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

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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

 

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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.

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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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 Roberts- A Walk around 108 N. Sherman, Prairie City, Iowa

This entry is part 3 of 3 in the series John and Elizabeth Ann (Murrell) Roberts, at home in Prairie City, Jasper County, Iowa
John Roberts at his home in Prairie City, Jasper, Iowa, about 1915?

Roberts Family (Click for Family Tree)

Here is one more image to go along with our last couple of posts about John and Lizzie Roberts and their home at 108 N. Sherman in Prairie City, Jasper County, Iowa.

This picture appears to have been taken the same day as the picture of John and Lizzie in front of their house, as the paper and mat it was in (not shown here) are the same. John is wearing the same clothes- not unusual though, since many men only had 1 or 2 good suits. He looks the same age, too, as in the previous photo. Unfortunately, though, no good clues here about when it was taken specifically, although it appears to be fall or early winter since most of the leaves are off the trees and shrubs.

The picture did help us know where it, and the other picture with Lizzie, were taken. Because there is another house or two across the street, we had a clue they were living in town, not still out on a farm. The roadway with its high curb also suggest town-life, since curbs are usually not poured for rural roadways.

Again, if you have a copy of this or the other picture in this series, please let us know. Hopefully your copy will have some identification!

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

  1. Family treasure chest of photos- thank you, family, for sharing!

 

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.