Year 3...Genealogy Trip with my Mom

This year’s trip was to Indiana to research ancestors and visit cemeteries.  We left Omaha on Sunday, April 12, 2015 in a car that we had rented.  We decided that it was best to rent a car ….if you have a break down on your trip you can just call and get a car switched out as opposed to being held up somewhere waiting for your car to have expensive repairs done…and mom was looking forward to driving something different.  I went out to the rental agency to pick it up and the car that I reserved had a broken windshield that needed to be repaired so he upgraded me to a Ford Escape.  Most people would be happy for a free upgrade but the Escape would use more gas and it was the exact same vehicle that mom owns!  So much for trying out something different!  It was a nice vehicle though so there wasn’t too much to complain about . We drove all day with a stop in Genesco, Iowa for lunch at Sweet Peas.  Once we crossed over into Indiana we started noticing some beautiful and some not so beautiful barns.

We arrived at Rensselaer, Indiana around evening and found our Holiday Inn Express and checked in.  We headed in to town in search of dinner and a drink. There was only one place that we could have a drink.  It was a little smoke filled bar…yes, they do still allow smoking in Indiana…at least in bars.  We had a drink and went next door for dinner and then called it a day.

Monday we were to meet Harvey W to begin some research on Robert B. Overton and Isaac Byres.  These are two of my 3 x great grandfathers. I had met Harvey through www.INGenWeb.com  and the Jasper County Cemeteries page.  I had asked him about a cemetery and he had volunteered to go up and take some pictures for me.  We had conversed several times throughout a two year period and when I told him we were coming to Rensselaer he lined up the entire day of places for us to do research and offered to get us to each place.  Spending the day with Harvey was probably one of the highlights of our trips.  It was so nice to be able to go into libraries, courthouses, and churches and even out in the country to a private cemetery with someone local that can speed up the process for you.  We started out at Jasper County’s beautiful courthouse.  We found that each courthouse had different rules and levels of security.  At Jasper County we had tougher security than an airport.  We went through the metal detectors, had our bags completely searched…and I do mean completely…the guy there opened every little tiny zipper in my purse and wallet and thoroughly searched every nook and cranny!  It was almost funny.  After copying land records at the courthouse we went to lunch with Harvey.  Next stop was St. Joseph’s college library where newspapers were stored.  We looked through the papers for an obituary for Isaac but did not find one.  We moved on to the United Methodist church for marriage records.  We came up empty handed again.  The last thing on the list was to see if we could get out to Saltillo Cemetery.  It sits in the middle of someone’s private land and we were hoping that we would find someone to give us permission to go in.  When we got there we noticed that there was a fence with a padlocked gate on the property.  We went back to the nearest farm houses to look for someone and after several attempts finally found a neighbor.  He called the owner for us who was not around but told him to go ahead and take some bolt cutters and cut the chain off of the gate and let us drive back in to the cemetery.  We couldn’t believe it but felt so lucky.  We drove about a quarter of a mile back and found the cemetery.  Isaac’s stone is broken but you can still read it.  We spent some time taking pictures and then headed back to town.  

The last stop was the local library where they had a nice genealogy section.  

Jasper County Court House

Harvey

Saltillo Cemetery

We wanted to take some more time and go to a couple of neighboring county courthouses to check on some additional records.  We decided to stay one more night in Rensselaer and move on the next morning. 

For dinner Monday night  “The Farmhouse” at Fair Oaks Farms came highly recommended.  You can check this place out at www.fofarms.com. This was a beautiful place and we learned a lot about how the entire facility runs on cow and pig manure.  They are very eco-friendly and humanely treat their animals.  You will have to go to the site and read about them.  The farmhouse had wonderful food and we really enjoyed out night here.

The Farmhouse RestaurantA view of Fair Oaks from the highway.

Tuesday we went to Winamac, IN where the Pulaski County courthouse resides.

At this courthouse just one county over there was no security at all, we were able to walk right in. We met a really nice lady there that worked at the courthouse but who had a love for genealogy and she gave us some suggestions on what to look for next.  We did not come up with anything in Winamac but enjoyed the stop to see the courthouse.

