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/

 

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

There is always a story behind a photo, and it would be so wonderful to know them all!

This snapshot of a time, a place, and three people is so intriguing. Is this a man and two sons, with one grown even taller than he was? Is this a man and his younger brother and a son of one of them? Or a three generation picture? All are in nice clothes, with the older two having ties, so were they dressed for a picture or some other occasion? And where were they, with milk cans on a grate alongside- a dairy perhaps? Did one of them work there? A closer look at the bricks suggests the right side of the building was added on… so many unanswered questions. We are hoping that some of our readers can help us to identify some of the people in this post, as well as some of the previous posts from unidentified photos that were found in the Roberts Family Photo Album.

The Roberts family was living in Indiana, then Illinois before their migration to Iowa around 1868 in a covered wagon. Edith ROBERTS (later McMURRAY, then LUCK) (1899-1982), told in a letter about how her father, George Anthony ROBERTS, Sr. (1861-1939), at age 5 ran behind the wagons on the long trek west. George’s parents, John ROBERTS (1832-1922) and Elizabeth Ann MURRELL family met the Robert Woodson DANIEL (1843-1922)-Margaret Ann HEMPHILL (1839-1915) family in Roseville, Warren County, Illinois, and their children married.

A letter to a Bedford County, Pennsylvania newspaper may have been picked up by other papers read by our ancestors in Illinois, or word of mouth stories of the richness of the prairies may have inspired our ancestors to make such a life-changing move.

“Here I am after a long, but rather pleasant ride. [The author had taken the train west to Iowa City and then a coach to Des Moines.] I had formed many big notions of Iowa: but, I tell you that every one of them came short of the reality… I presume that many of the emigrants whose wagons dot the road over the Prairies and whose family fires at night light up the woods along the roadside, don’t know that such a thing as a money crisis has come upon us… Capitalists in the East now have their eyes on the fertile, rolling, black lands of Iowa… In my travels so far, I have never been out of sight of timber and often passed large bodies of it. I have frequently crossed fresh running streams. Coal mines frequently occurred and game abounded… the prairie hens… fluttered up from about the coach wheels as they rolled along.”

While this was written about ten years before our families made the trek west, it could take a number of years to accumulate the money to buy and outfit a wagon, plus plan a trip of 200 miles after selling any farm, livestock, or other property owned and purchasing new at the destination. While today the trip would take 68 hours on foot per Google maps, it probably took 2-3 weeks by wagon with family, rivers to cross, broken wagon wheels, oxen to feed, poor weather, etc. Sometimes babies were born on the way too! So not a trip to undertake lightly.

It is no wonder people loved to show off their family and possessions in pictures and share with friends who were across the county or back home where they came from. The hand-held camera was such a wonderful invention!

And here is that sweet little one, about to take off walking into her future:

Perhaps this is the same little girl in her rocking chair?

These children appear to be from a different family:

Here is a gentleman who may have made that trek from Roseville. He probably never saw himself as a baby in a photo since photography was not really available until the 1840s, and then used mostly for portraits in a studio.

We have other pictures that include this man, so it would be great to learn who he is! (Please leave us a comment if you have a picture of him and/or know who he is.)

And here is one more cute baby in a little wicker chair with a bottle:

And of course, our contractually obligated picture of a little one with a dog:

This photo album is such a treasure trove… and there are still MORE pictures of our wonderful family. Stay tuned for pictures of the teens and adults.

And please let us know if you have seen these pictures or know any of the family in them. The “Leave a comment” link is at the very bottom, under the date in the grayed footer of the post. Thanks for reading, and maybe even commenting!

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. Roberts Family Photo Album put together in the 1910s-1920s era, probably Jasper County, Iowa.
2. “Correspondence, Des Moines, Iowa, Oct. 5, 1857.” Bedford Gazette, Bedford, Pennsylvania, 10/23/1857, page 2.

 

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

Here is yet another of those photos- a story we would love to know! Father and son? Friends? Please do let us know if you know the story or can identify these men, or any of the people in the following photos from the Roberts Family Photo Album put together some time around 1910 to the 1920s, likely in Jasper County, Iowa. It was passed down to the descendants of George Anthony Roberts and Ella V. Daniel Roberts.

And now that young man has a girlfriend:

Here is the same young woman, but is it the same young man? His ears and nose seem quite a bit different.

