Category: Locations

Census Sunday: Ancestors in 1801 Norway

Posted on by spuddled

This week’s new theme (because I love alliteration) is Census Sunday. And while I could choose from a multitude of U.S. census records, for this one I’m going to travel to our Norwegian homeland and the 1801 census that took place there. The Digitalarkivet, available online from the National Archives of Norway, has proven to be invaluable in filling out some of our family tree branches. Here are two examples.

First up are my 5G-grandparents, Jacob Arnesen and Ingeborg (Eliasdatter) Rodberg. In 1801 they were living in Innvik, in the Sogn og Fjordane area of Norway.1 The household was on the Rodberg farm. What looks to us like a surname was in fact the name of the farm where the family lived, though often this name did become a family’s chosen surname after emigration to America. In 1801 that household consisted of:

  • Jacob Arnesen, 46
  • Ingebor Eliasdtr, 44
  • Pernille Jacobsdtr, 17
  • Dorthe Jacobsdtr, 9
  • Mari Jacobsdtr, 5
  • Arne Arnesen, 27
  • Dorthe Andersdtr, 72

My Norwegian skills are nonexistent, but the Digitalarkivet provides a handy transcription of the Norwegian text, and I can Google. There is also this useful Norwegian vocabulary list provided by FamilySearch. With these tools, we learn that Jacob was the “husbonde,” or head of household and a “bonde og gaardbeboer,” or farmer and farm dweller. He is marriage to Ingeborg was a first marriage for both. Pernille, Dorthe, and Mari were all children of Jacob and Ingeborg; all were single.

Arne Arnesen, as you might expect from the fact that both he and Jacob used the patronymic “Arnesen,” was Jacob’s brother. His occupation, abbreviated “Nat. soldat,” indicates he was part of the area’s militia. Last in the household was Dorthe Andersdatter. She is listed as Jacob’s mother, and her marital status description, “enke efter 2det ægteskab,” indicates she had been married twice but was now a widow. Her occupation is listed as “inderste,” which apparently means something like a roomer.

Interestingly, my direct ancestor, Arne Jacobson Rodberg, born between Pernille and Dorthe, was not living at home with his parents and siblings but with Andersen Pedersen and Kari Andersdatter. He was fourteen and working as a “tienere,” or servant. Arne would marry Martha Jonsdatter Stauri in 1816, and they would have a daughter named Synneve Arnesdatter. Synneve, who has been mentioned here before, would marry Svend Arnesen Røberg in 1851, and they would be the parents of our immigrant ancestor Anders Mathis (Svendsen), who would take on the surname Roberg in the new country.

Where were Svend Arnesen Røberg’s ancestors in 1801? His mother, Ingeborg Svensdatter, had been born in 1798. Her family was living in the same Innvik parish as Jacob; their household consisted of the following individuals:

  • Svend Larsen, 39
  • Mari Christensdatter, 43
  • Ingebor Svensdatter, 2
  • Siri Svensdatter, 1
  • Jon Olsen, 18
  • Ole Olsen, 13
  • Baarni Olsdatter, 22

Some more fancy Googling reveals additional details. Svend’s marriage to Mari was his second, though this was Mari’s first marriage. Mari appears to have children by a man named Ole, however, as Jon Olsen, Ole Olsen, and Baarni Olsdatter are listed as Svend’s stedbørn, or stepchildren. Like Jacob, Svend was listed as a farmer and farm-dweller. Ingeborg and Siri, ages 2 and 1, are obviously “ugivt,” or single. The farm name I have seen listed for Svend in some sources is Fjellkarstad, but daughter Ingeborg would marry Arne Andersen from the Aland farm in 1824, and their son Svend would take on the Røberg farm/surname. I think my head is starting to spin.

  1. https://www.digitalarkivet.no/en/census/person/pf01058410000551 ↩︎

Photo Highlight: Nathan Davis

Posted on by spuddled

Theme #4 for the year is Photo Highlight – in which we’ll focus on one photograph from our family tree. It could be a photograph physically in my possession, one I found online, or one sent to me by email. This week we are taking a look at the following photo of my fifth great-granduncle, Nathan Davis.

