I took my kids for a walk Tuesday after dinner. I'd been doing some family history work that afternoon. While on our walk, the thought came to mind, "Go find the grave" of a relative I had found earlier in the day. The record said he was buried at the Magna Cemetery (Pleasant Green Cemetery). I got home and called my dad. I said, "I'm putting my kids in the bath and then we are going to come pick you up to go walk through the Magna Cememtery." I'm sure he was thrilled, but he (and my mom) came along for the ride. My mom kept the kids around the car while my dad and I traipsed through foot high pokey weeds and grasshoppers. We didn't find anything. Here is some more of the story . . .
Story 1:
One Tuesday afternoon, I spent of couple of hours doing what I had just mentioned. First, I was looking for some uncles of my mother-in-law. We had found one a few months ago who needed some temple work done and on Sunday, Mary mentioned something about "the other brothers." I started looking and finally decided that . . . they are still alive! There are two brothers, Jessie Albert Marley and Edman B. Marley, who after exhausting everything I could find online (including just googling their names), I have come to the conclusion that they are alive and living in Marion, Indiana. Maybe Mary wants to contact them, I don't know, but at least that resolved one records searching mystery.
Below is a picture of Elizabeth Clara Rasmussen Biorn Marley. She is the mother of James' grandpa (and Jack's namesake) Wilford Clarence Biorn. When her first husband died, she married Iredell Marley and had the children I mentioned.
Story 2:
I've been trying to fill in the gaps and create a story for my dad's great grandma and grandpa. Their names are Carl Ephraim Petersen and Miranda Louise Ericksen Andersen/Andresen Petersen.
My dad was told growing up that Miranda was a mail-order bride from Norway who came to marry Carl Ephraim. They lived in Magna and Carl Ephraim worked for Kennecott. Miranda had some other children from a previous marriage and then had 4 children (though one died as a baby) with Carl Ephraim. Their second child was Van Carl, my dad's grandpa. He went by Van and it wasn't until after my dad, Karl, was born and named that my grandma Ardith was informed her father-in-law was named Van Carl. Oops. Grandma Ardith just said she liked the name (and spelled with a K). She and my grandpa, I guess, unknowingly named my dad after his grandpa.
Back to the story. It's quite crazy and I really don't have much of a story. I hope to piece it together for another post . . . eventually. I can't find any immigration records for Miranda. I can't find any death records (or immigration records) for her first husband, Theodor Anderson/Andresen. I have found conflicting birth dates for her first group of children. For example, some are recorded as being born in Norway after the siblings just older than them were born in the United States. There are obviously mistakes in the records. In fact, there is a marriage record that says she and Carl Ephraim were married in 1903. That makes sense. There first child was born in 1904. However, I found another record that said they were married in the 1920's. Unless I can find information to lead me to a crazy marital soap opera that confirms they were married 16 years after the birth of their first child, I just think the record is wrong. Hopefully, as time goes on, I will be able to piece together a better story for these two.
For now, though, I started trying to track down records for Miranda's other children. I did find her obituary and it said she had 13 children. Right now I can find records for 12 of them, but I am skeptical that some of the records are duplicates, so I may not have found the 12 (or maybe the obituary is wrong and there weren't really 13). I also found Carl Ephraim's obituary. His has a strange twist, too, that again I just don't think is correct. It lists his three surviving children and four surviving step-sons:
Children: Mrs. Ruth P. Coon, Van C. Petersen, Parley K. Petersen
Step-sons: Chris R. Anderson, Frank I. Anderson, Thomas A. Petersen, Theodore Petersen
Huh? Why are two of his stepson's named Petersen? Did he adopt them? Did they just take on that name because they didn't know their dad? Who knows. At this point, your guess is as good as mine except for the fact that I can't find ANY records that account for a Thomas Petersen or Theodore Petersen. However, I can find several records for people in Magna by the name of Thomas Anderson and Theodore Anderson. Thomas is buried at the Magna Cemetery and that's who we went to find.
The Magna Cemetery is not, shall we say, well-groomed. My dad had to pull all the stickers out of his shoes. I was super smart (note sarcasm) and wore flip flops. I have pokey sores all around my ankles. I had to be really brave to get past all the grasshoppers and I even saw one lizard. The cemetery is not that big, but when you are trying to look at every headstone (even the ones covered in weeds and haven't seen daylight for years and years), it actually is much bigger than meets the eye.
We didn't find anything.
I came home and did some more investigating. I should have probably done this before we left, but it wouldn't have made for a story about lizards. I found a map of the cemetery online. I found the plot location and took my kids today to find the headstones. It still took me about 10 minutes to get my bearings and find it but there it was - Thomas Anderson and his wife Ellen - not far from the entrance and right next to another Anderson who was a Korean War Veteran and one my dad had for sure seen the night before.
We found it!
That's the story. Basically we just found out that my dad has a half great uncle buried at the Magna Cemetery. I also took photographs of all other Anderson and Petersen headstones I found. I will look into them and see if they are relatives. In addition, these two headstones and the one next to it are fairly well-maintained and apparently visited. Maybe there are relatives living who know something about Thomas Anderson and in turn something about Miranda. It's at least another piece of the Miranda Ericksen puzzle and definitely an adventurous story!
2 comments:
This stuff is cool/interesting to me too.
Good Post.
I also liked your Health Challenge one too.
Good Job Haley!!!!! It's crazy how in the "olden days" people did whatever they wanted with their names, their children, etc. One day we will know the rest of these stories!
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