Pulaski County Courthouse

We moved on to Peru, Miami County, IN for a stop at their courthouse.  I found a deed at this courthouse to Isaac Byres land that listed the name of his wife on it.  Census records only listed her as Polly.  I also found a marriage record for Isaac and Margaret (Polly) Byres that indicates that she must have been a second wife.  The marriage was in 1847 and on the 1850 census record that lists the two of them I find eight Byres children all born before 1847. 

Miami County Courthouse

From Peru we traveled on to Fort Wayne IN and found a room at a Best Western Plus.  We drove over to Ohio so Mom could add Ohio to her list of states that she has found a geocache in (see the notes at the end of this blog for more on that) and then we went out for a cocktail and dinner.  Somehow spending all day driving or working in a courthouse demands a cocktail at the end of the day.

Wednesday we spent the entire day at the Allen County Library downtown Fort Wayne. They have a beautiful genealogy library wing and we had so much fun looking through the collections.  We couldn’t believe how fast the day went.  They even have a coffee and sandwich shop in the library so that you don’t have to leave when you get hungry.  I highly recommend spending time here if you ever get the chance.

From here we drove on down to Anderson, Madison County, IN.  Here we were hoping to research the Rains and Roadecap (sometimes spelled Roadcap or Rodecap) families from my mom’s side of the tree.  In the counties of Henry and Madison we have Henry and Lydia Myers Roadecap, Ahasual Raines and Mary Elliot Raines, and their children who married in Madison County, Joab Raines and Mary Martha Roadecap.  I will spell their names the way they are spelled in the family bible that we have.

 

 When we got there it was still light out so we decided to search out the first cemetery that was on our list.  We would be going to Middletown, Henry County, IN. It was the final resting places for Henry Roadecap and his wife Lydia Myers my 3 x great grandparents.  They belonged to the Upper Fall Creek Church of the Brethren.  We stopped at the local library that just happened to be open late and the librarian was able to give us directions out of town to the cemetery and church.  The church is still in existence today although probably not the same building.  The cemetery we were looking for was across the road from the church.  Pictures of Henry and Lydia’s stones have never made it to findagrave.com so we were anxious to see if we could find them.  This was a big cemetery and there wasn’t a directory.  We looked for the oldest section of the cemetery and stumbled right up to the stone.  It looked like someone had recently replaced the stone and Lydia’s previous stone was leaning up against it. 

We felt like the ancestors were leading us right to them. 

When we drove back through Middletown we noticed a historical society so we decided that would be our first stop on Thursday.  We went back towards our hotel which was another Best Western Plus…and stopped at a Montana Mike’s for dinner.

Thursday morning we hit the ground running because we had a lot of area to cover.  We started at the Middleton Historical Society.  They had old newspapers and we found an obituary for Henry Roadecap.  Henry had been married twice and there was an interesting note in the news about his death.  It said that Henry had a will and that the estate amounted to about $6,000 to be divided among his children.  It then stated that there was an ante-nuptial contract drawn up between Henry and his second wife in 1882. Who knew that they were doing prenuptials back in 1882?  Now we wanted a copy of his will!  Henry died in Madison County so we headed over to Anderson, IN to the courthouse to look for the will.  When we got to this courthouse there was security to walk through but not as invasive as Jasper County.

We were able to find a copy of Henry’s will.

 We also wanted to look for a marriage record for Henry’s daughter Mary Martha Roadecap to Joab Raines.  We have an obituary for Mary stating that she and Joab married on 5 May 1867.   This same date was also listed in “The Wine Family in America” book but their first son, Frank, was born on 6 May 1867.  This mystery did not get solved on this trip.  We did not find a marriage record for them at the courthouse.  Did they really marry one day before the birth of their first son or was this a typo?

We decided to check the Henry County Courthouse for the marriage record just in case they would have married there.  We drove over to New Castle, IN and at this courthouse we had to turn around and take our cell phones back to our car as they were not allowed in the courthouse.  We searched for the marriage record in question but struck out again. 

 Henry County Courthouse

Mom had visited with the librarian that worked in the genealogy room at the New Castle library so we were to meet with her next.  We headed over to the library and were impressed with their genealogy collections.  We found marriage records for Henry Roadecap and his second wife, Maria Showers.  We also found a marriage record for  Ahasual Raines and Mary Elliott.  We had two more cemeteries that we wanted to visit and were able to look them up and found directions to the first one. 