This is not a photograph from my collection but is one that I’ve found on several different websites, including Find a Grave.1 It’s fascinating to be able to access a photograph of a relative who died more than 150 years ago. Nathan Davis was born 21 June 1772 in New Jersey and was the son of my 6G-grandparents, Nathan and Ann (Gifford) Davis. In 1794 he married Jane Sutton in New Jersey; they would have eight children.

In 1807 Nathan, along with his brothers William and Joseph (the latter of whom was my 5G-grandfather), purchased 20,000 acres of land in the area that would become West Union, West Virginia. They moved to the area in 1808, though much of their land they sold to Lewis Maxwell. Nathan Davis lived in a brick house where the courthouse later stood.2

In the 1850 census, Nathan and Jane were enumerated in West Union. Living with them was Jane’s 99-year-old father, Cornelius Sutton (who was also my 6G-grandfather). Cornelius died a month shy of his 100th birthday, on 30 September 1850. Jane died on 27 April 1857. In 1860 Nathan was living with his son Lewis’s family. Nathan died in West Union on 23 May 1866. He was 93 years old and was preceded in death by at least 3 of his children.

As I noted, the photograph of Nathan Davis is not physically in my collection. This next photograph, however, is, as I took it myself. In September 2010 Mom, Dad, Sammy the Dachshund, and I went on a genealogical road trip to West Virginia. We visited the Old Seventh Day Baptist “Block House” Cemetery in West Union, and there I took a photo of Nathan’s gravestone, with another smaller one leaning up against it. If you take a look at the photo of Nathan’s gravestone that appears on his Find a Grave memorial, you can see that in the 15 years that have passed since we visited, someone has cleaned the grave, and the small one is no longer resting on it. Maybe it’s time for another road trip.

  1. Find a Grave, (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/72692098/nathan-davis: accessed January 24, 2026), memorial page for Captain Nathan Davis, Find a Grave Memorial ID 72692098, citing Old Seventh Day Baptist Cemetery, West Union, Doddridge County, West Virginia, USA; Maintained by Guernsey Girl (contributor 51468294). ↩︎
  2. Hardesty’s 1883 History of Doddridge County. https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~wvpioneers/genealogy/doddridgecountyhistory.html ↩︎

W Is for…Witten (A Tale of Two Cities)

Posted on by spuddled

In the 1930 census, Grandma Montgomery was enumerated in the town of Witten, South Dakota along with her mother, Sophie, and siblings Pearl, Clarence, Mildred, Irene, Maude, and Lester. Many years later Grandma would tell me about the town of Witten and how there had been Old Witten and then New Witten when the town was moved. By 1940 Grandma Montgomery was married and living in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, but her mother Sophie was living in New Witten with Irene, Maude, and Lester. I thought I would see what I could dig up about this mysterious town with its Old and New versions.

Wikipedia tells us that New Witten is located at exactly 100 degrees longitude, and that at the time of the 2020 census, its population was 54. Interestingly, the Census Bureau does use the name “New Witten,” but the U.S. Post Office simply calls the town “Witten.” The town was originally founded in 1909, but when the railroad missed the town by 2 miles twenty years later, the town was moved.1 According to an article by Bernie Hunhoff in South Dakota Magazine, the only thing remaining on the Old Witten site is an old bank vault. A building added to Main Street in New Witten to house a bank, mercantile, and grocery store still remains, though the railroad no longer passes through the newer town either.2

Trying to find a little more information to flesh out this brief history of the two towns of Witten, I found an article in Early Dakota Days, describing how the author had organized a Sunday School at a schoolhouse in nearby Winner, and how the Reverend Wold of Witten (so much alliteration) held church services here as well.3

Of even more interest to me (though less relevant to Witten) is an account in this same article about a memorable neighborhood gathering at the home of H. O. Satree. That surname immediately rang a bell, as Emma Satree had been Grandma’s best friend while she was growing up. The article went on to describe the night’s musical entertainment, noting that “Emma Satree (now Mrs. John Sibbert of Winnett, Mont.), Blanche Wilson (now Mrs. Montgomery of Caldwell, Idaho), and myself furnished the vocal.” The article even included a photo showing Carl Wilson and children. And who was the author of the article? None other than “Mrs. Pearl Sherwood Larsen,” who previously made an appearance in this entry as one of Grandma’s schoolteachers.

