Edward A. McMurray, Jr., with his first daughter, 1955
There is a sadness in my heart today because on Father’s Day, I have no dad here to visit or call, none to cook dinner for, to hug, to tell him I love him. There is no father-in-law, nor grandfathers, or great-grandfathers left in my family either. I am thinking of them so much today though, so it is a Sentimental Sunday, and I appreciate all that they gave to me of themselves over the years to make me who I am today. I feel that one truly and fully understands the sacrifice of a father for his descendants once one has their own family. Even after being a parent for so many years, I still think of the events, wisdom, love, genetics, even quirks imparted by these paternal ancestors, and the light bulb goes on and I say, “Wow. They cared so much that they would even ___.”
This care and love extends to their participation in the military, too. Most were not fathers when they enlisted, but they already had that ‘take-care-of-the-future” thought strongly in their minds- enough to risk their very lives for it. Thankfully, none of my paternal ancestors gave their life in a battle to protect our freedoms, although some were wounded, either physically or mentally. All were changed by the horrors of war, but still went on to become fathers, hoping that future generations would be able to live more peacefully.
How can “Thank you, I love you.” ever be enough to say on this day, or ANY day???
A father is… PROUD.
Lloyd Eugene “Gene” Lee with his son Robert “Bob” Lee, winter of 1936. Bobbie was four years old.
A father is… a TEACHER.
Edward A. McMurray, Jr., with his first grandson, about 1989.
A father is… LOVING.
Bob Lee and two-day old son, June 1959.
A father is… FUN.
Irving I. Cooper and his first grandchild, Feb. 1962.
A father is… a HELPING HAND.
George A. Roberts with his grandson, about 1926. Caption written by his grandson.
A father is… PROTECTIVE.
Dr. Edward A. McMurray, Sr. with his son, about 1924.
A father is… a PROVIDER.
1954- Edward A. McMurray, Jr., feeding daughter.
A father is… A BUDDY.
A father is… SURPRISING.
G. W. Helbling in his garden, August 1934. I had not know that he loved roses and gardening until I saw this picture, long after he passed away.
A father is… LOVE.
Dec 1998- Hug
Thank you, Dads.
Notes, Sources, and References:
1) Family photos in possession of author.
Please contact us if you would like higher resolution images, or to post images on other websites.
Copyright 2013-2014 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.
We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post, 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.
This photo shows John Roberts (1832-1922) seated on right and his son William Edward “W.E.” Roberts (1858-1935) seated on left.
John’s grand-daughter and W.E.’s daughter with Mary Margaret Main, Maude Mae (Roberts) Jensma (1884-1980), is standing in back.
Great grandson Andrew Edward Jensma (1907-1986), the son of Maude and her husband Andrew D. Jensma (1876-1961), is held on his great-grandfather’s knee. Edward was known by his middle name for most of his life.
John Roberts would have been about 76 when this photo was taken, W. E. about 50 years old, and Maude 23-24 when her first son was born.
W. E. was the oldest of the children of John Roberts and his wife Elizabeth Ann Murrell. Jason Lee Roberts (1859-1940), George A. Roberts (1861-1939), Mary Jane Roberts (1863-1947), and Wilbert John Roberts (1877-1878) were their other children.
Notes, Sources, and References:
1) Family treasure chest of photos.
Please contact us if you would like a higher resolution image.
Copyright 2013-2014 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.
We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post, 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.
I am very thankful for my geek family, who have helped me make this blog a bit prettier and more functional than I could have done on my own. My dear husband and son are wonderfully computer literate, and especially talented when it comes to CSS and HTML. (I’m trying to learn it, but would just rather research and write.) Last night we got the pull-down menu mostly fixed under “Family Trees,”which used to be “Pedigrees.” (Sounds sort of stuffy British peerage so we changed the title.) It still doesn’t list the Lee-Alexander-Aiken family on the pull down, but you can access that branch if you just click on “Family Trees.” Clicking on a family from this page will take you to all the posts associated with that family. This is probably the best way to find pertinent-to-you posts, since there are so very many families discussed on this blog.
[Disclaimer: My dear husband and son would have made a much nicer blog if I had not been insistent on doing most of it with WordPress myself. I have tried not to bother them too much with blog fixing, so all poor qualities are due to my strong-willed German heritage, I suppose.]
