Category: Murrell Family

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Edith M. Roberts- 8th Grade Graduation, 1914, and Rural Schoolhouses and Children

This entry is part 1 of 6 in the series "Roberts Family Photo Album, circa 1910-1920s."

Edith M. Roberts’ 8th grade diploma from the Jasper County, Iowa, Public Schools. [Click to enlarge.]
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.

Jasper County Iowa-Schoolhouse near the farm of the George Roberts family. Photo taken about 1972. [Click to enlarge.]
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.

Jasper County Iowa-Schoolhouse near the farm of the George Roberts family. Photo taken about 1972. [Click to enlarge.]
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.)

Old schoolhouse, taken in 1910-1920s probably, in with Roberts family pictures. [Click to enlarge.]
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!

#1- Four boys sitting on ground.
#2 Three boys
#3- Eight children that include some of the previous boys.
#4 Four children with coats and caps
#5- Two cute little girls and a dog by a building- school or house?
#6- Eight small children, by schoolhouse?
#7- Nine or so children on a log; perhaps it is Edith Roberts standing?
#8- Eleven girls, likely by a schoolhouse.
#9- Large group of children, by a schoolhouse? Includes some of the boys in earlier pictures.
#10- Five children by a fence- at the schoolhouse or on a farm?

 

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/

 

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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.
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Edith M. Roberts and the Prairie City High School Class of 1918

1918 Prairie City High School Graduating Class, Prairie City, Jasper County, Iowa. Edith M. Roberts is standing 2nd from left. (Click to enlarge.)

Roberts Family (Click for Family Tree)

The year was 1918, and the world was changing rapidly. The students in the photo above were born 1899-1900, the turn of a century that went from candles to gas lights for reading and doing homework, to electricity that eventually would power the lighting in their rural Iowa homes, and later computers. The US Post Office started the world’s first air mail delivery that year, with time zones and daylight savings time becoming official. World War I would finally end that November after four years of global bloodshed, but the first “Spanish flu” case was seen in nearby Kansas- that epidemic would take even more lives, a large number of them young people. Mechanization on the farm was improving although farming was still a hard and time-consuming job- note that there is only one male student in the graduating class. Other young men had likely dropped out of school by the 8th grade or even before, as they were needed on the farm or in the family business, thinking further schooling would not prepare them any better for the career they had ahead of them. Some of the young men might even have been in France or somewhere else in Europe, fighting in World War I.

Edith Roberts (later McMurray, then Luck), cropped from 1918 Prairie City High School Graduating Class, Prairie City, Jasper County, Iowa. (Click to enlarge.)

Edith Roberts (later McMurray, then Luck) is the student standing second from the left. Her parents, George Anthony Roberts, Sr. (1861-1939) and Ella “Ellie” Viola (Daniel) Roberts (1866-1922), and her siblings, George A. Roberts, Jr. (1889-1965) and Ethel Gay Roberts (later Robison) (1891-1969) lived on the family farm in Mound Prairie Township in Jasper County. Edith paternal grandparents were living at 108 N. Sherman in Prairie City while she was in high school. Perhaps she stopped by to see them after her classes some days, or took them some of the fruits and vegetables she, Ethel, and their mother had canned, or the delicious butter that Ellie made and sold in the local stores. Her grandmother, Elizabeth Ann (Murrell) Roberts died in 1917, and her grandfather John Roberts (1832-1922) may have moved in with his son William Edward Roberts who lived with his family on Jefferson Street by the time Edith graduated.

They all would have received one of these beautiful envelopes in May of 1918:

Envelope from graduation announcement, 1918 Prairie City High School Graduating Class, Prairie City, Jasper County, Iowa. (Click to enlarge.)

Within would be the announcement of Edith’s graduation, along with the names of her classmates:

1918 Prairie City High School Graduating Class announcement with list of graduates, Prairie City, Jasper County, Iowa. (Click to enlarge.)

