4. Wetherall-Beaman

William Franklin Wetherall and Laura Belle Beaman

William Franklin Wetherall with his favorite Belles, wife Laura and daughter Lena Early or mid 1920s, possibly in Knoxville, definitely on a special occasion Judging from the poses he liked to strike with the women in his family, William Franklin Wetherall was a lady's man as well as a proud husband and father Images are my scans of 2nd-generation paper copies sent my father in 1997 by Kathy Wetherall, his niece and my 1st cousin. They are part of the materials Kathy collected on the histories of her Wetherall-Van Houton, Wetherall-Beaman, and Beaman-Shoemaker and related families. Kathy attributed the original prints to Elaine Hunter, a granddaughter of Laura Belle (Beaman) Wetherall's brother Samuel Zacharias Beaman (1875-1944), hence Kathy's and my 2nd cousin once removed. See Kathy Wetherall on "Wetherall-Baldwin-Van Houton" family history page for more about both Kathy and Elaine.

0. "William F. Wetherall", a "Laborer", 30 on next birthday, father "William E. Wetherall", mother "Mary Hall", and "Laura B. Beaman", 22 on next birthday, father "George Beaman", mother "Sidney Shoemaker", were married in Knoxville, Iowa, on 19 October 1887 by J. A. Beattie, D.M. Both groom and bride were living in Knoxville, had been born in Iowa, and were "W" by "Race" -- according to a "Return of Marriages in the County of Marion for the Year Ending October 1st, A.D." The "Date of return" of the Wetherall-Beaman union was 4 November 1887.
   1. WFW was the 1st of 4 children and 1st of 2 sons of William Edwin Wetherall (WEW) and Mary Hall (see "8. Wetherall-Hall" below). Laura was the 3rd of 8 children and the 2nd of 4 daughters of George Washington Beaman, a chairmaker, and Sidney "Sydna" Shoemaker (see "9. Beaman-Shoemaker" below). They married in Knoxville, Iowa, on 19 October 1887, and all 7 of their children were born in Knoxville (see "Chronology of Wetherall-Beaman family through censuses" below).
1. Whether Mary Sydna's formal name was Sidney, or whether Mary was her middle name, has not been confirmed. Her namesakes appear to be WFW's mother Mary and Laura's mother Sidney, who judging by later censuses also went by "Sydna".
   
   Synda married John E. Wynn, who was born in 1884 in Otley in Marion County, Iowa (marriage certificate). Cedar Rapids in Linn County, Iowa. They had two children, both daughters, Myrle Isadore Wynn (1909-1943) and Marjory Faye (Wynn) Kool (1913-1988). John Wynn died in 1915, and between 1925 and 1930 Sydna married Earl Wayne Brady (1885-1954), who had lost his wife in 1913 and had a daughter who was born in 1907. According to a delayed certificate of birth, Sydna and Earl married about 21 March 1928 (see below).
   
   Earl's first wife, Flossie (Showers) Brady (1886-1913), is buried in Peasantville Cemetery in Knoxville. Earl and Sydna, and his daughter Maxine Joy (Brady) Reynolds (1907-1996), are buried in Graceland Cemetery in Knoxville.
   
   Marjory Faye (Wynn) Kool (1913-1980) is the 2nd daughter of Mary Sydna (Wetherall) (Wynn) Brady, who went by Sydna. Marjory Faye, who was known as Faye, married John F. Kool (1912-1998) on 17 August 1934, according to their grave stone at Graceland Cemetery in Knoxville, and they had a daughter, Mary Margaret Kool, who may have been named after her grandmother Synda. Faye is the namesake of Faye (Pfister) (Kahr) Konan, a daughter of Rita Beryl (Stone) Pfister (1913-1999), who was a daughter of Rolland Lloyd Stone (bc1895-1972) and Lena Belle (Wetherall) Stone (1894-1944), who was buried as Belle Stone. Lena Belle was Mary Sydna's 2nd younger sister, so Rita Pfister and Faye Kool are 1st cousins, Faye Konan and Mary Kool are 2nd cousins (with this writer William Wetherall), and Faye Kool and Faye Konan are 1st cousins once removed.
   1. The 1900 census shows Mary S. Wetherall (11), born July 1888, a daughter of William and Laura Wetherall.
   2. The 1910 census shows Sydna M. Wynn (21) as the wife of John E. Wynn (25), a laborer who did odd jobs, living at 406 Robinson Street in Knoxville, with a Missouri-born daughter, Isadore M. Wynn (7/12), and William Miller (56), a boarder who worked as a coal wagon driver.
   3. The 1920 census shows Sydna Wynn (32) as a housekeeper, widowed, living at 406 Robinson Street with two daughters, Missouri-born Myrle (10), and Iowa-born Faye (6), in the household of William Miller (65), a single truck farmer.
   4. The 1925 Iowa census shows Sydna and her daughters still living at 406 Robinson Street with William Miller, but Sydna and William are listed as heads of separate households. Myrle was born in Moberly, Missouri, and Faye in Knoxville, Iowa.
   5. The 1930 census for Knoxville shows Sydna (41) as the wife of Earl Brady (46), a farmer, with Fay [sic = Faye] Wynn (16), Earl's stepdaughter. Earl and Sydna were respectively 23 and 22 at the time of their 1st marriages.
   6. The 1940 census for Knoxville shows Sydna M. (51) as the wife of Earl W. Brady (56), a farm operator. Both had completed 8-year grade-school educations.
   7. On 22 September 1954, "Sydna Brady" of Knoxville, Marion County, Iowa submitted an application for a "Delayed Certificate of Birth" on behalf of herself as "Mary Sydna Wetherall" born 30 July 1888 to "Wm. F. [Franklin] Wetherall" and "Laura Bell [sic] Beaman". Supporting evidence included a Marion County Clerk's Marriage Record dated 21 March 1928 and a Family Bible Record dated 1898. The documents were examined and the application was approved on the day it was submitted, and the certificate was filed by the county registrar on 12 October 1954.
2. William R. Wetherall (WRW) married Ida Mae Baldwin (1890-1923) in Seward, Nebraska, in 1910 and they had 1 child. In 1921 he married Nellie Marie Van Houton (1898-1966) in Des Moines, Iowa, and they had 4 children. See 2. Wetherall-Baldwin-Van Houton and related families for details.
3. Bertha or "Bert" married Lyman B. Masteller on 22 September 1909. They had 2 children.
   1. Roland Wayne Masteller, born 19 February 1913 in Dodgen, North Dakota, died 8 April 1986 in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Sometimes called Wayne, sometimes Roland or Roland W. Place of burial unknown.
   2. Sylda C. Masteller, born 4 January 1915 in Marion County, Iowa, died 16 March 1915 in Centerville, Appanoose, Iowa. Lived only 3 months. Reportedly buried in Knoxville.
   
   Census records reveal the following details.
   1. The 1910 census shows Bertha (17) and Lyman (24), a farm laborer, living in Knoxville with a male boarder (51).
   2. Lyman's 12 September 1918 draft registration card shows him as a truck driver for S.L. Collins Oil Co. in Centerville, Appanoose County, Iowa, his nearest relative Bertha Leota Masteller, living with him at the same Centerville address.
   3. The 1920 census shows Bertha (27) and Lyman (34), a truck driver, living in Centerville with their son Wayne (6), who was born in North Dakota.
   4. The 1930 census shows Bertha (37) back in Knoxville, divorced, a restaurant waitress, with Wayne (16).
   5. The 1930 census shows Lyman (43) in Des Moines, divorced, no occupation, living with his parents, Charles H. (70), a farmer, and Amanda (66), no occupation, and 2 younger brothers, both single, Edd B. (36), an oil station attendant, and Worth G. (24), no occupation. Later records show that Lyman would remarry at least twice.
   6. The 1940 census shows Bertha (47) as the wife of John D. Dainty (44), a manager for an oil company, in Marshfield in Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, where they had been living in 1935. Wayne Masteller (27), John's stepson, is listed as a news worker. Bertha had finished 8 years of grade school, John and Wayne 2 years of high school.
      1. John Dainty (1895-1964) was an older brother of Wilbert Dainty, who married Bertha's youngest sister Alice (see below). John, like Bertha, had previously been married. He and his first wife, Lucinda "Louie" Dainty (1896-1982), had two daughters, Dorothy and Darlene.
   Bertha and John are buried together in Greenwood Cemetery in Knoxville. Lucinda "Louie" Dainty, who did not remarry, is also buried there. Lucinda's and John's younger daughter Darlene E. Dainty (1928-1938), who died when 9, is buried there, as are a number of other Daintys, including John and Wilbert's parents, Reverend David Daniel Dainty (1874-1941) and Lucinda (Shirey) Dainty (1877-1962), who share the same headstone.
4. Lena (or "Belle" as she was commonly called) married Rolland Lloyd (Rolland L, R.L., "Rollie") Stone on 22 May 1912 in Knoxville, Iowa, and they had 1 daughter, Rita (b1914). Rolland was born in Kansas on 15 September 1891.
   1. Rolland's miltary service Registration Card, signed in Polk County, Iowa, on 5 June 1919 -- 7 months after the signing of the amistice ending the World War, later called World War I -- gives his name as "Roolland Loyd Stone", but he signs "Rolland Loyd [sic] Stone". According to card, he was 25, but was born in Morland, Kansas, on 15 September 1892, which would have made him 26 when he signed the card.
      1. The 1900 census gives Rolland's birth as "Sep 1891". And his ages on the 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1940 censuses favor 1891. Social Security and other records also show 15 September 1891. Of interest, though, is his D.S.S. Form 1 Registration Card, signed in Fond du Lac on 25 April 1942 as "Rolland Lloyd Stone". The card says that he was married to "Belle Stone" and was 51, but he was born in "Moorland" [sic = Morland] in Kansas on 15 September 1892 -- which would make him 50. Did Rolland not know his year of birth? Did he or registrars not notice the age discrepancy? His 1872 obituary states 15 September 1891.
      2. The 1920 census shows Rolland L. (28), a salesman of electric supplies, with his wife Lena B. (25), and their daughter "Rhita B." (6), living in Des Moines in Polk County, Iowa.
         1. Rolland was born in Kansas to Iowa-born parents, Lena in Iowa to Iowa-born parents, and Rhita in North Dakota.
      3. A 1924 city directory shows Rolland L. Stone as a "trav agt" and "Bell" residing in Fort Dodge, Iowa.
      4. The 1925 Iowa census shows Roland L. Stone [sic = Rolland] (33), Lena (30), and "Rheta B." (possibly "Rhita B.") (11) living in Wahkonsa [Fort Dodge] in Webster County, Iowa. City directories show her as Lena, Belle, and Lina B.
         1. A detailed survey of their and their parents' places of birth show that Rolland was born in Palco, Kansas, to an Indiana-born father and a Knoxville, Iowa-born mother, while Lena was born in Knoxville in Marion County, Iowa, to Iowa-born parents, and Rita was born in Dayton, North Dakota. Rolland and Lena were reportedly married in Knoxville.
      5. The 1925 and 1926 Fort Dodge directories shows Rolland L. Stone as a "trav slsmn" and "Belle" still residing in the town at the same address as in 1924.
      6. The 1930 census shows Roland L. Stone [sic = Rolland] (39), Lena (36), and Rita B. (17) living in Madison in Dane County, Wisconsin. Roland was 21 and Lena was 18 when married.
         1. Rolland was born in Iowa to a Kentucky-born father and Iowa-born mother, Lena was born in Iowa to a Pennsylvania-born father and a Minnesota-born mother, and Rita was born in North Dakota.
      7. A 1931 city directory shows Rolland L. Stone as a "slsmn" and "Lena B." in Madison, Wisconsin.
      8. A 1932 directory shows Rolland L. Stone as a "slsmn" and "L. Belle" in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
      9. The 1940 census shows Rolland Stone (48), a salesman (wholesale, washing machines, etc.) with an 8-year grade-school education, and his wife Lena (46), with a 4-year high school education, living in Fond du Lac, in Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin. They were living at the same address in 1935.
      10. A 1943 directory shows "Stone Rolland L" as a "trav" [traveling salesman] and "Lena B" in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.
   2. Lena died in Fond du Lac on 13 November 1944. But was buried in Graceland Cemetery in Knoxville as "Belle Stone".
   3. Rolland remarried Helene Marie Sabo on 17 March 1945.
      1. The 1953 and 1955 directories for Fond du Lac show Rolland L Stone, a salesman, married to Helen M. Stone. He was still in Fond du Lac in 1959.
      2. Rolland, born on 15 September 1891 in Morland, Kansas, died in Fond du Lac on 6 April 1972. He is buried in Ledgeview Memorial Park in Fond du Lac.
      3. Helene, born on 13 December 1909 in Green Bay, Wisconsin, died in a Green Bay nursing home on 5 March 1999 . But she is buried in Fond du Lac -- presumably with Rolland.
5. "Georgia Myrtle" is name on an Ancestry.com transciption of an unconfirmed Iowa birth index which says she was born on 16 February 1898. She is just "Myrle" (not "Myrtle") on the headstone of her grave in Graceland Cemetery in Knoxville, which says she died in 1899. The 1900 census states that Laura had given birth to 6 children, 5 of whom were still living, and lists 5 children in the household (see below).
6. Jeremiah Alexander is enumerated as "Jeremiah P. Wetherall" on the 1900 nationwide census, as "Gerry" on the 1905 Iowa state census, and as "Jerry" or "Jerry A." on later censuses. He married Anna Maye Rodgers on 18 May 1921.
   WBW knew him as "Uncle Jerry" (see "4.6 Wetherall-Rodgers" below).
7. Annetta Alice, generally called "Alice", was 16 at time of the 1920 census, which shows her living with her parents, William and Laura Wetherall, at their Knoxville home with her 9-year-old nephew William Wetherall (WBW), and her maternal grandfather (and WBW's paternal-maternal great grandfather) G.W. Beaman. Alice was briefly married to Bill Evans but later married and had 3 children with Wilbert Dainty.
   WBW knew Alice as "Aunt Alice" (see "4.7 Wetherall-Evans-Dainty" below).

William B. Wetherall's recollection

William B. Wetherall lived in Knoxville, Iowa, with his Wetherall-Beaman grandparents, William F. and Laura Wetherall, while attending grade school in Knoxville from 1917 to 1924. When talking to this writer (his son) in 2010 about the family, he recalled 6 children -- (1) Aunt Sydna, later Wynn, (2) Aunt Belle, later Stone, who had a daughter "Rita", his cousin, (3) Aunt Bertha or "Bert", later Masteller, then Dainty, (4) William Riley, his father, (5) "Uncle Jerry" (see below), who he characterized as "an auto mechanic, bootlegger, and farmer", and (6) "Aunt Alice" (see below), who had married Wilbert or "Bill" Dainty, after an earlier marriage to Bill Evans.

WBW had these names in his head. He'd been closest to Alice because she was still in her teens and living at the Wetherall home in Knoxville when his father, William R., left him to the care of William F. and Laura in 1917. She was also the most familiar to us, his Wetherall family, because we had stayed at the Dainty home in Knoxville, with Alice, Bill, and their children, when going to Iowa in the summer of 1958 for a family reunion. On that trip, we also met Sydna, Bertha, and Bertha's husband John Dainty, Bill Dainty's brother.

Why WBW remembered his cousin "Rita" is not clear. She was born in North Dakota, and was about 3 in 1917 when Bill began living in Knoxville at age 6. She herself was 6 in 1920 when her parents were in Des Moines. WBW lived in Des Moines from 1924 to 1928. By 1925, she and her parents are in Fort Dodge, Iowa, and by 1930, at 17, she is living with them in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. So it is not clear that WBW ever met Rita. I'd never heard him speak of her before 2010.

William F. Wetherall's obituary Cropped from copy in Wetherall Family Collection of copy from Kathy Wetherall attributed to "Knoxville Gene. Soc."

William Franklin Wetherall (1858-1929)

William F. Wetherall (WFW) was born, raised, and lived his entire life in Marion County, Iowa, first on his father's farm in Washington, then in Knoxville after his father moved there in 1880.

William B. Wetherall (WBW) reported in 2010 that William F. Wetherall (WFW), his paternal grandfather, worked for The Knoxville Journal, a local newspaper, first as a sweeper, later as a collector. WBW said his father, William R. Wetherall (WRW), started working for the paper after graduating from the 8th grade. He said his father became a compositor and did other work at the paper before working at print shops and magazine and newspaper publishers elsewhere in Iowa and Idaho.

WBW's 2010 account of his grandfather's work at the newspaper is consistent with occupations stated on available censuses. The 1880 census shows him as a farmer just before his move to Knoxville, at which point his own father briefly educated a Knoxville newspaper. The 1900 census his as a laborer, and the 1920 states he was a solicitor for newspaper subscriptions.

In 2013, Mary Sue Ryswyk reported that, according to Mary Wells, WBW's younger half-sister through WRW's second marriage, her grandfather "William Franklin Wetherall worked in the newspaper business too. He worked for the Knoxville Express, a democratic paper. The Knoxville Journal was a republican paper."

Whether WFW worked for the Journal or the Express has not yet been confirmed. His father, William Edwin Wetherall (WEW), however, had been an editor for the Journal, not the Express. WEW's obituary appeared in both papers, but the Knoxville Journal gave his obituary considerably more space and clearly stated that he had once been it's editor (see below).

WFW's personality

Mary Wells, who was about 6 years old when William F. Wetherall died in 1929, remembered her paternal grandfather as a man with a sense of humor, according to her daughter-in-law, Mary Van Ryswyk (email, 28 August 2013).

One memory Mary has of William Franklin was his love of gardening. She chucked as she told the story of Grandpa planting onions one day while his son, Jerry, daughter Betty Ruth [sic = son Jerry's daughter Betty Ruthe] pulled them up as fast as WF could put them in the ground. When he finally turned around and saw what this 3 year old scamp was doing he laughed and laughed.

Mary, born on 13 October 1922, was 10 months younger than Betty, her first cousin, born on 4 January 1922. Mary, too, would have been about 3 at the time Betty pulled up WFW's onions, apparently in 1925. Betty was then living in Lacona, Iowa, and Mary was living in Des Moines. Possibly both were visiting their grandparents in Knoxville that year and Mary has an early memory of the incident. More likely, though, Mary was retelling a story she later heard from Laura.

WFW raised homing pigeons according to his grandson WBW, my father, and a surviving photograph documents him holding a white dove (see gallery below). He himself smoked a pipe and apparently also taught Laura to smoke one (see gallery under "Laura B. Wetherall" below).

Death certificate

A scan of an "Original / Standard Certificate of Death" states that "William Franklin Wetherall" died of "Cerebral Hemorrhage" in Knoxville, Marion County, Iowa on 1 February 1929, having been attended by the physician since 27 January 1929. He was born on 28 February 1958 in Iowa to "William E. Weatherall" ("a" is overstruck) born in Maryland, and "Mary S. Hall" born in Pennsylvania, and was 70 years, 11 months, 3 days old at the time of his death. He was the husband of "Laura Beaman Wetherall" and a "Solicitor" by occupation. The informant was (his son) "William R. Wetherall" of Des Moines, Iowa. He was buried on 3 February 1929 in Graceland Cemetery by undertakers Roberts & Evans of Knoxville.

Laura B. Wetherall's obituary Cropped from copy in Wetherall Family Collection of copy from Kathy Wetherall attributed to "Knoxville Gene. Soc."

Laura Belle (Beaman) Wetherall

Laura Belle (Beaman) Wetherall spent was born in Iowa and spent her entire life in the state, most of it in Knoxville. Her earliest occupation on record is that of a domestic servant, at age 14, in the household of a Knoxville physician (1880 census). She appears to have completed only 4 years of grade school (1940 census).

I have no statistics on education in late 19th-century Iowa farming communities, but I would guess that most children completed 6 years years of schooling before starting to work in their early teens. Poverty may have forced the Beamans to send Laura out to work, possibly before she was 14.

The 1880 census shows occupations for all people 12 years old and older. The census shows William B. Wetherall's maternal grandfather, "Newton B. Baldwin" (19), living in Jackson County, Kentucky, with his parents and 8 younger siblings. Bascum, his father, and the 3 oldest of his younger brothers (16, 13, 12) are enumerated as laborers, probably in a coal mine. His mother is keeping house.

Laura by all accounts was a lively personality

"Laura Beaman Wetherall loved to dance and laugh and have fun," according to Mary Wells, her granddaughter. "Mary remembers that her husband, James Van Ryswyk, really loved Laura and would dance with her. Laura was always full of fun." (Email, Mary Sue Van Ryswyk, 28 August 2013)

Wetherall-Beaman children

William F. and Laura (Beaman) Wetherall had 5 daughters and 2 sons. That 1 of the 7 would die shortly after birth was statistically not unusual at the time, when infant mortality rates were still fairly high. However, that 4 of the 6 surviving Wetherall-Beaman children would marry more than once, three of them after divroces, was unusual.

