Riverbend Journal

William Hix Wells, Maud Orinda Wemple and five of their eight children I have begun to turn my focus onto my 2nd great grandparents in my quest to write up a set of notes on my ancestors with the sum total of my research. Above are two of my 2nd great grandparents with my great grandmother Dorothy, sitting on William lap on the left and three of her older sisters and younger brother. This picture was taken probably 1906 when the young boy, Myron was born earlier that January. In the process of doing notes, one of my first steps is to look up an obituary if possible and indeed I found one for my great great grandmother Maud. As I was reading through it, I was shocked to see that she was a member of the Daughter's of the Confederacy. Older readers will know that I have sought out Confederate ancestors to see if there were any slave holders among them but to day, I have found not a single one though I have identified one family that moved from the Virginia area right at the start of t

  Victor Stephen Kuck In my quest to write research notes on my ancestors, I started writing them on the one great grandfather whom I got to meet in person and have 12 years of memories with, Victor Kuck. I thought I knew everything I could know about the man because I often talked to my grandparents about him and even his wife, my great grandmother, for many years after Victor's death. I assume that I also talked to him but I have no memories of those conversations, only one sided ones I had with him after a stroke left him uncommunicative. I also have my great great grandmother's memory album full of newspaper clippings on those around her including dozens of them about her son Victor.  After compiling all the information from various typical genealogy records like census, birth, marriage, death and military records, I am of the habit to do one more search for newspaper articles on the person at hand, in case I might turn up something interesting or unknown. Also, all the new

After a nearly all night grilling session by Sheriff Derby, son George finally confessed to the truth.  Both McComb and Taylor had repeatedly over the months, shared gifts of fruit they received from visitors with George and he had reciprocated by volunteering to purchase things that the prisoners desired, often allowing George to pocket some of the change. At the same time, the prisoners told George of all their plans to see the world when their trials were over, often involving shows, circuses, and theaters. George, like most 11 year old boys, got caught up in the excitement so when they offered him a large sum of money to help them escape and even promised to take George with them to see all these marvels that he had only read about or heard others talk of seeing.  After weeks of grooming, the date of their escape had been set for Monday, August 22, 1864 but when the prisoners heard of Derby's departure to Keokuk the following day, when Deputy Sheriff Jones would be watching ove

26 April 1919 It is tough at times to remain impartial when researching one's ancestors. So when a newspaper search pulled up this article of one of my great grandfathers, it was initially a bit dismaying. Who wants an ancestor known for cruelty, even if the acts themselves were never defined? Before finding this, I knew my great grandfather had been married prior to marrying my great grandmother but didn't know any of the circumstances of why the first marriage didn't last. I only knew, the one child he had through his first marriage, grew up in my great grandfather's household so I guess I assumed an untimely death. That turned out to be correct but not in the manner I had been thinking.  In preparation of writing up a set of research notes for this set of great grandparents, I decided to look a little deeper into first wife Iva's life and see what I could find. I was not disappointed and it certainly shows that things can be complicated. 3 Aug 1920 Shortly after

I have a new guilty pleasure and I just have to share it since there are a number of my readers who fall into the middle or independent sector of our national politics. I came across Tangle while listening to a NPR program, I think it was "This American Life" but I'm not positive. In that episode, they were interviewing spouses who grew apart due to our recent political atmosphere and one couple, mentioned that their solution was to both read the same source of political news that they respected, in this case Tangle. Tangle is Isaac Saul's idea that came to him after searching for unbiased news sources on various political subjects. He would spend so much time looking for opinions on both sides of the political spectrum in order to formulate an opinion based on facts, that he wished there was a one stop place he could go to. There wasn't one and so he created his own . On his website linked above, one can find almost daily posts with good articles written by autho