We headed out again and this time went to Knightstown, IN to Glen Cove Cemetery to see if we could find Joab and Mary Raines.  We got there and the office was open.  They were able to tell us that they were buried there but they had no way of knowing where.  The old part of the cemetery had never been plotted out so they only knew who was there but not where.  Someone had put a picture on findagrave.com so we at least knew what shape of stone to look for.  We did find them but they were not in as good of shape as they were when pictured for findagrave.com.  They were tilting and Joab’s was really hard to read now.  We paid our respects and moved on.

We had been having good luck finding the cemeteries that we wanted to visit.  We had one last cemetery to go see before leaving the area.  It was northeast of Anderson, IN in Hartman Cemetery by Moonville, IN.  This cemetery is listed in findagrave.com as a cemetery but there are no interments listed here.   Mom looked up the cemetery on the historical society site and it gave geo-coordinates so we plugged them into the Garmin and headed that way.  When we first got there we didn’t see the cemetery but then I spotted it behind someone’s place with no access to it without going through someone’s private property.   We found a gentleman mowing his yard so mom asked him about it and he directed us down the road to a different neighbor.  We went down to that house and were lucky enough to have someone come out of the house to talk to us.  She (Sharon) told us access was from yet another neighbor’s land but that she had six dogs and that we wouldn’t want to walk over there unless she was home to take her dogs in.  Great.  Sharon called the other neighbor for us and she told us it was okay to go on over and that the dogs were in.  Sharon walked over with us just to make sure all went well.  We were able to cross just fine and go in. It was a small cemetery so we found Ahasual and Mary Raines in a short amount of time.  We spent a few minutes paying our respects.  We thanked Sharon and headed up the road.  It had been a long prosperous day and we were heading to Lafayette, IN to spend the night. 

Friday morning we got up and hit the road for Omaha.  We spent more time on the way back pulling off at exits so mom could grab some Munzees.  We pulled into Omaha about 7:30 p.m.  Another genealogy roadtrip was in the books!  We were sorry to see it end.

Notes: More on Geocaching can be found at www.geocaching.com.  It is an activity where someone puts a log sheet for you to sign at different locations.  A lot of the time these are put somewhere that has some historical significance and other times they are random areas.  You are given coordinates to follow with a GPS to help you find them.

More on Munzees can be found at www.munzee.com.  It is “the 21^st century scavenger hunt that you can play using your smart phone.” For this game a sticker is placed in different places and when you find it you scan it with your phone to earn points.  Again you use the GPS features of your phone to locate the sticker.

Mary Poppins had nothing on my grandmother.

Etta Fuller Boehler, my grandmother, loved to tell a good story.  One of my favorites was the umbrella story.  My grandmother had two brothers that were about her age, William Fuller and John Fuller. Grandma told the story of how she was going to try to fly like Mary Poppins.  She and her brothers were out playing and they convinced her that if she climbed to the top of the windmill with an umbrella and jumped that she would fly/float down to the ground.

Picture courtesy of Rita Fuller Stephens

My grandmother was up to the challenge. She went and got the umbrella and started climbing to the top of the windmill.  When she got to the top she was too scared to jump but was also too scared to get herself back down. The boys went to get their mother to help.  When her mother saw what she was doing she was terrified and started talking really nice to her....trying to coax her back down without falling.  According to grandma it was things like "everything is okay Etta, you just come on back down"  "one step at a time Etta, you will be just fine" "come on down sweetie, you are doing fine".   Grandma said she didn't think she was in any trouble because of how sweet her mother was being to help her get down, but when she got to the bottom it was a different story.  Grandmas said she was promptly spanked and sent to bed for the rest of the day without any supper.

When grandma was telling me this story years later she was telling me that the brothers told her she could fly like Mary Poppins but I realized that the Mary Poppins books were not written until the 1930s so that analogy to the story was added later.  I wondered where they did come up with the idea and realized the newspapers were a great resource for stories of people trying to fly during those times.

According to wikipedia, stories of tower jumping were documented back to the earliest of times with men strapping birdlike wings, or other devices to themselves and attempting to fly, typically by jumping off a tower. Most of these attempts ended in serious injury or death. In 1853, Louis Letur of France developed a parachute glider that was an umbrella like parachute.
The Wright brothers made their first successful flights in 1903 so flying was very much in the news when my grandmother was growing up.

