America 250 Part Four: the 1900s

 [This is an ongoing Facebook project that I've decided to share here as well,

slightly revised and expanded, with additional photos and links.

Check back for updates through 4 July 2026.]

Early 1900s A new century, and the first to which most of us have actual, tangible connections, either through our own experiences, or for any youngsters reading this--mirabile dictu!--your parents'.

We were a nation on the move, dynamic and innovative. In 1903 the Wright Brothers made their first flight, and by 1914 commercial air travel had begun. Granted, the St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line only carried a single passenger and was just a twenty-some minute flight, but it was a start. Further south, America’s construction began on the Panama Canal in 1904, and it too began operations in 1914. In 1908, Henry Ford introduced the Model T. Within a few years over a quarter of a million were coming off his assembly line annually.

So where were all these folks going? To “See America First,” as the slogan touted, coined by travel booster Fisher Sanford Harris in 1906. Trimmed down from its original "See Europe if you will, but see America first," the catchphrase appeared on countless maps and guidebooks, and was so successful it even inspired the title of Cole Porter’s first musical, in 1916, and a silent film comedy a few years later. It is still in use today.

from left, a travel brochure, jokebook, and Prohibition era movie poster.

There was so much to see! Oklahoma entered the Union in 1907, with Arizona and New Mexico completing the “Lower 48” in 1912. Our first National Park, Yellowstone, had been recognized as such in 1872, but it was not until 1916 that our National Park Service was established, President Wilson recognizing that our lands and national treasures belonged to us all, and should be protected.

Where were my ancestors during all this? One of my first cousins, 4x removed, Orrin Budd Hart was there. In 1904, he was one of the builders of the Great Stone Fireplace, in Yellowstone’s Old Faithful Inn. It is still remarkable, and was the inspiration for the fireplace at Walt Disney World’s Wilderness Lodge.

A vintage photo, and Hart's memorial at Mountain View Cemetery, Columbus MO.
memorial photo courtesy FindaGrave.

Moving on to direct ancestors, we already met my paternal grandparents in the last post. My maternal grandparents, Dana Earl Brown and Myrna Margaret Severin, were born in 1910 and 1907, in North and South Dakota respectively. They were a big influence on me; my love of travel is just one thing I got from them. I loved hearing their stories about visiting Kenya or Japan or Australia or England–and seeing what souvenirs they brought me, of course.

Grandpa Dana got the bug early. In 1931, just twenty-one years old, he and a friend took a Model T touring car–naturally–and headed west on a remarkable Road Trip, all the way to California. They rented an apartment briefly at the site of today’s Los Angeles Department of Water & Power, from which they could see the Hollywoodland sign. I think I got my love of movies from him as well.

Grandpa Dana is on the left.

A year later he was back in Minneapolis, and a year after that, he married my grandmother. Within two years the newlyweds headed west together–along with my newborn mother–for another grand adventure: uprooting and relocating to Oakland CA. Within a few years, both my grandmother’s sisters (Arletha and Gleva) and their spouses would move to the Bay Area as well, establishing our roots in California. You can read more about my grandparents' early lives here and here.

The Severins, circa 1913.
My grandmother is the girl seated on the right.
The boy seated on the left is their brother Delmar, who died shortly afterward.

Of course, not every voyage ends well; the Titanic sank in 1912. But Americans were undeterred. And we weren’t just travelling for pleasure. The Great Migration of African Americans from the Jim Crow South to the more accepting North, a trickle during the Reconstruction, began to surge in 1916. But in this era of optimism and possibility, let's end on a positive note. Join me in a chorus, won't you?

“Don’t leave America,
Just stick around the U.S.A.
Cheer for America

And get that grand old strain of Yankee Doodle
In your noodle;
Yell for America,

Altho’ your vocal cords may burst;
And if you ever take an outing,
Leave the station shouting:
‘See America First!’”

--Cole Porter

1917 & the 'Twenties We were seeing America first, jauntily touring in trains and planes and Model Ts throughout the newly-completed contiguous United States.

