A new found photo, postcard......

I received this from my Cousin Bob Brown a few weeks ago.  I was so surprised to see it as I didn't know that it even existed.  It is a very high quality photo of my Grandfather LeRoy Martin Brown and Grandmother Mabel Zella Wheeler Brown.  It is their wedding photo and I have the portrait form of it in a frame.  It is seen on the sidebar of this blog.


My mom had always had the framed wedding photo and I hadn't thought about it before but when my grandfather passed away in 1937 my mom was still in high school.  A few years later she was married and my grandmother remarried.  I assume that my grandmother didn't think she could hang her first wedding photo in her house when she remarried so she gave it to her daughter for safe keeping.

I really like the clarity of the photo and how you can see all the details of the shoes and clothing. I wasn't able to do that with my oval framed photo.

The photo is actually a postcard.  I recognized my Grandmother's handwriting on the back.  She was good to share the dates so I could verify my records.  As a footnote to all of this, I have the wedding dress and bow and bracelet that is shown in the photo.  My oldest niece Stacia has the necklace as my mom gave it to her many years ago.

Check out the others who are participating in Sepia Saturday by clicking here.

Three generations......

Buried at the Union Cemetery, in the country in Union County, Iowa are my  Great Grandparents Charles Burgus, d. 1898, and Elizabeth Ries Burgus. b.1847, d.1911.  I think it is interesting that they died 13 years apart and that the same stone has been given different treatment with the writing of information. I want to visit this cemetery sometime as Charles Burgus has some writing below his name that I want to know.  The two of them had 13 children.  My dad Jesse T. Burgus is standing in the photo, the third generation of those buried there.

One of the 13 children was a son named Charles Thomas Burgus.  That confused me when I was young as the great grandfather and grandfather had the very same name.  He was the chosen one to be named after his dad.  My grandmother's standing in the photo in her wedding dress.  She was Grace Elizabeth Turner Burgus.  The photo is coming from a locally published centennial book of Murray, Iowa made in 1968.  It is a low resolution publication and I can't bring the photo into a sharper form with my photoshop.

I can't screw up the dates on this one as it is sandblasted into granite.  They are buried on top of the hill at the Murray, Iowa Cemetery.  Grace Burgus had parents with the name of Turner, and her mother was an Abernathy.  I have found some interesting reading among my parents things about  Abernathy's as they helped to settle Idaho before it was a state and they lived among the native American Indians. They lived in Slurbie Valley somewhere in Idaho.

Sepia Saturday has helped me to touch the tip of the iceberg.  I have here writings that my parents have received from various relatives and old photos of people that I don't know.  It is just a beginning as I have to get a structured way of recording this started.  I have a few more years to get on it and time will be that I can really dig in to it all.  I have heard verbal tales about Ries', Abernathy's, Turner's, and of course the distant Burgus's.  It makes so much more sense that it ever has before but I do want to take control of it all. But, I still have piles to go and promises to keep. My apologizes to Robert Frost.

Check out the others who are participating in Sepia Saturday.

Teasing Ivalea

Instead of showing a very old sepia photo, I have a poor quality color photo of the 60's.  The photo is a good one showing my Grandmother Mabel Brooks with her brothers and their wives.  My grandmother is the second from the right in this photo.  The interesting thing for me of this photo is the prank that is going on while they are posed.  On the right side is Ivalea Wheeler.  She was married to my great Uncle Elva Wheeler and you can see his bald head behind her and he is holding the cigarette.  Behind him is one that I can't identify who his tapping Ivalea on the head with some object, artificial flower or something like that.  As you can see she is turning around wondering who is doing that to her.

The story goes further than this as she is the one who had such flowery language.  At that time in her life she would cuss a blue streak casually in almost any conversation.  I can imagine the hells and damns that are coming out of her mouth right then as someone bonks her on the head. Cussing wasn't unusual once in a while from a few of them but most of that bunch didn't really make it a daily practice. She was the perfect one to tease to get a great reaction. The woman who played Carol Burnett's mother in the tv show "Mama" would be that same character. Later in life, Ivalea mellowed out and was an avid creator of quilts.