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Witten,_South_Dakota ↩︎
  2. https://www.southdakotamagazine.com/witten-100th-meridian ↩︎
  3. https://ia804507.us.archive.org/2/items/earlydakotadayss00reut/earlydakotadayss00reut.pdf ↩︎

P Is for…Pretty Unusual Names

Posted on by spuddled

For today’s post I was all set to write about one of my favorite family names. Who could resist the appeal of a name like Preserved Fish? There are, in fact, two of them, as Preserved and his wife had a son also named Preserved Fish. As an aside, the elder Preserved’s wife’s maiden name was Ruth Cook, which means her married name was Ruth Cook Fish. Also, the elder Preserved’s mother was named Grizzel Strange, and he named a daughter Grizzel as well: Grizzel Fish. There’s also a Grizzel Spratt in the records. But alas – when I went to look more closely at these individuals, I discovered none of them are actually blood relations, which is very disappointing and also goes against my self-imposed rule of focusing on actual relatives for these posts. So let’s move on.

Instead of the comical Preserved Fish, I’m taking a look at another favorite name – this one the more euphonious Persis Willson, my sixth great-grandaunt. Persis, alliteratively enough, was born in Petersham, Massachusetts, on 12 August 1754, the tenth child of Samuel and Mary (Davenport) Willson. Petersham had only been incorporated earlier in the same year in which Persis was born, and our Willson ancestors were among the town’s founding members.1

In October 1771, William Johnson filed his intention of marrying Persis. Both William and Persis were listed as being “of Petersham.” Persis had just turned 17.

Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, U.S., Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

The couple was married a month later on 21 November by the Rev. John Rogers of Leominster.

ibid.

Unfortunately, this is about the extent of what I know about Persis (and William). A compilation of Massachusetts vital records includes a section on Petersham births, but no offspring are listed as being born to William and Persis Johnson.2 There is also no William Johnson in Petersham in the 1790 census, though one does appear in 1820 and in 1830. As usual, more investigation is needed. The genealogist’s work is never done! Which also means there is always hope that I’ll find a link to Preserved and Grizzel.

  1. Coolidge, Mabel Cook. The History of Petersham, Massachusetts, incorporated April 20, 1754: Volunteerstown or Voluntown, 1730-1733, Nichewaug, 1733-1754. 1948. ↩︎
  2. Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, U.S., Compiled Birth, Marriage, and Death Records, 1700-1850 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2018. This collection was indexed by Ancestry World Archives Project contributors. ↩︎

E Is for…Elmwood

Posted on by spuddled

Today I’m taking a look at Elmwood, Illinois, a city of about 2040 people in Peoria County. According to Wikipedia, Elmwood was platted in 1852 and named for a grove of elm trees near the home of the first postmaster.

Our family connection to the town began in 1916. In that year my great-great-grandparents, George John and Maria Elizabeth (Rusch) Hunkler moved to Elmwood from Crugar in Woodford County. At that time George was 54 and Maria was 57; both natives of Switzerland, they had been married for 30 years. Maria had given birth to five children: Bertha Elizabeth (b. 1887); Matilda “Tillie” (b. 1888); John George (b. 1891); Lena Agnes (my great-grandmother, b. 1892); and Hulda Catherine (b. 1896). All five children had already married by the time their parents moved to Elmwood. George and Marie were enumerated there in January 1920. No occupation is listed for either of them, but the census notes that both became naturalized citizens in 1892.