Here is another young couple:

There are a number of young women in the photo album, one with maybe her mother:

While the cameras of that time apparently had some problems with light leaks and did not always advance film properly, having even these not-perfect pictures helps us imagine life for our ancestors.

The back of the above photo states, “Mar. 24, ’18 Ivan Axlell.” (Spelling is hard to decipher on second name.) We do have an Ivan Chester Murrell, born 1899 in Roseville, Illinois, so this would not be the same person. There were no children listed in the 1930 census when Ivan Chester was listed with his wife, Lillian Lukens Murrell, as living with her parents.

And a few more men to add to our “unidentified” listing from the Roberts Family Photo Album:

Plus a hard-working man in front of a barn:

Do you recognize any of these people? If you do, please scroll down to “Leave a comment” and let us know who they are! Even if you also have an unidentified copy of this photo, knowing what other family has it may help us narrow the possibilities. We each have different pieces of the puzzle… Thanks in advance.

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. The numbers by the photos are for reference since we do not know many of the people in this album.
2. “Roberts Family Photo Album” circa 1910-1925 or so. Images may have been taken in Jasper County, 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 2013-2022 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)

More pictures without names to identify them! While frustrating, it is a sort of fun puzzle, trying to fit dates and places and people together. Thankfully many of the images were together in photos albums, so that helps us to at least group some of the images together, tentatively, of course. Whether we ever determine exactly who is who in the images, we still know they are related to our family, and they are a glimpse into the life of out family, whether at work on a fam, gathering with family, or studying at school. We do ask your help if you can ID any of these people or places, or know someone who can. Please let us know in the “Comments” or “Contact Us” section of the blog! Even an ‘educated guess’ can steer us toward more research and understanding.

Here is another view of this large building:

We believe this may be PCHS because this photo was found with other Roberts family treasures:

This image looks very similar to the doorway seen in picture #43 above, and the windows look similar although it is hard to tell if there is another window behind the tree in the building picture.

And then we turned over this picture…

This was not written in recent years- note how the extender of the ‘g’ in “High” has cracked with the board. More recent IDs on the Roberts pictures are in pen. This also looks similar to other handwriting we believe to be Edith’s in her younger years- it got much more difficult to read as she aged!

The following was an image in the same photo album as the large building and high school pictures:

Could this young man be a Prairie City High School (see shirt) baseball team member, circa 1914? People back then did not wear shirts with big logos generally, unless as part of a sports team.

The above image seemed similar to the larger building front steps, but then we noticed the columns. Maybe we just can’t see them on the smaller picture of the large building? Or perhaps this is another part of the building- or even somewhere completely different. Edith did attend the State University of Iowa in Iowa City (now the University of Iowa), so perhaps this is later than high school.

To throw a wrench in all this surmising, here is a photo from the same album:

What? How is this group from 1920, and why does it say “P C”? We know Edith graduated from Prairie City High School in 1918, so is this a group at college of students from Prairie City? Or a group at college in a club, such as a debate team? Or is this a group that came back to PCHS for a reunion in 1920? This part of the building does not have a high foundation like the above large building pictures, but it could have been taken at a part of the building that was not raised as much.

This image was under the above on the album page:

Was this taken in Prairie City when Edith was in high school, or once she got to the State University of Iowa? We have no clues, other than it being under the image that states 1920 was the year, but there is that confounding “P C” on the above sign.

We would truly appreciate any information that could help us identify some of these images. Please add a “Comment” or use our “Contact Us” page if you know anything about these bygone days. Your message will wait for approval and your email address will never be visible to others visiting the blog, only the website administrator who vows to never use it other than to reply to you.

Thanks for looking and pondering with us!

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. The numbers by the photos are for reference since we do not know many of the people in this album.
2. “Roberts Family Photo Album” circa 1910-1925 or so. Images may have been taken in Jasper County, Iowa.
3. “Mystery Monday: The Children of Mary Jane (Roberts) [French] Blount” https://heritageramblings.net/2016/05/16/mystery-monday-the-children-of-mary-jane-roberts-french-blount/
4.  “Edith M. Roberts and the Prairie City High School Class of 1918” https://heritageramblings.net/2021/11/15/edith-m-roberts-and-the-prairie-city-high-school-class-of-1918/

 

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.