Family History

"Geneology I am doing it, my geneology.
And the reason why I am doing it is very clear to me . .  ."

I get a bit of the family history bug every summer (when I have some time to sit and stare at the computer), but around Memorial Day I gave out a visiting teaching message about doing family history and researching your ancestors, etc., etc. . . . hearts of Elijah turn to their fathers, or something like that.  Since then, I've decided that I really wanted to try and find some names to take to the temple.  I have spent hours and hours in the last couple of months staring at familysearch.org and ancestry.com trying to find something.  In the process, I have found that most of my family lines are either finished as far as I can see or have hit brick walls.  I do have 4 names in my temple "reserve," but I am not so sure that they are really who I think they are (and maybe when I spell their names right I'll find out that their work has already been done).

Basically I'll I've been doing is trying to piece together some stories for myself (and my family) by searching for everything and anything I can find.  I've mostly been looking at my dad's line and after sharing another story with him tonight he said, "You really need to write this down so we can remember it . . ."

Here are a few of the things I have found:

Betsy Pitts

Great Grandma Myrtle Brown Petersen.  She died when I was in 9th grade and her funeral was at Peel Funeral Home on Magna Main Street.  Her grandmother was named Betsy - Elizabeth "Betsy" Sawyer Pitts Brown - to be exact.  She was born in Canada, but her family lived for several generations in Kent area, Michigan (which is where the Browns lived in and around, as well).  I was also reminded that my Uncle Paul served his mission in Lansing, Michigan which is right next door to this area.  Here is Betsy's story:

The 1850 census reveals Betsy and her husband - Hanover Pitts - living with 2 young children (eventually 3) and working as farmers.  Their third child would be born a couple of years later.  Betsy and Hanover lived a couple of houses down from her sister, Mary and her dad Ransom Sawyer (Ransom was thrice widowed and had apparently moved in with his oldest daughter, Mary).  Hanover was 16 years older than Betsy and either died or left at some point between 1852 and 1860.  We know that because the 1860 census reveals that Betsy was now single and had 4 children.  The 4th child's name was William.

Ok.  Here's where it gets interesting.  The 1860 census also shows that Betsy's next door neighbors were the Browns.  Frances Kettle Brown (who was widowed that same year) was living with her 4 sons, the oldest of whom was William, age 25.  He was still listed as living with his mother, Frances, and he would have been 13 years younger than Betsy, but little William was by all other accounts, his son, and not Hanover's (his name was William after all).

Did you catch that?  Betsy had 3 kids with Hanover and then a 4th (and later a 5th) with William, the oldest son of her next door neighbor.

I can't find any death record of Hanover Pitts.
I can't find any marriage record of Betsy and William.
William died in Michigan.
Betsy died in Kansas.
Somehow little William makes his way to Springville, Utah (the only member of his family to leave the midwest), has a bunch of kids and then dies when one of his daughters, Myrtle, is 9 years old.
Myrtle has a son named William DeWaine and many great grandsons (including my brother) who followed that namesake.

Those are the facts.  You may now enter your own speculations.

What I will say is that what I remember of my Great Grandma Petersen is that she was very proper and formal.  If she knew her dad was an illegitimate child or if she knew her grandparents were perhaps never even married, I'm sure she never told anyone.


Miranda Ericksen

Miranda Louise Ericksen Andresen Petersen - She had a brother named Carl.  She married a Carl.  She named one of her kids Van Carl and then my dad was named . . . Karl.  My Great Grandpa Van Carl Petersen (who was married to Myrtle in the last story) went by Van.  My dad has said that he was named Karl just because my Grandma, Ardith, liked the name and it wasn't until after he was born and named that his Grandparents got mad that they named him Karl with a "K" and not Carl with a "C." I don't understand where the misscommunication happened, but I don't blame them for being upset at the misspelling.  Miranda didn't die until 1957, lived in Magna on 9000 West (same street as Van and Myrtle) and no doubt knew my dad as a small boy.

My dad was always told that Miranda was a "mail order bride" to Carl Ephraim Petersen of Sanpete County, Utah.  I've always thought a mail order bride is a young single girl looking to marry as a means of getting to the U.S. and starting a better life there.  Miranda doesn't fit that category because she would have been in her 30's when she immigrated to the U.S. and she was already married with a handful of children.  She was married in Norway to Theodor Andresen.  They had 8 children, but only 2 lived to adulthood and then Theodor died in 1900 (but I don't know where).

My assumption - Miranda immigrated to the U.S. right around 1900 after her husband died.  She brought 2 young children (one who died soon after) and was pregnant with another.  She meets up with Carl Ephraim at some point and they are married in 1903.  Perhaps she was a mail order bride because she needed someone to help care for her children after the death of her husband.

The contradiction - The child who immigrated with her (and survived) was also named Theodor.  In a 1930 census, he was living in Shoshone, Idaho.  He worked as a mechanic, was married, had a couple of kids, and listed that he was a WWI veteran.  Here's where it get's interesting.  He reports that he immigrated to the United States at age 2.  If the dates are correct, that would have been in 1898.  In 1898, Miranda would have still been married to Theodor when she immigrated and that blows the whole male order bride idea away.

Carl Ephraim died in 1949 of a "cerebral vascular accident" and Miranda died in 1957 of pancreatic cancer.
At the time of Carl's death, they were living near Liberty Park on James Street.  At the time of Miranda's death she was living on 9000 West in Magna.
I cannot find any immigration records for Miranda.  I have checked every resource I can find, every version and spelling of her name I can think of . . . and nothing.
It is not known where Theodor, Sr., died.
Theodor, Jr., died in 1973 and is buried as a WWI veteran at Salt Lake City Cemetery.   He had 3 children in 1930.  One passed away in 1997 and the other two are unaccounted for on Family Search (perhaps they are in their 80's and still alive).  Does anyone know them?  Maybe they know the story of their Grandma Miranda.
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Now you may speculate again.  Mail order bride or made up story?

Here's where it also gets interesting.  While recounting this story to my dad on the phone tonight we had this conversation:

Me:  . . . found census record . . . Shoshone, Idaho . . .
Dad: Well that makes sense.
Me:  What makes sense?
Dad:  One summer I was shipped off to Shoshone, Idaho, for a week to live with some relatives.  I never knew who they were and I don't remember their names, but I remember going there.
Me:  Was it after your dad died?
Dad: Yes . . .
Mom in the background: They were just trying to ship him off to get rid of him for a while.
Dad: Yes, probably.
Me:  I wish Grandma was still alive because she would probably at least remember the names of the people she shipped you off to.