Only Lena and Jerry would marry only once. Sydna would remarry after her 1st husband died. William R. would remarry after divorcing his 1st wife. And both Bertha and Alice would divorce their 1st husbands and remarry men who were brothers.

Grandchildren

William R. was the only Wetherall-Beaman sibling who had children from both of his marriages -- 1 child, William B. Wetherall, with his 1st wife, and 4 children with his 2nd. Sydna had 2 children, and Bertha had 1 child, with their 1st husbands but none with their 2nd. Alice had no children with her 1st husband but 3 with her second. Lena had 1 child, and Jerry, the most productive, had 7.

Sydna, Bertha, and Alice

Synda, the 1st Wetherall-Beaman child, born in 1888, and Bertha, the 3rd child, born in 1892, married Knoxville men with whom they then lived elsewhere. Within 10 years of her 1st marriage, Sydna returned to Knoxville a widow with 2 children, then remarried and remained in Knoxville. Bertha, after divorcing her 1st husband, returned to Knoxville with her child, and also remarried and remained in Knoxville.

Alice, born in 1904 the 7th and last Wetherall-Beaman child, was the only child who would always live in Knoxville. According to her daughter Thayne (Dainty) Ireland, as reported by Mary Sue Ryswyk, "[her 1st husband] Bill Evans was having an affair, Alice found out about it, and her father [William F. Wetherall] told her not to put up with that, so she filed for divorce" (email, 28 November 2013). Alice remarried Wilbert Dainty, the younger brother of Bertha's 2nd husband, John Dainty.

Socially, the three sisters appear to have remained very close (see "Wetherall-Beaman children" gallery below).

William R. Wetherall

William R. Wetherall, born in 1890, the 2nd Wetherall-Beaman child and the 1st of 2 sons, appears to have been happily married to Ida until the birth of William B. Wetherall in 1911. Several months later, Ida was confined to an insane assylum, leaving WRW to care for WBW with the help of first her parents, then his parents, and finally Nellie, his 2nd wife (see "Wetherall-Baldwin-Van Houton" family page for details).

Jerry A. Wetherall

Jerry Alexander Wetherall, the youngest, appears as "Jeremiah" in the 1900 census taken just months after his birth. Though Jerry A. was 9 years younger than his brother William R., they seem to have remained in touch when older. William R.'s children, including my father William B. Wetherall, and Mary (Wetherall) (Van Ryswyk) Wells, remember him as "Uncle Jerry" (see below).

4.6 Wetherall-Rodgers

Jerry A. Wetherall and Anna Maye Rodgers

Crop from snapshot of Wetherall-Rogers family taken in 1946 and notation on back by Anna Maye Print sent to Jerry A. Wetherall's nephew William B. Wetherall JAW died the following year Wetherall Family photo

0. Jerry A. Wetherall of Knoxville, Marion County, Iowa, and Anna Maye Rodgers, of Indianola, Warren County, Iowa, were married in Lancaster, Schuyler County, Missouri, on 18 May 1921, according to their marriage license.
   All of their children were born in Lacona in Warren County, Iowa The family moved to the the Lodi area of Columbia County in Wisconsin in 1941, according to Anna's obituary.
   Both Jerry and Anna died in Lodi, but apparently they are buried in Knoxville.
1. Betty appears to have married Robert "Bob" Leo Bishop in the mid 1940s. They had 6 children (see Betty's obituary and the 1958 Iowa reunion gallery below).
2. Homer took his first name from his maternal grandfather, Homer Edwin Rogers (1877-1955).
   Homer served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and was later an Air Force pilot. He died in 1958 when the plane he was co-piloting crashed (see below).
3. Harris was presumably Homer's younger twin. He took his middle name from both his maternal grandfather and his paternal great grandfather, William Edwin Wetherall (1834-1914).
   On 2 April 1949 he married Hazel R. Gheri (1931-2006), and they share the same headstone at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Lodi, Wisconsin.
   Harris was wounded when serving in the Marine Corps during World War II (see below).
4. Edna was called "Happy" by her amily and friends. She took her first name from her maternal grandmother, Sarah Sallie (Shupe) Rogers (1880-1961), and her middle name from her paternal grandmother, Laura Belle (Beaman) Wetherall (1866-c1943).
   She married Thomas Elisha Gallagher (d1977) on 26 December 1950.
   She was survived by 9 children, 17 grandchildren, and 7 great grandchildren, but only one sibling, Jerry J. Wetherall.
5. Norma married Alvin Brager, who survived her, and as of 2012 he was still alive.
6. William's namesakes were his paternal grandfather William F. Wetherall, paternal uncle William R. Wetherall, and paternal 1st cousin #illiam B. Wetherall. His body was creamated, and his ashes were buried above Homer Wetherall's casket.
7. Jerry became "Sandy" to his family and friends.

1940 census

Jerry and Anna had 7 children in the span if 16 years. All 7 are accounted for in the 1940 census, which shows the family living on a rented farm in Liberty in Lucas County, Iowa, and states that they had been living at the same place in 1935.

The 1935 residential data in the 1940 census suggests that Norma and Edna may have been born in Liberty, Lucas County, rather than in Lacona, Warren county.

Jerry Wetherall (40), the head, had completed 8 years of grade school. Anna Maye (40), his wife, had completed 4 years of high school. Occupation wise, he was farming on a farm, and she was doing housework on a farm. Living with them were their daughter Betty Ruthe (18), twin sons Homer E. (13) and Harris E. (13), daughters Norma J. (9) and Edna B. (8), and sons William R. (3) and Jerry J. (2).

Betty had completed 4 years of high school. Homer had completed 1 year of high school, but Harris had completed only 8 years of grade school, suggesting that Homer had jumped a year ahead of Harris, or Harris had fallen a year behind Homer.

Jerry A. Wetherall

In 1941, the year following the census, Jerry A. would die, leaving Anna to raise their 6 youngest children by herself. Jerry was "Uncle Jerry" to his nephew William B. Wetherall (see "Uncle Jerry" below).

Anna Maye (Rodgers) Wetherall

Anna died in Lodi, Wisconsin, but is buried in Knoxville, Iowa, according to the following unsourced 1967 obituary posted on IAGenWeb's Marion County Iowa Obituaries website.

See "Homer Wetherall" below for Homer Wetherall's obituary and particulars about the "air force accident" in which he died.

Bette Ruth (Wetherall) Bishop

Betty Ruthe died in Lacona in Warren County, Iowa, in 2005 according to the following 2 obituaries. The 1st, unsources, was posted in July 2005 on IAGenWeb's Marion County Iowa Obituaries website. The 2nd, attributed to The Record-Herald and Indianola Tribune, an Indianola, Warren County, Iowa newspaper, was posted in July 2013 on IAGenWeb's Warren County Iowa Obituaries website.

The Des Moines Register Friday, 23 September 1988, page 13M Copped and resized from www.newspapers.com Betty Ruthe (Wetherall) Bishop (1922-2005) Marion County IAGenWeb version Betty Bishop, 83, died June 20, 2005 at Mercy Medical Center. Funeral services will be held at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, June 23 at Lacona United Methodist Church with burial at Cochran Cemetery in Lacona. Betty (Wetherall) Bishop was born January 4, 1922 in Lacona, Iowa and was a retired cook at SEW High School. She was a member of Rebekah Lodge, Lacona United Methodist Church, and the UMW. Betty enjoyed her family, cooking, canning, gardening, and her cat Boots. She is survived by sons, Donald (Loretta) of Swaledale, IA and David (Tammy) Bishop of Lacona; daughters, Nancy Bishop of Oskaloosa, Judith (Mike) Williams of Carlisle; and Elizabeth (Silas) Andersen of Lacona; brother, Jerry (Sandy) Wetherall of Sussex, Wisconsin; sister, Happy Gallagher of Lodi, Wisconsin; sister-in-law and special friend, Wilda Clark of Lacona; 14 grandchildren; 15 great-grandchildren; and four great great-grandchildren She was preceded in death by her husband, Bob in 1971; son, Bob Bishop; grandson, Brian Bishop; siblings, Roger Wetherall, Norma Brager, Harris Wetherall, and Homer Wetherall. The family will receive friends from 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, June 22 at the Pierschbacher Funeral Home in Lacona. Memorials may be sent to her church. Warren County IAGenWeb version Betty Bishop, 83, of Lacona, died Monday, June 20, 2005, at Mercy Medical Center. Funeral services were June 23 at Lacona United Methodist Church with burial at Cochran Cemetery in Lacona. Mrs. Bishop was born Jan. 4, 1922, in Lacona and was a retired cook at Southeast Warren High School. She was a member of Rebekah Lodge in Lacona, United Methodist Church, and the UMW. She enjoyed cooking, canning, gardening and her cat. She was preceded in death by her husband, Bob; son, Bob; grandson, Brian Bishop; siblings, Roger Wetherall, Norma Brager, Harris Wetherall and Homer Wetherall. Survivors include her sons, Donald of Swaledale and David of Lacona; daughters, Nancy Bishop of Oskaloosa, Judith Williams of Carlisle and Elizabeth Anderson of Lacona; brother, Jerry Wetherall of Sussex, Wis.; sister, Happy Gallagher of Lodi, Wis.; 14 grandchildren; 15 great-grandchildren; and four great-great-grandchildren. Memorials may be sent to her church. Pierschbacher Funeral Home in Lacona handled arrangements.   The newspaper clipping to the right is the obituary of Bette Ruth's "son, Bob" reported as having preceded her in death. Mary Sue Van Ryswyk, a 1st cousin-in-law of mine living in Carlisle, reported to me "[Regarding the] Betty Ruthe Wetherall & Robert Leo Bishop family" -- I only know of one of their children, Robert Joseph Bishop who lived here in Carlisle. He was riding his motorcycle and was hit by a car and killed instantly in 1988, I believe the date is correct" (Email 12 November 2013). The date was correct.

Among the 6 Wetherall-Rodgers children who survived Anna Maye in 1967, Roger, Norma, and Harris had died by the time Betty died in 2005, and only 2 would survive Betty -- Edna (Happy) and Jerry (Sandy).

Edna Belle (Wetherall) Gallagher

Edna died in Lodi, Wisconsin, on 10 May 2012. The following obituary of Bette Ruth, dated Sunday, 13 May 2012, was posted on Keysnews.com, the website of The Keys West Citizen.

At the time of this writing, only Jerry "Sandy" Wetherall, the youngest of the Wetherall-Rodgers siblings, survives.

Jeremiah Alexander Wetherall (Uncle Jerry)

Jerry A. Wetherall appears to have been a very versitile man. William B. Wetherall, who called him "Uncle Jerry", characterized him in 2010 as "an auto mechanic, bootlegger, and farmer". WBW, possibly inspired by his liking of Uncle Jerry, named his second son, my brother, Jerry. My brother, too, is "Jerry A.", and he's "Uncle Jerry" to his nephews and nieces, but his middle name, of unknown inspiration, is Alan.

WBW's association with Uncle Jerry's family extended to his children, especially Homer, who visited our family at least once and possibly twice (see below).

Uncle Jerry

"Uncle Jerry" was "Jeremiah P. Wetherall" on the 1900 census, enumerated in Knoxville, Iowa, on 2 June 1900, at which time Jerry was 5 months old. He was "Gerry" on the 1905 Iowa state census, and "Jerry" or "Jerry A." on later censuses.

WBW reported that Jerry's wife was Anna Maye Rodgers. He also identified portraits of three of Jerry's and Anna's children, his 1st cousins, Homer, Norma, and Edna. He recalled that Homer had a twin brother, Harris, and remarked that they were fraternal twins.

Regarding Homer, WBW said he had visited the Wetherall family in San Francisco during WWII while in the Navy. This writer, WOW, has vague memories of a visit from Homer during or shortly after the Korean War, in the early 1950s. Around that time he became an Air Force pilot, and that is how I remember him. Homer would be the most talked about of WBW's Knoxville relatives owing to the manner of his death in 1958 (see below).

Homer and Harris Wetherall

Homer and Harris were "fraternal" twins according to William B. Wetherall, my father, who knew their father as "Uncle Jerry". I do not know whether my father ever met Harris, but Homer visited our family San Francisco once while in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and again when he was in the U.S. Air Force. I don't remember the 1st visit, as I was too young, but I do remember the 2nd visit, when I was at an impressionable age and very interested in military aircraft.

I also remember when the news of Homer's death reached my father, with a clipping of an account of his crash in France in 1958. It came only a few months after our family reunion in Knoxville, though Homer's family was not present. I was a senior in high school, and I still at times try to imgaine what it was like to be in the cockpit.

Pictures of Homer, but not of Harris, survive among my father's photographs. And the clipping of Homer's death also survives.

Homer Edward Wetherall (1926-1958)

The following obituary for Homer Wetherall appeared in an unidentified newspaper clipping (Wetherall Family copy).

The following 6-page hand-written letter, from Robert A. Mays, Colonel, U.S.A.F., Base Commander of Toul-Rosieres Air Base in France, to Anna M. Wetherall in Lodi, Wisconsin, describes First Lieutenant Homer E. Wetherall's mission with another pilot in a T-33 jet trainer on Monday, 13 October 1958. The plane crashed near Marbache in the same Meurthe-et-Moselle department of the region of Lorraine as the air base. Lorraine is in the northeast of France on its borders with Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany. The base was used by American fighter and bomber aircraft during World War II, and was a front-line NATO base for the air forces of both France and the United States during the Cold War.

Front and back of application for flat granite marker Made by Anna Maye Wetherall on 27 October 1958 two weeks after Homer died in place crash (Cropped and resized from Ancestry.com images) Homer Edward Wetherall (1936-1958) Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Lodi, Wisconsin (Find a Grave photo by Karen) Headquarters 50th Tactical Fighter Wing Office of the Base Commander APO 83, New York, N.Y. 15 Oct. 1958 Mrs. Anna M Wetherall Rt #3, Box 179 Lodi Wisc. Dear Mrs. Wetherall, I realize that words cannot express the feelings in my heart and in the hearts of the many friends of your son, Ft. Lt. Homer E. Wetherall, AO2215131, who gave his life for his country. Jerry has been a member of my command for one and one half years. [ Rest of paragraph concerns "all of the characteristic American qualities" that Jerry exhibited during his service at the air base and how much he will be missed. ] On Monday, 13 Oct 1958 Jerry and Ft. Lt. James G. Sephenson Jr. were scheduled to fly in a T-33 jet trainer. They planned their flight and took off at 1055. Lt. Stephenson was in the front seat and Jerry was in the rear seat. The weather was quite good for this area. There was a broken cloud layer extending from 1,800 feet to 6,000 feet. They reported to the local control tower when they reached the top of the clouds approximately five mintues after take-off. They were cleared to fly at 20,000 feet and to land in two hours. This was the last radio contact that our control tower had with them. Aproximately [sic] 35 minutes later the plane was sighted just below the cloud layer flying in an erratic manner. Then it dove into the ground. Lt. Stephanson parachuted from the plane but was too close to the ground and was killed when the chute failed to open completely. Jerry remained with the aircraft and was killed instantly upon hitting the ground. [ Paragraph concerning Jerry's remains and personal effects. ] The price of freedom is always dear. Jerry has joined the others who gave their lives to preserve the principles upon which our country was founded. We have committed ourselves to the task of accomplishing their noble aims, and trust that their lives have not been spent in vain. Please accept my heart-felt sympathy in your moment of bereavement. Sincerely yours Robert A. Mays Colonel U.S.A.F. Base Commander

It is, on the whole, a fairly standard-form condolence letter that required only changes of names, dates, and other such particulars -- which is not to diminish the feelings of those who have to write or read such letters.

Harris Edwin Wetherall (1926-1999

Harris E. and Hazel R. Wetherall Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Lodi, Wisconsin (Find a Grave photo by Scott Megow)

Harris Wetherall, Homer's presumably younger fraternal twin, married Hazel R. Gheri on 2 April 1949, as stated on the headstone they share at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Lodi, Wisconsin. The headstone shows the following inscriptions.

WETHERALL
HARRIS E. / JUNE 1, 1926 / NOV. 25, 1999
APR 2. 1949
HAZEL R. / NOV. 19, 1931 / JAN. 9, 2006

The two linked circles on the cross above the date of their wedding signify that Harris and Hazel will be together forever in Christiandom -- as though to ammend the "until death do us part" clause of their wedding vows.

The "World War Two" marker to the left of Harris's inscription alludes to his service in the Marine Corps during the Second World War. World War II Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard Casualties, 1941-1945 lists him among those wounded as follows (Wisconsin Wounded, page 52).

WETHERALL, Harris Edwin, Pvt.,
USMC. Parents Mr. and Mrs.
Jerry A. Wetherall, Box 27, Okee.

4.7 Wetherall-Evans-Dainty

Annetta Alice (Wetherall) Evans and Wilbert A. Dainty

0. Census figures (see below) suggest that Alice married Bill Evans in 1922 or 1923 and married Wilbert Dainty in 1926 or 1927. Her marriage to Evans, which was childless, appears to have lasted only 3 or 4 years.
1. Willard lived in Des Moines for a while after graduating from high school in Knoxville. He married Joyce Erb in 1959, and they settled in Carlisle and had 2 sons, Rick and Rod. Willard worked for Ford Motor Company and then Townsend Engineering. He was also a boating enthusiast and built his own hydroplanes. He died of bone cancer, and was survived by his wife, their sons, 3 grandchildren, and his sister Thayne.
2. Thayne married Larry C. Ireland, with whom she had 3 children, Chad, Brook, and Sabra. Larry, a basketball coach in Ankeny, Iowa, for 38 years, died in March 2010. He was preceded in death by his daughter Sabra.
3. David took his first name from his paternal grandfather, David Daniel Dainty (1874-1941), and his middle name from his paternal grandmother, Lucinda Dainty (1877-1962), nee Shirey. David died of carbon monoxide poisoning at his home in Omaha, Nebraska. His death was ruled a suicide. He is reported buried at Graceland Cemetery in Knoxville. He was survived by his wife Vicky, daughters Sunny and Terri, and his siblings Willard and Thayne.

Alice (Wetherall) (Evans) Dainty (Aunt Alice)

William B. Wetherall (WBW) reported to this writer, his son, in 2010, that "Aunt Alice" had been married to Bill Evans before she married Wilbert Dainty. William B. Evans was born around 1900. Wilbert Allen Dainty, aka "Will" or "Bill" according to WBW, was born on 18 July 1902 in Iowa and died on 18 November 1979 in Des Moines, Iowa.

A photograph of Alice in one of the albums she left her daughter Thayne (Dainty) Ireland is captioned "Nettie & Red" -- which led me to think that Alice might have been called "Nettie". But Alice turned out to be "Red" on account of her hair, and "Nettie" was one of her friends.

1920 and 1925 censuses

The 1920 census shows Wilbert A. Dainty (18), single, a coal miner, living with his parents in Knoxville. The same census shows Alice Wetherel [sic = Wetherall) (17), single, a telephone operator, living with her parents in Knoxville.

The 1925 Iowa state census shows Wilber A. [sic = Wilbert A.] (22) still living with his parents in Knoxville. Alice, however, has become Alice A. Evans (21), the wife of Wm. B. Evans (25), and they are living in their household in Knoxville.

1930 census

The April 1930 census lists Alice as Annetta A. Dainty (26), wife of Wilbert A. Dainty (27), living with Alice's mother, Laur [sic = Laura] B. Wetherall (64), widowed, at 2000 Pleasant Street in Knoxville. Laura was the stated head of household and owned the home, valued at 2,500 dollars. Wilert was a fireman in government service. Alice was a telephone operator in government service.

The 1930 census states that Alice was 19 and Wilbert was 24 when first married. Since Alice was then 26, she would have been born around 1903/4 and first married around 1922/1923. And Wilbert, then 27, would have been born around 1902/1903 and first married around 1926/1927.

In other words, Alice's marriage to Bill Evans must have broken up after only 3 or 4 years. They had no children.

Alice's daughter, Thayne, reportedly said that "Bill Evans was having an affair, Alice found out about it, and her father [William F. Wetheral] told her not to put up with that, so she filed for divorce" (email, Mary Sue Ryswyk, 28 November 2013).

1940 census

The April 1940 census shows the Daintys living at the same 2000 Pleasant Street address. Wilbert (37) is now the stated head of household and owner of the home. Annetta A. (36) is his wife, they now have a son, Willard D. (6). Laura Wetherall (74) is listed last as Wilbert's "mother" [sic = mother-in-law].

Wilbert had completed the 8th grade, Alice the 1st grade of high school, Willard the 1st grade, and Laura only the 4th grade.

Regarding the level of Laura's formal education, the 1880 census shows her living as a domestic servant with the family of a physician when she was 14 years old (see below).

Alice and Wilbert Dainty had two more children after Willard (1933-2010) -- Thayne (b1940) and David (b1942-1996).