On the left, in the front row is Ellen and her husband Weaver Wheeler.  They lived in Iowa Falls, Iowa. The next row back is Lee and his wife Esther Wheeler who farmed in the Macksburg, Iowa area.  I am assuming the guy in the very back on the left is Elga Wheeler and I am assuming his wife is the one not shown standing behind my grandmother. The guy doing the teasing is unknown to me right now but maybe it will come to me later.

Here is the same bunch much earlier in their years.   Elga, Elva, Mabel, Weaver and Lee Wheeler.  One brother also lived in the Des Moines area and left the group behind.  I bet someone can date that car for me and I will know the year.

Check out other Sepia Saturdays by clicking here.

Great Grandma Driver........

Late 1920's

The longer the time passes while doing Sepia Saturday, the more I am finding photos of Great Grandmother Carrie Maxson Brown Driver. She was talked a lot about by my mom and also my Grandmother who was her daughter in law. She first married my Great Grandfather William Brown. When he died she remarried a Thomas Jefferson Driver.
I want to do a very thorough blog about her but not today. I just want to share this photo. She is the woman holding a child and pointing to the camera person, probably trying to get the little girl to look toward the camera. Carrie Driver had two sets of family and the second set had the the two daughters which are probably in the picture with their husbands and children. One daughter is not really in sight in the photo The daughters names were Ida and Florence. If I count out the husbands there is an extra guy who must be one of the three sons, either Glen, William or Jesse.

E. T. Sevier

My brother was visiting our Uncle Kenny in Murray, Iowa and he had a portable scanner. Instead of dumpster diving he was doing large photo box diving. He scanned a lot of new ones for us to see of my mom's side of the family. He also scanned some non relatives. The guy above looks like he graduated from high school and he is an unknown, not our family lineage. He could be someone's neighbor's grandson or nephew.  It is a fancy folder presentation and I can not make out the photographer's name embossed on the front. It looks like Gulander. The name Sevier is a French name.

Vettie's Older Son

Another wonderful old photo which is probably a non relative. This is Vettie's older son as it is written on the back. My Aunt Sylvia was from Czechoslovakia and the name of Vettie doesn't seem German or British. I have visited with cousin Bob her son and he doesn't know the origin of it.  I believe this is one of my most favorite old photos of all that I have seen so far.

Visit others who are participating in Sepia Saturday.

The house that Charles built..........

Charles Thomas Burgus, younger

Charles Thomas Burgus, older, died in 1949

I found this photo among my parents things and it is the house that my Grandfather Charles Burgus built. It stood northwest of Murray and was built in the early 1900's. Their first child was born in 1902 so it had to have been built years after that. I don't know that much about the place. They had ten children and they sold it and moved to another farm nearer Murray. The main reason, I was told by family members, was to move closer to town so the older girls could go to high school there. My grandfather actually bought two different farms after he had sold the one on which this house was built.

I have many questions about the place as my grandfather had 12 brothers and sisters and I wonder if any of them help him to build it. I wonder if his own dad, my great grandfather was alive and helped with the job. I really can't believe that he would move out of it but I guess when they moved the older children were moving out and they would be able to go to a smaller house. A lot of these questions will go unanswered as all ten of the children are gone now. The house itself was a traditional style that was built back then but also it reminds me of the ones Sears and Roebuck sold in kit form.


I don't know the date of this photo but it is later in time and newer than the photo above it. This photograph looks like it came from a Kodak camera owned by one of the family.

My first cousin Joan tells me that the house has been moved into the town of Lorimor. I will either have to get in contact with friends in Lorimor, or go over there myself to see if I can find it.

Another task that I realized that I must do is locate some dates of birth and deaths of my Burgus grandparents and great grandparents. I have found so much out about my mom's side this past two weeks that it is overwhelming. I am glad to discover the family tree and it just makes you become more anxious to find more.

Visit other bloggers who are participating in Sepia Saturday by clicking here.

Great Grandfather Brown

My grandfather LeRoy Martin Brown was three years old when his father died. No information is known about any of it but I have relatives who are looking for his father's grave in Illinois.

The photo has the identification written on the back, done in fountain pen, Grandfather Brown. He is Charles W. Brown born in early 1860's. He would be my mom's grandfather and she wrote the name on the back. That means he would be my great grandfather Brown. As I am writing this, I have just picked up an obituary of his wife, my great grandmother and I have found out more details about the family.

