Grandma & Grandpa Hall

Today my paternal grandparents are on my mind. While I didn't get a chance to spend a lot of time with them, I did have occasional visits with them while I was growing up. As an adult I got to Iowa to visit them occasionally as well. Mostly we kept in touch by mail for holidays and birthdays. 

Grandpa Bill Hall grew up in Monona County, Iowa. His Great Grandfather Jonathan J Hall (1816-1884) was the first Hall in this family to come to the Loess Hills area of Western Iowa. 

Grandma Frances Fuhrmann Hall belonged to the first generation of her family to be born in America. Her parents, Friedrich and Christina Nagel Fuhrmann were immigrants from Russia, arriving in America in 1893.

Grandpa Bill was 22 years old in 1932, the heart of the Great Depression,when he went to Cathay, North Dakota to work in the wheat fields of his future father-in-law, Friedrich Fuhrmann. 

Grandma Frances was born and raised in Cathay, North Dakota. I remember being told in my younger years that she was a teacher before she married Grandpa Bill but I have never been able to confirm this.

Grandpa Bill and Grandma Frances were married April 12, 1933 in Cathay. Later that year they returned to Monona County, Iowa and eventually settled down in Castana, Iowa where raised four children and lived on the same small farm for the remainder of their lives.

Grandpa Bill farmed and when he retired from farming, he worked for the Castana School as a custodian and bus driver. His hobby and passion was raising watermelons and I was told he was quite well known for them throughout the county.

Grandma Frances worked at a place called The Sweet Shop for a while. Eventually she worked at Happy Chef which is the job I remember her doing. Whenever we would visit we always met Grandpa Bill at Happy Chef if Grandma Frances was working.

Here is the picture I am closing with today, Grandma and Grandpa Hall with me on my graduation from high school. The picture is a little fuzzy but it is as clear as can be in my mind. 

Winter Genealogy Projects

Recently I have started indexing my genealogy research. No small task because I have been active on Ancestry now for over 7 years and chasing down the family tree without ancestry for almost 20 years. Over the years I have met cousins I didn't know I had and aunts and uncles I had previously lost contact with. I have received so much help from these family members as well as many documents and photos from people who are family that I know personally and those family members whom I only know online for now. In return, I have given back what I can, whether it be information I have or doing family tree work online. Sometimes it might even be a care package of homemade goodies.

Indexing my personal documents are traditionally winter projects for me and since the computer files are relatively safe for now, I focus on the physical records I have acquired over the years. Last winter I indexed Neuschwanger, from Germany to North America, 1846 into a searchable Word document. This winter I am looking at indexing Buzzing the Orient; USS Hornet CVA-12 Far Eastern Cruise 1957.

The photo I am closing the post with today is 4 Generations of Women from my mother's side of the family (can you tell I really like pictures?). These women start with my mother, Ruth Willhite Hall and end with my Great Great Grandmother Minnie Keske Kuester, both sitting in the chair. Standing to the left is my Great Grandma (Gross Grandma as we called her), Bertha Kuester Rauschke and standing on the right is my Grandma (Grossma as my children called her), Gertrude Rauschke Willhite.

4 Generations of Women
Standing left to right: Bertha (Kuester) Rauschke, Gertrude (Rauschke) Willhite.
In and on the chair from left to right: Minnie (Keske) Kuester, Ruth (Willhite) Hall

My Surnames

Since this is a brand new blog, I feel I must give a not so quick overview of the names I am searching along my journey.

On my father's side, I have researched Hall, Fuhrman(n), Shellenberger and Neuschwanger. I have some fairly extensive information on Shellenberger and Fuhrman(n) and was fortunate enough to have met a new cousin who passed on her Neuschwanger Family Book to me. Carole, I can't say thank you enough for all the help on both the Neuschwanger and Shellenberger families.

My Hall family is where four of my brick walls reside. Jonathan J Hall (1816-1884) and his wife Rachel VanZant (1815-1897). I have traced these two through census records from New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and finally to Western Iowa.

My next brick wall here is Abner Trimble (1795-1819) and Polly Hawthrone (1800-1819). That is pretty much all the information I have on these two except for one really weird fact that keeps repeating in all the trees I search. While they both appear to have been born in England there seems to be a general consensus that they died in John, Saint Laurent du Maroni, French Guiana. I found this very curious so I did some research on John, Saint Laurent du Maroni, French Guiana and found that this is the location of the infamous Devil's Island prison as well as a leprosy colony. Not sure what this means but there it is. Their son, John A Trimble, was born in Franklin County, Ohio and his parents died when he was an infant (according to his obituary and a History of Monona County Iowa). Since John A was born in Franklin County, Ohio, it would make sense that his parents died there.

On my mother's side, I have researched Willhite, Rauschke, Kuester, and Kaltrider. My brick walls here are Wilhelmine (Minnie) (Berg) Rauschke (10 Feb 1854-28 Dec 1895) and Wilhelmine Karolina Frederika Keske (Kuske) Kuester (14 Jun 1854-31 May 1936). They were both born in Prussia and died in Brown County, Minnesota.

There is some pretty extensive information on Willhite in my tree here thanks to Grand Aunt Berniece (Willhite) Apitz, and Grand Aunt she was. I was lucky enough to be able to get a copy of her handwritten family tree which has proved to be invaluable in my research of my Grandpa Willhite's family.

This is a good start to this blog and I will stop here for now.

Happy Hunting to Everyone!

Grandma Hannah (Shellenberger) Hall who for some unknown reason inspires me to keep searching.

Today I was faced with a decision to start a new genealogy blog here on Blogger with the rest of my blogs or continue to use the journal feature on Family Circles. After dealing with all the posting shenanigans on Family Circles, I have chosen to start a new blog here. 

A little about me, I do volunteer work both online and offline and I totally enjoy it, it never ever feels like work or a chore to me. I have met some very nice people while doing volunteer work for Find a Grave. For anyone unfamiliar with Find a Grave, it is a website full of memorials placed there by family members and volunteers. Many have photos of the gravestones which can be very helpful to anyone doing any kind of family tree work. 

As a volunteer, I go out and take photos of family grave sites for folks who either live out of the area or are unable to get out into the cemeteries. I don't always find who I am looking for but I always find someone who wants to be found and remembered. My current pet project is taking photos of any and all children I happen to run across. My reasoning is simply that they do tend to get lost in time because of their short time here. 'Planted on Earth to Bloom in Heaven' ~ Author Unknown

My other volunteer effort is indexing for Family Search which is run by the Latter Day Saints. While I am not a member of this spiritual group, I do believe in what they are doing since their website gives free access to millions of historical records. My most recent big project I worked on was the 1940 Federal Census and I truly enjoyed being able to index records from several states. I think the most interesting might have been California which was quite the melting pot in 1940.

Other volunteer projects come my way through people wanting to know a little bit more about their family and heritage but not really knowing where to start or where to go next. Sometimes this is just a matter of helping them back on the right path and other times it is a a labor of love. I do love doing this and every time I think about dropping subscriptions, I don't. I just love it way too much. 

On that note I shall close with a photo taken a few years back at Forest Hill Cemetery, Owatonna, Steele County, Minnesota.

Veterans Row (Civil War Graves); Forest Hill, Owatonna, Steele County, Minnesota