I will be anxious to see if any of my siblings or cousins heard this same story and if the version is the same.  I remember the story two ways...once as it is described above and also where she was about to jump and her mother stopped her just in time and then coaxed her down.

Sarah Jane Padgett Fuller Calhoun

Last spring Mom and I went to Missouri and had a great time following the trails of our ancestors.  On Dad's side we were in Phelps county seeing where Alexander and Sarah Jane Fuller lived and started their family.  Alexander went off to fight in the Civil War and never came home.  We met a historian there who told us that there was a document that told that Sarah Jane's brother came from Illinois and took her and her two small children back there with him.  Phelps county was a very unsettled area at the time (more about this in my previous blog).

Back in Illinois Sarah Jane met William Calhoun and they married.  Their next stop was in Little River, Kansas.  Their daughter, Martha, married Jess Frankeburger and lived her entire life there. Sarah Jane and William lived there for a time and then moved up to Sarpy county, Nebraska.  Sarah's son, John Fuller, stayed in Sarpy Co and married my great grandmother, Margaret Overton.  

William died in Sarpy Co and Sarah Jane ended up going back to Little River, Kansas to live with her daughter, Martha.

This summer Dad and I made the trip to Little River, Kansas.  It is a quiet little town in a beautiful setting.  The first thing you have to know about my dad is that we start out early!  I left my house at 5:30 am to meet Dad in Kansas....

...so I rolled out of bed and went...hence the bed head!  Haha.  I also came across these beauties along the way.

Dad drove east and I drove south until we intersected somewhere in Kansas and then rode the rest of the way together.  We arrived in Little River around 10:00-10:30.  

We decided that we should head out to the cemetery first.  

The cemetery was just outside of town....it was a pretty drive.

We were able to find the Frankeberger family plots without much trouble.  Dad standing by the stones of his great grandmother and great aunt.

  Dad's great grandmother, Sarah Jane Padgett Fuller Calhoun.

Next we found her daughter, Martha Fuller Frankeberger and husband Jesse.

Jesse and Martha had 4 daughters.  Leona, Bessie, Vastie and Grace.  Leona was first married to Ben Meyer in 1904 and he passed in 1906.  She then married James Lafayette Smith in 1911.  They are both buried next to Leona.

Vastie married Fred Hodgson.  

Bessie did not marry as she died at a younger age.

And Grace married Bert Snedeger. 

It was really nice that they were all in the same cemetery right beside one another.  It was also a very calm peaceful resting place.

After the cemetery visit we went back into Little River and stopped by the local genealogical society.

We were disappointed to find out that it was only open one day a week and I had mixed up which day so no one was there.  We went across the street to the library and the lady working there looked up the phone number of a couple of the volunteers and we found a really nice gal that was willing to come and open up for us.  It was going to be a little while before she could get there so we went and had a sandwich at the local pub.  The food and service were both really good.  We went back to the historical society after lunch.  The gal that helped us pulled all of the obituaries of the family whose graves we had just visited and gave us some history of the family as she knew it.  It was a really nice visit and we really appreciated her taking the time to come down and open up for us!

So the next thing that we all tease my dad about is that when he gets behind a wheel he does not like to stop anywhere.  One of the comments from my mom and brother was..."good luck getting a picture of the stones while dad cruises by them!"  So with this being said the challenge was on... dad was out to prove them all wrong.  He went out of his way to make sure that we had plenty of time in Little River.  He also made some little detours to see the sites along the way!

Pretty church in Beloit Kansas.

We took time out to see the World's Largest Ball of Twine in Cawker City, Kansas! (Now we are getting a little carried away with things! haha)

And to end out the day...a little side trip to shop.  I was told, "go in and don't come out until you buy something so that we can prove that we went shopping"...while dad waited in the car!  This is about as good as it gets!!!

Spring Genealogy Trip 2014

Last year my mom and I decided to make our first attempt at a genealogy trip.  We planned a trip to Illinois where we could visit Monmouth where relatives on her side lived and then we headed south to Lincoln, Ill to where relatives on dad's side resided.  We had so much fun we decided we needed a repeat this year.
This year we picked Missouri because again we could visit sites from both sides of my family.  We are not professional genealogists by any means but we have a great time and sometimes just luck into some fantastic finds.  This trip was no different.
We started out on a Sunday leaving Omaha around 6:30 with our plan to drive south and get to Wilson's Creek National Park shortly after lunch.  On the way we found this great BBQ place and had a fantastic lunch...after all half the fun of traveling is finding those new and great places to eat!