Then everything changed. In 1917 our attention turned abroad, with the US entering World War I, three years after it had begun. Not only was it the first world war, but also the first American conflict in which none of my direct ancestors served. That was more through luck than a lack of patriotism, though; my grandfathers were children, and my great-grandfathers were in their 30s and 40s. They still registered for the draft, however, and I’m glad they did. Draft forms are of particular interest to family historians, providing information not always found elsewhere, including details about their appearance, and even their signatures.

World War I Draft registration cards
for top: Clarence Edgar Brown, bottom: Alfred Nathaniel Burnett
Note the very different handwriting and penmanship.

The War's casualties abroad were in the millions, with destruction widespread across Europe. Ultimately, before war’s end there would be over 100,000 American fatalities as well, and many of those who did survive came back scarred physically and emotionally. Yanks returned disillusioned and aimless, questioning the values of their parents’ generation: many suffered from what, today, we call PTSD, but was then known by the newly-coined term “shell shock.” Is it any wonder that Gertrude Stein referred to this as the Lost Generation?

So, 1918. But as the “Great War” ended, another tragedy was just beginning: the Great Influenza Epidemic, also known as the “Spanish Flu,” called that by the ancestors, no doubt, of those who would later refer to another worldwide calamity as the “China Virus.” Anyway. To compound the tragedy, the influenza’s spread was in part exacerbated by the movement of troops in WWI. By the time the epidemic had run its course in late 1920, it had killed nearly fifty million people worldwide, including 700,000 Americans. Among the latter were two of my 2x great-grandparents, the previously mentioned Phillip Jacob Runser and his wife "Clara" Runser, née Caroline Clarissa Ketchum.

The Wisconsin State Journal, 10 Oct 1918
photo courtesy the Wisconsin State Journal Archives / Wisconsin Watch

(And if you are thinking you see fewer new names within each new post, you’re not wrong. As each generation comes closer to our own time, the fewer ancestors we have. Everyone has just eight great-grandparents; like myself, you might even have met some of yours. But going back to the era of my earliest post, when I wrote about my 11x great-grandparents? We each should have 8,192 of them! I say “should” because it is generally fewer, due to something called pedigree collapse, but I digress.) Great-grandma Runser's death, on 7 Feb 1920, was remembered later by her niece Viola Runser this way: Caroline died in the Spanish influenza epidemic two days after her daughter-in-law Minnie. There was no funeral as gatherings were forbidden, and there was no procession, only grandpa, Uncle Phil, Joseph, Robert [Caroline's sons], a sleigh & team with the caskets. I remember all of us standing looking out the window as they went by the house.

Clara Runser's grave marker. "Mother." 
Summit Cemetery, Foxboro WI. 

The 'Twenties were not exactly Roaring for my ancestors, but things did get better. Great-grandfather Erickson was out of the iron mines and working as a railroad foreman, reunited with his children. My paternal grandfather still lived on a farm, and was a guard on the Wadena [MN] high school football team; grandma was now living in Minneapolis and was a "Rose Maiden" (!) and member of the Civic Forum at North High School. My maternal grandparents' families were doing well too, able to move from their farmsteads to new homes that they owned. Remarkably, checking Google maps, I see those houses are both still standing.

Although no longer in the family, my maternal grandparents'
childhood homes as they exist today.
left, the Browns, in Minneapolis MN; right, the Severins, in Fargo ND.

I hope my grandparents enjoyed and appreciated that youthful period of their lives. A few years later, just as they each reached adulthood and independence, they would face yet another global catastrophe, when the 'Twenties ended with a crash. The Crash, in fact.

1930s "Why did people keep having babies during the Great Depression?”

“Because it was the only free entertainment they could afford …” 

Meet the parents! My last two ancestors to introduce, chronologically speaking, are my Mom, Beverly Alane Brown, and Dad, Curtis Wayne Burnett, born in 1934 and 1938, although it would be ungentlemanly to say who was when. She was the oldest of two children, and despite being born in Minneapolis, always proudly claimed to be a California native, arguing that since she did not remember Minnesota it did not count. He was also born in Minneapolis, the middle child of three boys. Both his brothers served in the Navy then became doctors, but he did neither, making him the Jan Brady of the Burnett Bunch.