Daintys

Alice's husband, Wilbert Dainty, a younger brother of John D. Dainty, the oldest son of Daniel David Dainty (1874-1941) and Lucinda Dainty, nee Shirey (1877-1962). Daniel and Lucinda married in Knoxville on 1 September 1894, and they 8 children, including a set of fraternal twins. John was their 1st, and Wilbert was their 3rd, of 5 sons.

Daniel D. was a coal miner (1900 and 1910 censuses) then a truck farmer (1920 and 1930 censuses). His 12 September 1918 draft registration states he was a miner, stout, blue eyes, brown hair, and had lost an arm.

Wilbert Dainty, when 18, also worked in a coal mine (1920 census).

Daniel D.'s father, Daniel Dainty (1825-1897), was an immigrant from England. He naturalized on 16 October 1883 at the circuit court in Henry County, Illinois, while residing in Cambridge, Illinois. Daniel D.'s mother, Sarah Jane Dainty, nee Hixson (b1831, d1910s), was from Ohio, and his parents married in Ohio. Lucinda's father, John Shirey, was born in Indiana, and his mother, Elizabeth Wamsley, was born in Ohio, but they married in Iowa.

Both Daniel D. and Lucinda, though, were born in Iowa, he in Flagler, she in Union, both Marion County towns. They settled in Knoxville, though, also in Marion County, and all of their children were born there.

Willard Dainty (1933-2010

The Thursday, 7 January 2010 edition of The Des Moines Register carried the following obituary for Willard Dainty (Matro Edition page 7B, State Edition page 11A)

The Des Moines Register, Metro Edition Thursday, 7 January 2010, page 7B Original one-column image copped and cropped from Newspapers.com Two-column image shown here created by splitting the original image WILLARD (WILL) DUANE DAINTY Carlisle Willard (Will) Duane Dainty passed away on January 5, 2010, after a long battle with bone cancer. Willard was born August 12, 1933 in Knoxville, Iowa to Wilbert and Alice Dainty. He spent all of his childhood years in Knoxville. After graduating from Knoxville High School, he moved to Des Moines. He was united to marriage to Joyce Erb in 1959 and they made their home in Carlisle, Iowa. Willard worked for Ford Motor Company for several years and also worked for Townsend Engineering for twenty years retired in 1990 from Townsend. During his employment with Townsend, he and his wife were able to be part of their company trips traveling to Hawaii, Puerto Rico, The Bahamas, Las Vegas and several other wonderful places with many joyous memories. Willard really enjoyed life and especially like [sic = liked] the time he spent with his wife at their cabin at Lake Rathbun. He loved boating, fishing and watching sunsets, but always had to be back to watch Nascar races on Sundays with his sons. He also enjoyed special times with his two grand-daughters Darcy and Tiffany and his grandson Austin, who made him several drawings, which Willard treasured. Willard was a very special person. He had several medical issues throughout his life yet always remained in good spirits and cheerful at all times. He truly loved people, and his family. He is survived by his wife of fifty years, Joyce, sons Rick (Julie) Dainty of Carlisle, Tod Dainty of Indianola, three grandchildren, Austin, Darcy and Tiffany, and a sister Thayne (Larry) Ireland of Ankeny. Also nephew Chad Ireland, nieces Brook Ireland, Terri Dainty, and Sunny Dainty. He was preceded in death by his parents, Wilbert and Alice Dainty, brother David Dainty, and a niece Sabra Ireland. Visitation will be from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday January 8, 2010 at Peterson Funeral Home in Carlisle, with family present to greet friends. Funeral services will be held at 11:00 a.m., January 9, 2010 at the Carlisle United Methodist Church. Memorial contributions may be made to the Carlisle Fire and Rescue Department. Online condolences may be made at www.petersonfunerals.com Carlisle Funeral Home Carlisle, Iowa

Wetherall-Beaman gallery

Sources of photographs

Photographs of the Wetherall-Beaman nuclear family are scarce. Most of the photos shown here are from collections accumulated by my father William B. Wetherall, his half-sister Mary Wells, and his paternal aunt Alice Dainty. A few others come from other descendants of the Wetherall-Beaman family.

Wetherall Family photos

Most of the photographs in my father's collection come from his mother's side, most from his maternal grandmother Ellen Baldwin, his maternal aunt Sadie (Baldwin) Williams, and his maternal 1st cousin Faye (Williams) (Mathews) Rebenstorf. Fewer come from his father's side, mainly from his paternal grandmother Laura (Beaman) Wetherall, his stepmother Nellie (Van Houton) (Wetherall), his paternal aunts Lena Belle (Wetherall) Stone and Alice (Wetherall) Dainty. The scans are mine.

Mary Wells Family photos

Mary (Wetherall) (Van Ryswyk) Wells (1922-2016) was the oldest and most settled of William B. Wetherall's 4 younger half-siblings. She appears to have received most of the photographs accumulated over the years from her mother, Nellie (Van Houton) Wetherall, who would have received them from Mary's paternal grandmother, Laura (Beaman) Wetherall. Scans of materials in Mary's collection were provided by her daughter-in-law, Mary Sue Van Ryswyk.

Alice Dainty's albums

Alice Dainty, nee Wetherall, the youngest Wetherall-Beaman child, was also the closest to her mother, Laura Wetherall, nee Beaman, with whom she lived after her marriage to Wilbert Dainty in the late 1920s and until Laura's death in the early 1940s.

Alice left 2 photo albums, which are now in the possession of her daughter, Thayne Ireland, a 1st cousin of my father, William B. Wetherall (WBW), and of Mary Wells, WBW's half-sister. Thayne, Mary, and Mary's daughter-in-law Mary Sue Ryswyk, met for lunch at Thayne's home late in November 2013, and Thayne loaned the albums to Mary Sue for scanning.

I do not have physical descriptions of the albums, but I have partical scans of all their pages, which appear to be about 10in x 14in -- two large for a letter-size scanner bed. It seems Album 1 had 10 pages and Album 2 has 30 pages, of black or blackish paper, with photographs on one side of each page. Practically all of the photographs are pasted on the pages, though some are affixed with corner mounts. The pictures in Album 1 are generally older, and those in Album 2 are generally more recent. Some related pictures are grouped together, but many (if not most) appear to be placed with little thought of thematic or temporal organization. Both albums had a few loose, unmounted photographs.

The vast majority of the photographs in the Dainty albums have no writing on them that can be seen. Thayne (born in 1940), and Mary (born in 1922), were unable to recognize all of the people and places. This left the identities of many photographs to the speculation of people like myself and Mary Sue -- and we were no better prepared to recognize people we had never seen and most likely would not have heard of had we been told who they were.

I had crossed paths with Alice, Thayne, Mary, and a few other Iowa relatives for only a few days in 1958. Mary Sue did not become a member of Mary's family until 1972. And neither of us began to seriously consider our respective family histories until rather recently, and had never heard of each other until 2013. Together we managed to figured out who some of the strangers in the photographs either had to be or most likely were, but for the most part our collaboration was tantamount to the blind leading the blind.

I use "the blind leading the blind" with apologies to blind people, who are probably better able than sighted people to lead each other. At least I have never heard of blind people leading each other to war -- never mind that nations seem to go to war because their leaders and nationals are blind to the alternatives.

The quality of scanning varies considerably according to the source. All scans of photos attributed to the Wetherall family are mine. All images attribted to Mary Wells are my compressions or resizings or crops of scans by Mary Sue Van Ryswyk. Most images of photographs from Alice Dainty's albums are my crops of Mary Sue's partial scans of album pages. She scanned most pages in 2 parts, some in 3 parts, merely to show the variety of pictures in the album -- which meant that not all pictures were fully captured. And many that were fully captured appear uneven because they were mounted unevenly.

Bill Farley's images

Bill Farley, in California, is the son-in-law of the late Jean Carroll Beaman (1928–2010), one of several keepers of the widely dispersed Beaman family keys. According to Bill, Jean compiled a large collection of images of Beaman photographs, and he shared with me both tiff and jpg versions of many images of the extended Beaman-Shoemaker family from Jean's collection.

Bill related that "an Elaine Hunter . . . has originals" of many of the images he sent me. He added, however, that he wasn't sure "where she falls in the Beaman tree" (email 29 September 2013).

See Wetherall-Baldwin-Van Houton family page for more about Elaine Hunter.

See also billfarley.net for a look at Bill's achievements, including a forthcoming biography (Spring 2018) of his great-great-granduncle, James A. Murray, an Irish capitalist he calls a "Radical Bonanza King".

Wetherall-Beaman gallery

William F. Wetherall

1. WFW at back door

2. WFW holding dove

3. WFW on running board

1. William F. Wetherall at back door Possibly at Knoxville home, 1920s (Alice Dainty Family photo)	2. William F. Wetherall holding dove Probably near Knoxville home, 1920s (Alice Dainty Family photo)
	3. William F. Wetherall on running board Place unknown, circa 1920s (Alice Dainty Family photo)

1. WFW may have a small pipe in his mouth. Only the photographer knows where he's been or is going. He's not dressed for yard work, but I'll bet the shovel is covered with his and Laura's fingerprints.

2. William B. Wetherall, who lived with WFW and Laura from 1917-1924, reported in 2010 that his paternal grandfather raised homing pigeons.

3. There are several snapshots of WFW in or around this car with the children behind and wheel and other children, and a few adults.

William F. and Laura B. Wetherall

1. WFW and Laura embracing

2. WFW and Laura sitting on porch

3. WFW and Laura in yard with others

1. "Mamma and Papa" embracing Possibly at Knoxville home, 1920s (Alice Dainty Family photo)	2. Laura and WFW sitting on porch Probably of their Knoxville home, 1920s (Alice Dainty Family photo)
	3. Laura and WFW with others in yard Possibly of their Knoxville home, 1920s (Alice Dainty Family photo)

Print of photograph of WEW and Laura embracing with description on back Handwriting appears to be that of WEW's sister Lena Belle Stone, who sent many family photos to her nephew William B. Wetherall, my father, many identified with comments like this in her very neat hand Wetherall Family photo

1. The "Momma & Papa" attribution is probably Alice Dainty's. Alice was the youngest of the Wetherall-Beaman children. She and Wilbert Dainty lived with Laura in the Wetherall-Beaman home after WFW's death, and Laura would be part of the Dainty household until her death.
2. Laura and WFW, both of whom appear very thin in this picture, seem to be looking through photographs in a shoebox. If you cock an ear, you can hear them reminisce about the past and wonder where the years have gone.
3. The woman on the left appears to be Laura, and the husky man in suspenders to her left seems to be WFW. The identities of the 2 younger men, and of the woman by WFW, are unknown. However, the woman by WFW bears a striking resemblance to him and might be his sister Nettie Anderson (see below). A hammock is strung between a couple of the several large trees by the house, which may or may not be the Wetherall-Beaman home.
   1. The picture was on page 9 in the 1st (thinner, older) of Alice Dainty's 2 photo albums, which has most of the older pictures, including some of William F. and Laura Wetherall -- a few of them together or of William F. alone, and several of Laura with others.
   2. I puzzled over the woman to the left, who looked to me very much like the elderly woman identified as "Nettie" on the back of a snapshot in my father's collection of family photographs (see "Aunt Nettie" below). Nettie, or Annette Anderson (1862-1947), was WFW's sister. She was 4 years younger than WFW, but she outlived everyone in her generation, and lived longer than 4 of WFW's and Laura's 7 children.
   3. Laura had a long neck, which in many of her pictures is crooked like the long neck of the woman my father called Nettie. So I began wondering if the woman identified as "Nettie" in the snapshot might actually have been Laura. Presumably my father would have known the difference. He lived with Laura and WFW for 7 or 8 years while going to grade school in Knoxville. But that was in the late 1910s and early 1920s, and he lived in Des Moines in the mid and late 1920s. Presumably he met Nettie during his years in Iowa. He left the state in 1928, and I have no idea if he had an opportunity to see Laura, much less Nettie, again.
   4. If the woman on the left and the man in suspenders are Laura and William F. Wetherall, then this picture, like others with WFW in them, had to have been taken before February 1929, when he died.

Top  

Laura B. Wetherall

1. Laura with brooch (1)

2. Laura with brooch (2)

3. Laura with graying temples

4. Laura wearing glasses

1. Laura Wetherall Brooch 1, circa 1900s (Mary Wells Family photo)

2. Laura Wetherall Brooch 2, circa 1900s (Mary Wells Family photo)

3. Laura Wetherall Graying temples, circa 1910s (Wetherall Family photo)

4. Laura Wetherall Wearing glasses, circa 1910s (Wetherall Family photo)

Portrait 1 is printed on a postcard.
Portrait 2 shows Laura wearing the same clothes as in Portrait 1 but with a different brooch. The two portraits seem to be of the same vintage.
Portrait 3 shows some graying along the temples.
Portrait 4, like most later photos, shows Laura wearing glasses.

Top  

Later photos of Laura B. Wetherall

1. Laura waving chicken leg

2. Laura arms akimbo

	1. Laura Wetherall waving chicken leg at picnic
	Circa 1930s, Wetherall Family photos
	2. Laura Wetherall arms akimbo in yard

Top  

Laura Wetherall as Indian State Pocohontas leader, Circa 1890s (Mary Wells Family photo)

Laura Wetherall as Pocahontas

The profile portrait to the right shows Laura dressed as an Indian maiden, presumably Pocohontas. Laura was apparently a member of the Degree of Pocahontas, the women's auxiliary of a fraternal organization called the Improved Order of Red Men, aka Redman's Lodge.

The roots of the fraternity go back to secret patriotic organizations founded in the late 18th century before the Revolutionary War. The founders are said to have modeled their democratic principles on those of the Iroquois Confederacy. The Society of Red Men was founded in 1813, after the War of 1812, by several offshoots of the earlier patriotic societies. In 1834 it was renamed the Improved Order of Red Men, and by the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there were "tribes" in most states of the United States.

The Degree of Pocahontas was organized in 1885 as an affiliate of the Improved Order of Redmen. Its members closely associate with the ideals represented by Pocahontas (1595-1617), the much fabled and romanticized daughter of the chief of a confederation of Algonquian tribes that lived in the eastern reaches of what would become the English colony of Virginia. She is celebrated as having saved the life of John Smith (1580-1631), one of the original Jamestown settlers and leaders, and later is said to have become a Christian and married John Rolfe (1585–1622), who had started a tobacco plantation in the colony.

The portrait is probably related to the initiation ceremony, in which new adoptees are required to wear Indian or "Native American" regalia.

Disclosure

This writer, when a Cub Scout in San Franscisco, was pressed into playing Pocahantas in a skit performed at a Scout-O-Rama at the Cow Palace in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Being small, having black hair and tanning deeply, I appear to have been seen as a natural candidate for the role. My own fascination with Indian lore probably contributed to my enthusiasm. I clearly remember wearing what passed for an Indian buckskin dress and feathered headband. 60-odd years later, today, I may just be imagining being fussed over by my mother, who I believe had the honor of applying the lipstick while the other mothers and my fellow cub scouts laughed.

Laura sitting on the stoop

1. WFW smoking pipe in yard

2. Laura smoking pipe on stoop

3. Laura on stoop with WBW and Nellie (1)

4. Laura on stoop with WBW and Nellie (2)

1. WFW smoking pipe in yard Probably at Wetherall-Beaman home, Knoxville, 1920s (Mary Wells Family photo)

2. Laura smoking pipe on stoop Probably at Wetherall-Beaman home, Knoxville, 1921-1922 (Alice Dainty Family photo)

Three generations on stoop Laura Wetherall (R) with grandson William B. Wetherall (C) and daughter-in-law Nellie Wetherall (L) Probably taken on same day as photo to left at Wetherall-Beaman home circa 1921-1922   3. Three stooges (Wetherall Family photo)   4. Three stooges (Wetherall Family photo)

1. William F. Wetherall (WFW) is making a fashion statement while smoking a pipe, possibly in the yard outside the backdoor of his Knoxville home. There appears to be a themometer on the window frame.

2. Laura B. Wetherall (LBW) is making a political statement while smoking a pipe on the stoop of her home in knoxville.

Mary (Wetherall) (Van Ryswyk) Wells, Laura and William F. Wetherall's granddaughter, related that WFW had taught Laura how to smoke a pipe during the long winter nights. "Of course she wanted no one to know she smoked the pipe so she hid it in her bathrobe pocket and would smoke it while in the bathroom" -- probably the outhouse, added Mary's daughter-in-law, Mary Sue Van Ryswyk (email, 28 August 2013). Yet here she is -- smoking in broad daylight while looking straight into the camera -- in front of at least the cameraman but possibly other witnesses, possibly her grandson and daughter-in-law (see Photographs 13 and 14).

3. 4. These photographs show Laura Wetherall sitting on the same stoop of the same porch as in Photograph 12, with her grandson, my father William B. Wetherall (WBW), and her daughter-in-law, WBW's stepmother, Nellie M. (Van Houton) Wetherall. Laura is wearing the same dress, and her hair is done the same way as in Photograph 12. The laundry in Photograph 12 has either been taken in or not yet been hung out, but the same objects are on the deck of the porch.

WBW was the only son of Laura and WFW's oldest son, William R. Wetherall, and Ida (Baldwin) Wetherall. He lived with his Wetherall grandparents in Knoxville while attending grade school from 1917 to 1924. Ida had been committed to an insane asylum in Idaho since around 1912, and WRW had registered for the draft in 1917 and brought WBW from Idaho to Iowa before he received his orders to report for duty later that year. In 1921, WRW, who was working in Des Moines while WBW was living in Knoxville, remarried Nellie, and their 1st child, Mary Wetherall -- later Van Ryswyk and the Wells -- was born in October 1922.

I am dating Photographs 2, 3, and 4 circa 1921-1922. WBW looks about 2 or 3 years younger than in photographs taken when he was in the 8th grade in 1924. He would live with his father and stepmother from 1924 to 1928 while attending high school in Des Moines.

What's going on these pictures?

Only Laura is looking at the camera. WBW and Nellie are averting their eyes, their thoughts apparently elsewhere.

The photographs is ideally suited for use in a psychological test of the kind in which you are shown a picture and asked to tell a story about what you see. Who are the people, why are they there, and what are they doing and thinking?

Do you see joy or enthusiasm? Relaxation, nonchalance, indifference, apathy, disinterest, boredom, anxiety, nervouness, discomfort, or disgust? About who or what?

Who's the photographer, and what is he or she saying?

"Look at the camera and smile . . . Willie, Nellie, look at the camera . . . Laura, smile . . . Come on, everyone, Cheeese! . . . Here goes anyway . . . One, two, three . . . [click] . . . [advances film] . . . Once more, for the record . . . Cheeese, pleese! . . . [click]."

My own projection

Nellie is visiting her Wetherall parents-in-law in Knoxville shortly after her marriage in Des Moines to William R. Wetherall (WRW) in 1921 when she was 23. Now possibly 1922, when she was 24 and expecting their 1st child, who would be Mary, Nellie is sitting with William B. Wetherall (WBW), 10 or 11, her husband's son from his 1st marriage.

WRW is behind the camera.

Nellie and WBW are not yet sure what to make of each other. Plans for him to live with his father and his father's new family in Des Moines from 1924 to 1928, while he attends high school there, may not yet have been made. Or perhaps his father and Nellie have talked about the possibility with Laura and WFW, but WBW doesn't yet know.

Or he knows but is not happy about the prospects.

Or maybe they have all just been to the county fair, and had a great time together, and are simply too exhausted to smile.

Wetherall-Beaman gallery

William F. and Laura Wetherall's children

To date I have found only the following portrait of the Wetherall-Beaman children, which appears to have been taken a couple of years before the birth of the 7th and last child, Jerry.

Wetherall-Beaman children in 1900 (Mary Wells Family photo)

Wetherall-Beaman sisters nlt 1957 (Alice Dainty Family photo)

Wetherall-Beaman children in 1900

William F. and Laura Wetherall had 7 children of whom 6 survived their childhood. By the 1900 census (see below), Laura had had 6 children, 1 of whom -- Georgia -- had died in infancy. All 5 other children at the time posed for the portrait shown to the right (Mary Wells Family photo, compliments of Mary Sue Van Ryswyk).

Standing    Sydna, William, Bertha
   Sitting    Lena, Jerry

The portrait was taken by Hartman & Heiny in Knoxville, Iowa, probably around the time of the 1900 census, at which time Jerry, the youngest, who born on 16 December 1899, was 5 months old. Alice, the 7th and last Wetherall-Beaman child, was born in 1904.

Hartman & Heiny

The photographer was Kirk Hartman, aka S.J.K. Hartman, Samuel J. Hartman, and Samuel K. Hartman (1859-1933). Census data shows him living in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1895, but in Knoxville, Iowa, in 1900 (photographer), 1905, and 1910 (optomitrist), and in Carthage, Illinois, in 1920 (photographer) and 1930 (photographer). City directories show that Hartman was a laborer before turning to photography, and that he worked for a number of studies before coming to Knoxville, apparently to open his own studio.