Mom at Boone's BBQ Barn in Bolivar, MO

We started with exploring dad's side this year.  Dad's great, great grandfather was Alexander Fuller.  He came from Candor, New York and settled near Rolla, Missouri.  He met his future wife, Sarah Jane Padgett, who was living with her mother and step father, Phillip and Mary Deem.  Also living with them were her half brothers, Jim and Christopher Deem. The Deems had moved to Missouri from Illinois.  Alexander and Sarah Jane married on March 1, 1857 or 1858.  (It is stated both ways in a later pension application statement made by Sarah Jane.)  The marriage record has been destroyed by fire so we only have the pension application to go by.  They had two children, John and Martha. Alexander Fuller joined the First Arkansas Mounted Riflemen under Colonel Thomas J. Churchill.  He was wounded at the Battle of Wilson's Creek.  So we wanted to start by touring Wilson's Creek Battlefield. We were there on a beautiful day and could really take our time and walk the trails and see the park.  I cannot describe the feeling you get knowing what took place on those grounds that day.

When we finished up at Wilson's Creek we drove into Springfield to spend the night.  We had dinner in a downtown pub that was good and got a great Priceline deal at the Springfield Hotel.

On Monday we drove into Rolla, MO.

We got to Rolla about lunch time and it was recommended that we eat at a place called "Slice of Pie".  This was perfect as they served a light lunch and had a list of almost 40 pies to chose from!  Yum.  It was so good that we ate lunch there again the next day!

Every good genealogy trip takes planning.  While I was organizing my notes and deciding what we should do in Rolla I knew that there was an out of the way cemetery that I wanted to visit.  Phillip Mary and Jim Deem are buried in a country cemetery.  Luckily it is listed on findagrave.com but I wasn't sure of the location.  I took a chance and contacted the gentleman (Garrett) that had posted the memorial and pictures on findagrave.com  It turned out that not only was he very familiar with the cemetery and the story of the Deem family but some of his family now own the land where my Deem family was living in the 1850-1860s. As we corresponded I found out that he also knew where Sarah Jane Fuller had lived and he had some information about why she had moved back to Illinois with the kids.  He offered to show us where the cemetery is located, the Deem farm and where the Fullers were living. We were really excited to have someone offer to give us a guided tour of the area!
We met Garrett and his friend who is also interested in local history and teaches History at one of the area schools to exchange notes and then go on the tour.  The first stop was the land where the Fullers lived.  After Alexander went to war, soldiers had burned the house down and Sarah Jane Fuller and the kids moved in with the neighbors... Widow Keester. The widow Keester later married Judge Wright.  Alexander Fuller died of disease later in the Civil War and Sarah Jane was being referred to as Widow Fuller.  Now a side note...in the Rolla area there was a lot of conflict between the two sides of the Civil War.  Both sides were accused of bushwhacking and were labeled bushwhackers.  Judge Wright had a son, Anthony,  that was a notorious bushwhacker and soldiers were after him.  One day the soldiers came and arrested  Judge Wright and his other son in connection to Anthony.  They were to take them back to jail in Rolla but along the way
they was killed by the soldiers.  There was a trial of the soldiers and during this trial the Widow Fuller is mentioned because of the time that she spent living with Judge Wright and his wife the Widow Keester.  During the trial another neighbor makes some statements about the Widow Fuller and also states that her brother came to Missouri and took her and the children back to Illinois with him.  Later the widow Fuller remarried to William Calhoun in Illinois.

  This picture isn't the best as the sun was in the wrong position.

Next we went over to the Deem farm.  There is a cabin still sitting on it that may be left from the Deems but it also could have been built shortly after that time.  In the The Bushwhacker book by George Clinton Arthur it says that soldiers burned the Deem house down.  Later in the book it says that since the house had been burned Mrs Deem was now living in a two-room log house near Corn Creek.

Log house still on the property where the Deems lived. Unsure if this is the actual
log cabin talked about.

Mary Deem's son, Jim, was killed by soldiers due to his association with Bushwhacker Bill.  Her husband, Phillip was innocent but killed too mainly because of his son, Jim.   Her other son, Christopher had joined the service and also fought at Wilson's Creek.