Yearbook pictures of my folks taken when she was 17 and he was 19.

Anyway. It is interesting to me that after countless generations of five or seven or even ten kids per household being the norm, my 20th century forebears thought much smaller. Although Grandpa Roy was one of eight, my other three grandparents each had just one or two siblings. My mother had only three cousins; by my generation, if everyone showed up for a holiday, there were just ten of us at the kids’ table. Of those ten, only half of us have children. Since both my sister and I are DINKS, I sometimes wonder about the legacy of my family research. Even my handful of cousins' few kids connect only to one side or the other.

Anyway. A little more about my folks. Despite the Depression, their 1930s were happy and comfortable, surrounded by extended families. My grandfathers both had steady work, as a postmaster and an office manager at a print shop, and by decade’s end went from renting to owning their first homes. Little Bev grew up in Oakland, entered baby beauty pageants, and kept bullies away from her younger brother. Dad grew up in Seattle, and the boys spent a lot of time doing outdoorsy stuff like boating, hiking, and fishing (hobbies they continued into adulthood), often with their grandfather, my gg, Alfred Nathaniel Burnett. (We saw his draft registration in the last post; he was the husband of Jennie Arleta Eaton, mentioned previously.)

Dad and his Grandpa Alfred sometime in the late '50s. 
I believe the man on the right is Dad's cousin Stan.
[N.B. Be sure to label all your photos!]

While my parents’ families made the best of the Depression, many faced difficulties. In 1933, President Roosevelt, within his first hundred days in office, began the New Deal of relief, recovery, and reform. While its impact is still being debated today, in many ways it was a success. In 1935, the administration launched the “Second New Deal.” Many of its policies, including Social Security, the SEC and FDIC, and the Wagner Act are still with us today.

One of FDR’s alphabet agencies was the RA, or Resettlement Administration. It did not exist long, but its impact lasts until today. Literally. I am writing this in our house in Greenhills, one of three “Greenbelt” communities built under the aegis of the RA. The Greenbelt idea was one of many plans introduced by Columbia professor Rexford G Tugwell, one of Roosevelt’s group, the "brain trust." Modelled after the English garden cities concept, the Greenbelt communities were a milestone of urban development. The idea was to create quasi-Utopian small towns with schools, businesses, and churches, all walkable, and each surrounded by a natural green space. These greenbelts were meant in part to prevent encroaching development. The Greenbelt towns were planned to be self-sufficient and run as a cooperative, an idea which created some controversy. So too was the fact that residents were screened first, for things like occupation, community involvement–and race.

left: a WPA poster touting the Greenbelt concept
right: one of the original plans for Greenhills

Ultimately, just three Greenbelt communities were completed, the eponymous Greenbelt MD in 1937, Greendale WI in 1938, and our village, Greenhills OH also in 1938. Sadly, ours is the only one of the three whose greenbelt is intact, the other two succumbing to urban sprawl. Greenhills was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988 and declared a National Historic Landmark in 2016. I went to the modest ceremony.

America 250 Part Three: the 1800s

[This is an ongoing Facebook project that I've decided to share here as well,

slightly revised and expanded, with additional photos and links.

Check back for updates through 4 July 2026.]

As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary this year, it gives me a chance to share some stories of my family's history and how it intersects with our country's. Once a week until Independence Day, I'll add to this dual timeline.

The Early 1800s A new century! 

Our Nation was growing. In 1803 the Louisiana Purchase doubled our Nation’s size. That same year, Ohio was the first of six additional states admitted to the Union during the century’s first two decades. (We live in Ohio now, moving here from Southern California several years ago, contrary to the traditional American impulse of “Westward, Ho!”)

What else was going on?  I don't know a lot about the War of 1812, but it's got a catchy Overture. I do recall it was another battle with the British, and was the only other time in our history so many of our Nation’s capital’s buildings were razed and defiled….