By the time Hartman left Knoxville, he had also established himself as an optometrist, a common co-vocation of photographers. At some point, his wife, Mary Etta, became his assistant.

Heiny is possibly Thomas Heiny, a dry goods dealer in Knoxville. The Hartman-Heiny partnership appears to have been very brief.

S.J.K. Hartman and Mary Hartman, and their son Clifford L. Hartman, are buried in Graceland Cemetery in Knoxville.

Wetherall-Beaman sisters when older

Only 3 of the Wetherall-Beaman children -- Sydna, Bertha, and Alice -- were still alive when the picture to the right was taken in the mid 1950s. The picture shows the sisters -- and Susie Wettlaufer, a Beaman-Shoemaker cousin -- from right to left as follows.

Sydna (Wetherall) (Wynn) Brady (1888-1967)
Bertha (Wetherall) (Masteller) Dainty (1892-1962)
Alice (Wetherall) (Evans) Dainty (c1904-1962)
Susie (Stoner) Wettlaufer (1888–1970)

Susie was a daughter of Magdalene (Beaman) Stoner (1860-1922), Laura (Beaman) Wetherall's older sister. As such she was a 1st cousin of the Wetherall-Beaman sisters. She was only 2 months older than Sydna. A number of photographs of Susie with her husband, Emerson Wettlaufer, are found in Alice Dainty's albums. Susie and Emerson, and an infant child, share the same headstone at Old Woodlawn Cemetery in Pipestone, Pipestone County, Minnesota.

	Above   Lena Belle (Wetherall) Stone's writing describing herself as "I" with "Wm" -- her brother William Riley Wetherall -- in Des Moines about a year after he returned from Europe following the "Armistice in World War no. 1". The inscription characterizes her penmanship and grammar. It also dates the writing as between the start of World War II in 1939 (when "the War" or "the Great War" became "World War I") and her death in 1944. Below   Alice (Wetherall) Dainty's description of herself as "Me" on the front, and her comments on the back, show a different style of writing and school of grammar, and also reflects her sense of humor. She is with her sisters Bertha and Lena, and their husbands John Dainty and Rolland Stone.

Wetherall-Beaman gallery

Sydna Wetherall's family

The children of John and Sydna (Wetherall) Wynn (Brady)

Faye Wynn, high school grad portrait (abt 1931) (Wetherall Family photo)	Synda, Earl, and Billy (abt 1948) "Sydna & Earl Brady. & Helen's boy Billy." Man sitting on lawn unidentified (Wetherall Family photo)
Helen's boy Billy was "William Henry Wetherall", later "William Henry Morrison" (1946-1997). Helen was Sydna's niece, Helen Ann (Wetherall) Morrison (1928-2002), a daughter of brother William R. Wetherall (1890-1936). Billy was born out of wedlock, and all that survives of his father's identity in family lore is that he was a local Knoxville "Navy man". Helen later married Loren Morrison (1927-1988), who adopted Billy, hence he was known as "Billy Morrison" when this writer met him in 1958 with Helen and Loren, and their baby daughter Rae Jeanne Morrison, in Knoxville. See Helen Ann (Wetherall) Morrison (1928-2002) on 2. Wetherall-Baldwin-Van Houton and related families for details and other photographs.

Sydna Brady playing piano, reportedly at home of sister Alice Dainty (1950s) (Mary Wells Family positive slide scanned by Mary Sue Van Ryswyk)	Sydna Brady at picnic (1950s) (Mary Wells Family positive slide scanned by Mary Sue Van Ryswyk)

Mary Sydna Wetherall (1888-1967) had two daughters with John E. Wynn (1884-1915) and no children with Earl Brady (1885-1954). John was born on 6 May 1884 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He died on 21 August 1915 in Knoxville and is buried in Graceland Cemetery in Knoxville as "John E.S. Wynn".

A Marion County Return of Marriage register (scan) shows that "John E.S. Wynn" of Knoxville, Iowa, a railroad worker born in "Otley, Iowa", married "Sydna Wetherall" of Knoxville on 30 January 1909. Their marriage was witnessed by "Wm. R. Wetherall" (Sydney's brother) and Mabel Wynn (John's sister). They were married by "W. E. Wetherall Min" (Sydna and Wm. R. Wetherall's paternal grandfather), a minister among other professions.

1. Myrle Isadore (Wynn) Amsberry (1909-1943)

Myrle was born in about August 1909 in Moberly in Missouri but later lived in Knoxville in Marion County, Iowa. She married Floyd Eugene Amsberry (1906-1995) of Knoxville on 29 October 1927, in Des Moines, Iowa. She died in Knoxville on 19 July 1943 and is buried in Ausbury Cemetery in Marion County, Iowa, as "MYRLE WIFE OF / FLOYD AMSBERRY / 1909-1943".

I am taking "August 1909" as Myrle's probable birth year and month because the 1910 census, enumerated as of 1 April 1910, states that "Wynn, Isadore M." was 7/12 years old. This suggests that she was born between 2 August and 2 September 1909.

A birth and Christening index (transcription), like the 1910 census, gives her name as "Isadore Myrle Wynn". But she is "Myrle Wynn" on the 1920 census (scan), "Myrle Isadore Winn" on her 1927 marriage certificate (scan), and "Myrle" or "Myrle I." or "Myrle Isadore" on all later records I have seen. Most likely "Myrle" began as a middle name, but became her social name, and later she changed the name order. Isadore was the name of her paternal grandmother.

class="center90">Myrles death certificate (scan) states she died in Collins Memorial Hospital in Knoxville of "Immediate cause of death Viral (?) Pneumonia Due to N.M.O." -- meaning she died of respiratory failure related to neuromyelitis optica, an autoimmune disease involving the central nervous system.

Floyd Amsberry was born in Knoxville on 12 March 1906. In 1944, he remarried Aimee J. Stroud, who was born in Knoxville on 14 March 1912. He died on 25 September 1995, and she died on 24 September 2003, both in Knoxville, and they share a "AMSBERRY" tombstone, she as "AIMEE J." and he as "FLOYD E.", in Graceland Cemetery in Knoxville.

2. Marjory Faye (Wynn) Kool (1913-1988)

Faye was born on 8 April 1913 in Knoxville, Iowa. Some records show her as "Fay" but generally she is "Faye" and was "Faye" at the time I met her in 1958.

Faye was "Faye Wynn" when she married John Fred Kool, a "Clohing Salesman", on 17 August 1934 in Knoxville. The certificate (scan) shows both were "White" by "Color" and "Amer" by "Race".

Faye died in Knoxveille in February 1980. John was born 10 February 1912 according to several documents. The 1934 marriage certificate states he was born in Cordova, a town that existed in Marion County between 1887-1962. He died on 5 January 1993 in Cape Coral in Lee County, Florida. "FAYE" and "JOHN F." share a "KOOL" tombstone in Graceland Cemetery in Knoxville.

An obituary for John Kool states that he was a "winter resident" of Cape Coral and says he died there of a "heart ailment". No mention is made of Faye or other predeceased family members, but "A daughter, Mary Kool of Knoxville, survives" (The Des Moines Register, Thursday, 7 January 1993, page 5M).

Wetherall-Beaman gallery

Lena Wetherall's family

The descendants of Rolland and Lena Belle (Wetherall) Stone

Rita Stone, high school portrait (abt 1931) "Taken at Gasport [New York] about the time you [William B. Wetherall] left for the west [Idaho." Penciled on back by Lena (?) (Wetherall Family photo)	Rita Stone, high school graduation (abt 1931) "Rita on her Grad day in Sheboygan, wis." Penciled on back in Lena's (?) (Wetherall Family photo)	Rita Stone, high school graduation (abt 1931) "Rita, on her Graduation Day." Penciled on back in Lena's (?) hand (Wetherall Family photo)

Lena and Rolland Stone (abt 1928) "Taken at Gasport [New York] about the time you [William B. Wetherall] left [Iowa] for the west [Idaho]." Penciled on back in Lena's (?) hand (Wetherall Family photo)	Lena and Rolland Stone (1920s) "Aunt Alice said that in a recent letter you [William B. Wetherall] asked for snap shots. As we have no pictures of ourselves will these two do? Just before going fishing!" Penciled on back in Lena's (?) hand (Wetherall Family photo)	Lena and Rolland Stone (1937) "Rollie & I taken 1937" Penciled on back in Lena's (?) hand (Wetherall Family photo)	Lena, Gottlieb, Rita (abt 1935) "Rita and hubby "Gottlieb Pfister" "Goody" for short and myself [Lena Stone] in one of my blind poses on our front porch when we lived on Morris St, Fond du Lac [Wisconsin]" Penciled on back in Lena's (?) hand (Wetherall Family photo)
Gottlieb Pfister and Rolland Stone (1930s) "Rollie & his Son in Law G. Pfister" Penciled on back in Lena's (?) hand Gottlieb appears to be holding a wrench (Wetherall Family photo)	Rolland and Marcia (1934) "Taken on west side of housse" (ink, Lena?) "Rollie & Marcia" (pencil, Alice?) (Wetherall Family photo)	Rita, Gottlieb, Marica (1934) "This is taken at west side of our place -- facing south. We live upstairs" Written in blue ink on back by Lena (?) "Rita, Goddie (her husband & baby" "Belle sent us these & I'm sending them on." Penciled on back by Alice (?) (Wetherall Family photo)	John, Wayne, Rita, Marcia (abt 1938) Left to right, Wayne on Rita's lap (Wetherall Family photo)
Rita with cane (1930s) "Taken out at Aunt Berts" Inked on front by Lena (?) "This is the way Rita looked after she came from Hospital." Penciled on back by Lena (?) (Wetherall Family photo)	Rita with cane and Marcia (1930s) "Rita & Marcia - Rita had to use cane she was so thin & weak." Penned on front by Lena (?) (Wetherall Family photo)	Rita 3 months after recovery (1930s) "Taken in our back yard" Inked on front by Lena (?) "This is the way Rita looked three months after she came from Hosp. More natural, eh?" Penciled on back by Alice (?) (Wetherall Family photo)	Rita 3 months after recovery (1930s) Colored print of crop from shot to left early example of coloring (Wetherall Family photo)
Aunt Bert is Rita (Stone) Pfister's maternal aunt, her mother Lena Belle (Wetherall) Stone's closest older sister, Bertha Leotis (Wetherall) (Masteller) Dainty (1892-1962). She was still "Mrs. Bertha Masteller" in contemporary (mid 1930s) Fond du Lac city directories, at which time she was divorced. However, this photograph suggests she was living in the postal town of Malone, in Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin.

Four generations of Wetherall-Beaman women Right to left Laura Belle (Beaman) Wetherall -- Wetherall-Beaman matriarch Lena Belle (Wetherall) Stone -- Laura's 4th child (of 7) and 3rd daughter (of 5) Rita (Stone) Pfister -- Lena's 1st and only child and daughter. Marcia Pfister --Rita's 1st child (of 7) and 1st daughter (of 3), later Marcia Cook. Rita was living with her parents in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, at the time of the 1930 census, as Rita Stone (17). The 1940 census shows her living in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, as Rita Pfister (27), with her husband Gottlieb Pfister (30), a furniture upholsterer, and their (at the time) 4 children, Marcia (6), John R. (4), Wayne (3), and Ronald (7/12). Gottlieb, Rita, and Marcia were living at the same place -- 1008 Superior Avenue, rented, 24 dollars a month -- in 1935. According to the census, Gottlieb and Rita had completed respectively 8 and 7 grades of school. 3 more children -- James, Faye, Sonya Belle were born after the 1940 census. Through their marriages, Marcia became Marcia Miller then Marcia Cook, Faye became Faye Kahr then Faye Konen, and Sonya Belle became Sonya Baez. As of this edit (25 October 2023), only Faye and Sonya survive, and they -- with Faye's daughter Angela Kahr July, and Jean Stone -- made an all-girls family pilgrimage to Knoxville and elsewhere. Photograph to right probably taken in Knoxville around 1934 (Mary Wells Family photo)

Rita Beryl (Stone) (Pfister) Casper (1913-1999)

Rita Beryl Stone (1913-1999) was the only daughter of Lena Belle Wetherall (1894-1944) and Rolland L. ("Rollie" or "R.L.") Stone (bc1895-1972).

Rita, born on 8 March 1913 in Dogden in North Dakota, married Gottlieb Pfister (1910-1955) in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, on 20 August 1932.
Gottlieb, born in Sheboygan in Wisconsin on 29 April 1910, died in Sheboygan on 31 October 1955.
He is buried in Lutheran Cemetery in Sheboygan.

Rita remarried Arno A. Casper on 11 October 1974.
They lived in Cleveland, where he died on 10 May 1981.
Rita died on 21 November 1999 in Cleveland.
She is buried with Gottlieb in Lutheran Cemetery.

Rita and Gottlieb had the following 7 children.

1. Marcia Lynn Pfister (14 Sep 1933 - 13 Oct 2018)
   Married David Miller in 1951, divorced in 1978, 5 children
   Married Dale Cook in 1984
2. John Roland "Jack" Pfister [Sr.] (26 Sep 1935 – 29 Dec 2004)
   Married Marilyn Wettstein in 1955, 7 children
3. Wayne Eugene Pfister (6 Apr 1937 - 17 Jun 2011)
   Married Beverly Kunstmany in 1956, 3 children
4. Ronald Gottlieb Pfister (3 Oct 1939 - 1 Jun 2017)
   Married Marilyn Zillner in 1967, 5 children
5. James Allen Pfister (26 Dec 1940 - 19 Oct 2016)
   Married Barbara (Leicht) Heck (1937-2000) in 1974
6. Faye Pfister (bc1948)
   Married Paul Kahr in 1967, 3 children
   Married Gary Konan in 1979, 4 children
7. Sonya Belle Pfister (18 May 1951)
   Married Victor Baez in 1975, divorced in 1984, 3 children

Relationships

William Owen Wetherall (this writer), Robert and Joshua Van Wysryk, and Faye Konan are related as follows.

0. William Franklin Wetherall
   Laura Belle Beaman
      | Married 1887
      |_____________________________________________________
      |                                                     |
1. William Riley Wetherall                               Lena Belle Wetherall 
   1. Ida Mae Baldwin  2. Ellen Marie Van Houton         Rolland L. Stone
      | Married 1910             | Married 1922             | Married 1912
      |                          |                          |  
2. William Bascom Wetherall   Mary Arlene Wetherall      Rita Beryl Stone  
   Louida Orene Hardman       James Milfred Van Ryswyk   Gottlieb Pfister 
      | Married 1938             | Married 1942             | Married 1932
      |                          |                          | 
3. William Owen Wetherall     Robert Leslie Van Ryswyk   Faye Pfister 
   Sugiyama Etsuko            Mary Sue Enderson          1. Paul Kaul     2. Gary Konan
      | Married 1971             | Married 1972             | Married 1967   | Married 1979 
      |                          |                          |                |              
4. Children                   Joshua Andrew Van Ryswyk   Children         Children

William B. Wetherall and Rita (Stone) Pfister are 1st cousins.
William O. Wetherall and Faye (Pfister) Konan are 2nd cousins.
William O. Wetherall and Robert L. Van Ryswyk are 1st cousins.
Faye and Robert are 2nd cousins.
Robert's son, Joshua Andrew Van Ryswyk, is
  William O. Wetherall's 1st cousin once removed
  and Faye Konan's 2nd cousin once removed.

Wetherall-Beaman gallery

Jerry Wetherall's family

The children of Jerry and Anna (Rodgers) Wetherall in their youth

1. Betty Wetherall County fair, July 1934 (Mary Wells Family photo)	2. Homer Wetherall High School, Class of 1943 (Mary Wells Family photo)	4. Norma Wetherall Lodi High School, Class of 1948 (Mary Wells Family photo)	5. Edna Wetherall Lodi High School, Class of 1949? (Mary Wells Family photo)

1. Betty Ruthe (Wetherall) Bishop (1922-2005)

Betty was born, raised, and died in Lacona, Iowa. The above portrait was reportedly taken on 4 July 1934 at a fair in nearby Chariton, Iowa. She was born on 4 January 1922, so she would have been only 12 years 7 months old at the time.

The fair would have been a special occassion, and concessions appear to have included a photography studio. Possibly even a barely pubescent girl would have been allowed to doll up with lipstick and otherwise present herself as a young woman for the commemorative portrait. Or perhaps the received date is wrong.

Did Betty have a choice of background props? Or did everyong sit or stand with their back to the same clamshell? Was "clamshell" lighting also an option?

2. Homer Edward Wetherall (1926-1958)

Homer's portrait is cropped from a "The Badger Studio / Madison, Wis." frame with a class of "43" sticker on it. Whether he graduated from a high school in Madison, or from Lodi High School in Lodi, Wisconsin, about 30 miles from Madison, remains unknown to this writer. The family was living in Iowa at the time of the 1940 census, and Jerry A. died in Lodi in 1941.

3. Harris Edwin Wetherall (1926-1999)

4. Norma J. (Wetherall) Brager (1922-2005)

Norma graduated from Lodi High School in 1948 and is known to have attended Class of 1948's 10-year reunion as Norma Wetherall Brager. This is probably her graduation portrait.

5. Edna Belle (Wetherall) "Happy" Gallagher (1932-2012)

Edna probably graduated from Lodi High School the year after Norma. Presumably this is her graduation portrait.

6. William Roger Wetherall (b c1937, d aft1967-bef2005)

7. Jerry J. Wetherall (b1938 aft 2012, still living in 2012)

Wetherall-Beaman gallery

Alice Dainty's family

The children of Wilbert and Alice (Wetherall) in their youth

1. Alice Wetherall Circa early 1920s (Thayne Ireland family photo)	2. Alice Dainty Circa early 1930s (Alice Dainty family photo)	3. Willard, Thayne, David Dainty children circa 1943 (Alice Dainty family photo)	4. Thayne Dainty High school graduation circa 1958 (Mary Wells Family photo)

5. Wilbert Dainty at work Unknown location apparently 1940s (Alice Dainty family photo)

1. The framed portrait of Alice Wetherall shows her as she would probably have looked to her nephew William B. Wetherall in the early 1920s, during the period when he was living with her and her parents -- i.e., his grandparents -- in Knoxville while going to grade school. It may have been taken about the time Alice married Bill Evans, which appears to have around 1923. The portrait is one of the first things one sees when entering the home of Alice's daughter, Thayne Ireland, according the Mary Sue Van Ryswyk, who captured the portrait with her cell phone camera on 13 November 2013 at the time she and her mother-in-law, Mary (Wetherall) (Van Ryswyk) Wells, Thayne's aunt, visited Thayne to look at family photographs.

2. This portrait of Alice, in one of the photo albums Thayne inherited from her mother, was probably taken after Alice divorced Bill Evans and married Wilbert Dainty, hence after 1927, and possibly before Willard was born in 1933.

3. The portrait of the three Dainty children appears to have been taken late in 1943 or early in 1944, as David, who seems to be between 1 and 2 years old in the picture, was born in September 1942.

4. Thayne had just graduated from high school in 1958 at the time of the Wetherall-family reunion in Iowa that summer (see below).

Wilbert Dainty worked in a coal mine for a few years after completing grade school. By the time of the 1930 census, about 3 years after he and Alice married, we had become a fireman.

Wetherall-Beaman gallery

1958 Wetherall family reunion

For a few days during the summer of 1958, Alice's nephew, William B. Wetherall (WBW), his wife Orene, and their 3 children, including this writer, stayed with the Daintys and their 3 children at their Knoxville home. I packed the family Kodak and a couple of rolls of 120 monochrome film, and took all of the square black-and-white pictures in the following gallery.

The 1958 reunion provided WBW the first opportunity to see his relatives in Iowa since he graduated from high school in Des Moines in 1928. A younger cousin, Homer Edward Wetherall (1926-1958), a son of his uncle Jeremiah Alexander (Jerry A.) Wetherall, had visited us in San Francisco. But it would be the first time for most of Wetherall-Beaman and Wetherall-Van Houton relatives to see WBW in about 30 years, and the first time for them to meet his wife and children.

The trip was the longest the complete Wetherall-Hardman family would ever take. We went east over the Sierras and through Salt Lake City, and returned west through Denver and the Rockies.

I was between my junior and senior years in high school, and was just along for the ride. But I'm sure my father planned every detail. I can't remember driving, but I may have relieved him now and then, as I'd gotten my license the previous year.

It was only time my father would go back to Iowa. Within a decade, most of the older relatives we'd seen at the reunion were gone. By the end of the century, several relatives younger than my father, and a couple around my age, were also gone.

Three of his siblings, and his step-mother and neice, visited him in Grass Valley. His oldest sister, Mary Wells, visited twice.

It wasn't so much the geographical distances, though not short, that put a damper on visits. The emotional distances were greater.

My father lived in Des Moines with his Wetherall-Van Houton siblings for only 4 years -- from 1924 to 1928. Mary was born in 1922 -- Warren in 1925 -- Helen in 1928 about 6 months before he left -- and in 1933 Marge, whose high school graduation portrait he had, but I have no evidence he ever met her.

