Archives for FEATURED
Ernest and Helen Thornton
Ernest Monroe Thornton was born in 1902 in Radford, Virginia. At a young age his father drowned and his mother died of pneumonia. Around the age of 20 he moved to Pittsburgh for a better life. Helen Lucille Strawser was born in Preston County, West Virginia. They met and married and started a family. Ernest worked as a watch repair and maker and the family appeared to be doing well in North Side, Pittsburgh, PA.…
Coming to America – Weilers and Wagners
The Weiler/Wagner ancestors came to America from Germany and Switzerland between 1834 and 1891 during the mass immigration of Europeans. Some came as eager young teenagers leaving their parents and homeland behind, others were older with spouses and children seeking a better life for their family. They came without knowing the language or what they could expect. They settled the new land and farmed, smithed and used their talents to make a good life in…
FBI File of Reverend William Weiler
"The first World war put my convictions to the test. When it broke out I was the pastor in Santa Claus, Ind. I had five children, the oldest ten and the youngest one. My salary was $800. We had nothing else to fall back on. My future was at stake. My pacifist position aroused suspicion, misrepresentation and opposition, especially after the became involved. If I were to go into detail I could tell you a…
Graham-Thornton Cemetery
In 2016 I visited the graves of my great great grandparents GJ Thornton and Maggie Boothe. They are buried in the Graham-Thornton Cemetery near Snowville in Pulaski County, ; The Graham-Thornton Cemetery has 32 identified burials between 1912 to 1979 spanning 4 generations of Grahams and ;All but one buried here are directly related to both the Thorntons and Grahams by blood or marriage. The Thorntons descend from GJ Thornton and Maggie Boothe. The Grahams…
Henry Freyhofer, Civil War Soldier
The family history about Henry has always been brief – the record merely states he enlisted in the Union Army, went to Calhoun, Kentucky, contracted Typhoid Fever and died. But we had this wonderful and rare photo of him in uniform. It was assumed he never saw action, but thanks to the internet and the vast amount of published diaries and documents, I have been able to reconstruct a likely account of the hell he…
Old Bill Wagner
Jacob William (later dubbed "Old Bill") was born in 1840 in Elleringhausen, Germany. At the age of 6, he and his family joined the waves of German immigrants after their friends in Quincy, Illinois, kept writing for them to come. Six-year-old William took his little sister Henrietta by the hand and led her up the gangplank onto the ship. She never forgot the smell of tar coming from the cordage coiled on deck. They had…
Reverend William Weiler Autobiography
A fantastic taste of life in a small German peasant village in the late 1800's and the voyage to America, hand written by the flying parson himself. This is the autobiography of Reverend William Weiler, the father of my grandmother, Louise Adelaide Weiler Wagner. Rev. Weiler wrote it at the age of about 79, but he did not finish it, leaving off at the age of 15. I have transcribed it just as he wrote…
Dear Nellie
I recently discovered a letter written in 1884 by George Redeforth in Warsaw, Illinois, to his fiancé Nellie Stenson. Although they aren’t related to me, my ancestor John Wagner lived there at the same time. In my quest to learn about George and Nellie, I discovered an article about my own ancestors and uncovered George's story on the river. Read:
Hanning Freyhofer Story
One cannot tell the story of the Hannings without the Freyhofers. With scenes that could be straight out of a movie or an episode of Little House on the Prairie, our ancestors came looking for the American Dream and they found it in Indiana and Kansas, along with a few nightmares. Their stories are filled with indians, locusts, droughts, and buffalo hunts. The Freyhofers immigrated from Switzerland through New Orleans in 1834 and the Hannings…
From Creede to Eternity – Charles Cochran Moudy O’Reilly
December 7, 2019 A few years ago I started researching the tree of a close friend of mine, Larry Chiri. I figured I’d just fill in a few generations for him and his mom Pat. I also wanted to see what I could find out about Larry’s father Charles, who killed himself when Larry was 3. Pat told me that shortly after Charles died, she learned he wasn’t who he had told her he was…