Genealogy Jottings

Archive for the ‘52 Ancestors’ Category

My grandfather died all too soon, and I never knew him. During the Depression, he left behind a wife, a daughter, and five young sons. Even today, I find the sad story hard to tell.

Owen Herbert Reed began life on December 6, 1896 on a farm in the Ozarks. He was the eleventh and last child of his father Samuel. His mother Anna Petronellia was the second wife. Like all his older brothers, my grandfather was always known by his middle name.

His family lived near Mansfield, Missouri, not too far from Laura Ingalls Wilder. They farmed and raised hogs until Herbert reached the age of seven. Then his parents divorced. The father left the area, the mother remarried briefly, and the boys all went out to the neighboring farms to work. No more schooling for them.

Despite this hard beginning, Herbert grew into a tall, happy young man with a cheery, friendly manner. By the time he reached young adulthood, he decided to follow his siblings away from southern Missouri. His father had taken up work as a ranch hand near Hyannis, Nebraska, and two of his brothers, Carter and Aaron, homesteaded together nearby. A sister, Bertha, had married a local Nebraska rancher named Henry Evert. Herbert joined the Everts in western Nebraska and married the rancher’s niece, my grandmother Grace, in 1918.

Together they had six children. The eldest was a daughter, Hazel, and the rest were boys named Owen, Robert, Harold, Earl, and Donald. Herbert worked for his sister and brother-in-law on the Evert ranch until about 1925.

By then, another of his brothers, Morton, had become the railroad station agent in Wheatland, Wyoming. Herbert relocated his young family there to take a job working as the freight agent at the station. All went well as long as the economy hummed along. In 1929 the family even traveled back to Missouri to visit Herbert’s mother.

As the Depression of the 1930’s worsened, the railroad finally had to cut back. Herbert lost the freight agent job. Luckily, his brother Morton helped him secure new employment as a truck driver. He liked to drive and owned a car.

On Independence Day weekend in 1935, Herbert drove to Denver, Colorado to pick up a load of fruit. His boys looked forward to his return on July 6 because he had promised them some of that fruit. To pass the time as they waited, they went off to spend the afternoon at the movies. My dad was seven years old.

Part way through the movie, a neighbor lady came into the theater to tell them they were needed at home. There they learned the sad news that their father’s truck had gone off the road near Brighton, Colorado. The load in the truck had shifted, killing him instantly at the age of thirty-eight.

His funeral took place at the Congregational Church in Wheatland, and he was buried in the Wheatland Cemetery. Family members from Nebraska attended. They were stunned at the loss of their baby brother.

Herbert’s older children remembered him as a playful father. He would swing them by his bent, stiffened ring finger, injured in childhood when his brother Aaron swung at him with a hatchet. The younger boys regretted that they had no real memory of their dad.

I, too, regret that I never had the chance to know him. My own father has often wondered how different his life would have been if his father, and the family breadwinner, had not died so young.

The second person on my ancestral chart, my mother Joyce Beverly Bentsen, lived from 1929-2000. Several years before she died, she wrote about herself for a family history compiled by one of her aunts. She contributed this to the Bentsen-Sivertsen History, 1800-1988 by Signe Bentsen Fleming:

[I] was born April 8, 1929 in Plentywood, Montana. [I] attended Brooklyn Elementary School and Lincoln Junior High School in Hibbing, Minnesota and graduated from Hibbing High School in 1947. [I] then attended the Duluth Branch of the University of Minnesota and Northwest Community College in Powell, Wyoming and graduated from the University of Wyoming in Laramie in 1951 with a degree in Business Education.

[I] taught commercial subjects at Douglas High School in Douglas, Wyoming from 1951 to 1953 and worked summers at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone Park, Pahaska Tepee at the east entrance to Yellowstone, and the Virginia Café in Rapid City, South Dakota. [I] also taught business subjects at the University of Wyoming and Adult Night School in Laramie. [I later] worked at H&R Block Income Tax Service in Casper, [Wyoming].

[I] lived in Butte, Montana; Laramie, Wyoming; Bismarck, North Dakota; Sidney, Nebraska; Casper, Wyoming; and Cody, Wyoming. [I] am the [mother] of four children.

Mom did not mention that she was Valedictorian of her high school class. She was accomplished in other ways, too, including playing the piano.

Mom died on July 3, 2000 in Casper after a long illness. At that time, she lived in her dream house, and my Dad took care of her. The home was filled with clothes she had made, needlework she had created, and milk glass she had collected. She loved gardening and had beautiful flower beds—quite a challenge in cold, windy Wyoming.

Still, Mom did not like Wyoming much and always wished she could move somewhere with more trees. Perhaps she takes some satisfaction that only one of her children stayed in the state. We hope she approves that her final resting place, Highland Cemetery in Casper, has beautiful old trees and green lawns.

Because my Dad is still living, I will not provide much detail about his life as I begin documenting my ancestors for this challenge. Suffice it to say that he provided much of the inspiration I needed to become a genealogist.

From the time I received a blank family tree chart when I was thirteen years old, Dad always showed an interest in helping me with our family history. He provided names of relatives I could contact during the early stages of my own research. Over the years he has offered a willing ear for listening to my latest discoveries. As a petroleum landman who spent hours researching land records for an oil company, he taught me a thing or two about using those records.

Dad’s family has lived in America since the earliest days. He descends from Puritan settlers, but he did not know that before I began documenting our family. He has ancestors who fought in all of America’s wars. His family played a part in settling the country over the centuries, and his grandparents came west as homesteaders.

His family story is the story of the United States in many ways. Over the next weeks, I will work backwards in time to tell it, one ancestor at a time.

Last year I followed several genealogy bloggers who met the challenge of writing about 52 of their ancestors during the 52 weeks of the year. This year I have decided to see if I, too, can meet this goal.

As I begin, I have realized that I do not know whether I have even identified 52 ancestors in my direct lines. For most people, finishing the challenge would require writing about 5 generations of ancestors. In my own case, the job will be more difficult because I have one unidentified great-grandfather. That means one of two things. Either I must identify him so I can include him, his parents, and his grandparents in the 52 ancestors, or else I must work back further than 5 generations on other lines. Quite a challenge indeed.

Next week I plan to begin with the first ancestor, my Dad. I will then work back from there. This should be fun.