Commencement exercises would take place at the Opera House in Prairie City on Friday, May 24th, 1918, at 8pm. Those who would walk across the stage and receive their hard-earned diploma were:

Ruth V. Schakel Bessie M. Krohn
Edith M. Roberts Blanche A. Peery
Lora L Wooddell Marjorie N. Graham
Beth M. Anderson Berlin P. Ballagh
Lillian C. Pannenbacker

It would be interesting to follow up and learn more about the later lives of Edith’s classmates. As for Edith, she attended the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa. She began with interest in a degree in music and teaching, however graduated in June of 1923 with a B. A. in Zoology- very unusual for a woman in those years! She did take courses in the science of education and psychology, so also received a certificate from the School of Education so that she could teach. She valued education her whole life, enjoying any chance to learn and imparting that love to her son and grandchildren.

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

  1. Family treasure chest of photos and ephemera.
  2. There are ten persons in the class photo, but only nine are listed as graduating. Perhaps one of the women is the teacher for the class? The reverse of the photo does not list names.

 

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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 2013-2021 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

John and Elizabeth Ann (Murrell) Roberts, at home in Prairie City, Jasper County, Iowa- but when?

This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series John and Elizabeth Ann (Murrell) Roberts, at home in Prairie City, Jasper County, Iowa
John and Elizabeth Ann (Murrell) Roberts in front of their home in Prairie City, Jasper Co., Iowa, probably taken around 1915. Cropped from larger photo with house.

Roberts Family (Click for Family Tree)

Determining the year this picture was taken may be more challenging than determining the address.

The house was built in 1900 per tax records in the assessor’s office and various realty websites that use the tax records. A “County News” article in the Newton State Democrat on 9 March 1899 stated John “has moved from Monroe to Prairie City,” and his obituary verified that year for the change of address. We will need to find a deed for the house to determine exactly when it was purchased and later sold by John Roberts.

So was this photo taken before the image with the whole family on N. Sherman St., or after? (“Treasure Chest Thursday: The John Roberts and Elizabeth Ann Murrell Roberts Family in 1904“) It is hard to tell if the trees are more mature than the photo identified as 1904. It appears that the tree behind the house is quite tall, but that tree is not seen in the 1904 image- had it not grown that tall by that date, or possibly had already been cut down? The known-date image has a large bush by the front porch, but it is not in the picture above- again, are we moving forward in time with foliage growing in this picture, or had it been cut down? In this case,  looking at foliage is not really definitive in this photo comparison.

The paint scheme on the house is different too. Was the house plain when built, and the Roberts family added the contrasting trim colors? Or did they take a Victorian-style house with multiple colors and ‘update’ it to take it out of the Victorian era?

Not much help from landscape or house clues in the pictures…

John and Elizabeth Ann (Murrell) Roberts in front of their home in Prairie City, Jasper Co., Iowa, possibly taken around 1915.

Sometimes looking carefully at the people in the photo and how they have changed can tell us which is the older picture.

Here is a picture of John and Lizzie in 1904, cropped from the large family group picture in front of the same house:

John S. Roberts and his wife Elizabeth Ann (Murrell) Roberts at the family homeplace, 1904. Cropped from a larger family picture.

We do have a picture of John in 1909 for comparison:

Four generations of the Roberts family: John Roberts, age 76, on right; his son William Edward “W.E.” Roberts, 50, on left, W.E.’s daughter Maude (Roberts) Jensma, age 24, and her 8 month old son, Andrew Edward Jensma. 22 Aug 1909.

There is information from Edith (Roberts) McMurray Luck that after “Grandma Roberts” (Elizabeth Ann (Murrell) Roberts) died on 2 Feb 1917, their son W. E. Roberts moved in with John Roberts and took care of him. In 1910, W. E. and his wife and children were living on a farm in Mound Prairie Township; by the 1920 US Federal Census, W.E. and his wife Mary Margaret (Main) Roberts were living in Prairie City, on Jefferson St. (no house number recorded). There were no children in the household and W.E. had “none” listed as his occupation, so he likely had retired by age 61. John Roberts was living with them and listed in the census as W.E.’s father, and a widower. Apparently, they were not living in the house at 108 N. Sherman, so it may have been sold soon after Lizzie died, when W.E. and his wife began to care for John.

The obituary of John Roberts also verified that W. E. did care for his father as he aged, as it stated that John had lived with his son for five years at the time of his death.  John died on 22 Jan 1922.