1958 Iowa Reunion gallery

Reunion of Wetherall families during the summer of 1958 in Iowa at which the family of William B. Wetherall, visiting from Grass Valley, California, was hosted by the family of his aunt Alice (Wetherall) Dainty in Knoxville, and the family of his sister Mary (Wetherall) Van Ryswyk in Carlisle				Daintys (Alice Wetherall's family)
Front of Dainty home	Back of Dainty home	Alice (Wetherall) Dainty	Wilbert Dainty	Wilbert Dainty
Willard Dainty	Willard Dainty building hydroplane	Thayne Dainty	Thayne Dainty	David Dainty
David Dainty	David Dainty	Mary Martha Kool (Sydna's granddaughter)	Sydna, Alice, Bertha (Wetherall siblings)	Sydna, Mary Martha, Faye (daughter)
Helen, Bill (WBW), Mary (Wetherall siblings)	Helen, Bill (WBW), Mary (Wetherall siblings)	Bishops (Bette Ruth Wetherall's family)	Wetheralls (WBW's family)	Van Ryswyks (Mary Wetherall's family)
Van Ryswyks (Mary Wetherall's family)	Morrisons (Helen Wetherall's family)	Bertha and John Dainty, Sydna, Mary Martha	Orene Wetherall, Sydna, Faye	X, WBW, James Van Ryswyk, Loren Morrison
Mary Ellen, Thayne, Jerry, David, Billy	Jerry, David, Orene, X, Wilbert, Y, WBW	Thayne and X	Group photo at Dainty home (first take)	Group photo at Dainty home (See above)
All of the above snapshots were taken with the Wetherall family Brownie 120 camera. All were taken by this writer except for the two pictures which include him (identitied as "Billy" in the captions). The images shown here are scans of standard contemporary glossy prints, 3-1/2-inches square with 1/4-inch borders, in the Wetherall Family Collection.

Chronology of Wetherall-Beaman family through censuses

8. Wetherall-Hall

William Edwin Wetherall and Mary Hall

0. William E. Wetherall was born in Harford County, Maryland, to James Wetherland (sic) of Harford County, Maryland, according to his death certificate. His mother's name was not given. The informant was his son, W.F. [William Franklin] Wetherall. Presumably he related the information to a clerk who completed the certificate -- writing "Wetherland" after writing "Maryland".
   
   Mary A. Hall was born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania to Wm. [William] Hall, born in West Virginia, and Sarah Hannah, born in Pennsylvania, according to her death certificate. The informant was her daughter, Mrs. Wilmer Anderson, otherwise known as Annette "Nettie" (Wetherall) Anderson. William Hall was born in Monongahela (Monongalia) County in Virginia. Sarah Hall (nee Hanan) was born in Fayette County in Pennsylvania.
   They married in New Salem, Pennsylvania on 8 November 1855 according to her obituary. He was 21, she 14.
   1. Mary is "Mary S. Hall" on the death certificate of her son William Franklin Wetherall, according the informant, her grandson William R. Wetherall.
1. William Franklin is just "William" and is 12 on the 1870 census.
   He married Laura Belle Beaman on 19 October 1887 and the couple had 6 children (see 4. below).
2. Sarah Belle is just "Belle" on the 1870 census, which states she was then 10 years old. "Belle Wetherall" married C.F. Griffin in Marion County, Iowa on 29 August 1878. One of WEW's 1914 obituaries notes that she died in Kansas in 1884.
3. Annette was better known in the family, and is listed on some census records, as "Nettie". Nettie married Wilmer Anderson on 7 December 1890, and they had two daughters, Elieta Anderson and Vesta Mervin Anderson. Vesta is said to have been born in Keota in Keokuk County, Iowa, in 1898, and reportedly married L.C. Scott (1901–1962), who was born in Iowa and was living in Knoxville in 1920. Scott died in Arizona in 1962. Vesta reportedly died in Washington, the seat of Washington County, Iowa.
4. Edwin Rogers Wetherall died in infancy. He is reportedly buried in Pleasant Ridge Cemetery in Knoxville, Iowa. Some accounts say he was 1 year, 8 months, 15 days old at time of his death -- which suggests that he was born about 11 August 1872. However, he is listed on the 1870 census, which enumerated ages as of 1 June 1870, as 9/12 months old, and his month of birth within the previous year is given as August, meaning that he was born in August 1869, hence the date shown in the table.

See the "Chronology of Wetherall-Hall family through censuses" (below) for an overview of census data related to William E. Wetherall (WEW) and Mary A. Hall.

William E. Wetherall

WEW was shot on his way to California during his teens and couldn't countinue the journey. He made his way back to Maryland, and went to college in Pennsylvania, where he met and married Mary Hall. They homesteaded and raised their family on a farm in Iowa. He taught school, served as a county representative in the state legislature during the Civil War, edited a newspaper, and was also a minister and lawyer.

Nothing more is known about WEW's father and not much more is known about his mother. "Wetherland" on the birth certificate is probably a clerical error for "Wetherall". I can find "James Wetherall" and "James Weatherall" but no "James Wetherland" in Maryland. The earliest censuses, however, name only the heads of households and enumerate household members by sex and free or slave status. Hence I am unable to determine if WEW was a member of any of the early "Wetherall" or even "Weatherall" familys of Maryland.

I have, however, collated census data on a few large "Wetherall" and "Weatherall" families in Maryland, just to dramatize the manner in which their memberships were enumerated in terms of free/slave status and age group. The only family in which it is possible to place WEW age-wise is that of a William G. Wetherall. But according to WEW's death certificate, based on information provided by his son WFW, his father's name was James, not William -- which does not mean that "William" was not also his hame.

See "Slaveholding We(a)theralls in Harford County, Maryland" and "The families of William G. Wetherall in Baltimore, Maryland" below for an analysis of census data related to Maryland Wetheralls.

Mary A. Wetherall

Mary's father, William Hall, seems to have been a captain of a unit of Pennsylvania home guards during the Civil War. He appears to be a descendant of a line of Halls that presumably originated in England and settled in Virginia in the 17th century. See "The family of William, Sarah, Irwin, and Mary Hall in Fayette County, Pennsylvania" below for particulars.

William E. Wetherall and Mary A. Wetherall death certificates

Mary Wetherall's and William Edwin Wetherall's death certificates Mrs. Wilmer Anderson, the informant on Mary Wetherall's certificate, was her daughter W.F. Wetherall, the informant on William Edwin Wetherall's certificate, was his son Cropped from copies in Wetherall Family Collection of copies from Kathy Wetherall attributed to "Knoxville Gene. Soc."

William Edwin Wetherall (WEW) (1834-1914)

William E. Wetherall (WEW) is the first confirmed ancestor of the Wetherall line in the Wetherall-Hardman family. When the first Wetherall in WEW's line migrated to North America -- and whether they migrated from England or Ireland, or from Canada or India, or from elsewhere -- is uncertain. His known timeline is as follows.

1834-06-02   William Edwin Wetherall (WEW) is born in Harford, Maryland. His father's name was William, according to unconfirmed information on unexamined burial records. Both of his parents were also apparently born in Maryland.

1836-05-22   "Wm. Edwin Wetherall" is Christened at Saint Peters Protestant Episcopal Church in Baltimore, Maryland (FamilySearch transcription from "Maryland Births and Christenings, 1650-1995").

1853-1855   WEW attends Pennsylvania College in Gettysburg.

The Pennsylvania College Book. 1832-1882. E.S. Breidenbaugh, Editor. Published for the Alumni of Pennsylvania College (Editor's Preface dated Pennsylvania College, Gettysburg, Pa., June, 1882), lists William Edwin Wetherall; f. Baltimore Md. 53-5 J. Philo. under 1852-3 (page 361) in "List of Those Who Left While Members of College Classes, Arranged by year of entrance" in section on "STUDENTS WHO DID NOT GRADUATE" from Pennsylvania College. According to abbreviations (page 336), this translates William Edwin Wetherall; From Baltimore, Maryland; Entered during the collegiate year 1853-1854, and left during the collegiate year 1854-1855, while a member of the Junior class; Member of the Philomathaean Society.

1855-11-08   WEW and Mary Hall are married in Pennsylvania. He appears to have been 21 and she 14.

"In Fayette county, Pennsylvania, Nov. 8, 1855, Mr. Wetherall married Miss Mary Hall, and they came to Knoxville in the following spring, purchasing a farm in Washington township. That winter they removed to Dallas, where Mr. Wetherall taught the school, then in the spring they returned to the farm, which remained their home until 1880, when they removed to Knoxville." (From 1914 obituary. See full text below.)

1856   The 1856 Iowa state census lists" Wm E Wetherall", 22, born in Maryland, and his wife, Mary, 15, born in Pennsylvania, as farming on 120 acres of unimproved land owned by WEW in Washington Township of Marion County. This is the earliest confirmed public record of Wetheralls in WBW's Wetherall-Hardman line. Since the box for their years of residence in the state had been left blank, and because the farm schedule part of the census shows no livestock or agricultural production, it would appear that the young couple had just recently acquired the land and moved there following their marriage the previous year.

Iowa's 1856 census, the first to be taken in all counties, was begun on 3 March and completed on 7 July 1856. WEW and Mary were among the many settlers who migrated to the state during its earliest years of stathood when homesteading was still possible. Iowa had became a state in 1846 and the first state fair was held in 1854. The territory had been the home of the Fox or Meskwaki (of which Iowa has a Federally recognized settlement), and the Sauk and bands of a number of other tribes, including some which had come because of wars and Indian removal actions in other territories, before and after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.

1858-02-28   William Franklin Wetherall (WFW), WEW's and Mary's 1st child and 1st son, was born in Washington, Marion County, Iowa.

WEW and Mary would have a total of 4 children, the first 3 of whom would survive.

c1859-1861   Sarah Belle Wetherall (Griffin) born as WEW's and Mary's 2nd child and 1st daughter. Birth order and years of birth unconfirmed.

c1862-1863   Annetta "Nettie" Wetherall (Anderson) born as WEW's and Mary's 3rd child and 2nd daughter. Birth years estimated from ages recorded on census reports.

1862   WEW "represented Marion county in the lower house of the legislature in 1862, during the governorship of the late Samuel J. Kirkwood, Iowa's 'war governor'" according to one 1914 obituary (see full text below). According to another, "he became prominent in Marion county politics, and was elected to the war legislature as a Union democrat serving in the Ninth General Assembly" (see full text below.)

State of Iowa, 1925-26, Official Register (running title "Iowa Official Register 1925-26), Thirty-first Number. Compiled under the direction of Robert Henderson, Superintendent of Printing, By H. N. Whitney, Published by the State of Iowa, Des Moines, inludes on its list of Members of the General Assembly (page 90), Wetherall. W. E. Knoxville Marion R 9-9Ex. This translates "W.E. Wetherall (Name), of Knoxville (P.O. Address), Marion County (Home County), served as a county representative in the House of Representatives of both the 9th Session, convened from 13 January to 8 April 1962, and 9th Extra Session, convened from 3-11 September 1862."

1870 census shows "Witherall William" (36), farmer, with real estate and personal estate valued at respectively 2,500 and 650 dollars. His family includes Mary (28), keeping house, William (12), at home, Belle (10), at home, Annette (8), and Edwin (9/12).

1870 agricultural production schedule   By 1870 WEW and Mary have significantly improved the 120 acres of land they had acquired in Washington, Marion County, Iowa, by the 1856 Iowa state census. The non-population agricultural schedule of the 1870 census shows the following status of their farm.

William Wetherall

Acres of land
  Improved             40
  Unimproved woodland  20
  Other unimproved     60

Present cash value
  Of farm           2,500 dollars
  Of farming
   implements
   and machinery      100 dollars

Livestock, June 1, 1870
  Horses                2
  Mules and asses
  Milch cows            3
  Working oxen
  Other cattle         12
  Sheep                11
  Swine                 3
  Value of 
    all livestock     400 dollars

Produce during the year ending June 1, 1870
  Wheat
    Spring            100 bushels
    Winter
  Rye
  Indian corn         500 bushesl
  Oats                 50 bushes
  Barley
  Buckwheat
  Rice
  Tobacco
  Wool                 25 pounds
  Irish potatoes       15 bushels
  Butter              150 pounds
  Hay                   5 tons

  Value of XXX        185 dollars
  Value of all
    farm production   565 dollars

c1872-1874   Edwin Rogers Wetherall born as WEW's and Mary's 4th child and 2nd son. He is said to have died on 26 Apr 1874, apparently during his second year of life, and is reportedly buried in Pleasant Ridge Cemetery in Knoxville, Iowa. A contributor to Find a Grave claims he was 1 year, 8 months, 15 days old when he died though his date of birth is stated as unknown. If so, then he would have been born around August 1872.

1878-08-29   Sarah Belle marries a man named C.F. Griffin in Marion County, Iowa.

1880 census shows "Witherall William" (49), farmer, Mary (39), wife, keeping house, William (21), son, farmer, and Annetta (18), daughter, house keeper. Edwin Rogers died around 1872 or 1874. Sarah Belle married a man named C.F. Griffin in Marion County, Iowa on 29 August 1878. One of WEW's 1914 obituaries notes that she died in Kansas in 1884.

1880   WEW, Mary, and two of children move from Washington to Knoxville, also in Marion County.

1881   "In the spring of 1881 Mr. Wetherall became editor of The Express. The paper was then owned by the late Drewry Overton. Mr. Wetherall edited the paper very successfully until it was sold, about a year afterward." (From 1914 obituary. See full text below.)

1884   One of WEW's 1914 obituaries notes that his daughter Sarah Belle Griffin died in Kansas in 1884.

1900   June 1900 census shows Wetherall William E, head, white male, born Jun 1834, age 65, married 45 years, father born in Maryland, mother born in Maryland, and Wetherall Mary, wife, white female, born Aug 1841, 58, married 45 years, mother of 4 children of whom 2 survive, father born in Virginia, mother born in Pennsylvania. Both can read, write, and speak English. WEW owns the house free of mortage. His occuppation is described as "Insurance Ag" (followed by what appears to be "LL"). He was unemployed 0 months. No street or house numbers are given.

"LL" is used in abbreviations of law degrees, inlcuding "LL.B." (Bachelor of Laws), "LL.M." (Master of Laws), and "LL.D." (Doctor of Laws)." Does "LL" mean "licensed lawyer"?

1910   April 1910 census shows Wetherall, William E., Father in law, male, white, widowed, 76, born in Maryland, mother and father also born in Maryland, trade or profession described as "own income" but nature of industry unstated. He is listed following Anderson, Wilmer, head, 44, married 29 years, a laborer at odd jobs, Nettie, wife of, 47, married 29 years, mother of 2 children, of which 2 survive, Elieta, daughter, 17, single, salesman, millener, Vesta M., daughter, 10, single, in school.

1914-05-21   William Edwin Wetherall (1834-1914) dies in Knoxville, Marion County, Iowa, at the age of 79, at the home of his son, William Franklin Wetherall (1858-1929). He is buried at Graceland Cemetery in Knoxville alongside his wife, Mary (Hall) Wetherall (1841-1907), who had died seven years earlier. The couple are buried in Block/Lot 6-41 in the Old Section of the cemetery (see image of latterday tombstone below).

William B. Wetherall was 3 years old at the time of his paternal great grandfather's death. He was living in St. Maries, Idaho, with his mother's family and his father, William Riley Wetherall (1890-1936), who was WFW's son and WEW's grandson, He had a photograph of Nettie but none of WEW or WFW, and in 2010 his memory of what he hard heard about WEW and witnessed or heard about WFW was shakey (see below).

Top  

William E. Wetherall obituaries

Two obituaries are known to have been published on the occasion of William E. Wetherall's death in 1914. Both are shown on images of the newspaper pages on which they originally appeared, in a PDF file on WEW's life posted by Historical Society Association of Iowa. The images shown below are my crops of the articles from the HSAI file. The transcriptions and [bracketed] corrections and clarifications are mine.

1914 Knoxville Express obituary

The following obituary was published on the front page of the Wednesday, 27 May 1914 edition of The Knoxville Express, a Knoxville, Iowa newspaper which he once edited. The World War (Great War, World War I) would not begin until 28 July 1914. The "war" during which W. E. Wetherall served as a representative in the Iowa State Legislature was Civil War.

The Knoxville Express, 27 May 1914 (State Historical Association of Iowa) The Knoxville Express Forty-Ninth Year, Knoxville, Iowa Wednesday, May 27, 1914 W. E. WETHERALL DEAD Had Been a Well-Known Citizen for Nearly Sixty Years. He Edited The Express Thirty-three Years Ago, and Had Preached, Taught and Practiced Law. W. E. Wetherall, well known for the past fifty-eight years as a leading citizen of Marion county, died at the home of his son, W. F. Wetherall, in Knoxville, last Thursday, aged nearly 80 years. Mr. Wetherall had been in failing health for several months. On April 30 he sustained a paralytic stroke which affected his limbs and his power of speech. A second stroke on Monday, May 13, rendered him almost helpless, and after that time he never used his limbs nor got out of bed. Deceased was born in Hartford [sic = Harford] county, Maryland, June 2, 1834. He was reared in Baltimore, and after finishing the public schools he attended college in the city and in Gettysburg, Pa. After he had finished his education he read medicine and law, and practiced law in Pennsylvania and Iowa until the latter part of the '60's. In Fayette county, Pennsylvania, Nov. 8, 1855, Mr. Wetherall married Miss Mary Hall, and they came to Knoxville in the following spring, purchasing a farm in Washington township. That winter they removed to Dallas, where Mr. Wetherall taught the school, then in the spring they returned to the farm, which remained their home until 1880, when they removed to Knoxville. In the spring of 1881 Mr. Wetherall became editor of The Express. The paper was then owned by the late Drewry Overton. Mr. Wetherall edited the paper very successfully until it was sold, about a year afterward. Deceased was a Baptist in his church relations, but became dissatisfied with some of the tenets of that church and joined the Christian denomination, in which church he was ordained as a minister in 1871. He preached for years at Burr Oak, and after his removal to Knoxville often preached here. Mrs. Wetherall died Aug. 17, 1907. To them were born four children: William F. Wetherall, of Knoxville; Sarah Belle Griffin died in Kansas in 1884; Mrs. Nettie Anderson resides in Knoxville township; Edwin Rogers Wetherall died in Washington township in 1874. Besides his children, Mr. Wetherall leaves nine grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. Deceased was a well-known man in Marion county, and took part in all that concerned the welfare of the community. He represented Marion county in the lower house of the legislature in 1862, during the governorship of the late Samuel J. Kirkwood, Iowa's "war governor." All his life he took great interest in politics and religion, and up to a month ago he was always the first to purchase the morning paper after the arrival of the 9 o'clock train. He retained a keen interest in all current affiars up until the day that paralysis numbed his faculties. Always a strong and active man, it was his boast that he had not had occasion to call a doctor (for himself) for sixty-five years. Funeral services were held at the home of his son, William F. Wetherall (where he had made his home for the past four years), at 2:30 Saturday afternoon, conducted by Rev. Mattox, of the Christian church. Interment in Graceland.

Top  

1914 Knoxville Journal obituary

A longer, more interesting obituary was published the following day in the Thursday, 28 May 1914 edition of The Knoxville Journal, another local paper.

Knoxville Journal, 28 May 1914 (State Historical Association of Iowa) The Knoxville Journal Thursday, May 28, 1914 DEATH RECORD OF THE WEEK MANY KNOXVILLE AND MARION COUNTY PEOPLE AN- SWER LAST CALL. WORK OF GREAT HARVESTER Something of the Life History of Those Who Have Fallen Before The Scythe of Time. Rev. W. E. Wetherall. Rev. W. E. Wetherall, known for more than a half century as one of the wide-awake, prominent citizens of Marion county, died at his home in Knoxville May 21, 1914, aged 79 years, 11 months and 19 days. He had been in poor health for several months -- gradually failing from the effects of the inroads of old age; however, he was able to be up and around the house and down town occasionally up to about a month before his death. In reality, the last sickness covered a period of only three weeks, beginning April 30 when he was stricken with paralysis. During that time he was under the care of his son, W. F. Wetherall and family, who did everything in their power to make the old gentleman's life as comfortable as possible. Rev. Mr. Wetherall was a man of great force of character and one who passed through a varied career. He was born in Hartford [sic = Harford] county, Maryland June 2, 1834, and grew to manhood in the city of Baltimore, where he took an academic and college course which was finished in Gettysburg, Penn. In the year of 1849, at the age of 15 there came a break in his studies which probably did much to shake his after career: In company with other boys, young men and older men, he started on a trip to California in 1849, during the gold excitement. After traveling by wagon half across the continent and while out in the "Great American Desert" (now the state of Kansas), he was detailed one night to guard stock from the depredations of Indians and desperadoes. During the darkness he approached a bunch of horses and cattle that was being guarded by other men on the train; was mistaken for a pilferer and was shot through the shoulder. That ended his gold seeking and he finally worked his way back east after two years of suffering and took up the study of medicine. His partially helpless arm prevented the exercise of the surgical branch of the study and he then abandoned medicine for the law and was a practicing attorney for a period of 16 years, from 1854 till 1870. On November 9, 1855, he was united in marriage with Miss Mary Hall, in Fayette county, Pa., and in the spring of 1956 came to Marion county. Later he studied for the ministry and was ordained pastor of the Christian church in 1872. He removed from the southern part of the country to Knoxville about 35 years ago and in 1881-82 was editor of the Marion County Democrat. Long before that time, away back in 1862 he became prominent in Marion county politics, and was elected to the war legislature as a Union democrat, over Jurius F. Neal, old line democrat. That is certainly a remarkable career -- doctor, lawyer, minister, politician and legislator. To the union of Wm. E. Wetehrall [sic] and Mary Hall, four children were born, only two of whom are now living. W. F. Wetherall, of Knoxville, and Nettie, wife of Wilmer Anderson, three miles south of town. The wife and mother died August 17, 1907. Besides the son and daughter, deceased leaves nine grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. Deceased was the officiating minister at the marriage of three of his grandchildren. The funeral services were held at the home Saturday, May 23, conducted by Wlder C. H. Mattox of the Christian church. Burial beside the remains of his companion, in Graceland.