Some quick Googling reveals the war came out of several ongoing conflicts, including trade restrictions, possibly annexing Canada, and more. Plus ça change…. Whatever it was about, it ended in a more-or-less stalemate, with the Treaty of Ghent in 1814.

One of my ancestors, John Wallace Cherry, 4x gg, fought in that war as a private. Coincidentally, he was one of my earliest ancestors to settle in Ohio. He is also geographically the closest of my forebears to where I live now; he lived for many years (and is buried) about two hours from us. You can read more about him here.

John Wallace Cherry's "Graves Registration Card."
It provides details of his service in the War of 1812 and
his burial at Oak Grove Cemetery

Next was Louisiana (1812), my only family connection to that state being that one of my great-grandfathers, Clarence Edgar Brown died there in 1937. That fact was long contested, the assumption being that it must be another CEB, as Grandpa Clarence lived his entire adult life in Fargo, ND and Minneapolis MN. But just like a single clue can solve a mystery, I discovered a letter he had written to his wife just a few weeks before his death: he was in Louisiana, for business. It’s interesting to me how just one otherwise insignificant bit of evidence can add or confirm a fact. Of course, sometimes a discovery opens up an entirely new puzzle, part of the fun--and frustration--of research.

Grandpa Clarence's letter, dated 30 Jun 1937. 
He died less than two months later, age 58, and was given a pauper's burial.

Anyway. Mississippi attained statehood in 1817, and I have absolutely no connections there. But on either side of Mississippi--chronologically, not geographically--were Indiana and Illinois, established in 1816 and 1818 respectively. My clannish Conley and Maxwell ancestors, along with their allied families, Toliver and Isom, were early pioneers in both locales, moving en masse from North Carolina just in time for the statehoods of Indiana and Illinois.

According to the History of Lawrence and Monroe Counties Indiana (1914):

The first years of the nineteenth century saw very little settlement in the county by white men. The Indians were hostile and the perils of making a home were great.… The advance was slow, made so by the necessity for large numbers to keep together in order to repel the Indian attacks. Not until the year 1811, the year of the Battle of Tippecanoe, did Lawrence County receive any numbers of white families.

Perhaps my ancestors’ mass migration was not just Scotch-Irish clannishness, but for protection. At any rate, John Conley Jr and Catherine Miller, 5x ggs, moved to Lawrence County in 1817, following John’s brothers Joel and Josiah. Josiah was the first constable of the newly formed Spice Valley Township. By 1818 Grandpa John was appointed Supervisor of the Spice Valley Road, and a few years after that he was named Overseer of the Poor. My favorite bit of trivia–and one that gives insight into what southern Indiana was like at that time–is that a few years later Grandpa John was paid a five dollar bounty by the county treasury for nine wolf scalps. 

Another Conley brother, Elijah, was the first deacon of the Spice Valley Baptist Church, established in 1822. Before the church proper was built a few years later, the congregation met in the barn of another 5x gg and NC transplant, William Maxwell (married to Lucy Toliver; remember that surname). It is not surprising that children of John Conley and William Maxwell, 4x ggs Constantine Conley and Elizabeth "Betsy" Maxwell, married in Spice Valley in 1822, presumably in the Baptist barn.

About that same time, 6x gg Sarah Conley (née Sarah Wilson), John Conley’s widowed mother, made the move from NC to Spice Valley. Remarkably, she was in her seventies, and it is recorded that she brought her possessions in a two-wheeled ox cart!

The Spice Valley farm is still in the family. I met a distant Conley cousin online who lives there, and she invited me to visit. It was extremely moving, walking land that had been in the family for almost two hundred years. Sarah Wilson Conley and other family members are buried there.

Sarah Wilson Conley's gravestone, in a photo from the mid-'80s (courtesy of findagrave)
 and how I saw it when I visited in 2016. 

3x gg, David Conley, son of Constantine and Betsy, was born in Spice Valley in 1823. In 1846 he married his second cousin, Rebecca Toliver, her paternal grandfather Jesse and his maternal grandmother Lucy (remember her?) were siblings. I said they were clannish! David and Rebecca's marriage was held, not in Indiana, but in Clay County IL. For some reason, by 1840 many of the Maxwell-Isom-Conley-Tolliver cohort, including all of my ancestors named above, left Spice Valley and--surprise!--headed west, this time for Illinois. Some, including Joel Conley stayed; his land is the site of the current farm.