My grandmother, Lena’s daughter, was born in 1917 in Francesville, Indiana. When she was two years old (apparently shortly after the 1920 census enumeration), Grandma moved with her parents and her older brother Roy to Elmwood where they lived for two years with George and Maria on their farm. On Grandma’s fourth birthday her immediate family moved again, away from her grandparents’ Elmwood farm to Forrest, Illinois, about 88 miles east.

Woodford County Journal [Eureka, Illinois]; 8 July 1920, pg. 5

George and Maria, however, remained in Elmwood. In 1930 they were enumerated again, still in Elmwood and now living on Lilac Street, though no house number was listed. They were listed as owning their own home, valued at $1400.

Year: 1930; Census Place: Elmwood, Peoria, Illinois; Page: 9A; Enumeration District: 0008; FHL microfilm: 2340282

George died four years later; his death record notes that his death on 2 December 1934 took place in Elmwood and that he was buried 3 days later in Washington, Illinois’s Glendale Cemetery. Though three years older, Maria outlived her husband by almost 14 years. She was enumerated in the 1940 census in Elmwood, living alone at 80 years old. On 27 September 1948, she died in El Paso, Illinois, at the Dowell Nursing Home. Her death certificate notes she had been at the nursing home for 9 days before her death from acute cardiac failure due to arteriosclerosis. She was buried beside her husband in Glendale Cemetery.

Q Is for…Quincy

Q Is for…Quincy

Posted on by spuddled

Today’s blog post is brought to you by the letter Q. I was hoping to find a relative who had died of quinsy (a tonsillitis complication), but I could not. I did, however, discover that there are six towns named Quincy that appear in our family tree: California, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. With an honorable mention of West Quincy, Missouri. Of these, a few were home to relatives by marriage only, so we’ll focus just on those with connections to blood relatives – and provide just a few anecdotes, as there were a total of 228 events that took place in one of the Quincies, and it’s getting close to bedtime.

Quincy, Illinois wins the prize for the highest number of family events (185). Probably the closest connection is my third great-granduncle, Baldes (or Balthasar) Bollinger. The brother of my maternal third great-grandmother Saloma Bollinger, he was born 12 January 1829, probably in Switzerland. His history is somewhat elusive, but at some point he lived in Nebraska and apparently also served in the Civil War. He seems to have lived at the Soldier’s Home in Quincy, and he died there on 17 December 1910. He is buried in Quincy’s Sunset Cemetery.

Find a Grave Memorial ID 89191746

Interestingly, another Quincy, Illinois connection with Civil War ties is a paternal third cousin four times removed, Noah Thomas Brown. Noah was the son of Logan and Abbey (Boyce) Brown and a descendant of my Sweeney line. He was born 5 October 1841 in Morgan County, Illinois, and he enlisted in the 10th Illinois Cavalry on 21 September 1861 in Springfield, Illinois. He served only about six months before dying in Quincy on 19 March 1862 of acute bronchitis.

Consolidated Lists of Civil War Draft Registration Records1
Ancestry.com. U.S., Registers of Deaths of Volunteers, 1861-1865 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.

A third Quincy, Illinois connection was May Edith Oldridge, my fifth cousin twice removed and Noah Thomas Brown’s second cousin twice removed. May was born 18 March 1896 in Knox County, Missouri, the daughter of Oscar Clarence and Anna Izora (Reaugh) Oldridge. Five years before Edith was born, the Blessing Hospital Training School for Nurses was founded in Quincy in association with Blessing Hospital, which had opened in 1875.2 It was here that Edith enrolled in a nursing course in March 1916. An article in the The Knox County (Missouri) Democrat of 7 July 1916 notes Edith’s return home for a brief vacation. Then in January of 1917, she had spent a few days with her grandmother before returning to Quincy, according to The Edina (Missouri) Sentinel. Four months later, though, newspaper articles had much less cheerful items to report. On 30 May 1917 The Clarence (Missouri) Courier noted: “Mrs. C. M. Cockrum went to Quincy Thursday to visit her niece, Miss Edith Oldridge who is quite ill.” The following day, The Edina Sentinel reported: “Miss Edith Oldridge, who formerly lived here but who has been taking a course in trained nursing at the Blessing Hospital in Quincy the last year, is seriously ill at that place of typhoid fever.” On 1 June The Knox County Democrat also reported on Edith’s illness and that her uncle, Gene Reaugh, had gone to visit her. That same paper, four days later, reported that Edith’s health was improved; the hope this must have inspired was short-lived, however. On 14 June The Edina Sentinel reported Edith’s death. Similar articles appeared in The Knox County Democrat on 15 and 19 June.