John Roberts, c1901(?) This image was used in his obituary.

So we know that John and Lizzie Roberts lived in the house at 108 N. Sherman from at least 1904, when the family group picture was taken, but no earlier than 1900 when the house was built. Since Lizzie died in 1917, the image has to have been taken before her death. My guess is that it was taken about 1915, but that is just a guess- nothing to really verify that hunch.

Hopefully some other descendant has a similar image that has a date on it!

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

  1. Move of John and Lizzie Roberts from Monroe, IA to Prairie City, IA: “County News,” Newton State Democrat, 9 Mar 1899, page 5.
  2. “Treasure Chest Thursday: The John Roberts and Elizabeth Ann Murrell Roberts Family in 1904” at http://heritageramblings.net/2014/02/13/treasure-chest-t…s-family-in-1904/
  3. Obituary of John Roberts: Prairie City News, 1 Feb 1922, Vol. 48, No. 5, Page 1.

 

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 2013-2019 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 copyright or use of our blog material.

John and Elizabeth Ann (Murrell) Roberts, at home in Prairie City, Jasper County, Iowa

This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series John and Elizabeth Ann (Murrell) Roberts, at home in Prairie City, Jasper County, Iowa
John and Elizabeth Ann (Murrell) Roberts in front of their home in Prairie City, Jasper Co., Iowa, possibly taken around 1915?

Edited 2/21/21: The house has been completely updated and is now for sale. The link listed in notes below has been updated by the company from the pictures of the house in a dilapidated condition in 2019. https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/108-N-Sherman-St_Prairie-City_IA_50228_M70834-34658

Roberts Family (Click for Family Tree)

Among our newly found family photo treasures is this image of John and Elizabeth “Lizzie” Ann (Murrell) Roberts. It was one of many photos of  houses we found, and it was a bit challenging to determine where and when many of the images were taken. Relying on other photos in our archive helped, as did a bit of sleuthing.

You already know by the post title that this home was in Prairie City, but how did we determine that? The mat on the photo (not shown above) did not include a photographer’s name, unfortunately. One clue we did have was that it was the same house as the 1904 whole family portrait, which had an older, more Victorian-style paint scheme:

The John Roberts Family, 1900 or 1904. See notes for previous post on this image that identifies individuals.

Having two possible dates for the family picture, it is logical to search both the 1900 and 1910 censuses to see where John and Lizzie were living. The 1910 US Federal Census placed John and Lizzie in Prairie City, possibly on Sherman St- the street is very hard to read on both the Ancestry.com and FamilySearch copies of the census, and the Ancestry.com indexing of the home being on “Hiams St.” and in Des Moines, Jasper [County is implied by genealogical convention of place names], Iowa are incorrect. There is currently no Hiams St. in Prairie City (although there could have been previously). The house was in Des Moines Township (not the city of Des Moines), Prairie City, Jasper County, Iowa, per the handwritten entries at the top of the census. (Check your original source and don’t depend on indexes or websites to transfer the right information to your tree!) The 1900 US Federal Census did not list street names nor addresses, but John and Lizzie were living in Prairie City then too. So the evidence highly suggested that this was a home in Prairie City.

Another family treasure is an old flyer that was prepared by the “Roberts Brothers- Groceries, Bottled Gas Ranges, Plumbing, Heating Pumps & Windmills.” The Roberts family had a hardware store in Prairie City until retiring and closing it in the last few years. The flyer featured three Roberts family photos that we also had pictures of and have posted about them, including the above family with the big house. The caption on the Roberts Brothers store flyer states, “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).” Since the Roberts Brothers and their family had lived in Prairie City for so long, they were a reliable source of information about the family.

We have searched online to learn more about the address of the home, including looking up the Vande Kieft family, without good results. A next step was checking with the Prairie City library, asking if they had city directories. Their helpful librarian was able to identify the home as still standing at 108 N. Sherman St.! She also told us that the home was being refurbished a while back, but the work had apparently stopped, and she knew who owned the home. A search for that address told us that the home was “historic” and built by Hoyt Sherman. (See note #3.) The house was built in 1900, so we know the family photos taken with it could be no earlier than that date. The house has about 1,650 sq. ft, including one bathroom.

