Before I went to Iowa, I talked to Rosana Scritchfield, my great aunt and baby sister to my grandmother. She told me to go to Marion Co. and check the courthouse records there as her family actually were from Marion and not Jasper Co. She also gave me the names of her cousin, Ivy (Wood) Dingeman who lived at Monroe, Iowa. So when I got to Iowa I first went to Knoxville and then to Newton which is the county seat of Jasper Co. In Newton I looked up Roscoe Dick who is also a cousin of my grandmother on the Terpstra side. Roscoe and Lucille Dick show me around Galesburg and I met many members of the Terpstra side of the family. Later we went to Monroe where I met with Ivy and her daughter, Phyllis Machin.

Phyllis and Ivy had many stories to tell me about James W. George and how he lost his thumb in the war. It seems James was in many battles and on this one particular battle why he took a minie ball in the left hand severing his thumb and leaving it connected by just some sinew and skin. James would tell his grand-children how he took out his knife and on a tree stump cut the thumb away and threw it across the field and watched as the crows came to fight over it. How the grand-children must have loved to hear their grandpa tell his war stories.

Phyllis showed me the journal written by Susannah George, James W. George's mother. She kept a log of the trivial day to day happenings on the small farm in Pella, Iowa. This was very interesting to me. I wanted to read it over very carefully so Roscoe borrowed it and ran off copies for me after I left and later I would receive this copy when I was back home in Hawaii.

I wanted to learn where James W. George was born and in the court house records of Jasper Co. I found he was born in Peoria Co., Illinois. After I got back home I had quite allot of pictures of the grave markers in Pella and at Galesburg. In due time I received the diary copied by Roscoe.

I had just purchased a Macintosh computer so one of the first things I put into it was this Diary written by Susannah George. As I read over the pages of entries I started to learn the names of the various members of Susannah's family. I grew very interested in one member who seemed to be mentioned many times. His name was Marion M. George the youngest son of William & Susannah.

It seems William, and Susannah would pack up their things and catch the train from their home place in Pella and go to a town called Biggsville and Kirkwood, Illinois. I assumed this to be the area where their son lived on a farm. Once they were at Marion's farm they would take another trip to a place called Yates City and Elmwood. I looked these towns up on the map and they were right next to each other across the border between Knox and Peoria Co. Illinois. Since James claimed Peoria Co. as his birth place, I assumed that this must be the original home place of the George family and that the lady, that Susannah was visiting, named Betsy West, might be a sister to William George.

First I started to write to Warren Co., Illinois, for information on Marion. One of my early contacts was a Clifford Sanner [not related] who I contacted because of sharing my same last name. He and his wife were very helpful and they asked around allot for information on Marion George. In Kirkwood he found members of the Matt Oaks family talked about in the diary. They were related to Eliza (Sloan) Marion's wife. The talk of Marion George spread around the small farming community and I soon received a letter from a Oaks family member telling me about this trunk that belonged to Marion and Eliza that was in the possession of another relative who had kept it in her home for the past fifty years and had never opened it. However with all the talk around the community, other family members were curious so the trunk was finally opened. She wrote to let me know that the trunk had many books and letters and lots of pictures, and some of the pictures were the same as copies I had sent to them earlier.

This was all a pleasant surprise to me and in the following summer, 1987 I drove to Kirkwood and Biggsville to look up this family with the trunk. I wanted to see with my own eyes these family treasures that were preserved in this time capsule. When I arrived in Kirkwood I asked the lady about the trunk and I was directed to the farm house where it was being held. The lady of the house, was expecting me so I was then lead down into the basement to the trunk. The trunk was locked and the hinges had to be removed from the back when they opened it. So this is how we opened it that day as well. I looked through the items one by one. What most excited me was some letters written by my g.g. grandfather, James W. George to his father and mother. there were lots of letters and metal tin-type pictures as well most of them from the civil war era. All of these things were extremely interesting. I ask the lady if I could take them upstairs to the light to study, and later I sorted out a pile of letters and photos to see if I could borrow them to take with me to study and see if I could find out more clues as to the mysteries of the William George family.