14 June 1917 The Edina Sentinel

Not all of the Quincy connections are so grim, however. Quincy, Kansas, was the location of a Christmas 1900 wedding between Alfred Eugene Christison, my fourth cousin three times removed, and Lenora E. Kolb. Though his link is to a completely different Quincy, Alfred was another Sweeney connection and was the second cousin once removed of Noah Thomas Brown and the third cousin once removed of May Edith Oldridge. Alfred was born in Kansas on 14 September 1874. The Toronto (Kansas) Republican of 28 December 1900 reported on the wedding, noting that the Rev. W. Emerson officiated “in a very befitting manner.” What a relief.

Our final Quincy for today is Quincy, Ohio. Though not the 185 family events of its Illinois compatriot, the Ohio variant does have a respectable 34 in the family tree. A large number of these come from one of our Seventh Day Baptist connections. John Sutton, my fifth great-granduncle, was born in New Jersey in 1785, married in West Virginia in 1807, and died in Quincy, Ohio, in 1869…maybe. What is more certain is that John’s daughter, Alzina Hill Sutton, who was born in July 1828, married her second cousin once removed, Nathan Maxson on 17 February 1852. Sources differ as to where their eldest child John was born (was it Virginia or was it Ohio?), but the remaining 6 children were all born in Ohio: Franklin (born in Quincy on 30 March 1855); Martin Elijah, born in Logan County on 2 February 1858; Deborah, born between 1860-1861; George B., born in March 1864; Fannie, born between 1866-1867; and Rebecca, born in October 1869. On 1 May 1873 Alzina died, and she is buried in Quincy’s Fairview Cemetery. When Nathan died some 28 years later he was buried beside her. Their son John is buried there as well.

Find a Grave Memorial ID 17920087
  1. The National Archives in Washington, DC; Washington, DC, USA; Consolidated Lists of Civil War Draft Registration Records (Provost Marshal General’s Bureau; Consolidated Enrollment Lists, 1863-1865); Record Group: 110; Collection Name: Consolidated Enrollment Lists, 1863-1865 (Civil War Union Draft Records); NAI: 4213514; Archive Volume Number: 5 of 6 ↩︎
  2. https://www.hsqac.org/blessing-opened-with-one-doctor-140-years-ago81744fd3 ↩︎
K Is for…Kentucky

K Is for…Kentucky

Posted on by spuddled

For today’s entry, we’re going to focus our attention on the Commonwealth of Kentucky and explore just a few of our family’s connections there. Most of these connections are on the paternal side of my family, and we’ve touched on a few of them here in the past.

As long-time readers may recall, the Sweeney branch of our family made their way from Buckingham County, Virginia, to Kentucky, where my parents and I were lucky enough to find the grave of Moses Sweeney, my 6G-grandfather. A Sweeney descendant who met a tragic end in Kentucky was fifth cousin twice removed, Blanche (Phillips) Hendricks.

But aside from the many Sweeney connections (and aside from my brother’s four years spent at Kentucky’s Centre College), I wanted to see what other links our family might have had with the commonwealth. Rummaging through a “Who Was There” report in my genealogy software, I first found lots of individuals who were spouses of relatives but not relatives themselves. But eventually I started making discoveries:

Anna Marie Bering, 1st cousin 3 times removed: Anna Marie is related through our Montgomery line. Her grandfather was my brick-wall Montgomery ancestor William through his daughter Susan. Susan’s husband was John Andrew Bering, who was a major in the 48th Ohio Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War and participated in the siege of Vicksburg. Anna Marie herself was born in 1867 in Ohio but died in Covington, Kentucky, aged 71, of a non-malignant intestinal obstruction. She is buried in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky.