Part of the Conley Farm and Indiana's Homestead Recognition plaque.

Why did they move? We haven't been able to find out. But maybe someday we'll come across a letter that explains it.

1820s & 1830s The Westward Expansion continued. The Erie Canal was completed in 1825, and the first passenger railroad began service in 1829. The Oregon Trail was being blazed, with the first wagon train lighting out to the territories in 1836.

In 1821, the long-running Mexican War for Independence finally ended, with Spain ceding its North American territories to Mexico. Part of that land would become the Republic–then State–of Texas. Were my ancestors there? Not a one. But Stephen’s were. 

Among the first settlers in Texas were Stephen’s 4x ggs, John Jackson Tumlinson and Elizabeth [Plemmons] Tumlinson and their seven children. The Tumlinsons were peripatetic folks, moving from North Carolina to Tennessee, then to Illinois, Arkansas (where they founded the township of Tumlinson, now Boothe), and finally landed in Texas in 1821. They joined the colony established by Stephen Austin, who had arranged for three hundred families to settle there. Each family would receive four thousand acres, with an agreement to become a Mexican citizen, build a home within two years, and convert to Catholicism. These pioneer families became what is known as “The Old Three Hundred,” which has a better ring to it than their actual number: 297.

An 1833 map of Texas.
Stephen Austin's Colony can be found in the center.

Anyway. John Jackson Tumlinson and family acquired land along the Colorado River. He was elected the first Alcalde of the Colorado District, serving as a sort-of combination mayor and judge. Just two years later, while en route to San Antonio to meet with the Governor, he was killed by Indians.

His family’s sense of duty lived on. Sons Peter Tumlinson, 3x gg, and John Jackson Tumlinson Jr were members of the Texas Rangers. Their cousin, George Washington Tumlinson was one of the “Immortal 32,” killed at twenty-two while defending the Alamo. 

Due to their impact on early Texas history, there are several historical markers about the Tumlinsons throughout Texas. You can read more about Peter Tumlinson and his parents here.

Located at Courthouse Square, Columbus TX.
photo courtesy of HMdb.org

Another pair of Stephen’s 3xggs, Abraham Roberts and Cynthia [Jeffrey] Roberts came to Texas as well, arriving in 1838 from Alabama. They were among the founders of Walnut Springs, now Seguin. Roberts also became a Texas Ranger, and also received an historic marker, noting his petition to form a new county and even establishing a cemetery. In true Texas fashion, there are many tall tales of the Roberts clan in Texas. At least one is true: Roberts and his third wife adopted a “crippled” Comanche orphan, Rufus.

The Cemetery is located in Caldwell County TX.

Two generations later, grandchildren of Peter Tumlinson and Abraham Roberts met and married; they are Stephen’s great-grandparents. Maybe that’s why he's always had a thing about cowboys. 

1830s & 1840s From 1610 until 1718, waves of ancestors of mine had come to the American colonies with the idea of starting new lives, and consequently, they ended up starting a new nation. Then, for roughly one hundred and thirty years, no other forebear of mine emigrated to this country. But in 1846, that changed. Ancestors of mine–and probably yours!--began arriving to fulfill the promises the United States offered, adding new strands to the fabric of our country. 

3x great grandparents Phillipe Jacob Runser and Mary Anne [Brunner] Runser arrived in New York from Hégenheim, France with their six children, ranging in age from thirteen years old to the infant, also Phillip Jacob Runser, a 2xgg. They settled in Wisconsin in 1848, the year it achieved statehood.

The old world meets the new, and new arrivals cross paths with long-established families. Wisconsin’s statehood was determined in part by one of my 4xggs, Stephen Addison Davenport (grandson and 4x gg respectively of the previously mentioned Revolutionary War patriot Eliphalet Davenport, and chairmaker Thomas Davenport). He married Alma Holmes Doty (granddaughter of the previously mentioned Patriot Roswell Holmes, and 5x gg of Mayflower passenger Edward Doty). Family threads become intertwined. 