Huskey Cemetery where the Deem family is buried.  Notice the spelling on the stones is different.

Here is a picture of mom with our tour guides.  Another picture of mom and I at the cemetery.

We spent the night in Rolla and the next day we went to the Courthouse and the Historical Society.  We found a little bit of information about the Phillip Deem estate but I still have some more work to do on that.
We of course browsed some antique stores too!  Then we headed out towards our next destination, Memphis, MO.
We drove as far as Jefferson City, MO and found a hotel.  Went to a shopping area for dinner and a few munzees (another form of geocaching) for mom.

Wednesday we started the trip to Memphis, Mo driving north and stopping when we would see an interesting antique.  We got to Macon Mo and went into a downtown antique shop.  The owner had a huge wall full of genealogy books.  They were not for sale but were there for anyone who wanted to use them.  They had belonged to her father-in-law and when he passed away they put them in their shop to share with others.  His collection was as big as some library collections that I have seen.  What a treasure!
Of course we had to find a good lunch place and the locals suggested Hawg Father's BBQ.  The special was a chicken tenderloin seasoned and wrapped in bacon.  It also had a sweet taste of brown sugar incopoated into it.  Very good.  I believe we found a homemade cobbler here too....are you starting to see a theme of pies on this trip?

On to Memphis!

We drove on up to Memphis, Mo and pulled into town in time to spend about an hour at the courthouse.  We found some land records and a couple of marriage records that we did not have.
We found a motel for the night and then went out to visit a friend at the cemetery.  Rita was a good friend to my mom and later my family in Omaha.  She was originally from Memphis so we wanted to  take these flowers out to her. RIP Rita.

We found a little bar/pub that we were told would have food and a drink so we went there for dinner.
And no trip is complete with out grabbing a geocache or two along the way.  Mom found this one outside of town at a small recreational lake area.

The next morning we went to the Memphis Genealogical Society and did some more research.  We also stopped at the library as it had a genealogy area too.  We were hoping to find some information about our Civil War ancestors, William P Smith and John Little.  We did not come up with anything more than we already knew but we were referred to the state archives for more information.

We were told that another good stop while we were in the area was the "Athens Civil War Battlefield".  So we headed that way.  This is the site of the Northernmost Battle west of the Mississippi River.

It was a beautiful area but again you could feel the emotions of the battle when you were there.  We saw a house that was owned by the Benning family on the grounds. During the battle a cannonball went clear through it.  The hole in the front and back are still there.  No one was injured but wouldn't
that have been a surprise to see a cannonball zip through your home?

Exit hole in the back of the house.

From there we headed on up to Ottumwa, Ia.  Somewhere on the way Mom found a great Western Stoneware paperweight made in Monmouth, IL at an antique shop here.  We both like to collect small Western Stoneware items because of the family connection to that area.  In Ottumwa we took a break from the old and went shopping at a mall that we found there and then went to dinner. This time we tried BBQ nachos at a local pub in the mall.  They were good but still couldn't beat the BBQ nachos served at the Nebraska State Fair by Pig in a Bag!  We also found a few munzees (another form of geocaching) for mom.

The next morning was Friday and we were due home that night.  We got up and headed to Pella, IA.  Mom had been there before but I had not.  We found a great coffee shop on our way thru Oskaloosa, IA and I was really excited about that!  I hadn't had a Cafe Mocha since before we left and the one from Smokey Row was excellent....in fact it was such good coffee that when we got to Pella and found another Smokey Row we indulged in a second cup.  I learned that no trip to Pella is complete without a trip to the Jaarsma Danish Bakery and  a tour of the Dutch windmill.  The Windmill was imported from Holland in pieces and reassembled in Pella.

My tour guide.

Shortly after noon we decided it was time to head back to Omaha.  We had covered quite a bit of area and had a great time.  For me touring the areas where my ancestors lived makes them more real and it really is a treat to get to spend the time with my mom.  Can't wait until the next trip... a bit of dieting is in order after this trip! We are not sure where the next trip will take us but had family from both sides in Indiana so....

Note - Our contact in Rolla was Garrett Gabel.  He co-wrote the book "History of Yancy Mills, Mo" and he is working on his new book. Our trip to Rolla was made so much better because of Garrett and Mikes' willingness to share their knowledge and time to help us understand what life was like for my family in Rolla, MO.  Thank you again Garrett and Mike!