Next up is the amazingly-named Burnem Cevigna Buxton, my 2nd cousin 3 times removed. He is descended from our Conklin(g) line; his grandfather was my 4G-grandfather, Stephen Conkling. Burnem was also born in Ohio but by age 43 (in 1930) was living in McKinneysburg, Kentucky. By 1940 he had moved back to Ohio; he died in Cincinnati in 1969. It seems that those recording information about Burnem throughout his life were also a little overwhelmed by his unusual name. It appears with multiple different spellings: Burchman C., Burnim S., Burnum.

Another Kentucky connection with a great name is Alvareta Charlton, my 2nd cousin twice removed. She is also a Montgomery-line descendant; she was the great-granddaughter of William Montgomery through William’s son David and granddaughter Laura Belle. She never appears to have lived in Kentucky, but she was married there (in Newport) in 1919 at age 20. She died in 1986 and is buried in Dayton, Ohio. She also has a number of different spellings of her name attached to various records: Alvarette, Alvaretta, Alzaretta.

Finally (at least for today; this is by no means an exhaustive list of every relative who set foot in Kentucky), we have Martin F. Ross, my third cousin 3 times removed. Like Burnem Buxton, he is a descendant of our Conklin(g) line: his great-grandfather was my 5G-grandfather, Joseph Conkling. Martin was born 3 March 1840 in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, to parents originally from New Jersey and New York who moved west two years before Martin’s birth. Like Alvareta, Martin never lived in Kentucky, but he died there. On 1 February 1863, a month shy of his 23rd birthday, while serving with the 22nd Wisconsin Voluntary Infantry, he was a Civil War casualty in Danville, Kentucky, dying in a regimental hospital of wounds received in battle. Which brings us back full circle, as Danville is the home of Centre College, from which my brother graduated 131 years after Martin’s death.

Ancestry.com. U.S., Registers of Deaths of Volunteers, 1861-1865 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/124266962/martin-f-ross

J Is for…Jacobsdatter

Posted on by spuddled
Stock photo from CreativeCommons, but it is someone from Innvik

For the tenth letter of the alphabet, we are today remembering Berthe Jacobsdatter, my 5G-grandmother. She is a brick wall in one of my Norwegian ancestral lines, though it seems safe to assume her father’s name was Jacob. The information I do know is that on 20 June 1779 in Innvik, Sogn og Fjordane, Norway, Berthe married Jon Jetmundsen Stauri1. Jon is also a brick wall, though again we can probably guess at his father’s name. The “Stauri,” in Norwegian naming conventions of the time, probably refers to the farm on which Jon’s family lived.2

Jon and Berthe had at least three children. Jacob was born later in 1779 and was baptized in Innvik on 10 November; Martha was baptized (again in Innvik) 4 August 1782; and Birthe was baptized 28 December 1786, still in Innvik.3

Martha, who appears in records as Martha Jonsdatter Stauri (and therefore surely counts as a “J” in our alphabetical theme) was married on 10 November 1816 to Arne Jacobsen Rodberg when she was in her mid-thirties. The couple had at least two children of their own: Ingeborg (who lived only 17 days in August 1818); and Synneve, born 16 November 1819.

Synneve married Svend Arnesen Røberg on 15 June 1851 in Innvik. This farm name and that of Synneve’s father appear to be the same, just with lettering variations. Svend’s father’s farm name was Aland; did Svend move to the Røberg/Rodberg farm before or after his marriage to Synneve and then take on the new farm name? More points to investigate…

Svend and Synneve had at least six children: Arne, born 1852; Anders, born 1855; Mathias, born 1858; Ingeborg, born 1858; Marthe, born 1861; and Martin, 1866. Of the six, only Mathias definitely remained in Norway, though I am not sure about Marthe. The other four emigrated to America and settled in various midwestern states. Anders, my 2G-grandfather, made his way from Wisconsin to Minnesota and finally to Nebraska, dying in Newman Grove on 1 January 1943. Yet another “J.”