It was likely Alma’s influence that got Stephen to be one of the signers of the Wisconsin State Constitution, making it the 30th State; a cousin of hers was the Territory’s second governor. That Constitution was quite a radical document for its time. According to the Wisconsin Historical Society, it "allowed immigrants who applied for citizenship to vote, granted married women the right to own property, and made black suffrage subject to popular referendum."

Meanwhile the families of Peter Jean Drees and Catherine Petesch, 2xggs of Stephen’s also arrived in Wisconsin about the same time–from Luxembourg and Prussia. They met and married just 150 miles north of the Runsers’ home a few years later. (In fact, all four of the couples who comprise Stephen’s paternal 4x great-grandparents were Mitteleuropeans who settled in Wisconsin through the mid 1840s.)

But just as all those international future citizens arrived in Wisconsin, Grandpa Stephen Addison Davenport moved on. The California Gold Rush had begun in 1849, and early in 1850, Davenport left his farm and family to join a company heading by wagon train to California, which had joined the Union that year as our 31st state. We are lucky enough to have letters that he wrote from his journey detailing the experience. Alas, he died suddenly in December of that year.  According to an obituary, “Friends buried him alongside the river and brought his gold home to his wife,” and six children, who did not receive the news until the following February. You can read more about him here.

Stephen Addison Davenport's obituary,
from the Southport Telegraph (Kenosha WI) 28 Feb 1851.

More immigrants will arrive, and the westward expansion will continue as family roots form and take hold. Some stick: Stephen and I both have distant cousins still living in Wisconsin, including Phillip Jacob Runser V.

An early version of the Wisconsin State Seal. 
I like to think the fella on the left is one of Stephen's ancestors.

1861-1865 Not yet even one hundred years old, our nation nearly came undone during the Civil War.

The War Between the States has been extensively documented; I recommend director Ken Burns’ miniseries or author Shelby Foote’s trilogy. Looking through the lens of my family, I take some solace that all of my ancestors were on the Union side, and that even before the war the few that had owned slaves had ended that practice. Of course, a lot of that is as much geography as ethics.

Two direct ancestors fought: Privates Dwight Eaton and Silas Brown, both 3x gg. Another 3x gg, David Conley, enlisted but did not serve. You can read more about their experiences here.

Dwight Eaton's Pension Record. 
This card is sometimes the only document we have for many who served.
(Note the misspelling of his first name. In this case we know it is his because of his wife's name.)

In my extended family, all six brothers of 3x gg Mary Ann Cherry contributed to the War effort in different ways. Three of these 3x grand-uncles registered but did not serve. Private George Washington Cherry was invalided out from the 145th Ohio Infantry, while 1st Lt William Hopkins Cherry was killed while on duty during a railway accident in Tennessee. 

If you’ve only counted five, the last brother, Deacon Samuel Alonzo Cherry made his contribution on the home front: his house was a station on the Underground Railroad. You can learn more about him here.

Samuel Cherry mentioned in a resource from the National Park Service,
Researching & Interpreting the Underground Railroad, 2017

Mary Ann married 3x gg Frederick Dillazone Ketchum. He was a ship-builder on the Great Lakes, about whom I have written here often. After the Battle of Cross Lanes in Aug 1861, in which many of the Ohio 7th were wounded, Grandpa Frederick paid for the dead and wounded to be attended to. One of his sons was in that company, but captured in that battle: 2x grand-uncle George Cherry Ketchum. He had entered as a Sergeant earlier that year, was captured, then spent two years as a prisoner of war before he was released. In a letter home, he wrote, “I have the SCURVY BAD.” After his release in a prisoner swap, he was promoted to 1st Lieutenant, and served another year as an adjutant with the Ohio 177th Infantry. He lived the rest of his life in ill health from his confinement.

