Riverbend Journal

  Sarah Jane Echard One of my 3rd great grandmothers is named Sarah Jane Echard. She comes Virginia though she married into the Ware family which I've traced back through southern Indiana to Kentucky. Perhaps 20 years ago when I last researched her origins, I was convinced at the time that her parents were Christian Echard and Lydia Treavy Echard. But as I have started the process of compiling my research notes for my 4th great grandparents, all 64 of them, I realized that perhaps I have at least one of the parents wrong.  Sarah was born in 1837 according to her tombstone. Recently when I went to the historical center in the county south of me, which I wrote about Here on January 1st, I found an obituary for her. I will post it below but essentially, is says her parents were Christian and Sarah Echard, not Lydia as I had written in 20 years ago. So I started digging a bit into records for my 4th great grandfather Christian Echard and sure enough discovered a marriage record b...

Although I have no letters written after the war, my great grandfather Victor did have a series of pictures that he evidently took as he returned from France to New York City that are in the back of his photo album. I just think they are neat to look at even if there is no words I can add to go with them. I think that is the Statue of Liberty off in the distance Statue of Liberty a bit closer Welcoming committee Entering the harbor Getting closer to the end of the voyage The end in sight Almost there Home at last!

  This is the last article written by my great grandfather Victor during his time in France during World War I. He may have written more but they weren't published in the newspaper and thus have been lost to the ravages of time. Victor holding the pipe in his hand on the right Bordeaux, France March 21, 10:00 P.M. My Dear Folks and little Joe, This has been one of the most enjoyable days I have had since I have been in France. I think I told you in my last letter last night that I had seen Earl L. and that I was going to meet him in town this morning. I met him at the Midi station in Bordeaux about 8:30 a.m. We were willing to sit in the back seat and let the chauffeur drive as we had a lot more interesting things to talk about that to remark about the scenery. We located Sam and Rufus about 10:00. While looking for them I had gotten in the front seat, as it was easier to get out and in. The side curtains were on the back and we ran into Sam just as he was going up the alley from t...

Unknown soldier during World War I Bordeaux, France, Nov 2, 1918  Dear Frank. I received your paper tonight and was reading the letters the boys have written from the front and have noted under what difficulties they were written. I decided that if they could write under those conditions that 1 could afford to spend a little time to do the same as long as I have better conveniences and more of the same than the average office does at home. It makes a fellow rather restless when he reads of what the boys are doing at the front and what they are putting up with and then to think that I have been over here almost a year and every time I move they send me farther from the front and every day the front is getting farther from me. I guess the only way I will ever be able to see the front will be to put in a request for a pass to Berlin. It would be as easy as trying to get there as a combatant. Us fellows are doing our best to back the boys up and we do all we can for them when they are ...

  Book of sermons by the Rev. Salmon Cowles I'm not much of a shopper so when my wife and children head for the city to shop, I generally stay home. But recently, I discovered that my 4th great grandfather had a folder of items located in the State Historical Building and so I went along with my wife who graciously dropped me off at the Historical Building while she went shopping. Above is a book of sermons written by my fourth great grandfather, the first Presbyterian minister in Iowa territory. Pretty neat. But this post isn't about that. After perusing the book of sermons and taking a few pictures of interesting pages, I had more time to kill before my wife was done shopping. I headed back to the rows of microfilmed newspapers of years gone by and found a drawer that contained microfilmed newspaper reels from my home town. I never even knew it was big enough to merit a newspaper. So I grabbed a reel of the oldest newspaper on file, 1897, and headed for the old microfilm read...

  Death Announcement for Joseph Baker My search began innocently enough 20 years ago during a visit to Greenwood Cemetery on a research mission for my 2nd great grandfather John Henry Baker. As I visited John's wife's grave, Blanche McKee Baker, I noticed another grave a dozen feet away with the name Joseph Baker on it. I took a picture that day not knowing if we were related or not. It would be several years before I determined that we were indeed related and that Joseph Baker was in fact my 3rd great grandfather and the father of John Henry Baker. It would take me nearly another decade to discover that Joseph Baker was actually born Joseph Chicken and changed his name for reasons unknown to Baker after his discharge from the Civil War.  I have written about all this before HERE . Since that time, I have gone on to discover his father who I have written about HERE . Picture of Joseph Baker's tombstone I took all those years ago Despite getting past the brick wall he presen...

  I've posted this picture of my 3rd great grandfather on this blog before. It is a favorite of mine due to the mischievous grin on his face. As I was compiling my research notes on him, I ran across two newspaper articles that further insinuated his mischievous nature. It certainly begs the question, what was the foot race really about? A few days later after discovering the above article, I pondered if it had actually happened and if perhaps they elaborated on why it was being run. Since my search of my 3rd great grandfather's name hadn't turned up an article, I manually browsed to the following week's edition and on page 5, learned that the race had indeed been raced. My 3rd great grandfather lost. He was 41 years old at the time. Unbeknownst to him, he only had another 20 years to live at that point. Unfortunately for me, although their are some digitized newspapers in this area from which I pulled the above two articles, there is no digitized newspaper on the year ...