Charles W. Brown married Carrie Rosella Maxson from Fulton county, Illinois, in 1983. They had two sons, LeRoy, my grandfather, and Ira Brown. In March 8, 1888 five years after they were married, he died. My grandfather LeRoy was three years old. Again the past two generations say he is buried there but it is not known where.

I know nothing more about him other that what I just stated. Because of his early death, my great grandmother remarried and gave me many half relatives to keep track of in my family tree journey. I will have to blog about her another time as Carrie remarried a guy name Thomas Jefferson Driver. I have quilts that she has made and I have a lot of material about her five other children.

As a final comment, I wanted to note the background of this photo. It probably was taken in the state of Illinois and the mural is a hand painted effort. On the back is written in cursive the word Woods. I will probably never know what that means but I will always keep in buried in my little grey cells.

Check out all the others who are participating in Sepia Saturday this week, by clicking here.

Burgus Side.......

My first cousin Joan shared this photo with me of the ten Burgus children of Grace and Charles Burgus. I know it isn't in great shape but the character of it is grand. Most of the photos that I have of this group had been taken when they are all adult sized people. This photo helps to show the age differences as the three youngest are really young. At this point I am not going to share ages or dates of death as that isn't the purpose of this post. All of them have passed away with the last three being gone in the last 12 years.

Front row are the two youngest children of the family Donald and Doris, twins. Their older sisters Mary and Amye are next with the silly guy on the end being my dad, Jesse. He was third from youngest. It is a silly picture of him and I really think he is about 9 or 10 years old in the photo.
In the back row I believe is Ralph, Ruby, Carl, Cecil, the oldest, and Eva. I had never really noticed that the young twin boy grew up to look like Carl. Carl went bald early though and Donald the younger one really didn't have the same hair.
Eva in the back row, far right, is the Aunt that I am featuring today. I have only this one photo below of them.


Eva Burgus married and became Eva Dovenspike. Her husband was Dick Dovenspike and they had one child name Charles.

My first memories of them were when we would visit their home for Burgus dinners. I was probably 7 or 8 years old. They lived near Lucas, Iowa an old coal mining town. They owned a home on the side of a hill back in the woods on their farm. They were good people and they had a nice home inside, but Dick wasn't too concerned about image. So their house was a one story home covered with black tar paper for it's siding. The farm house actually sat in a valley where Native American Indians wintered probably 60 years before then. They found so many artifacts in the valley in the cornfields.

Dick couldn't make a living at farming so he became a carpenter and worked most of his life building and renovating homes. His glasses were always covered in splattered paint.
I said earlier that they were good people but I do remember Dick holding his pipe, clenched tight in his mouth and he had a gruff outlook and personality. It was strange to have a grumpy one among all the Burgus clan but he was just that.

Eva and Dick eventually built a very nice home on top of the hill and lived in a very modern home. He did all of his own work as it was his trade. Eva was very good at growing plants and flowers and when you arrived to the door of their home their would be lush plantings of begonias blooming profusely. It was a jungle. It was said that she was a lot like my Grandmother Burgus but I think most of he daughters were in personality.

I don't know too much about the whole life of my cousin Charles. I do remember him at his wedding with his wife to be Helen and they did have three daughters, Kathy, Julie and Becky. Since they lived over in the Lucas and Chariton, Iowa area they were not seen much other than a once every two years at a family dinner. I really think the he was a carpenter also but I don't know that for sure. Charles finished his life much like my brother did with addictions that eventually took his life. He was an extremely bright man and played a guitar. Country music was his style. His wife divorced him at the last of his life but Helen has been so good at keeping track of her kids side of the family. We see her at funerals and visitations.

The last of the memories of this family are of where the three of them are buried. I attended my Aunt Eva's funeral probably 20 years ago and her body was buried next to her husband and son on a hill overlooking a southern Iowa treelined valleys. They tended to live the back woods life style and they chose a place in the cemetery on the edge of a steep hill with trees everywhere in the cemetery.

Click here to visit all the others who are participating in Sepia Saturday.