Lieutenant George Cherry Ketchum's headstone.
Protestant Cemetery, Mackinac Island, MI
photo courtesy FindaGrave

Another of Frederick and Mary’s sons, Frederick Augustus Cherry, was a Private with the Ohio 24th Infantry. He passed away on 28 May 1933 at age 88; a front-page article in The Newark [OH] Advocate about local Memorial Day celebrations ends:

 
A touch of sadness was added to the services at the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Home at Sandusky. There, Frederick Ketchum, one of the home’s oldest veterans, who died Saturday, was to be buried.

The Postbellum The Civil War ended. Accounts differ, but at a minimum over half a million Americans died, with nearly three times that amount wounded, disabled, or missing. As one of our country’s defining historical events, its impact is still felt, its meaning and symbols still evoking strong responses.

But–as it always must–life goes on. More émigrés came here searching for the American Dream, the most massive surge in our history. Native dwellers already here continued the pursuit of their Dreams as well–and it was the time for it! Nine new states were admitted–Nebraska, the Dakotas, Montana and more; new homegrown faiths were established–like Seventh-Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Christian Science; new jobs grew out of the Second Industrial Revolution; and a steady flow of innovations and advances in science all drove tremendous change as we headed toward our country’s Centennial.

Arriving just in time were 3x ggs, August Miller and Amelia LKU, and their three year old daughter, 2xgg Anna Miller. Despite being comparatively recent ancestors, I have learned very little about them. A number of issues cloud their story. Some documents are conflicting: are they from Prussia, Germany, Pomerania….? (Easy. Different names for the same region.) Miller or Müller? August or Auguste? Amelia, Emilia, or Emilie? Somehow there are at least two August & Amelia Millers in Blue Earth County MN during the same decades. Was there another child, born in the United States? (Doubtful. Our Amelia would have been 52 years old.) Other sources that might fill in the puzzle are missing.

These things I am confident about. The three Millers arrived as a family in New York from Szczecin, Poland in Dec 1867 on the ship Marco Polo. His occupation was a stone mason. Anna was their only child. She married at age fifteen, and had three children by her first husband, Frank Wagner. In the 1885 Minnesota Census, the Wagners appeared on a page opposite sixteen-year-old Dor Henry Eaton, her future second husband and my 2x gg. They married in 1890. And sadly, it appears that, in their eighties, the Millers spent their final years in the Blue Earth County Poor Farm. Not every dream comes true. 

The Blue Earth County [MN] Poor Farm at the time the Millers lived there.
circa 1920

The World’s Fair and Centennial Exposition opened–appropriately enough–in  Philadelphia on May 10, 1876. It was a months-long hoopla, inspiring millions who attended--and selling lots of kitsch. Highlights of American invention and exceptionalism on display included Bell’s telephone, the Remington typewriter, and Heinz ketchup. It says something about us–although I’m not sure what–that although we’ve refined and improved telecommunications and keyboards since then, Heinz lives on. Anyway. 

Sheet music sold to commemorate the Centennial. 
The Statue of Liberty is an interesting choice. It was not completed until ten years later,
 although the hand and torch were on display at the Exposition.

A few months later, Colorado achieved statehood, and shortly after that the Colorado Silver Boom occurred, spurred on by the discovery of the Leadville lode in 1877. Peaking in the 1880s, it ended abruptly with the Panic of 1893. While not nearly on the scale (or value) of the Gold Rush in California, like that earlier event, it was enough to entice one of my ancestors. 

3xgg Silas W Brown, whom we last saw during the Civil War, uprooted his pregnant wife, Malinda J Carter, and their six children (including the infant Clarence Edgar Brown, aforementioned 2x gg), departed their farm in Chillicothe MO, and were settled in the newly incorporated town of Buena Vista CO by June 5, 1880. Daughter Lula Ethel Brown was born five months later. Silas’ occupation on that year’s Census is “prospector.” I have not been able to learn how they made out, but they were back in Missouri just a couple years later. We only know this because another daughter, Pearl Brown, was born there, and we only know that because her headstone, broken and worn, can be found at Oak Hill Cemetery in Carrollton MO, saying she died September 11 1886, aged three. 