"shot through the shoulder"

See William E. Wetherall in Civil War
for "Has been shot through the shoulder" remark in
1863 Iowa Union military service eligibility record

Mary A. (Hall) Wetherall

Mary A. Wetherall appears to have been the daughter of William Hall, a Pennsylvania farmer, and Sarah, whose maiden name appears to have been Hanan or Haynan. All that is known about her comes from WEW's obituaries (see above) and the following account of Captain William Hall, who appears to have been her father.

Genealogical and Personal History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania (1912) Facsimile and title pages of Volume II (Screen capture of Archive.org scan)

Genealogical and Personal History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania (1912) (AbeBooks.com RT Books image)

Mary Wetherall's obituary Cropped from copy in Wetherall Family Collection of copy from Kathy Wetherall attributed to "Knoxville Gene. Soc."

Captain William Hall

The following publication includes a biographical profile of a Captain William Hall, which links his daughter Mary Hall with a William Wetherell, whose profile is similar to that of William Edwin Wetherall.

John W. Jordan and James Hadden
Genealogical and Personal History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania
New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1912
3 volumes, illustrated, with portraits of selected personalities

This biographical reference has been reproduced in a number of facsimile editions. It is now also widely available in POD editions as well as in digital scans of library holdings of the original edition.

The following transcription is based on machine copies of pages 632 and 633 in a 1996 reprint edition of Volume II published by Heritage Books, Maryland. The copies were made by Kathy Wetherall during the late 1990s. The text is identical to the text of the original edition scanned by Archive.org. The title in the following extract, and the underscoring and red mark-up, are mine.

William Hall during Civil War

HALL. This is a very common name, not only in America, but also in England. It was borne by numerous early immigrants to New England and to Virginia. The present family came from Virginia into Pennsylvania, and is of English descent.

(I) William Hall, the first member of this family about whom we have definite information, was a farmer and large land owner in Virginia. It is not known whom he married.

He had twelve children, eleven of these being sons, one of whom was William, of whom further.

(II) William, son of William Hall, was born in 1808. He was captain of Home Guards in the civil war, and commonly known as Captain Hall. He married Sarah Hanan. Children: Irwin R., of whom further; Mary, married William Wetherell, a farmer, afterward a real estate dealer residing in Iowa.

(III) Irwin R., son of William and Sarah (Hanan) Hall, was born April 27, 1836, and died June 1, 1908. He was raised on a farm. For twenty-two years he taught school, giving attention to his farm in vacation time. He owned about ninety-three acres of land, did general farming and raised stock. He was a Democrat, and, with his wife, a Methodist.

I.R. Hall's descendants, and descendants of his son William B. Hall, are also profiled in considerable detail.

Editor John Woolf Jordan (1840-1921) was a librarian of the Pennsylvania Historical Society in Philadelphia, and co-editor James Hadden (1845-1923), of Uniontown, in Fayette County, an author of Washington's and Braddock's expeditions through Fayette County, and published a reproduction of Monongahela of Old, or Historical Sketches of Southwestern Pennsylvania to the year 1800 by the historian James Veech (1808-1879), published originally in Pittsburgh in 1858.

The latter publication includes a fascinating overview of Pennsylvania's boundary disputes with Virginia, which centered on the Monongahela valley, and resulted in the creation of Fayette County in Pennsylvania.

WEW's walking stick

William B. Wetherall (WBW) talked about his great grandfather in the course of looking throuh my father's family photographs and other detritus, during my spring visits to Grass Valley in 2010 and 2011. I would not see him again, and family history was the furthest from our minds the several times we talked on the phone before his death in 2013.

Our 2010 and 2011 talks consisted mainly of my asking questions about photographs and other materials, then jotting notes as he answered and commented on whatever came to his minds. At times I would press for more details, or revisit earlier comments in an attempt to clarify them.

WBW was unable to provide birth or death dates for either of his paternal great grandparents. He thought his great grandmother's name was Mary and thought WEB had been from Maryland or Pennsylvania, but he had no idea where they were buried. He assumed their graves were in Knoxville, but he wasn't sure. He had probably once known but forgotten.

However, WBW unequivocally stated that WEW had served in the Iowa state legislature as a representative of Marion County. He produced a cane from his closet, pointing out the WEW initials on the knob. He had no idea when WEW had been a representative, nor did he recall how he himself had come by the cane. He said he believed that WEW had also been a minister and that he might have practiced law. He also said he thought that WEW had once been shot by someone.

This was the extent of WBW's knowledge about the oldest member of his clan as of 2011.

The "cane" -- actually a walking stick -- was the only memento that WBW seemed to possess from his Iowa family. I have no idea how long it had been in his closet. How he received it -- perhaps from his grandfather when he graduated from grade school -- perhaps from his father or grandmother when he graduated from high school -- or perhaps from his Aunt Alice when visiting Iowa in 1958 -- remains a mystery.

The walking stick was a true heirloom. Apparently WBW's other two children were not aware of its existence. Mary (Wetherall) (Van Ryswyk) Wells, WBW's half-sister, said in 2014 that she knew nothing about it. My brother and sister also said that they were unaware of its existence.

Its present whereabouts also remains a mystery.

Possibly WBW himself threw it out when he empited the house in 2012 in preparation for its sale. He hated to part with the house, much less with all the things that filled it -- tangible evidence of his entire life as a husband and father. Yet when it came time to act, he simply got rid of "all this stuff" as he called it -- "stuff, stuff, stuff." He knew he wouldn't be taking any of it with him.

So perhaps WBW simply decided that no one would want the walking stick. He had offerred it to me at the time he showed it to me, and I said to leave it with his other belongings, which included a box of high-school journals, some of which he had helped write and edit. I never anticipated that the walking stick might simply walk away. I'm not even sure what became of the journals. But unlike the journals, and the photographs and a few letters, the stick would not have fit in any of his boxes.

To anyone else, it would be just a stick. Who would want it?

To me, though, it seems a shame that it couldn't have continued strolling through the generations of WEW's descendants.

Photograph of Nettie (Wetherall) Anderson at her residence in Centerville, Iowa Probably taken in the early 1940s by her neice Lena (Wetherall) Stone Copy in Wetherall Family Collection apparently sent by Lena to William B. Wetherall, her nephew, and Nettie's grand nephew

Aunt Nettie (1862-1947)

Nettie Anderson

Nettie Anderson, formally Annette W. Anderson, nee Wetherall, was the youngest of two sisters of William Franklin Wetherall, and the only sister to survive childhood. The photograph to the right was sent to WFW's grandson, my father, William B. Wetherall, apparently by his 1st cousin Lena (Wetherall) Stone, WBW's paternal aunt, and Nettie's neice.

The photo is described on the back as follows, in what may be Lena's hand.

This is your Great Aunt Nettie Anderson, your Grandpa W's Sister. She is still living at Centerville, Iowa & is very active & spry considering her age. We found her like this with her hair all curled & neat as a pin when we dropped in on her about 10 a.m. two months ago, not having seen her in about 25 yrs.

The woman William B. Wetherall called "Aunt Nettie" was in fact his great aunt, Annette W. (Wetherall) Anderson, the 2nd daughter and 3rd child of William E. and Mary Wetherall, his paternal great grandparents. Born during the Civil War, she would live until 1947, two years after World War II.

The following obituary for Nettie was posted on IAGenWeb's Appanoose Obituaries website. The [bracketed] remarks are mine.

Centerville Daily Iowegian and Citizen
September 10, 1947

NETTIE ANDERSON
SUCCUMBS TUESDAY

Mrs. Nettie Anderson, 85, passed away at her home at 811 West Van Buren street Tuesday evening, September 9, at 9 p.m. after a long period of Illness. She had been ill for the past two years, but just seriously ill for the past week.

Mrs. Anderson, the daughter of William and Mary Wetherall, was born near Knoxville, Iowa [in 1862]. On December 7, 1880, she was married to Wilmer Anderson. They moved to Centerville 30 years ago, and have made their home in Appanoose county since then. Mrs. Anderson was preceded in death by her husband, who passed away January 22, 1937. Surviving are two daughters, Vesta Mervin Scott, of Moline, Illinois, and Mrs. Elieta Agan, of Des Moines, who has lived here with her mother for the past two years helping care for her, as well as 7 grandchildren and five great grandchildren. Her eldest grandson was killed in action during World War II.

Funeral services will be held at 3 o'clock Thursday, September 11, at the Miller Funeral home. Rev. H. E. Trimble will officiate, and burial will be in the Haines cemetery. The body will remain at Millers' until services.

Chronology of Wetherall-Hall family through censuses

William E. Wetherall (1834-1914)

June-July 1863, Washington Township, Marion County, Iowa William E. Wetherall, 29, White, Farmer, Married, Maryland born, Has been shot through the shoulder Enrollments enumerated in June and July 1863, transcribed to this register on 5 August 1863 under direction of Capt James Mathews, Provost Marshal, 4th Congressional District, Iowa Copped and cropped from Ancestry.com Click on following image to enlarge

William E. Wetherall in Civil War

Did William E. Wetherall (1834-1914) of Marion County, Iowa -- the husband of Mary A. Hall (1841-1907) -- serve in either a Union or Confederate military unit during the "War of the Rebellion" -- later the "War Between the States" -- today just the "Civil War"?

The short is "No." As of this writing (April 2021), no documentary evidence has come to light that WEW was involved in military activites during the Civil War. There is, however, a clear and umambiguous record that he was registered as a person eligible for military service.

See John R. Baldwin in Civil War
on the Baldwin-Steele page for
the story of William E. Wetherall's counterpart on
the Baldwin side of the Wetherall-Baldwin union.

William E. Wetherall enrolled

The image to the right shows a leaf from the following register of Civil War enrollments.

Title slip

RG-110 RECORDS OF THE PROVOST
          MARSHAL GENERAL'S BUREAU
          (CIVIL WAR)
Records of Office Subdivisions, 1862-66.
Enrollment Branch, General Records,
Enrollment Lists and Reports
Enrollment Lists and Corrections to
Enrollment Lists, 1863-65
VOL 754           NM-65, E. 172
Iowa              Vol. 2 of 3 [Image Vol. 1 of 3]
4 C.D. [Congression District]
Class 1
L-Z [image A-K]

Cover title

Consolidated List
    Class 1.
  4th District
      Iowa

Page 717

Page 717 defines the record as follows ([underscoring] and [bracketed information] mine).

Class I comprises all persons subject to do military duty between the ages of twenty and thirth-five, and all unmarried persons subject to do military duty above the age of thirty-five years and under the age of forty-five.

Class II comprises all other persons subject to do military duty.

SCHEDULE I: CONSOLIDATED LIST of all persons of Class I, subject to military duty in 4th Congressional District, consisting of the Counties of Estile Owsley and others State of Kentucky, enumerated during the months of June & July, 1863, under direction of Capt James Mathews, Provost Marshal.

RESIDENCE: 4th District / Marion County / Washington Township
NAME: [Line] 2. Wetherall William E.
DESCRIPTION
Age 1st July, 1863: 29
While or Colored: White
Profession, Occupation, or Trade: Farmer
Married or Unmarried: Married
PLACE OF BIRTH
(Naming the State, Territory, or Country: Md. [Maryland]
FORMER MILITARY SERVICE: Blank
REMARKS: Has been shot through the shoulder

To Colonel James B. Fry
Provost Marshal General U.S.
Washington, D.C.

Station: Headquarters 4th Congr. Dist. of Iowa
Date: August 5th 1864
James Mathews / Capt. Provost Marshal

"Has been shot through the shoulder"

William E. Wetherall was accidently shot through the shoulder in 1849 while on his way to California, in what became Kansas Territory in 1854 and the state of Kansas in 1861.
The story of how he was "shot through the shoulder" is told in his obituary in the 28 May 1914 edition of The Knoxville Journal

Slaveholding We(a)theral(l)s in Harford County, Maryland

The British colony of Maryland became one of the original 13 States of the Union when the United States of America was founded in 1776. Its social history is study in the economics of plantation slavery.

Maryland

The colony of Maryland was founded by George Calvert, the 1st Lord of Baltimore in the Irish peerage, who hoped to make it a haven for Catholic settlers. The colony was formally established after his death in 1632 when Charles I, the King of England, Ireland, and Scotland, issued a charter intended for George to his son, Cecilius Calvert, the 2nd Baron Baltimore in the English peerage, who thus became the 2nd Lord of Baltimore and the 1st Proprietor of the Maryland colony. The propietorship gave him the right to collect taxes, wage war, and establish a colonial nobility, in return for one-fifth of all gold and silver found in colony, which in effect he rented from the crown.

Cecilius Calvert never set foot in Maryland but managed the colony from his residence in North Yorkshire, England, for over four decades. He appointed his younger brother Leonard Calvert the first royal Governor of Maryland. Maryland placenames echo the names of a succession of Calvert and other royal governors, down to Sir Robert Eden, the last such governor down to the time Maryland fell into the hands of revolutionaries and became a state in 1776.

Religious tolerance

Maryland laws uniquely protected catholics from the sort of religious persecution that was rife in England and its other colonies, dominated by the Anglican Church of England. Catholics held some of the colony's highest offices, and catholics flocked to the colony to avail themselves of its religious tolerance. However, most settlers, including many convicts and felons, were English protestants.

Tobacco production and indent1ured laborers and slaves

Tobacco was a major but labor-intensive income crop in the northern coastal colonies centering on Virginia, the first colony, and Maryland, the second. During the 17th century, Maryland plantations made abundant use of white indent1ured labor (non-free whites). Many of the coloney's earlier settlers were indent1ured servants who remained in bondage until they worked off Atlantic passages, other debts, or sentences.

Some black slaves were also brought to Maryland to work on tobacco plantations or farms. Black slaves became the primary source of plantation labor during the 18th century.

Harford County

Harford County was created in 1773 from the eastern part of Baltimore County with it's county seat at Bel Air. The county had many large plantations run by slaveholders.

Havre de Grace

Havre de Grace, a town at the mouth of the Susquehanna River at the head of Chesapeake Bay, was incorporated in 1785. Lafayette, when in town during during the Revolutionary War, is supposed to have said it reminded him of the French port of Le Havre, which had once been called Le Havre de Grace.

In 1889, Havre de Grace tied as a candidiate for the site of the capital of the newly founded United States of America with the vicinities of two other towns, Georgetown in Maryland and Alexandria in Virginia, on opposite banks of the Potomac river, which empties into Chesapeake Bay closer to its mouth. The Potomac site won in a tie-breaking vote, and the Virgina and Maryland localities were separated from their states and hence the Union. However, Washington, D.C. was eventually constructed on the Georgetown side of the river, and Alexandria was returned to Virginia.

Civil War

The town of Havre de Grace was one of several localities for recruting Union colored troops for the Civil War, by which time many free colored persons had also settled in the county and town. Families in Baltimore city also had free colored persons and slaves in their households, and they continued to employ categorically black and/or mulatto servants after the emancipation of slaves in the 1860s.

The families of William G. Wetherall of Baltimore, Maryland

William G. Wetherall (1800-1888), aka William G. Wetherall Sr., was a prominent Baltimore, Maryland iron and steel merchant. He and William Edwin Wetherall (1834-1914) may have been half brothers -- if the following conjectures are correct.

Received history of William G. Wetherall family

William Edwin Wetherall's ancestors remain a mystery. Obituaries state that he was born in Harford County, Maryland, educated in Baltimore, headed west with young friends in 1849, was accidently shot in Kansas, and after recovering made his way back east about two years later, enrolled in Pennsylvania College, and is listed as a member of its freshman class in 1853. He quit his studies mid-way through his junior year in 1855, and married, and he and his wife clearly appear in census records from 1856 in Iowa on uncultivated land they developed into a farm while he taught school, practiced law, and engaged in political activities.

However, the young son of "Wm. Wetherall" of Baltimore in the 1840 census, which appears to link the earlier and later censuses of the 1st and 2nd generations of the William G. Wetherall family, may be William Edwin Wetherall. The connection is hypothetical, but it satisfies what is known about the two William Wetheralls -- who, if the 1840 census is indeed a link -- would be half-brothers.

History of Baltimore City and County John Thomas Scharf, A.M. (1881) (Screen capture of Archive.org scan)

John Thomas Scharf on William G. Wetherall

The late 1800s and early 1900s witnessed a boom in the publication of thick "who's who" compendia in the guise of local histories. Maryland, being first one of the original American colonies of the British Empire, and later one of the founding States of the Union of the United States of America, was dense steeped recent history and densely populated with people who were proud of their history. It was, in other words, an ideal market for peddling historical publications to local libraries and the families of the "men" who were honored in the books as "representatives" of their communities.

One such book was the following work, which has been scanned in the digital library of Archive.org. The scans are of a copy of the book in the Americana collection of the Library of Congress.

John Thomas Scharf, A.M.
History of Baltimore City and County
(From the Earliest Period to the Present Day:
Including Biographical Sketches of Their Representative Men)
Philadelphia: Lewis H. Everts, 1881

The following history of the William G. Wetherall family is cited verbatim from page 425 in the "Commercial Industries and Manufacturers" section of the book. The titles are as found in the book. The transcription is mine. The portrait and signature of "Wm. G. Wetherall" is my screen capture from an Archive.org scan of Scharf 1881, History of Baltimore City and County, page 425.

History of Baltimore City and County Commercial Industries and Manufacturers Iron Among the houses engaged in the iron trade of Baltimore at present is that of William G. and William G. Wetherall, Jr. William G. Wetherall, Sr. was born in Baltimore County on the 23d of February, 1800. His ancestors on the paternal side were of pure English stock, while on the maternal side he is of Irish descent. His mother's maiden name was May Bedel Presbury. Both his paternal and maternal ancestors settled in Harford County in the seventeenth century, where they became large landholders. His father, William Wetherall, was an officer in the Union Bank of Maryland for thirty-seven years, and his own business career began at an early age, when he entered the counting-room of Hollins & McBlair, who were large importers of East India goods. In 1821, Mr. Wetherall went to Mexico in one of Thomas Tennant's clipper schooners as a clerk in the house of D'Arbel & Co., of Tampico, D'Arcy and Didier being the principal partners in the firm, and in a few years he was admitted into the partnership. After closing up the business of the firm in 1830, he returned to Baltimore, the other partners having preceded him. He again visited Mexico in 1835-36, but returned home in impaired health and fortune. In 1846 he commenced the business of importer and dealer in iron and steel, in connection with his son, William G. Wetherall, Jr., in Baltimore, in which business he is still engaged. His character for sterling worth and business enterprise has won the rich success which it has so amply merited.

Reconstruction of William G. Wetherall's family in 19th century

The following table shows a hypothetical reconstruction of William G. Wetherall's family in census reports for Baltimore, Maryland from 1810 to 1900, sans the 1890 census, which was destroyed in a fire.

