Family Stories Collection: This special collection contains a selection of family history stories submitted by our readers. Originally published April 2, 2014. “La Corriveau”… Her real name was Marie-Josephte Corriveau, and she was one of the most infamous murderers in …
Eva Grimm was born around 1886 in Aurora, Illinois, and married her husband Alfred Wyatt in 1908. The marriage was not a match made in heaven. Eva eventually ended up having an affair with a man she knew who lived in Chicago whose name was Herbert Conkright, and she even moved in with him for a few months one spring. But eventually she returned to her husband Alfred, although her contact with her lover continued—but not always by her choice. When she ignored him, Herbert sometimes posed as a detective when attempting to get information about her from her family and friends. One time, it was reported in the papers, he threatened to push her off a bridge to her death if she didn’t return to him.
“I was born at home (all four of us were), at the farm at Barbers Corner on August 18, 1922, at six in the morning. A nurse and a doctor came—Dr. Ludwig—but I was born before he got there! My mother got a “hired girl” to help her take care of us for a few weeks.
Walter Garver and Hazel Alwood were married in Clare County, Michigan in 1914. Over the next 25 years, they had fifteen children—in order, they were Doris, Charles, Wayne, Forest, Lester, Fern, Donna, Walter, Virginia, Max, Robert, Rex, Betty, Marlyn, and William. All survived to adulthood except the last, William, who died from congenital heart disease at only five days old.
Thomas Garver (1850-1902) was farmer in Defiance County, Ohio. According to notes taken by his great-granddaughter Ruth Marie Burkhart in 1943 for a school project, he had a sideline as well. She wrote, “He was a preacher of the United Brethren Church located at Ridgeville, a small town a few miles from Napoleon [Ohio]. He lived on a small farm near the church. He farmed and did odd jobs through the week and then on Sunday he gave his sermon.”
Family Stories Collection: This special collection contains a selection of family history stories submitted by our readers. Originally published Feb 03, 2013. Last year I spent some time researching the family history of my sister-in-law Susie. Along we way we …
I was married for the first time in 2007 at age 51, to a wonderful man. His father, Norman, walked me down the aisle that day, since my father had died many years before.
Grandma was born in Nebraska on November 8, 1894 and died nearly 100 years later, in 1986. She grew up at a time when girls, especially daughters of immigrants on the Nebraska prairie, didn’t think about much except getting married and having a family. But Grandma was smarter than most, and more ambitious than most. She managed, after graduating eighth grade, to attend a nearby coed ‘college’ (as the word was used then), Luther College, and then get a job at a local bank, the Hordville Bank.
One of my great-grandfathers was a Swede named Charles Anderson (1859-1916), a boatman on the canals of northern Illinois—and he was quite a character. Grandma never talked about him—but being a big fan of black sheep stories (especially when the aforementioned stories come from within my own family), I think I shall.
When researching the ancestry of my sister-in-law Susie, I came across the stories of two sisters—Anna and Eva Grimm. Anna was Susie’s great-grandmother (at least on paper!) and Eva was her infamous sister—and both of their stories fascinate me. I’ll start with Anna.