Sadly the home had fallen into disrepair, as mentioned, and in Feb, 2018, the City Council included the address as one of the abandoned homes the city was planning to review.

The kind librarian also put me in touch with a Roberts descendant! It was great to chat with someone who had lived in Prairie City and knew the people I have been researching for many years.

Please contact us if you have information to add.

 

Next- How we estimated the year of the picture with John and Lizzie Roberts and their home.

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

  1. “Treasure Chest Thursday: The John Roberts and Elizabeth Ann Murrell Roberts Family in 1900,” http://heritageramblings.net/2014/02/13/treasure-chest-thursday-the-john-roberts-and-elizabeth-ann-murrell-roberts-family-in-1900/
  2. An ad for the home when it was for sale some years ago– https://www.shoppok.com/desmoines/a,25,30656,1900-Historic-Home-built-by-Hoyt-Sherman–108-N–Sherman-St–.htm
  3. Hoyt Sherman was the brother of Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman and John Sherman, the author of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Hoyt moved to the western frontier, Fort Des Moines, in 1848. He was active in politics, and a principal in an insurance company, banks, etc. His beautiful home in Des Moines still stands and has been renovated, and a theater has been added and the home houses an art gallery. See http://hoytsherman.org/about/ and https://data.desmoinesregister.com/famous-iowans/hoyt-sherman for more information. He may have invested in the building of homes in Prairie City, which is only about 30 miles from DesMoines, but that remains to be verified.
  4. You can take a ‘tour’ of the neighborhood via Google and https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/108-N-Sherman-St_Prairie-City_IA_50228_M70834-34658

 

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 copyright or use of our blog material.

Elizabeth Ann (Murrell) Roberts (1835-1917)- A Recently Found Portrait

Elizabeth Ann (Murrell) Roberts, taken at Le Fevre Studio, Monroe, Jasper Co., Iowa, possibly around 1885.

Roberts Family

As mentioned yesterday, new-to-us portraits of John and Elizabeth (Murrell) Roberts have recently surfaced in a cleaning binge. The family adage, “See what you find when you just clean up” has come true once again.

Reverse of Elizabeth Ann (Murrell) Roberts portrait. Handwriting done in the 1990s.

We have posted quite a lot of information on this family already, so please see the links below, or use the sidebar links or post tags to learn more about this family.

Notes, Sources, and References: 

  1. Family treasure chest of photos. Thank you to the clean-up crew!
  2. We estimated the date of these images by looking at birthdates, how old John and Elizabeth look, and other pictures that are known. It seems that Elizabeth and John were in their 40s or early 50s in these photos, so 1885 seemed a good estimate of the year. Also, William L. Le Fevre was a photographer in Jasper County, Iowa in 1865-6, and was listed as an “artist” in an 1885 census. He lived in Jasper County until at least 1905, so the time frame works. (If you know otherwise, please let us know!)
  3. “A Visit with John and Lizzie (Murrell) Roberts- well, almost”
    http://heritageramblings.net/2019/07/02/a-visit-with-john-and-lizzie-murrell-roberts-well-almost/
  4.  “Sentimental Sunday: John Roberts and Elizabeth Ann Murrell Roberts” http://heritageramblings.net/2019/06/30/sentimental-sunday-john-roberts-and-elizabeth-ann-murrell-roberts/
  5. “Sentimental Sunday: Elizabeth Ann Murrell and John S. Roberts” http://heritageramblings.net/2017/02/12/sentimental-sunday-elizabeth-ann-murrell-and-john-s-roberts/
  6. “Friday’s Faces from the Past: Elizabeth Ann Murrell and John Roberts” http://heritageramblings.net/2017/02/10/fridays-faces-from-the-past-elizabeth-ann-murrell-and-john-s-roberts/
  7. “John Roberts and Elizabeth Ann Murrell Roberts- Indiana, Virginia, Illinois, and Iowa” http://heritageramblings.net/2014/02/08/john-roberts-and-elizabeth-ann-murrell-roberts-indiana-virginia-illinois-and-iowa/

 

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 2013-2019 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 copyright or use of our blog material.