As America grew and celebrated, and the light of the American Dream continued to shine, we can’t forget that it was–and remains–a promise, not a guarantee. The reality is that some suffer and some mourn, as they always must.

Pearl Brown's headstone. 
photo courtesy of FindaGrave

Fin de siecle Another century was heading to a close. The United States' population passed fifty million, and immigrants were still arriving en masse, in sight of the newly-dedicated Statue of Liberty. Organizations like the Red Cross, the Tuskegee Institute, and the Sierra Club were formed. American icons like Coca-Cola, Kodak cameras, and roller-coasters were invented, along with the zipper, incandescent light bulb, and escalators. None of my forebears had a hand in any of those, but I’m certain all our ancestors enjoyed those advances, many of which we still benefit from today.

Not everything was fizzy drinks and fun, however. Despite progress, it was also a time of upheaval and violence. The West was still wild: Billy the Kid and Jesse James were both shot and killed. So was President Garfield. But violence wasn’t confined to just outlaws and political figures. Consider the Rowan County War. Like the well-known feud between the Hatfields & McCoys, this was another deadly conflict between two families in Kentucky: the Martins and the Tolivers. Two of the principal Tolivers were distant cousins of mine (their grandfather was a brother of my 5x gg Jesse Toliver, mentioned in an earlier post). The bloodshed between factions went on from 1884 until 1887. At different points the State Militia was called out, the Governor was encouraged to dissolve the county, and ultimately over twenty people were killed. There is a fantastic article about it here.

A commemorative plaque in Morehead KY. 

As a transition, let’s raise our voices in a chorus of “Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here.” This rollicking tune first appeared in Gilbert & Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance in 1879. In their operetta, the lyrics were “Come, friends, who plow the seas…” but somehow, by the 1890s Americans were singing the words we still use today, author unknown. Why this song? I can’t help but equate factions with gangs (check!); the “all here” is a nod to the last of my immigrant ancestors to arrive in this country. (Up next. Yes, that’s how my mind works. Anyway, awkward but onward….)

In 1882, 2xggs Jacob Sørensen Severin and Anna Margarthe Nissen arrived from Denmark with their children, including great-grandfather John Jacob Severin. They settled first in Iowa, although I have not been able to learn why. Within a few years, however–perhaps in search of more Scandinavians?--they removed to Minnesota. Although Jacob and Annie are on my mother’s side of the family, without a scrap of evidence I like to imagine that they crossed paths there with Nordic great-grandparents from my dad’s side, Erick Albert Erickson gg, who arrived in 1888 from Sweden, and his wife-to-be Johanna Maria Svard, age 17, who arrived with her family in 1892. They both came over with family, both from the Västra Götaland region.

The only Ellis Island record in my tree.
Johanna arrived with several of her siblings and their spouses. 

I find Johanna intriguing in that of all my immigrant ancestors, she was the last to arrive, but also the first–and only–to go through Ellis Island, that powerful trope of American immigration. In fact, the Svards’ ship, the aptly named Teutonic, would have been among the earliest dockings, as it entered New York Harbor on 9 March 1892, just two months after Ellis Island opened. 

Arriving four years apart, Johanna and Erick finally met in Minneapolis–she was a waitress, he was a railroad foreman–and married 17 Jan 1903. Sadly, she would die of tuberculosis in 1914, leaving Grandpa Erick with their son and daughter, only eight and three years old respectively. Unable to manage (he was working as a miner in the Iron Range by that time), my grandmother Hazel Lucille Erickson and her brother were raised by a cousin.

Erick and Johanna's wedding photo.

On a more positive note–and continuing the motif of first/only–in 1891 Jenny Arleta Eaton was born, the only one of my great-grandparents I met. When I was a kid we visited her a few times during annual summer trips to Seattle to visit my grandparents, Hazel and Leroy Stanley Burnett. In her eighties, widowed, Jenny lived nearby, in a house I recall as dark and stuffy. I was usually bored, anxious to get back to my cousins or outings to Mt Rainier. I wish now I had thought to ask her about her life.