Great Grandfather Dewey

 

Great Grandfather Dewey (center), Great Grandmother Bernice (right) and family

Everyone had eight great grandparents and I had the great fortunate to meet five of mine personally though I have only memories of two of them. I have pictures of me in the arms of all four of my great grandmothers and only one of my great grandfathers. Three of my great grandfathers were dead, two who died months before I was born and Dewey above, who died about 16 months prior to my birth, so possibly the only one who never knew of my existence, even in utero.

As part of my genealogy goals, I would like to create a set of research notes for all my ancestors for a couple reasons. They provide a blueprint of everything I know about an ancestor and perhaps the most compelling reason, I haven't created a set of research notes and not discovered something about that ancestor that had been unnoticed up until that point. Dewey was no exception.

Of all my great grandparents, I knew the least about this couple when I started researching for creating my notes. They lived and died near where I spent much of my youth, a rural area with little in the way of digitized newspaper records to use as a source of information. Other than checking for newspapers that had been digitized in the area and finding none, I have been biding my time for probably two decades waiting on digitization to catch up. It still hasn't but on a lark, I put their newspaper into a newspaper archive site and came across a whole slew of articles from a major newspaper a county north of where they spent their lives. In all, I probably located and digitally clipped three dozen articles, mostly on my great grandfather Dewey that were of interest to me. Unclipped were maybe 100 more articles that were mostly just notifications of him visiting his children or they him that were popular at the time and still are in smaller regional newspapers. 

Great Grandfather Dewey

I learned many things, including that he was one hell of a corn husker. He consistently was in the top two or three corn huskers in his county during the annual competition held every late fall. One time he actually shucked the most corn by weight but after being docked for some excess husks in the load, he was placed in 2nd. 

Another think I learned was that he was a talented singer and regularly sang in men's quartet groups and even sang a leading part in Handel's "Messiah'. He even sang at several state events, representing his neck of the woods.

He ran for county office not once, but twice but as a Republican in the 1960's but was defeated both times. But he sat on several influential boards in the county and from all interpretations of the various newspaper articles, was well respected by both parties. One board in particular interested me the most because it was on the board of the church in which I would get married in 50 years later. I don't think he was a member of that church (nor am I), but it was a neat coincidence.

One thing I didn't learn from the newspaper records but learned upon inspection of what records I had of him before I started my research was that I didn't have a 1920 Census for him. The reason why was that he wasn't where I expected him to be in rural SE Iowa on his or his father's farm. It turned out he was at Camp Stephen D. Little in Arizona where he was an officer in the Army. My search for more information about this time of his life is still ongoing.

Great grandparents Bernice and Dewey

One of the best finds was a newspaper article announcing their 50th Wedding Anniversary which was on Christmas Day 1969. The above picture was used for the article but I don't think it was a recent one. I found a newer picture dated 1965 when Dewey placed a campaign ad in the newspaper for his run for Board of Supervisors any in that picture he is noticeably thinner and more gaunt in appearance. Never the less, I love the above picture, even it is is slightly out of focus. 

According to Dewey's obituary, he died unexpectedly at 4 a.m. in the morning on his farm at age 73, about one full year before my conception. It doesn't say that last part but doing the math, that is what I came up with.