  The Tombstone of my 3rd great grandparents in Boone, Iowa Leander and Mary Sheldon Wells have always intrigued me for many reasons. Thus I can't explain why they were the last tombstone of my 3rd great grandparents I have located personally in my attempt to visit all 32 of their final resting places. I haven't kept records but I'm guessing I've located and visited close to two dozen of them over the years and the ones I have that remain are in far flung parts of the state that I don't often visit. Such was the case of Leander and Mary which I only visited a couple years back when I found out that it was on the way to a cross country meet my oldest daughter was running. So I left a couple hours early and spent half the extra time searching a large cemetery for the tombstone above which I finally found. However, doing so didn't address a lot of the questions I have about this couple. Leander C. Wells was born in Lawrence County, New York, spitting distance from ...

Train to Nova Scotia perhaps?  March 18, '18. In France. Mr. Frank Trigg, Dear Sir: It has been some time since I have written you, so will try and make up for lost time. The last letter I wrote you was when I was in Texas (down by the Rio Grande). For some reason or other I have never been homesick enough to want to go back there. I ate more dust in 24 hours there than I ever expect to eat during the rest of my life. We left Kelly Field Oct. 28 and were enroute on Hallowe'en night. We took the southern route and saw some fine country. We stopped at several places of historical interest to drill. We spent about three hours at Washington, D. C. The Red Cross gave us a fine lunch there. You can't imagine what the Y. M. and the Red Cross have done for us fellows. The Y. furnishes all the amusements and everything is free of charge. We got into Garden City, L.I., New York, Nov. 1. We were in a concentration camp there until Dec. 7. We all had a chance to go down to New York and...

This is the first of four letters that my great grandfather wrote about his time serving during World War I and the photographs were taken by him. Victor Kuck Kelly Field 24 Sep 1917 Dear Friends: I have often thought of writing you, but for some reason or the other I have not been able to find time. I suppose you realize a boy would rather wash dishes than write letters. I am at the YMCA writing this. It is about 1/2 mile from my tent. Whenever we write after dark we go to the Y, or write by candlelight. Let me say right here that I will always be a YMCA booster. They furnish us our stationary and reading matter, beside staging all boxing and wrestling bouts and arranging for music entertainments. I was sworn in August 15th at Ft. Logan, Col. About 150 of us took the oath at the same time. While there I did my first kitchen police work. A very nice name, but such work! We had to help cook, wait on table and scrub floors. I bet I could show a lot of women how to save a lot of work in t...

  Now that the Laura Jane Harvey Murder series has drawn to it's conclusion, in it's place, for a few Fridays or so, I will post some stories about my great grandparents, the ones I knew the longest and the best, from the 100's of newspaper articles I found about them a couple months back. This one explains some mysteries now solved and others will be copies of letters written home by Victor during his time in France during World War I along with some selected photographs he took with his camera. Victor and Grace Smith Kuck I have always wondered how my great grandparents met. Unlike all my other ancestors, growing up in the same proximity wasn't involved. My great grandfather grew up and lived in Rockford and my great grandmother grew up and lived near Grand Mound. The were separated by 180 miles of cornfields, streams and hills. But yet my great grandfather stopped going to college, served in World War I and returned only to get married in less than a month after he r...

  John Baker (left), Blanche McKee Baker (right) and their first three children John Baker was born with humble roots. His father died at age 37 for reasons unknown to me and his family was split up. John at age 11, disappears from the records for awhile, presumably working as a servant of some sort until he became an adult, while his younger siblings were farmed out to other relatives to raise. When the records pick up on John's life, he is working as a gate maker and would continue that profession for the rest of his life, which turned out to not be terribly long lived.  During his 61 years though, he had a total of 10 children from two different wives. I descend from his first wife Blanche, the one seen above and his first born son sitting on his lap in the picture above. Blanche bore him seven of those children before dying young, at age 37, of an infection that was a complication due to the birth of her last child. John would have three more children with his second wife....

  While answering a question on my previous post, I realized I was wrong. Fortunately I said I was 99% certain the above picture was taken in the fancy house described in the newspaper article in my previous post. As it turned out, my 1% uncertainty should have been closer to 100%. The question I was answering was about who took the photograph. I didn't know and still don't know who since the entire family group was in the picture but I wondered if it could have been a timer. The internet assured me that external triggers were around as early as 1910 and built in timers came around in the 1950's. Since my grandfather, the blurry boy on the left, was born in 1929, I figure this picture was taken somewhere near the mid 1930's and in the external trigger era. My great great grandfather on the right appears to be clutching something in his hands, perhaps a remote trigger. That is when it hit me that this picture was taken in the mid 1930's, after my great great grandfat...

  Elizabeth Cogswell Kuck (third from left) and George Washington Kuck (far right) This is a treasured picture in my collection for several reasons. First, it is the only picture I have of George and Elizabeth Kuck in the same photo. I have many photos of them individually but only this one of them together. Second, it also has my great grandparents (fourth and fifth from the left), the ones who lived long enough that I have found memories of both and also my grandfather (blurry fellow on the left) and favorite great uncle (sitting next to blurry grandfather). It was taken during obviously a prosperous time in their lives.  My grandfather always told me a story about how he was born during the start of the great depression and that his father had been away on business and had frantically called my great grandmother (in the process of giving birth to my grandfather) directing her to sell all their stocks. She couldn't and didn't, the stock market crashed and my great grandfathe...