  1. “Norway, Marriages, 1660-1926”, , FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NWZ7-T5S : 20 February 2020), Jon Jetmundsen, 1779. ↩︎
  2. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Norway_Naming_Customs ↩︎
  3. “Norway, Baptisms, 1634-1927.” Database. FamilySearch. http://FamilySearch.org : 3 December 2024. Index based upon data collected by the Genealogical Society of Utah, Salt Lake City. ↩︎

F Is for…Fort Collins

F Is for…Fort Collins

Posted on by spuddled

Fort Collins, Colorado is the county seat of Larimer County. It was founded in 1864 as an Army outpost, and the town itself was laid out in 1867. It is the home of Colorado State University. As of 2020 it had a population of 169,810.1 Our family’s connection to Fort Collins began in around 1902, when the city’s population was somewhere between 3000 and 8000. Around that year, my great-grandfather, Charles William Montgomery, moved to Fort Collins from Holdrege, Nebraska, where the family had been enumerated in the 1900 census and where my grandfather was born in August 1901.2

The Montgomery family consisted of Charles William, born in 1861; Laura Maud (Walker), born in 1862; and children Myrtle Pearl (born 1884); Mary Edna “Mamie” (born 1885); Bessie Bell (born 1886); Elta Grace (born 1888); Walter Dewey (born 1898); John Ward “Ward” (born 1899); and Grandpa, Lawrence Theodore (or Lawrence Conklin?), born 1901. Myrtle does not appear to have made the move to Fort Collins, as she worked as a schoolteacher in Holdrege and married in Brush, Colorado, in 1903, then continued to be enumerated in Holdrege until her death there in 1931 at age 47.3

From about the time the family moved to Colorado, Charles worked as a watchman at the Great Western Sugar Factory. The first sugar factory in the area was built in 1901 in Loveland but a number of separate factories, including one in Fort Collins, had opened by 1905 and were consolidated under the Great Western Sugar name.4

In December 1904 Laura Maud, sadly, was institutionalized in the state hospital in Pueblo. From the stories and letters that have been passed down, it’s possible she may have suffered from something similar to paranoid schizophrenia. Charles remained in Fort Collins; Laura Maud’s admission records notes his address at that time as 627 Edward Street.5

The following year Elta, then 17, married William Gladstone Freeman in Fort Collins. They had moved to Waring, Kansas, by 1910, as they were enumerated there in that year’s census. Younger brother Walter was living with them at the time. Three months after Elta’s wedding Mamie married Harley Kimble in Fort Collins. She remained in Fort Collins for a number of years (she was in Fort Collins for both the 1910 and 1920 censuses) before moving to California; she was enumerated in Bakersfield in 1930. Bessie married Francis Marion Boyland in Boulder, Colorado, in 1907. She was in Weld, Colorado, in 1910; she later lived in Washington, DC, and then Los Angeles. She died in Hermosa Beach, California, in 1936 at age 49. Ward was also living in Kansas during the 1910 census, boarding with a family formerly from Fort Collins.6

Where, you may ask, were Charles and Lawrence in 1910? I’ve been asking myself that for probably 25 years. Grandpa used to tell us that he was raised in an orphanage (or more than one?) and helped break in women’s shoes while he lived there. The orphanages, according to notes I took while Grandpa was still living, were in Denver and Aurora. Grandpa also said that his father was unable to care for him because he was “riding the range with Buffalo Bill.” I have yet to corroborate these stories, but I keep trying. And I have yet to locate Grandpa or his father anywhere in 1910, though a 1908 Fort Collins City Directory lists “CW Montgomery” as a driver for Mt. Ave. Livery Co. and residing at 127 E Mountain Ave.

