Monday Is for Mothers: Mary Delaney Groves Joslin Perego (1833 - 1920)

This third great aunt's given name seems to have been Magdalena, but she's always referred to as Mary Delaney which sounds like an Irish surname and confused me at first because her parents were Frederick Groves and Leah Bixler.*

This 1920 piece about her first vote gives us a good overview of her life:

[Page  1 of The Anamosa Eureka, published in Anamosa, Iowa on Thursday, November 11th, 1920.

Source: Jones County Genealogicl Society Digital Library]

The article refers to her "rather feeble health" and she died just six weeks later on December 24, 1920.



*However if you sound it out, you can see how Magdalena could be transposed into Mary Delaney.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Family Friday: Rosie Joslin McGowan & Ed McGowan

Emma Rosettabelle Joslin, better known as Rosa or Rosie, is one of my maternal first cousins, three times removed. She was born in Fairview Township in Jones County, Iowa, in 1871 and married Edward Calvin McGowan (1870-1949) there in 1890 which is probably when this portrait was taken.

[Scanned photo taken from album owned by Hilda Maxine (Ellison) Willison

found on Ancestry.com]

Here's Rosie's 1943 obituary in the Anamosa Journal from the Digital Archives of the Jones County Library:

[The Anamosa  Journal,  Thursday, December 9, 1943, page 4]

And here's how we're related:

[Ancestry.com]

*We had found a portrait of Rosie taken when she was a baby in my great great grandmother's photo album during our scanning session in 2011:

[Rosa Joslyn, cousin of Nora Webb, from Floral Album of Webb family photos,

courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

1st Cousin 4x Removed Mattie Bell (Groves) White Was a Works Progress Administration (WPA) Sewer

Some footage of women at work for the WPA (the specific locations of the footage are unknown).

I thought this was an interesting find today as I was hashtagging people in my tree--a then widowed cousin Mattie Bell (Groves) White, employed by the WPA in a sewing room in Hawarden IA in the 1940 Census.

"To Expand WPA Sewing Room"
The Hawarden Independent (Hawarden IA)
Thursday, 20 Nov 1941, page 1, col 4
Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/clip/25230049/the_independent/?xid=637 : accessed 8 Nov 2018).

Women to Make Necessities for Relief  

Clients in 30 Counties 

Hawarden will have the only WPA sewing room in Northwest Iowa in a few days.
With the decision of the board of supervisors to close the sewing room at Rock Valley, the Hawarden project will inherit additional sewing machines and the job of furnishing sheets, pillow cases, towels and bedding for relief clients in 30 counties. 

Seven other sewing rooms will operate in the 30 counties, making other necessities for relief clients. 

Twenty or more women will work in the Hawarden project, under the direction of Mrs. Ella Larson.  They will work an average of 30 hours a week, and will receive $47.20 a month [CManczuk note: about $850 in today's dollars]. 

The materials used in making the household goods will be paid for by the counties in which they are used. The sewing room women, however, will be paid by the WPA, as in the past. 

The local sewing room was moved last week from its former location over the Sioux Theatre to larger quarters in the Margolin building.

Mattie's mother Rosetta (Worden) Groves (1857-1912) and children.  Mattie is the little girl on the left.  Probably about 1892.  Image courtesy of Olive Kennedy.

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Family Friday: Groves

The young man in this photograph is my maternal third great uncle Levi Groves (1856-1891), who appears to have lived his entire life in Jones County, Iowa. His parents were my third great grandparents Frederick Groves* (1812-1882) and Leah Bixler (1813-1900) who were originally from Maryland but met and married in Ohio, finally moving to Iowa in about 1846. There is no evidence that Levi ever married and he's buried in Forest Hill Cemetery.

[The Anamosa Eureka, Thursday, July 2, 1891.

Source: Digital Archives of Jones County Genealogical Society. ]

[Both images above courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

*Some records list his name as Grove. His ancestors first appeared in mid-18th century Pennsylvania with an German-speaking immigrant who came from Raffz, Zurich, Switzerland.surnamed Grof or Graf.



© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Family Friday: Grove/Graves

Although the borders of this photograph have been trimmed, the note on the back has survived so we know that the woman is my maternal third great aunt Rebecca Groves (1847-1881) together with her husband George Bedford Graves (1843-1914)* and the couple's only child William O. Graves (1867-?).**

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

Rebecca was one of the six daughters of Leah (Bixler) and Frederick Grove; her older sister was my great great grandmother Delilah Grove.

Seven years after Rebecca's death, George married a young woman named Jane Baya (who was about the age of his oldest son) with whom he had seven more children.

Jacob W. Miller (1841-1907) had a photography studio in Anamosa, Iowa, for many years.***

*George's occupation is listed in the 1880 U.S. Census as "Saloon Keeper."
**I've not been able to trace William with any certainty past the 1870 U.S. Census.
***The number 253 is a reference number we used to identify the images while scanning the photographs.

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find and Hat Tip: Jones County Newspaper Archive

In this week's email The Weekly Geologist from the New England Historic Genealogical Society, Assistant Editor Valerie Beaudrault spotlights The Anamosa Library & Learning Center's digitized archive of Jones County, Iowa, newspapers from 1856-2011. As the Library points out, "Jones County is one of the few counties in Iowa to have the entire county's holdings scanned." Best of all, access is free.

[Anamosa Library & Learning Center]

A search in GenealogyBank's database holdings shows only the Anamosa Eureka so there may be more information to be gleaned from this source about my Worden and Webb lines.

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.