it was not talked about much within subsequent families. Finding these records after years of wondering about details fills in some answers, but leaves the rest to our imaginations.

The last line of the newspaper article was interesting, and does need some explanation but that too will have to be supplied by our imaginations:

“Friends will wish the joy questioning collegians long life and happiness.”

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. Photos are treasures from the family archives.
2. See references listed in above paragraphs.
3. Rev Walter C. Schafer- a student pastor who attended a Chicago conference for religious workers in American colleges and universities. Iowa City Citizen, Jan. 9, 1919, page 8. Also listed as a 33 year old minister in the 1920 Iowa City Ward 2, Johnson County, Iowa, Federal Census.

 

Click to enlarge any image. Please contact us if you would like an image in higher resolution.

We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.

Original content copyright 2013-2021 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted. 

Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly, i.e, reference this blog.

 Please contact us if you have any questions about the copyright or use of “Heritage Ramblings” blog material.

Roberts Family (Click for Family Tree)

As we work to identify the people in the above photograph, which was cropped from the original posted in Part 1, an internet search for images was not very helpful. Our own blog posts were the majority of the hits, so we revisited those.

We have posted the family photos from the large get-togethers of John Roberts’ descendants in the early 1900s.

In this image, Guy L. Roberts was only about 2 years old, so it doesn’t help us much to ID him, but his mother, Julia French Roberts was 29 and his father, Jason Lee Roberts, was 33. We can see adult features to help confirm our hypothesis as to half the passengers in the beautiful old Cadillac.

This portrait taken 8 years later gives us an even better idea of the facial features of Jason, Julia, and Guy. Guy was about 10 years old in this family grouping, so his features will changesomewhat, throughout the next 10 years or so.

We also have a portrait of Jason and Julia from maybe 10 years after this last family picture, about 1910 or so:

Ears and noses are good facial areas to focus on when trying to ID persons through the years, and those features do suggest the man in the back seat could be Jason Lee Roberts. The woman in the circa 1910 portrait and the younger images looks very much like Julia French Roberts, in this author’s humble opinion.

We recently found the following portrait in a box full of photos, with many of them Robertses and the photos unexpectedly old:

If you have not read the caption, would either of these adults look familiar? This looks like the couple in the front seat of the car, so we feel they are most likely Guy and Florence Myrtle Wilson Roberts.  Again, we have found no other photos of Guy or Florence online or on genealogy websites to verify this identification, but it seems very possible we have the correct people. The first two children of Guy and Florence were Cyrene Iris Roberts (later Stillwell), who was born in 1912, and John Malcolm Roberts, born 1914. Florence would have a total of 10 children before she and Guy divorced in 1943. Guy remarried in 1947 and had one child, Guy L. Roberts, Jr., with his second wife, Bernice Harper Roberts (1908-1981).

Have we met the Genealogical Proof Standard in identifying these people? We do have a lot of circumstantial evidence, but is it a “preponderance of evidence”? Have we done “exhaustive research”? This is as much as we now know, and feel the hypothesis of those in the car being, from left, back seat, Jason Lee Roberts, Julia French Roberts, and in the front seat Guy Leslie Roberts and his wife Florence Myrtle Wilson Roberts is correct. We hope that someone will have other pictures to definitively prove our hypothesis, so please contact us if you can tell us more!

And of course, that car in the second picture of Guy and Florence… People took pictures of themselves with their most prized possessions, and since Guy founded two automobile insurance companies, we could suggest that he was very proud of his vehicles. We can definitely say it is not the same car as the first because of the back fender line angling down, whereas in the first/earlier car the back fenders ran straight to the rear of the vehicle. So this may be the latest and greatest model at that time. And that is the deepest this human, not vehicle, genealogist will proceed, leaving it to others who will better enjoy the fine nuances of successive car vintages to research.

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. Family treasure trove of pictures.
2. Prior Roberts family genealogical research.
3. A special “thank you” to the Harlan family for allowing us to share the image of Jason and Julia they posted on their WordPress blog.
4. Thanks also to our wonderful family who has shared the boxes of pictures and tediously scanned them so we may all enjoy. More of those to come on the blog!

 

Click to enlarge any image. Please contact us if you would like an image in higher resolution.

We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.

Original content copyright 2013-2022 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted. 

Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly, i.e, reference this blog.

 Please contact us if you have any questions about the copyright or use of “Heritage Ramblings” blog material.

ROBERTS Family (Click for Family Tree)

First,  it is important to say that **we do not know for sure the identity of these people in the car. **  We are hoping that a kind reader out there will share some of their images to confirm or refute our educated guesses.

Second, what a fun picture! Wonder where they are going, dressed in their finery. Looking at the intricate and beautiful hats of the ladies, they most likely will not be driving very fast with the top down.

This RPPC (Real Photo PostCard- photos were printed on heavy cardstock for mailing) was found in a collection of wonderful very old pictures that included many persons in the Roberts family of Jasper County, Iowa. There were no names on this image to definitively ID the individuals, but because it was a postcard, we got very lucky that it was completed to be mailed to a person and has a signature. Sadly there is no postmark to give us an approximate date. With this information, however, plus previous research, we can make an educated guess about the people out for a ride in this amazing new machine, the automobile.