By April 1917 Grandpa (then only 15) had joined the Army (adding 3 years to his age in order to enlist). After his military service Grandpa made his way to South Dakota, then back to his home state of Nebraska, then eventually to Idaho. Charles, however, would remain in Fort Collins the rest of his life. He was enumerated there in 1920, 1930, and 1940. In 1920 he was listed simply as “Laborer, Farm,” though he was living in the city limits of Fort Collins. In 1930 his duties at the sugar factory are corroborated: his occupation is listed as “Watchman, J. W. Sugar Co.” In 1940 he was living in the Antlers Hotel on Linden Street.789 This building still stands, and still with the “Antlers Hotel” name at the top, or at least it did in 2015 when we passed through Fort Collins on a cross-country trip.

Charles’s wife Laura passed away in the State Hospital in 1933 of cancer with “other contributory causes of importance” listed as dementia precox.10 In March 1941 Charles remarried; his second wife was a widow named Lysle (Peterson) Cleave. The two were married in Kimball, Nebraska. Less than a year later Charles died (in the hospital in Fort Collins) of a coronary occlusion due to arteriosclerosis; on his death certificate his residence is listed as 257 Linden, Fort Collins.11 He is buried in Grandview Cemetery there. While on that cross-country trek in 2015, Dad, Mom, and I stopped at the cemetery so Dad could pay his respects to the grandfather who died three months before he was born.

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Collins,_Colorado ↩︎
  2. Year: 1900; Census Place: Holdrege, Phelps, Nebraska; Roll: 936; Page: 8; Enumeration District: 0151 ↩︎
  3. The Holdrege (Nebraska) Progress; 24 December 1931; Page 1 ↩︎
  4. https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/great-western-sugar-company ↩︎
  5. Pueblo, Colorado, Colorado State Insane Asylum Admission Records, Laura Montgomery, 23 December 1904. ↩︎
  6. Year: 1910; Census Place: Waring, Ness, Kansas; Roll: T624_448; Page: 9a; Enumeration District: 0112; FHL microfilm: 1374461 ↩︎
  7. Year: 1920; Census Place: Fort Collins Ward 1, Larimer, Colorado; Roll: T625_166; Page: 8B; Enumeration District: 150 ↩︎
  8. Year: 1930; Census Place: Fort Collins, Larimer, Colorado; Page: 5B; Enumeration District: 0041; FHL microfilm: 2339980 ↩︎
  9. Year: 1940; Census Place: Fort Collins, Larimer, Colorado; Roll: m-t0627-00467; Page: 10B; Enumeration District: 35-46 ↩︎
  10. State of Colorado Standard Certificate of Death; Laura Montgomery; 16 July 1933 ↩︎
  11. State of Colorado. Death Certificate of Charles William Montgomery. n.p: Registrar’s No. 9 Dist. 129 (?), n.d. ↩︎

A Burial in St. Gallen: Anna Barbara Egger

A Burial in St. Gallen: Anna Barbara Egger

Posted on by spuddled

On this day in 1870, my 4G-grandaunt, Anna Barbara Egger was buried in Lutzenberg, Appenzell, Saint Gallen, Switzerland. She was the daughter of my 5G-grandparents, Laurenz and Catharina (Niederer) Egger. Anna Barbara was born sometime around 1800 or 1801. Her brother John Heinrich was also born around 1800 and was my 4G-grandfather.

The other Egger siblings were Michael, born in 1806; Laurenz, who was born and died in 1807; Anna, born in 1808; Katharina, born between 1810 and 1811; Anna Elisabeth, born in 1812; and Lorenz, who was baptized in April 1816. The Egger family highlights a Germanic naming convention in which siblings might often share the same first name but then each go by their own unique second name.

I don’t know much more about Anna Barbara, though I’ve just discovered that the Kanton St. Gallen archives website, so that may spark further investigation. According to the records I had found previously, it appears she never married. Her brother John Heinrich and his wife were the parents of Margaretha Egger, born 7 March 1841; Margaretha married John George Hunkler, and they were the parents of George John Hunkler, who left Saint Gallen for Illinois in 1883.

Photo by Albatros Aslan on Unsplash