The following summer I went back to Biggsville and offered this lady a price for the entire trunk, and she accepted. Not so much as the trunk was so valuable as it was a fair price for the storage of all the George family treasures. I would like to say these pictures that were in the trunk has unlocked the door and I have been able to make many many contacts and have found many family members that I would not have known about if it were not for this kindly Biggsville woman, Mrs. Clara (Oaks) Peterson, and Marion's Trunk which she took care of for fifty years.

Kolin is a small used to be town close to Moccasin, located in Judith Basin Co. not to far from Lewistown. I first write to the county seat to learn the death date of Annie B. George who's picture I found in the trunk. I then learned that she had a brother named Hugh and her parents were Albert and Lavina (Smith) George. I had a picture of Hugh George also from Marion's trunk, so I knew who he was now. Next I wrote to get a copy of Albert Leroy George’s death certificate and it revealed his parents were Jacob and Rebecca George and Lavina's parents were Seth and Mary (George) Smith. This Jacob was a brother to Mary also known as "Polly" George. Both families from Adams Co. Iowa; and that made Albert & Lavina 1st. cousins.

Hugh's death certificate listed one Herb Zwemke of Lewistown as the informant. I thought if this fellow Zwemke knew enough about Huge to be the informant, may-be I would try to contact him to find out if his knew more about the George family of Kolin, Montana.

I called long distant directory service and sure enough there was a Herb Z. listed so I called him right away. He told me he knew quite a bit about the George family and he would send me some copies of letters and ect. that he had all of the George papers as he had bought the George place and served as adm. of Hugh's estate.

It was a few weeks later when I received a packet in the mail from Herb. It was a complete obit scrapbook of all of Lavina's family, the children of Seth and Mary (George) Smith her parents. This meant Albert and Lavina were cousins, so all of the family information was leading to the same place.

It was in July this summer 1988 that I went with my father and family to Lewistown to meet Mr. Zwemke, we had a nice visit. I was told of Hugh's and Annie's family pictures that were still in the care of a neighboring rancher. I called up this family and was invited to come out to their ranch at Kolin. There I was given a huge box of pictures of the family members of Hugh George. I returned to my father's place in Billings and spent the night looking through the pictures. The pictures included the Mary Smith family as well as Jacob's family and there was even a photo of William and Susannah George of Pella, Iowa; Marion M. George, of Biggsville, Ill.; his son William Sloan George and Marion's grandson, Marion Lewis George.

Herb gave me a packet of old letters written by Mildred O'Brien to her cousin Hugh in 1916, from Norwich, North Dakota. I had written to a O'Brien family due to a obit in the obit's of Hugh's family of one Patrick O'Brien. I receive a letter some time later from Dorothy Rasmuson, of Surrey North Dakota. She told me about Elizabeth (George) Calahan, the oldest dughter of Jacob and Rebecca (Smith) George, who was her g. grandmother. Now these letters from Norwich seemed to be come from a member of this same family that was a cousin to Hugh George. I drove the next day to Surrey and met with Dorothy, I asked her about these letters from Mildred and she told that would be Mildred McGovern, who was still living at age 92 with her daughter in Oregon; However both Mildred and her daughter Connie were visiting in Minot that very week. So with a phone call a meeting was arranged, and that evening Mildred her family as well as Durward and Evelyn Lenton were all coming over to Dorothy's house. In less then 72 hours after Herb gave me the letters that Hugh had saved all those years, I was able to hand them to the one who had written them some 72 years ago.

§

This was the letter that lead me to search from Nebraska to California for the story of branch
#8. Ellis B. George Family

I hope all of you will join me and compile your own family history
so it can be added to this family chart as it grows into the future.

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