Again, while we do not know for sure that this image is of the people we listed in the caption, there are quite a few clues that have helped us to come to these conclusions. Here is a bit of the thought process and information used to verify steps in our hypothesis- it is not quite a genealogical standard of proof, but as close as we can get with the data we can find:

1. The car and clothing of the persons in the photo suggest the early 1900s time period in the United States.

2. On the front grill of the car, the name appears to be “Cadillac.” A Google search for Cadillacs from 1900-1930 was a starting place to ID the car, so we could determine approximately when this was taken and who in the family would have been alive at that time. Using the comprehensive “New Cadillac Database” was easy as one can to scroll through all the pictures and confirm with the text the specs and profile of a vehicle. Identifying features of the vehicle include distinctive square lights on the side with round lights in front. There is a curved cowling to separate the longer hood from the four-seater body. The car had a top (a demi-tonneau) that could unfold above the seats for protection from the weather if needed. If this non-car-person’s assessment is correct, this may be a 1909 Cadillac Thirty, an exciting new vehicle with a 30 horsepower engine. Top speed would have been about 50 mph, which isn’t bad considering how few roads were paved, especially in rural areas like Iowa. This model may have been the Model G demi-tonneau. The base price was $1350 (about $46,000 today), with a speedometer, lamps, a generator for the lamps (instead of oil or gas lamps), a detachable tonneau, a second battery, etc. all adding to the price- selling cars hasn’t really changed much, has it? This could instead be a 1910 or 1911 model, 1911 being the last year a crank was used to start the car. So we can say that likely this car is circa 1910, which helps us pin down the time. [Please do leave us a note if we have not found the correct Cadillac model- we appreciate true expertise in identifying this vehicle!]

3. We know the Roberts family had cars fairly early-on, as Edith M. Roberts spoke of her grandparents, John Roberts (1832-1922) and Elizabeth Ann Murrell Roberts (1835-1917) having a car. Her father, George Anthony Roberts, Sr., enjoyed driving it before they had their own.

“I can remember the Reo runabout grandpa bought.  To have an automobile then was something.  They would drive out to visit us during the week, but never on Sundays.  Always they were in church on that day.  No one did anything on Sunday but go to church and make calls in the afternoon.  They would come chug-chugging in the farmyard… It was quite level at that time.  Grandpa so tall, and grandma so little, with her veil flying back of her in the wind.  They wore tan dusters.  They would come in for dinner.  Mother would have chicken and noodles, because they like that, and all the goodies that went along with a good country meal.

“After dinner dad would go out and get in the automobile and drive it around in a circle.  Of course I was right behind him having a ball.  No one else in the family had a car at that time.  About four o’clock they would leave and the next week they would visit one of the other children. “

REOs (pronounced ree-ohs) became available in 1915, and were produced until 1953. R.E.O. are the initials of Ransom Eli Olds, the founder of the company. And, for those of a certain era, the name of a 1915 truck called an ‘REO Speedwagon’ was the origin of the name of the excellent 1970s-80s band REO Speedwagon! (The letters were spelled out in the band name, however.)

4. Another good clue for identifying this image was on the back. As a postcard, the name and address were there: “Mr. Geo Roberts Jr” of Monroe, Iowa. We know that George Jr lived in Jasper County, Iowa, for his whole life. Georgie, as he was known, was born June 11, 1889 on the family farm near Monroe, Iowa in Jasper County, to George Anthony Roberts, Sr. (1861-1939) and Ella Viola Daniel (1866-1922). Georgie worked the family farms, both as a boy as well as when an adult. This helps us know to look at extended family and friends of the Robertses.

5. “Guy” is a less common name in the family, and a search within the family tree takes us to Guy Leslie Roberts, born December 9, 1890, in Mound Prairie Township, Jasper County, Iowa, to Jason Lee Roberts (1859-1940) and Julia French Roberts (1863-1917). Bingo! Jason Lee was the oldest of the three Roberts brothers born to John Roberts (1832-1922) and Elizabeth Ann Murrell Roberts (1835-1917).

That meant that Guy and Georgie were cousins, and they all lived about two miles apart in rural Jasper County! Since there is no postmark the photo postcard was not actually mailed and likely presented in person, again suggesting that we most likely have the correct “Guy.”

 

Next: A few more identification details and photos…

 

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. Family treasures chest of photos and ephemera. A special “thank you” to all of those through the last 150 years or so who have preserved and passed on the beautiful images of our dear family.
2. A special “thank you” to Edith M. Roberts McMurray Luck for the stories she wrote about her life growing up along with her sweet biographies of our ancestors, and the grand-daughter who encouraged her to put those thoughts on paper for the generations to come.
3. “Descriptions and Specifications of Cadillac Cars 1905 – 1912.” https://www.newcadillacdatabase.org/static/CDB/Dbas_txt/Cad05-12.htm
4. REO cars, and REO Speedwagon- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REO_Motor_Car_Company, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REO_Speedwagon

 

Click to enlarge any image. Please contact us if you would like an image in higher resolution.

We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.

Original content copyright 2013-2022 by Heritage Ramblings Blog.

Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted. 

Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly, i.e, reference this blog.

 Please contact us if you have any questions about the copyright or use of “Heritage Ramblings” blog material.