The families of William G. Wetherall in Baltimore, Maryland censuses

Ages	1810	1820	1830	1840	1850	1860	1870	1880	1900
Head	Wm. Wetherall	Wm. Wetheral	Wm. Wetherall	W. Wetherall	Wm. G. Wetherall	William Weatherall	William G. Wetherall	W.G. Wetherall	Sidney (Widow)
Occupation				Commerce	Merchant	Merchant	Iron dealer	Iron merchant	Iron merchant
Real estate Personal est						15,000 5,000	75,000 15,000	Wm. G. Sr.	Wm. G. Jr.
Ward	1	9	9	9	15	15	12	12	13
Address								295 Madison Avenue	1202 Madison Avenue
Members Total (Children) Others	7 (5 ch) Plus 2 free colored persons	5 (3 ch) Plus 1 male & 1 female slave	3 (1 ch) Plus 1 male & 1 female slave	4 (2 ch) New wife No free non-whites or slaves	3 (1 ch) Living with Sidney's family	7 (5 ch) Plus clerk and two female servants	6 (4 ch) Plus two female servants	6 (4 ch) Plus two female servants	5 (3 ch) Plus female cook and housegirl
"Free whites" (1810-1840) and "whites" (1850-1900)
	1810	1820	1830	1840	1850	1860	1870	1880	1900
	1st and 2nd generations Wm. and Wm. G. Wetherall			Whose son was this?	3rd generation Wm. G. Wetherall, Jr.
0-9	3 M 0-9 2 F 0-9 Is 1 son Wm. G.?	Wm. G. born 23 Feb 1800 (Baltimore tombstone)	Wm. G. goes to Mexico in 1821. He returns in 1830 and goes again in 1835-1836.	# 1 M #  Wm.'s son? A grandson? W.G.'s son in earlier marriage? Was he born in 1834? Was his name William Edwin Wetherall?	Nannie 0	George 1 William 3 Fanny 7 Mary 8	George dies "William" = William G. Jr. "Fanny" = Fannie "Ann" = Nannie
10-19		1 F 16-25 2 M 18-25 Is 1 son Wm. G.?				Ann 10	Willie 12 Fannie 14 Mary P. 18	"Willie" = Wm. G. Jr.
20-29	1 M 26-44 Wm. 1 F 26-44 Wm.'s wife	2 M 26-44 1 M is Wm. 1 F 26-44 Wm.'s wife	1 M Wm. G.?		Amanda A. 27		Nannie K. 20	W.G. 22 F. 24 M.P. 28	Wm. G. Jr. Fannie Mary P.
30-39				1 M Wm. G.?  # 1 F #	William Griffith Wetherall married Sidney Amanda Calwell 16 Jan 1849. William G. Jr. born 19 Dec 1857.			M.K. 30 (sic N.K.)	Nannie K.
40-49		1 M 45+ Wm.	1 F Wm.'s wife	← Wm.'s wife apparently died. Is  # 1 F #  ↑ his daughter? Dau-in-law? Or new wife?	Wm. G. 48	Amanda 40 (sic 37-38)	Sidney A. 44 (sic 47-48)		William G. 42 Fannie 44 Mary P. 48
50-59			1 M Wm.		Apparently Wm. died in 1840s and his household vanished.	William 50 (sic 58-60)		S.A. 58	Sidney A.
60-69				1 M Wm.		Charles Griffith 30 Clerk	Wm. G. 68
70-79								W.G. 79	Sydney 77
Remarks	Wm. born circa early 1770s Son Wm. G. born circa 1800-1801	Wm. G. in Mexico 1821-1830	Wm. G. in Baltimore 1830-1835 Wm. G. in Mexico 1835-1836	Wm. E. born 2 June 1834 Wm. E. leaves in 1849	Wm. E. returns nlt 1853 Wm. E. leaves nlt 1856	1853-1855  Wm. E. attends Pennsylvania College. 8 Nov 1855  Wm. E. weds Mary Hall in Fayette Co., Pn. 1856 Iowa census shows Wm. and wife Mary settled on new farm.		Wm. G. (Wm. G. Sr.) dies 1879	Sidney A. dies circa 1908-1909 Wm. G. Jr. marries circa 1909
"Free colored persons" and "Slaves" (1810-1850), and "Blacks" (Blk) and "Mulattoes" (Mul) (1860-1900)
	1810	1820	1830	1840	1850	1860	1870	1880	1900
Household members identified as free colored persons or slaves, or non-whites	2 other free persons I.e., free colored persons Sex & age unclassified	1 male slave 0-13 1 female free colored person 26-44	1 male slave 0-9 1 female slave 10-24	No slaves or free colored persons in household this year, possibly owing to hard times.	None of 12 members of household identified as black, mulatto, or other non-white.	Mary Jones 10 Blk servant Precillia Jones 24 Blk servant Mthr & dghtr?	Lucy Straughn 22 Mul servant Mary Steward 24 Mul servant	H. Hinton 60 Blk servant Emly Dorsey 25 Blk servant	Kira Robinson 19 Blk housegirl Hattie Epps 24 Blk cook
Census categories related to bondage, color, or race	Status Free whites All other  free  persons Slaves (No age groups)	Status Free whites Slaves Free  colored  persons All others  except  Indians  not taxed	Status Free white  persons Slaves Free  colored  persons	Status Free white  persons Free  colored  persons Slaves	Color (White, black, or mulatto)	Color (White, black, or mulatto)	Color White (W) Black (B) Mulatto (M) Chinese (C) Indian (I)	Color White (W) Black (B) Mulatto (Mu) Chinese (C) Indian (I)	Color or Race Whether white, black, mulatto, quadroon, octoroon, Chinese, Japanese, or Indian
	1810	1820	1830	1840	1850	1860	1870	1880	1900
William G. Wetherall's monument Green Mount Cemetery, Baltimore, Maryland (Find a Grave photo) William G. Wetherall's headstone Green Mount Cemetery, Baltimore, Maryland (Find a Grave photo) First generation of the William G. Wetherall family 1810 census shows Wm. Wetherall as the head of a household in Ward 1 of Baltimore. The household consists of 9 persons -- 7 "Free whites" and 2 "Other free persons". 1 man 26-44 -- William, probably in his late 30s, hence born in early 1770s 1 woman 26-44 -- his wife, probably in her early 30s, hence born in late 1770s 3 boys under 10 2 girls under 10 2 Other free persons, sex and age not classified 1820 census shows Wm. Wetheral (sic) as the head of a household in Ward 9 of Baltimore. The household consists of 7 persons -- 5 "Free whites", 1 "slave", and 1 "Free colored person". 1 man over 45 -- William, probably in his late 40s 1 woman 26-44 -- his wife, probably in herearly 40s 2 young men 18-25 -- presumably in their late teens 1 young woman 16-26 -- presumably also in her late teens 1 slave boy 1-13 1 free colored woman 26-44 This could be the 1810 family living in a newer ward. 1 son and 1 daughter have either died or left home to work or marry. The other 3 are still at home unmarried. The slave boy is a new addition. The free colored woman may have been one of the other free persons living with the family in 1810. William G. Wetherall may be one of the sons still at home at the time of the censu. He goes to Mexico in 1821 and does not return until 1830. 1830 census shows Wm. Wetherall as the head of a household now consisting of only 5 members -- 3 free whites and 2 slaves. 1 older man 50-59 -- William, probably in his late 50s 1 older woman 50-59 -- his wife, probably in her early 50s 1 young man -- presumably an unmarried son in his late 20s 1 slave boy 0-9 1 slave girl 10-24 -- possibly the mother of the slave boy Surviving children would be in their late 20s. The young man might be one of the sons still at home in 1820. Or he could be William G. if he returned before the enumeration. The daughter still at home in 1820 has died or left to work or marry. William G. is in Mexico again in 1835-1836 but has health and apparently also economic problems. 1840 census shows Wm. Weatherall (sic) as the head of what appears to be the same family, much reduced in size, now consisting of only 3 members, all free whites. 1 older man 60-69 -- William in his late 60s. 1 young woman 30-39 -- A returned (widowed or divorced) daughter? A new wife? 1 boy 5-9 -- A grandson? A son? Surviving children would be in their late 30s. William Edwin Wetherall was born on 2 June 1834 according to the inscription on his tombstone in Graceland Cemetery in Knoxville, Iowa. If he is the boy, and if the woman is his mother, then he would be about 6 years, and she would have been in her late 20s or early 30s when she bore him. The older man, if his father, would have been in his late 50s or early 60s when he lost his first wife and remarried. Wm. G. Wetherall is clearly represented in censuses from 1850. However, he is very likely the first son of the given the status of his father, William Wetherall, Wm. G. Wetherall, Jr., Wm. G. Sr.'s son, appears in censuses from 1860. William Pinkney Wetherall, Wm. G. Jr's son, appears in censuses from 1910. William Pinkney Wetherall, Jr. (1934-2011), Wm. P.'s son, appears in censuses from 1940. His was born in Winchester, Virgina, where his father had settled with his mother, Sybilla (Billy) Jacobs Greenhalgh of Boyce, Virgina. He was buried in Burwell Cemetery at Old Chapel in Millwood, Virgina. Other details forthcoming.

The family of William, Sarah, Irwin, and Mary Hall in Fayette County, Pennsylvania

9. Beaman-Shoemaker

George Washington Beaman and Sidney Shoemaker

George W. Beaman and Sidney Shoemaker marry on 1 December 1860 A "Clerk's Certificate" is a transcription, not a facsimile, of the original record Cropped from copy in Wetherall Family Collection of copy from Kathy Wetherall attributed to "Dolores Dale -- Uncle Scott Beaman's granddaughter"

0. George W. Beaman appears to have been born in Ellettsville in Monroe County, Indiana to parents who were born in North Carolina. Sidney or "Sydna" Shoemaker was born in Highland County, Ohio to a father born in Virginia and a mother born in Pennsylvania. His date of birth may have been 13 February 1838.
   George W. and Sydna married in Marion County, Iowa on 1 December 1859.
   1910 census shows that Sydna had had 9 children of whom 8 survived. However, only 8 children (of whom 7 survived) have been accounted for.
   Sidney died of "leakage of mitral valve and [unreable]", and G.W. died of "arterio sclirosis", according to their death certificates.
1. Magdalene was generally called "Lena". Her her name on the 1870 census and on her tombstone is "Magdalene". I have not found her on an 1880 census, but all later census records show her as "Lena".
   On 25 February 1880 Lena married David Stoner in Knoxville. David was born in Illinois on 20 January 1855, but by 1860 his family had settled in the township of Franklin, post office Knoxville, in Marion County, Iowa.
   According to the 1900 and 1910 cenuses, Lena had borne 8 children of whom all 8 survived, and were present and accounted for in the census. However, there is an infant in the Stoner family plot in Cedar Cemetery in Larrabee, Cherokee County, Iowa. David died on 27 May 1928 in Larrabee, and he and Lena are buried in the Stoner plot, as is their oldest son Charles (1881-1947). See "Beaman-Shoemaker graves" below for images.
2. Noah's middle initial "U" is stylized on the 1880 census in a cursive hand that invites misreading as "M". He led the migration of most of the Beaman boys to Minnesota.
3. "Laura" on the 1870 census is written in a cursive hand that invites misreading as "Sarra".
4. Ida Floretta was "Ida" and "Ida F." on the 1870 and 1880 censuses, then disappears from federal censuses under either name. She then appears as "Ettie" or "Etta", which posed an interesting identification problem (see below). She married Sanford Hendrix in 1895. He died in 1905, leaving her without children. She lived with her parents until their deaths, and continued to live alone in the Beaman House until as late as 1930 (1925 and 1930 censuses). She then married a man named Fee, and she died as Ida Floretta Fee on 20 September 1935.
5. Clara is "Clara" or "Clara A." on census reports. She was more generally known as "Anne" and "Annie". On 3 April 1889, she married Illinois-born John Jay Ogle (1858-1924), with whom she had 3 children. They settled in Cherokee County, Iowa. Both are buried in Cedar Cemetery in Larrabee in Cherokee County.
6. Phillip is "Phillip" or "Phillip S." on early censuses but "Scott" in later records. He alone of the Beaman brothers remained in Knoxville, where he was a career fireman.
7. Samuel's diminutive names were "Sammie" ("Sammy?") and "Sam". He migrated to Minnesota with Noah.
8. Walter migrated to Minnesota with Noah and Samuel but died in 1907.

G.W. Beaman and Sidney Shoemaker Marriage portrait, possibly taken 1 December 1859	Later portrait of GW and Sidney Beaman Presumed taken in 1860s or 1870s	Sidney (Shoemaker) Beaman in later years Probably taken in early 1910s	George Washington Beaman with cane Likely taken in late 1910s or around 1920
Compressed versions of images received from Bill Farley (labels removed)			Wetherall Family photo

Beaman-Shoemaker family in censuses

The 1870 census shows George W. (and Sidney Beaman with Magdalene (Magdaline, not Magdeline) (9), Noah (6), Laura (4), Ida (2), and Clara (3/12) living with George W. and Laura B. Beaman in the town of Union, Warren County, Iowa (Post Office: Sandyville, Iowa).

The 1880 census shows G.W. and Sidny (sic) Beaman with Noah M. (15), Ida F. (12), Clara A. (10), Philip S. Beaman (8), Samuel (6), and Walter (3) living in Knoxville, Marion County, Iowa. Magdalene is probably married. Laura (14) is shown as a servant in the home of A.R. Cornell, a Knoxville physician, and his wife and five children, the oldest of which, a son, is also a physician.

The 1895 Iowa state census shows a Etta Hendrix to have been born in Marion County, Iowa.

The 1900 census for Knoxville shows Etta Hendrix (32) as the wife of Sanford Hendrix (50), a carpenter. The couple has been married 5 years. She is said to have been born in February 1868 in Iowa, he in February 1850 in Missouri. A 1905 obituary reporting his death states that they were married on 26 June 1895. He had also been a fireman, and fellow Knoxville Fire Department firemen acted as pall-bearers. Rev. W.E. Wetherall conducted funeral services at the home, Hendrix was buried at Graceland Cemetery in Knoxville.

The 1910 census for Knoxville, Iowa shows George W. Beaman (72) a laborer, and his wife Sydna (72), both 50 years into their first marriage. Synda is said to have had 9 children of which 8 survived. A daughter, Etta Hendrix, 40, widowed, no children, a dress maker, was living with them at 414 First Street.

The 1920 census for Knoxville shows Etta Hendrix living alone at the 414 First Street home as head. G.W. Beaman is shown living with with his daughter Laura and son-in-law Wm. Wetherel (sic), and their daughter Alice and grandson William (Bascom Wetherall), at 2116 at

The 1925 Iowa state census shows Etta Hendrix living alone at the 414 1st home as head. The home is valued at 800 dollars and she owns it free of mortgage.

Alice Young

Some families trees trace G.W. Beaman's line back 7 generations to a Simon Beamon (1655-1711) who is alleged to have been the son of another Simon Beaman (1629–1676) and Alice Young (1640-1708), of Massachusetts, who is supposed to have been the daughter of John Young (1600–1661) and Alice (Stokes) Young (1600-1647), who was hung in Connecticut for practing witchcraft. The connections, though, are very fuzzy.

George Washington Beaman and Sidney Beaman death certificates

Sidney Beaman's death certificate Collected by Kathy Wetherall	Clerk's certificate of record of death Attributed by Kathy Wetherall to Dolores Dale	George Washington Beaman's death certificate Collected by Kathy Wetherall
Cropped from copies in Wetherall Family Collection of copies from Kathy Wetherall

George Washington Beaman and the Civil War

Civil War (12 April 1861 to 10 May 1865   Magdalene was born in 1861, the year the Civil War began, and is possibly an antebellum child. Noah Ulysses Beaman, born on 1 April 1864, was clearly a Civil War baby. Laura, born in Feb 1866, was the first of the Beamans' postbellum children.

When I began working on the Beaman line of the Wetherall-Beaman union, following in the footsteps of Mary Sue Ryswyk, whose husband is a 3rd cousin on the Wetherall side of my family, the standard story -- which Mary Sue had heard -- was that George W. Beaman had enlisted in the army for 3 years on 15 August 1862. He was said to have mustered into Company C, 27th Regiment, Iowa Infrantry as a private on 3 October 1862, and to have mustered out as a private on 8 August 1965. He was reported granted 30 days of furlough on 29 July 1863, which suggested that Noah might have been conceived during this furlough. Laura, though, would appear to have been conceived in June or July 1865, when George W. was still in the army.

Civil War lore

The Civil War began on 12 April 1861 and formally ended on 10 May 1865, though shots were fired as late as 22 June. The war is the source of all manner of legends that originate when people researching their family histories equate the name of one of their ancestors with the a name on a roster of a Civil War military unit. Some people see a familiar name in a history of the war, or in a genealogy book or on the Internet, and casually associate the name with their ancestor. Before long, everyone in the family is boasting about the Civil War hero in the family tree.

There is a lot of Beaman family activity on Ancestry.com. And a number of people related to ancestors and descendants of the Wetherall-Beaman line have casually equated "George W. Beaman" the son of Zachariah Beaman with the "George W. Beaman" who served in Company C of the 27th Regiment of the Iowa Infantry Volunteers, which fought on the side of Union forces against Confederate forces during the Civil War. But several contraditions force a rejection of this equation.

Skepticism goes a long way

When doing genealogy research, one has to doubt all identifications not based on 1st person accounts and/or documents -- preferably witnesses and other informants with excellent memories, and multiple, independent documents -- the more of both the better, for primary witnesses and documents may also be flawed.

The odds of two men having the same name are not especially low. But the odds that two men of the same name were born on the same day are lower, and the chances that they were from the same state, much less the same town, are lower still.

I was trying to make sense out of the information I had received about George W. Beaman's civilwar service -- not just any George W. Beaman, but the George W. Beaman who was doubtlessly an ancestor of the Wetherall-Beaman family.

And I examined the various documents that some people were citing as "proof" of his Civil War service as a member of the fabled 27th Iowa Regiment. I was finding conflicts in details.

Images of copied (not original) information about his service state he was born in Monroeville, Ohio -- which is a long way from Ellettsville, Indiana where he first appears in 1850 census records. And all later census records showed him to have been born in Indiana.

He was said to have enlisted in Independence, Iowa in 1862. But his family settled in Warren County around 1856. And shortly after that he married. And the 1860 census shows him in Panora, Guthrie County -- even further from Independence than Union.

The birth of Noah appears to follow roughly about the right time after his 30-day furlough -- but it's a very short gestation -- no longer than 8 months. Morever, Laura is born at a time when she would have to have been conceived a few months before he was discharged -- during which period there is no record of him taking leave or going AWOL.

There are many ways to explain this scenario. George W. could have been stationed close to wherever Sidney was living. Or she may have moved in order to live close to where he was stationed. But families generally waited for their menfolk in service to come home. Besides, there was a war going on, and it would have taken both money and a strong sense of independence for Sidney to follow his unit around. And I have no idea what his unit was actually doing. A better explanation for the received scenario would be that the children Sidney bore during Geroge W.'s absence weren't his. But there are no rumors of disloyalty. Besides which, the children bear a resemblance to G.W. as well as to Sidney.

In any event, the received information did not explain itself. While George W. Beaman in the Wetherall-Beaman line may well have served in the war -- and there is some testimony to his talk about the war -- he might not have been the "George W. Beaman" on the 27th Iowa Regiment roster.

At this point I began to seriously snoop around.

There were many, many "George W. Beamans" in the Civil War. Most are easily eliminated as candidates for the "George W. Beaman" in the Wetherall-Beaman line.

I kept searching. And eventually I stumbled across the following analysis by a 27th Iowa researcher named Elaine Johnson.

See Notes for the men of Company C, 27th Iowa by Elaine Johnson, posted on the "RootsWeb" server of "Ancestry.com" for the full report.

The first thing that struck me about Johnson's report is that she had noticed the same contradictions regarding George W. Beaman's alleged place of birth and where he had enlisted. She, though, was motivated to plunge into the available records and pursue the trail of documents to show beyond doubt that the George Washington Beaman in the Wetherall-Beaman line, whose father was Zachariah Beaman, could not have been the George Washington Beaman in the fabled 27th Iowa.

Johnson's analysis is very convincing. She finds the dots and connects them -- for a different George W. Beaman. Most impressive, though, is her attitude toward research -- never take "apparent" identities for granted. Here the research involves genealogy, but the same attitude applies to all fields of enquiry.

Sidney (Shoemaker) Beaman

Sidney was the next to last of over ten children. Her father, Simon Shoemaker, was born on on 27 August 1796 in Rockingham, Virginia. Her mother, Magdalina Miller, was born in Pennsylvania in May 1798. They married in Highland, Ohio, on 30 August 1819. Magdalina [Magdaline, Magdalene] died on 12 October 1867, and Simon died on 3 January 1870, both in Pleasantville, where they had settled after migrating from Ohio to Pleasant Grove (later Pleasantville) in the early 1850s.

The 1850 census shows the family residing in Mifflin in Pike County, Ohio. The household consists of "Simon Shomaker" [sic = Shoemaker] (53), born in Virgina, his wife Magdaline (52), and their children Maria (24), Daniel (21), Saloma (17), Noah (14), Enos (12), Sidney (10), and Thos (5).

By the 1856 Iowa census they are living in Pleasant Grove in Marion County, Iowa. the youngest. By then the household has shrunk to Simon Shoemaker (58), Magdaline (58), and 5 children, Saloma (21), Noah (19), Enos (17), Sidney (16), and Thomas (14).

By the 1860 census Sidney has married George W. Beaman, which left in Pleasant Grove only Simon Shoemaker (62), Magdalene (62), Saloma (26), Noah (24), Enos (22), and Thomas (18).