George A. Roberts (1861-1939), above, was a bit of a geek in his day. As a farmer he had to be a tinkerer. He embraced new-fangled gadgets as well, and was one of the first in the area to have indoor plumbing and an automobile. His wife, Ella V. Daniel, was thrilled to finally have running water in the kitchen where she cooked for dozens of men at harvest season! I am sure our son is so handy partly because of George, plus from his father/my husband, who is descended from people who worked with their hands, like farmers and shoe-makers, and has a bit of German engineering genetics thrown in from somewhere, I am sure. Many trips in the stroller to Home Depot as a baby to get out of the house on a rainy day were probably helpful too- our son first counted to 100 sitting on the floor with big landscape spikes. (We did buy them and then he got to help use a sledgehammer…great fun.)
I am also thankful for Thomas MacEntee and his wonderful blogs, Hack Genealogy and GeneaBloggers. His webinars and shared information has done much to advance genealogical research, and get many of us to write blogs to share what we have learned.
One of those who shares her genealogy and writes it beautifully is Cynthia Mulcahy/Mulberrygrrl of We’re All Relative. I am not related but her amazing prose is inspiring to writers and does relate to many of the lines I am researching. I particularly enjoyed her recent post, “I’m Finally Embracing My Scots-Irish Ancestry.” She uses great images to illustrate her points, and she discusses many facts I had not known. This post mentions that the ‘Fighting Scots-Irish’ were enticed to America to be a ‘buffer’ between civilized cities and the wild frontier- so many of my ancestors were just those folks.
I cannot end this “Thankful Thursday” post without mentioning Jim Whitener, who pushed me into starting this blog after hearing yet another Legacy Family Tree Webinar on blogging how-to. I am looking forward to more posts on his family, when he has some time to write about his ancestors, i.e., when he is not enjoying his rich legacy of children and grandchildren. 😉
Notes, Sources, and References:
1) From our family photo treasure chest. This is one-thrid of a portrait of the three Roberts brothers, taken about 1900 in Newton, Jasper, Iowa.
Please contact us if you would like a higher resolution image.
Copyright 2013-2014 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.
We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post, 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.
A Maine Law Wanted, c1853, Page 1 [Click to enlarge.]This pamphlet printed on very thin paper was tucked into the family bible of Wiley Anderson Murrell and Mary Magdalen Honts Murrell. (See previous posts in this series.)
The latest date of statistics cited is October, 1852, so it must have been printed some time after that.
Liquor flowed freely in early America, whether to keep one safe from water-borne illness, to help warm up on cold winter days and nights, or to free one for a short while from the dreariness of the hard, constant drudgery of being a working-class man.
A Maine Law Wanted, c1853, Page 2 [Click to enlarge.]In 1851 the Temperance Movement in the United States was growing. A law was passed in Maine that year that only allowed the sale of alcoholic beverages for “medicinal, mechanical or manufacturing purposes.” Twelve other states passed similar laws by 1855, although a number of those laws were overturned by State Supreme Courts- there were even riots over the laws in some states. Iowa lawmakers passed a “Maine Law” in 1855 and it was quickly ratified by Iowa voters that year. This pamphlet may have been provided by the Temperance Movement and churches to encourage Iowa voters to support a “Maine Law” in their state.
Temperance was very unpopular, especially among working class men. Many churches and women worked for the temperance movement, as they knew that women and children suffered the most (economically, psychologically, and physically) when alcoholism affected the breadwinner of the family. Mary Honts Murrell came from a broken family, and had a father who was often unreasonable and had a temper- could that be why this pamphlet was in her bible? Had her father, Henry Honts, been an alcoholic? That is a story that we probably will never know.
Women worked to get the vote during this time period as well, but with little success. ‘Big liquor’ and powerful politicians who bought votes with free liquor right before elections knew that women would tend to vote for any attempt to limit alcohol sales, and thus they banded together to keep the right of suffrage from women until 1922.
A Maine Law Wanted, c1853, Page 3 [Click to enlarge.] Interestingly, page 3 of “A Maine Law Wanted” states, “Four-fifths of those swept away in Buffalo, by the cholera, have been in the habit of using ardent spirits as a beverage.” (Italics in pamphlet.) Actually, in the 1850s, drinking “ardent spirits” instead of local water from a river or stream would have protected drinkers since the alcohol kills bacteria. Of course, at that time the germ theory of disease was not widely accepted, and it was not understood that fecal contamination of water was the cause of cholera. There have been numerous pandemics of cholera, including one in the United States and Europe from 1827-1835, which killed 150,000 Americans. Within a year or so of the (estimated) publishing date of this pamphlet, in 1854, John Snow of England recognized a clustering of cholera disease around contaminated water, thus beginning the science of epidemiology and successful steps to eradicate this lethal disease.
A Maine Law Wanted, c1853, Page 4 [Click to enlarge.]Note the publication information on the last page: “Hoover & Co., 118 Nassau street, New York, office of the New York People’s Organ, a weekly Temperance and Family Companion, at one dollar a year.” Sadly I could not find specific information for this group online, but hopefully some scholars will find this post and add this pamphlet to other historical documents of the era.
