A family album......not my relatives.

The old house at 214 South Kossuth in Osceola, Iowa.  It had been vacant so long that the abstract had to be reestablished for it in 1978.  A church had inherited from the family 20 or 30 years before and no abstract could be found.   My dad bought the property and the house was torn down to make way for his ranch house he was to build.

I have found names in the two albums that were left behind.  But yesterday destiny was to be that I found who owned the album.   Sticky pages and sales slips do become a problem until you finally unstick the page and lift the sale order slip.

The page that was stuck was this very first page.  It was sealed up against the inside cover of the book.  I have had the book for a couple of  years and this is the first time I viewed these roses and pansies.

On the left side of the inside of the cover it is inscribed with great information.
From D.W. Webster
to
Callie Alexander       Dec. 25th, 1883
Osceola, Iowa

It must have been a Christmas present to her.   I know that the Websters owned the funeral home for generations until they sold it in the 70's.  D. W. Webster could be  her brother or her father.  Someday I will know that but for now I am glad to know what I now have in information.

 

On the back of one of the photos is an order slip for a reprint of this cabinet card.  When I lifted it, it said Mr. Alexander, wife of the one enlarged before.  There is a first letter to the name of Alexander but the glue is holding the paper on top of the  letter. 

I do now know that Mrs. Alexander pictured above had the maiden name of Webster.   The various photographs throughout the book came from Kellogg, Iowa,  Clarinda, Iowa and Graves Photography, there in Osceola. There are a couple of photos from Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Children, grandchildren, nieces and maybe even nephews could be possibilities for these people, time will only tell.

All that I shared today is just new information since yesterday. The journey really is in it's infancy.  I know that I can eventually pull names from the cemetery that will help match some of the names.  The Websters are a long established family in the town so I should find out more.   Just like one of my fellow blogger friends,  I may actually find relatives to these people out there somewhere.

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Weaver and Ellen Wheeler.....

Ellen Wheeler, b. 1899 and Weaver Wheeler, b. 1895

Weaver is the oldest brother of my Grandmother Mabel Zella Wheeler Brown Brooks.  I don't know the date of the photo above but I do know they were married around 1914 and they were both young when they married.  He was born in the Lorimor, Iowa area south of Winterset. I believe that he was one of four boys and my grandmother was the only girl. Weaver was my Great Uncle and his wife was good about recording their lives through pictures. 

Here they are in a park with their three daughters.  I  have blogged about this couple before but I didn't know at that time that they had three daughters not two.  Knowing Ellen, it may not be a third daughter and could be a friend of the girls.  She was not into detail and would include anybody who came along in  her Christmas pictures.  Darlene and Veda are the only names that I know. If there is one more daughter, I will eventually find out for sure. I will just need to pay closer attention to see if it shows up among the stuff.

I have posted this picture earlier and I made gross errors in the text.   I will just return to the past and delete the errors and move on.  This girl is probably their granddaughter.

This is another one of the granddaughters.

Great Aunt Ellen is wearing the wonderful hat. Her daughter Darlene is standing next to her and Darlene's husband Ed is crouching with their one daughter. Ed and Darlene Fischer eventually had three daughters in total.  Two of them are above this group photo.  Great Uncle Weaver is the third guy with the straw hat from the left.  The rest could be Ellen's brothers and mother and the taller younger woman is a daughter, maybe Veda and maybe not.

This is Veda as a teenager or older.  I don't quite understand the middle name.

This is a repost of an earlier blog.  I don't know this as a fact,  but I believe this is their 50th wedding anniversary, in 1964.  It is written on the back that he is 69 years old, which meant that he was 19 when they married.  She is 65 in this photo which made her 15 maybe going on 16 years old when they married.

Weaver was a farmer at first and as he continued to make money from the farm or farms that  he owned, he bought and rented homes to college kids in the town of Iowa Falls, Iowa.  There is a junior college there and he had numerous rentals.

As a new discovery, I found a diary of my mom's that described how her family lived near them in Hardin County when she was young.  I don't know this as a fact and yet it was hinted that my Grandmother and Grandfather didn't  have much money to live on.  They farmed out one son, Marvin, to my Great Uncle Lee and my mom with parents and maybe another brother went to live with them for a while.  The diary doesn't go into detail, but I would expect my mom was four years old, by the stories she told and that would have been 1923.

As I blog I find that I make new discoveries that totally nullify names and dates.  I think it is best to go back and correct what I can and delete the rest.  I find it to be a fun adventure, but after a while it becomes overwhelming to get a clear picture just by the scant writings on the back of photos.

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The Maxson Family

Photographer -Baird and Son    Lewistown

Astoria, Illinois
Taken in the 1890's

My Great Grandmother on my mother's side was Carrie Rosella Maxson Brown Driver. 

The two woman above are two of her sisters and the photo identifies them with their married names.  The woman on the left is Ida Roberts and on the right is Cara Brown. To have found this photo and it actually would be my Great great aunts is all amazing to me. 

Two other sisters were Jane Henderson and Ellen Boward.

There were also two brothers John Maxson and Walter Maxson.
That would make seven in total in the Maxson Family.

Great Grandmother Carrie Roszella Maxson married my Great Grandfather Charles William Brown.   He died five years after they were married in 1888, when my Grandfather was three years old.  She remarried a man name Thomas Jefferson Driver.  That is why she has so many names.

As I write this material I find that the person who wrote on the back of the photo has made a few spelling errors with the name Maxson and also Rosella.  I do have a newpaper article of a reunion that I need to research in my files that will help me verify the above information.

The amazing thing about this Sepia Saturday adventure is that I have in the past year discovered my Great Grandfather's name which I had never known before now.  I found info as to where he is buried and also his parents names.  I have not been doing serious searching so I can assume I will find so much more if I really dig in to the job.

The irony to it all is that I didn't pay much attention when my parents were alive and I can tell you they were not very clear about explaining it anyway.  As I keep up with the search and as I write it down,  I can see a tree with branches.   I have gone back farther back that I really ever believed that I could.

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