To be continued.

Beaman-Shoemaker gallery

George Washington and Sidney Beaman and their children

The Beaman sisters -- Anne Ogle, Etta Fee, and Laura Wetherall Circa early 1930s, possibly taken in Knoxville, Iowa Left   Crop of image received from Bill Farley (label removed) Right   Scan by WOW of darker glossy print in Wetherall Family Collection		George Washington Beaman with sons, son-in-law, and grandsons Reportedly taken in 1917, the year after Sydney Beaman died Probably taken in Otter Tail County, Minnesota, where all but G.W. Beaman lived Identities as labeled on received image (parenthetic remarks mine) Front   G.W. (Beaman), John Ogle (Clara Anne Beaman's husband), Noah (Beaman), Fred/Ted (sic = Fred, Noah's son), Leonard Ogle (John's and Clara's son in uniform) Back   Lester Beaman (Sam's son), Sam Beaman, Elmer Ogle (John and Clara's son), Ralph Beaman (Sam's son) Compressed versions of image received from Bill Farley (labels removed)
The children of G.W. and Sidney Beaman 6 of the the 8 children of George Washington and Sidney Beaman appear in one or another of the photos shown here, among a number of others that have been preserved by their descendants. Only their first and last born daughter and son -- Magdalene (Beaman) Stoner (1860-1922) and Walter Beaman (1877-1907) -- are not represented here. 3 of the 4 Beaman boys -- Noah, Samuel, and Walter -- migrated from Iowa to Otter Tail County in Minnesota, where they farmed, raised their families, and died. Many of their children continued to live in one or another town in the country, or elsewhere in Minnesota, which is teeming with people who trace part of their lineage to Zachariah Beaman and Catherine Randall, the parents of George Washington Beaman. Of the Beaman boys, only Scott remained in Knoxville, where he became a fireman. He died in the city and is buried in Graceland Cemetery, as is his wife Lucretia. All 4 of the Beaman girls married and made their homes in Iowa. 2 of them -- Laura Wetherall and Etta Fee -- remained and died in Knoxville, and like their brother Scott are buried in Graceland Cemetery.
		The Beaman brothers and their wives Left   Sam, Scott, and Noah Beaman Right   Noah and Mary, Scott and Letitia (sic = Lucretia), Sam and Hannah Labels on the recieved images state "1929" for the photo of the brothers and "circa early 1930s" for the photo of the couples However, they were taken on the same occasion, for the men are wearing the same shirts and squinting with the same hair Cropped and compressed versions of images received from Bill Farley

Simon Shoemaker ( This rather degenerated image is my scan of a 2nd-generation paper copy sent my father in 1997 by Kathy Wetherall, his niece and my 1st cousin. Kathy attributed the copied photograph to Elaine Hunter, our 2nd cousin once removed, as common descendants of George Washington Beaman and Sidney (Shoemaker) Beaman.

Shoemaker family

Forthcoming.

Etta (Ida Floretta Beaman) Hendrix (b1868)

All children are different from birth and grow up differently. And no child's future can be predicted. But the odds are high that at least one child in every family will have an unusual future -- a future with multiple marriages followed by multiple separations whether through death or divorce, multiple achievements or failures, multipe tragedies, multiple strokes of very good fortune, or a life of adventures that most people only dread, or dream of, having. Etta Beaman would be the unusual child of the Beaman-Shoemaker family.

Etta was born Ida Floretta, but she is "Etta" in all censuses except the 1915 Iowa state census, which has her as "Ida F." She married a man named Hendrix, who left her a young widow, and later married a man named Fee, and her death certificate shows her as Ida Floretta Fee

Her husband, Sanford Hendrix, left her a widow in 1907. The following unsourced obituary was posted on IAGenWeb's Marion County Iowa Obituaries website.

Knoxville Journal obituary for Sanford Hendrix Cropped from copy in Wetherall Family Collection of copy from Kathy Wetherall attributed to Elaine Hunter Etta Beaman, perhaps before she married Sanford Hendrix Crop of image recevied from Bill Farley (label removed Sanford Hendrix Died at his home in this city, at 4 o'clock a.m., on Tuesday March 7th, 1905, Sanford Hendrix, aged 55 years and 23 days. Death resulted from rheumatism and kidney troubles after a sickness extending over a period of 14 months. Deceased was born in Marion County (at Hamilton), on February 12th, 1850, his parents being Jacob Hendrix and wife, who were among the first pioneers of this section of the state. Jacob Hendrix was the first owner of the present townsite of Hamilton. He went to California when the subject of this sketch was a baby, and was killed in an accident during the gold excitement. Sanford Hendrix had been a resident of Knoxville and vicinity for nearly 35 years. He was a carpenter by trade, a member of the Knoxville Fire Department for nearly 28 years, and a genial, whole-souled man who had many friends and few if any enemies. Those who know of the unselfish devotion for which he cared for his aged mother during her many years residence in Knoxville speak of him in high praise. On June 26th, 1895, he was united in marriage with Miss Etta Beaman, who is now left to mourn his departure from earth. They have no children. The only other near relatives are the brother and sister, James Hendrix, of Liberty township, and Mrs. Frances Edwards, of Lovilia. The funeral services were conducted at the home on Wednesday afternoon by Rev. W.E. Wetherall. A delegation from the Knoxville Fire Department acted as pall-bearers. Interment in Graceland Cemetery.

W.E. Wetherall, William Edwin Wetherall, was my great-great-grandfather. As the father of William Franklin Wetherall, who was Etta's sister Laura's husband and Etta's brother-in-law, WEW was Etta's "uncle-in-law". WEW, who among other professions was a Christian minister, is mentioned as the funeral conductor in many Knoxville obituaries.

Etta died in Knoxville on 20 September 1935 of "acute myocarditis" as the principal cause of death with "cerebral hemorrhage c hemiplegia" as a contributing cause. Laura signed the certificate as its informant.

Chronology of Beaman-Shoemaker family through censuses

William E. and Mary A. Wetherall's tombstone Graceland Cemetery, Knoxville, Iowa Find a Grave photograph by Carl Nollen The photograph of the monument is excellent. The photographer has chosen to shoot the face of the monument while the sun was illuminating it from a significant angle to the side, thus casting shadows in the inscription, making it easy to read. Similar effects can be created by positioning a flash or reflector off to the right or left rather than illuminate the monument straight on. The balance of foreground, and grounds around the sides and back of the monument, also show the monument to great advantage. Other photographs of this monument slightly or radically undercut the monument in the manner that some snapshots clip off the feet of people. The cemetery had recently been dusted by snow.
John A. Hall's headstone Fairview United Methodist Church Cemetery Grindstone, Fayette County, Pennsylvania (Find a Grave photo) Irwin, Ruth, and Bell Hall's headstone Fairview United Methodist Church Cemetery Grindstone, Fayette County, Pennsylvania (Find a Grave photo)
Left   Headstone of Zachariah Beaman (1809-1880), Sandyville Cemetery, Sandyville, Warren County, Iowa Photograph by Carl Nollen copped from Find a Grave (www.findagrave.com) Middle and right   Headstones of Simon Shoemaker (1796-1870) and his wife Magdalina (Miller) Beaman (1798-1867) Pleasantville Cemetery, Pleasantville, Marion County, Iowa Photographs by Carl Nollen, images copped from Find a Grave (www.findagrave.com)
Headstones of George Washington Beaman (1838-1922) and his wife Sidney Belle (Shoemaker) Beaman (1839-1916) Graceland Cemetery, Knoxville, Marion County, Iowa Photographs by Ron Steenhoek, images copped from Find a Grave (www.findagrave.com)
Headstones of William Franklin Wetherall (1858-1929) and his wife Laura Belle (Beaman) Wetherall (1866-1941) Graceland Cemetery, Knoxville, Marion County, Iowa Photographs by Ron Steenhoek, images copped from Find a Grave (www.findagrave.com)
Headstones of Mary Sydna Beaman and her husbands Mary Sydna (Wetherall) (Wynn) Brady (1888-1967) John E. S. Wynn (1884-1915) Earl Wayne Brady (1885-1954) Graceland Cemetery, Knoxville, Marion County, Iowa Photographs by Ron Steenhoek copped from Find a Grave (www.findagrave.com) Sydna Wetherall was twice widowed and took the names of both husbands to her grave
		Top Headstone of Lena Belle Wetherall Stone (1894-1944) Graceland Cemetery, Knoxville, Marion County, Iowa Photograph by Ron Steenhoek, image copped from Find a Grave (www.findagrave.com) Birth index gives year of birth as 1894. Tombstone gives year of birth as 1895. Left Headstone of William Riley Wetherall (1890-1936) Graceland Cemetery, Knoxville, Marion County, Iowa Photograph by Ron Steenhoek, images copped from Find a Grave (www.findagrave.com)
Gottlieb and Rita Byrle (Stone) Pfister Tombstone in Lutheran Cemetery in Sheboygan, Wisconsin shared with their son and daughter-in-law James A. and Barbara M. Pfister Image copped from Facebook page of their daughter Sonya Belle Pfister as posted on 12 may 2012
Headstone of Georgia Myrle Wetherall (1898-1899) Graceland Cemetery, Knoxville, Marion County, Iowa Photograph by Ron Steenhoek, image copped from Find a Grave (www.findagrave.com)
Left   Headstone of Bertha Leotis (Beaman) (Masteller) Dainty (1892-1962) and John Daniel Dainty (1895-1964) Greenwood Cemetery, Knoxville, Marion County, Iowa Photograph by 46620252 copped from Find a Grave (www.findagrave.com) Right   Headstone of Annetta Alice (Wetherall) (Evans) Dainty (1903-1962) and her husband Wilbert Allen Dainty (1902-1979) Graceland Cemetery, Knoxville, Marion County, Iowa Photograph by Ron Steenhoek copped from Find a Grave (www.findagrave.com)
Headstone of David Shiree Dainty (1942-1996) Graceland Cemetery, Knoxville, Marion County, Iowa Photograph by Ron Steenhoek, image copped from Find a Grave (www.findagrave.com)
Headstones of Jeremiah Alexander Wetherall (1899-1947) and his wife Anna Maye (Rodgers) Wetherall (1899-1967) Graceland Cemetery, Knoxville, Marion County, Iowa Photographs by Ron Steenhoek, images copped from Find a Grave (www.findagrave.com)
Headstone of Roger William Wetherall (1936-1992) Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Lodi, Columbia County, Wisconsin Photograph by K Steckelberg, image copped from Find a Grave (www.findagrave.com)
Headstone of Myrle Isadore (Wynn) Amsberry (1909-1943) Ausbury Cemetery, Knoxville, Marion County, Iowa Photograph by Joshua Beal, image copped from Find a Grave (www.findagrave.com)		Tombstone of Faye Wynn Kool (1913-1980) and John F. Kool (1912-1993) Married 17 August 1934 Graceland Cemetery, Knoxville, Marion County, Iowa Photograph by Ron_Steenhoek, image copped from Find a Grave (www.findagrave.com)

Wetherall-Hall graves
Wetherall-Beaman graves
Beaman-Shoemaker graves

Wetherall-Hall graves

The graves of William E. Wetherall (1934-1914) and his wife Mary (1841-1907) were described in a WPA Graves Registration Survey records for Graceland Cemetery in Knoxville, in Marion County, Iowa, conducted during the late 1930s. A note in the an on-line database of WPA survey records remarks "Wife Mary Hall, S/O Wm." Presumably this means that WEW and Mary are buried together.

The present headstone appears to read as follows.

W. E. WETHERALL / JUNE 2, 1834 - MAY 21, 1914
MARY, HIS WIFE / AUG. 16, 1841 - AUG. 17, 1907

Mary Hall's parents and brother

Mary Hall appears to be the daughter of the Captain William Hall (1808-1870s) described in the above-cited history of Fayette County, and Sarah Hall, nee Haynan or Hanan (c1816/1817-1870s). If so, then Irwin R. Hall was her older brother.

Irwin's tomb, with those of his wife Ruth Ann and their daughter Bell, and the tombs of their son John, and John's wife and their two daughters, are all found in Fairview United Methodist Church Cemetery in Grindstone, Fayette County, Pennsylvania.

Fairview United Methodist Church Cemetery in Grindstone, Fayette County, Pennsylvania
Irwin R. Hall (1836-1908)
Ruth Ann Hall (1842-1903) -- Irwin's wife
John A. Hall (1865-1917) -- Irwin's and Ruth's son
Bell Hall (1866-1903) -- Irwin's and Ruth's daughter
Pleasant Noble Hall (1874-1948) -- John's wife
Adelaide Hall (1895-1927) -- John's and Pleasant's daughter
Helena Hall Taylor (1901-1922) -- John's and Pleasant's daughter

Irwin, a teacher and farmer, and Ruth, nee Bradmon, had 2 sons and 2 daughters. John was their 2nd son and 3rd child. Sarah Bell, named after Irwin's mother, Sarah Hall, was their 2nd daughter and 4th child. Bell, as she called, reportedly always lived at home and apparently never married.

John was a teamster at Perryopolis in Fayette County. He and Pleasant, nee Noble, had 2 daughters followed by 2 sons. Both of their daughters died relatively young. Adelaide apparently never married. Pleasant's and Helena's maiden names appear on their headstones.

William Edwin Wetherall's parents

William E. Wetherall's parents are not yet known. It is possible that he was the son of William G. Wetherall, of Baltimore, who was born on 23 February 1800 and died on 21 April 1888 (see below). However, there were several Wetherall families in Maryland, which continues to have the largest number of Wetheralls in America today.

Top  

Wetherall-Beaman graves

The graves of the Beaman-Shoemaker family are significantly divided between Iowa and Minnesota.

Family graves in Iowa in are found mostly in Sandyville Cemetery, Pleasantville Cemetery, and Graceland Cemetery (Knoxville).

Family graves in Minnesota are found mainly in Parkers Prairie and Oak Ridge Cemetery.

Top  

Beaman graves in Sandyville Cemetery

The tombs of some of George W. Beaman's siblings are in Sandyville Cemetery in Sandyville, Warren County, Iowa. The following Beaman tombs are at this cemetery.

Sandyville Cemetery, Sandyville, Warren County, Iowa

Sister Mary A. Beaman (1832-1916)
Brother Noah R. Beaman (1836-1908)
Noah's wife Mary J. Beaman (1836-1877

Unidentified child Everet Beaman (1887-1891)
Unidentified child Lenox Beaman (1889-1891)

Mary A. Beaman

Mary A. Beaman was George Washington Beaman's older sister. Apparently she never married. Her headstone is of a different design. It's location in relation to Noah R.'s and Mary J.'s headstone is not clear.

Noah R. and Mary J. Beaman

Noah R. Beaman was George Washington Beaman's older brother. Mary J. Beaman was Noah R.'s wife. They share a headstone with the following inscription.

NOAH R. BEAMAN / Jan. 28, 1836 / Apr. 16, 1908
MARY J., HIS WIFE / June 8, 1836 / Jan 20, 1877

Everet and Lenox

The headstones of Everet and Lenox are similar to one another, and they appear to be located side by side, judging from the similar backgrounds of their photographs on the Iowa Grave Stones website.

Everet and Lenox most likely died in the second wave of the 1889-1892 flu epidemic. I am unable to determine whose children they were, as the 1890 census was destroyed by fire.

See Stacey L Knobler et al., editors, The Threat of Pandemic Influenza: Are We Ready? Workshop Summary, Institute of Medicine (US) Forum on Microbial Threats (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2005), for details. This link also pertains to the 1918-1920 epidemic that took the life of Ida Francis (Thomas) Hunter, my mother's maternal grandmother. After Ida's death in 1920, the three youngest of the 8 surviving children of her 9 children -- Orval, Almeda, and Burton -- were partly raised by their older married siblings. Burton was thus raised Ida's oldest child and his oldest sister, Ullie May (Hunter) Hardman, along with my mother and aunt, as their virtual brother, though actually he was a younger uncle. See the "Hunter-Thomas" family page for details.

To be continued.

Top  

Beaman-Shoemaker graves

Shoemaker and Van Ryswyk graves in Pleasantville Cemetery

Sidney Beaman's Shoemaker's parents and at least one sibling are buried in Pleasantville Cemetery in Pleasantville, Marion County, Iowa. The following tombs are listed as being there.

Pleasantville Cemetery, Pleasantville, Marion County, Iowa

Father   Simon Shoemaker (1796-1870)
Mother   Magdalina (Miller) Shoemaker (1798-1967)
Brother Philip Shoemaker (1826-1900)
Philip's Wife Permilla Shoemaker (1830-1913)

Simon Shoemaker's headstone

Sidney Beaman's father's headstone, worn by the elements, bears the following inscription.

SIMON SHOEMAKER
DIED
JAN. 3. 1870
AGED
72y 1m 7d

Only the broken base remains of what is reportedly Sidney's mother's headstone, which was probably of similar material and design.

Other Shoemaker graves in Pleasantivlle Cemetery

Henry Shoemaker (1822-1863)
James A. Shoemaker (1842-1918)
Surhilda Shoemaker (1819-1868)

Catharine Shoemaker (1825-1925)
Henry Shoemaker (1822-1863)
James Shoemaker (1848-1918)

Oliver Shoemaker (1867-1925)

Top  

Van Ryswyk graves in Pleasantville Cemetery

See Wetherall-Baldwin-Van Houton family page for information about related graves and photos of headstones.

Top  

Beaman and Wetherall graves in Graceland Cemetery

George W. Beaman and several of his family members are buried in Graceland Cemetery in Knoxkville, Marion County, Iowa.

Graceland Cemetery, Knoxville, Marion County, Iowa

GWB George Washington Beaman (1838-1922)
Wife Sidney Belle (Shoemaker) Beaman (1839-1916)

Daughter Laura Belle (Beaman) Wetherall (1866-1941)
Laura's husband William Franklin Wetherall (1858-1929)

Sidney's brother Philip Scott Beaman (1873-1936)
Scott's wife Lucretia Beaman (1873-1941)
Daughter Ruth Elizabeth (Beaman) Cecil (1894-1925)
Daughter Stella M Beaman (1897-1901)
Son James Everett Beaman (1899-1984)

WEW William Edwin Wetherall (1834-1914)
Wife Mary A. (Hall) Wetherall (1841-1907)

WEW and Mary's son William Franklin Wetherall (1858-1929)
Wife Laura Belle (Beaman) Wetherall (1866-1941)
Son William Riley Wetherall (1890-1936)
WRW's 2nd wife Nellie Wetherall Sailors (1898-1966)
Son Jerry A. Wetherall (1899-1947)
JAW's wife Anna Maye Wetherall (1899-1967)
Daughter Annetta Alice (Wetherall) (Evans) Dainty (1903-1962)
Alice's 2nd husband Wilbert Dainty (1902-1979)

Inscription on William R. Wetherall's tombstone.

WILLIAM R.
WETHERALL
IOWA
CORP
336 FIELD ARTY
87 DIV

For details on William R. Wetherall's family, including images of WRW's tombstone and the headstones of his 1st wife Ida Mae (Baldwin) Wetherall and his 2nd wife Nellie Marie (Van Houton) (Wetherall) Sailors, see Wetherall-Baldwin-Van Houton graves on the "Wetherall-Baldwin-Van Houton" family page.

Top  

Dainty graves

Bertha married John D. Dainty after the death of her 1st husband, Lyman B. Masteller. And Alice, Bertha's youngest sister, married Wilbert A. Dainty, one of John's younger brothers, after she divorced her 1st husband, William B. Evans.

Both Beaman-Dainty couples are buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Knoxville, Marion County, Iowa.

DAINTY // BERTHA L. / 1892-1962 // JOHN D. / 1895-1964
DAINTY // ALICE / 1903-1962 // WILBERT / 1902-1979

Dainty graves in Greenwood Cemetery

John's parents, Lucinda and Rev. Daniel Dainty, and several of his siblings, and their spouses, and some of their descendants, are also buried in Greenwood Cemetery.

Top  

Beaman graves in Minnesota cemeteries

Several Beaman-Shoemaker children settled in Minnesota and are buried in cemeteries in Parkers Prairie and Deer Creek.

To be continued.

Top  

Stoner-Beaman graves

Magdelena "Lena" Beaman

Stoners buried in Cedar Cemetery, Larrabee, Cherokee County, Iowa.

FATHER / DAVID / 1855-1928
MOTHER / MAGDALENE / 1860-1922
SON / CHARLES / 1881-1947
SON / INFANT [no dates]

Stoners buried in Oak Hill Cemetery, Cherokee, Cherokee County, Iowa.

Joseph Stoner, b 1860, d 14 May 1941
Francis Stoner, b 1868, d 30 August 1936
Arthur J. Stoner, b 1887, d 16 October 1952
Kathleen Kay Stoner, b 1956, d 7 August 1965
Charles Stoner, b unknown, d 26 May 2007