Notes, Sources, and References:
1) Murrell Family Bible, c1845?
2) Wikipedia article for “Maine Law,” accessed 2-8-14 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maine_law.
3) Wikipedia article for “Cholera,” accessed 2-8-14 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholera
Please contact us if you would like higher resolution images.
Copyright 2014 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.
We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post, 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.
Years ago I used the techniques discussed in the previous post to identify the persons in this photograph. I started with the known persons and then incorporated knowledge from other photos, censuses, etc. The date of the photo was said to be 1900, but that needed to be revised as Edith Roberts had been born in 1899, and appeared to be older than one year. Also, one of the babies was born in 1904, which definitely sets the date later.
Here is the identification:
From left-
Mary Jane Roberts’ family: Mary Jane (Mollie J) standing holding her daughter Bernice Blount; son Samuel Harvey with hat and tie standing next to his father, Samuel H. Blount. Seated on ground in front are, from left, Florence, Helen J, and Harold M. Blount. Oldest son Harry R. is standing next to his father in a dark suit.
George A. Roberts’ family: Standing next to Harry R. Blount is Ella V. Daniels Roberts and in the (short) white dress is daughter Ethel Gay Roberts. Seated at her feet is Edith Mae Roberts. Their father George A. Roberts stands next to Ethel, with son George A. Roberts, standing next to him.
Jason Lee Roberts’ family: Oca Roberts, in a long white dress, stands next to George Roberts Jr. Her brother Guy L. Roberts stands in front of her and their father, Jason Lee Roberts. His wife Julia French Roberts stands next to him holding their baby Ralph Roberts. Sitting on the ground in front of them are, from left, Wiley Roberts, Willard Roberts, and Charley Roberts in white. The very short woman in front of Julia French is Orpha B. Roberts.
Elizabeth Ann Murrell and her husband John Roberts stand next to Julia French.
William Edward (W.E., or Ed) Roberts’ family: W.E. Roberts stands next to his father, John Roberts. His son Orville stands beside him, with the woman on the right probably Orville’s mother, Mary M. Main Roberts; his sister Edna is not seen in the picture. Seated on the ground in front of them are Maude & Clara, with Maude possibly having the lighter hair as seen in the 1892 photo.
In the last few years, we found an advertising page,
“Courtesy of
ROBERTS BROTHERS
Groceries, Bottled Gas Ranges,
Plumbing, Heating
Pumps & Windmills”
It contained the above picture and two others, with most of the people identified plus information about John and Elizabeth Roberts’ lives. Sadly, the women and children were not all identified in the above picture, but it did verify that we had the families correct:
Left to right- Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Blount and family, Mr. and Mrs. George Roberts and family, Mr. and Mrs. Jason Roberts and family, Mr. and Mrs. John Roberts, Mr. and Mrs. Ed Roberts and family. This picture was taken of Mr. and Mrs. John Roberts, their children and grandchildren at their home in Prairie City in 1900 (now the Vande Kieft home). The fifth boy sitting down from the left is the Mayor of Prairie City.
The moral of the story is:
1) Use ALL your resources in a collaborative way.
2) Revisit your families- new information comes online and available every day.
Notes, Sources, and References:
1) Family photograph, and page from a magazine or flyer.
2) Updated 12/2/16 with corrected identification of Oca and Orpha Roberts.
3) Some sources (like the Roberts family advertisement) state the picture was taken in 1900, some state 1904. I tend to agree with the 1900 date, as Edith Roberts was born 10 October 1899, so would have been 1-1/2 or 2 when this image was taken. That seems more consistent with her size, as if the photo was from 1904, she would have been 5 years old.
01/11/2017 UPDATE: However, if the baby being held by Julia French Roberts is their son Ralph Roberts, the date of the photo would be 1904, since he was born 11 July 1903. The baby could instead be one who died very young, as there is an almost 3 year gap between Ralph and his older brother Charley. We will have to leave this mystery to the Jason Lee Roberts and Julia (French) Roberts descendants to sort out.
Please contact us if you would like a higher resolution image.
Copyright 2014 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.
We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post, 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.
![A Maine Law Wanted, c1852, Page 3 [click to enlarge]](https://i0.wp.com/heritageramblings.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/1852c_A-Maine-Law-Wanted_p3.jpg)
![A Maine Law Wanted, c1852, Page 4 [click to enlarge]](https://i0.wp.com/heritageramblings.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/1852c_A-Maine-Law-Wanted_p4.jpg)
