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