Joy Neal Kidney's Blog, page 47

Ed Goff Has Descendants After All

Sherd Goff was one of the seven children of John and Florence Goff. The youngest three died as children. The third and fourth both died at the age of 20. That left Eddie and Sherd (Edwin Carlton and Milton Sheridan). Eddie never married, so I told people that Sherd Goff’s children were the only grandchildren for. I was wrong!

Last year I was contacted by a woman from Florida. She, her mother, and grandmother took DNA tests, which confirmed Eddie C. Goff as being part of their ancestry. E. C. Goff is listed as the father on the birth certificate of Irene Chappell Goff.

The great granddaugher had also learned that Ed Goff’s parents were John B. and Florence Ione (Shepherd) Goff, and wondered if I knew anything about the family. Well, Edwin Carlton Goff is listed on one of my family charts, the brother of my great grandfather.

I sent her what I knew about “Uncle Ed Goff,” which wasn’t much. I’d just learned that he was the mystery man on the right with other Goffs whom I recognized.

Wayne Goff, Ruby (Goff) Blockley with Curtis and Gary Blockley, Laura (Jordan) Goff, Wayne’s landlady. The next four are Willis Goff’s family: Connie, Willis, Shirley, and Anne. Ed Goff is on the right. He’s the brother-in-law of Laura, and the uncle of Wayne, Ruby, and Willis (who are siblings of Leora (Goff) Wilson). California.

The only one still living in the above photo is Gary Blockley. He remembered enough about tall quiet Uncle Ed that he and the young woman have had at least one phone conversation.

 

 

 

 

Irene Chappell, or Chappie Irene

 

The young woman has her great grandmother’s diary and records. She named E. C. Goff as the father of her daughter, called “Chappie.” Ed used to bring her strawberries. “The last story is that Eddie left at the age of 37 with Florence and John on a railway when she was in labor at the hotel across the street and she never saw him again.” 

 

Because this is her story to tell, I’m not naming the woman who contacted me, but said that she felt like I’d sent her a missing piece, that she, her mother, and grandmother were connected to a real family. “My mother and I actually just cried on the phone! What an emotional great day this is been!  My great great grandmother was 35 when my great grandmother was born and Eddie was in his late 30s as well. While her diary says that he knew and she was in the late stages of her pregnancy when he left, it makes me wonder if he actually did.  Why did he not ever marry? Oh how I wish I could go back in time!  She describes him as handsome, tall and very gentle.  There are some stories about him having to take care of his parents and that is why he left. My great grandmother told me that when her mother was in her older years that she built a fire in the backyard and burnt all of the letters that he had sent her.”

John Broderick and Florence Ione (Shepherd) Goff

Eddie Goff pioneered with his parents in Montana. Did they know he was leaving a woman in labor with his own child?

Did he ever wonder whether he’d fathered a son or a daughter? After his parents had died, why didn’t he try to connect with them? He died an old man alone in California, with descendants still hoping to find him.

I was hunting for something else when I ran across a small tintype, identified by Leora (Goff) Wilson as Edwin Carlton Goff, so I asked if Sasha would like it. Yes, and she okayed this blog post which publicly connects Ed Goff to his descendants for the first time.

Edwin Carlton Goff

I did not include this story in Leora’s Early Years: Guthrie County Roots. Ed Goff’s daughter was born while his brother’s family lived in northern Minnesota. I wonder whether Sherd Goff ever knew he had a niece about the same age as his younger sons.

 

Leora’s Early Years: Guthrie County Roots

Leora’s Early Years: Guthrie County Roots has become a reality!

During Leora Goff’s early decades, she gathered the tenacity, optimism and hope she would need throughout her long life. When she married Clabe Wilson, they became forged into parents who would shepherd their own family through two more great eras of world and local history–the Great Depression and WWII.

“Dive into these pages and experience adventures akin to Little House on the Prairie meets Our Town” wrote John Busbee, Founder of The Culture Buzz.

—–

Lee Habeeb wrote the Foreword. He is the founder and host for Our American Stories, heard locally over WHO Radio, but also podcast around the nation.

Lee asked how long I’d like the Foreword. I’m not fond of long ones, so told him that. The very next day I happily read one four pages long, so I quickly sent a note and said to write whatever he wanted. I think it’s longer than any chapter in the book, but is so fascinating.

A poem, “Morrisburg Cemetery,” is by Nicholas Dowd, who grew up in Guthrie Center. Grandma Leora knew his father, who was the town pharmacist at Dowd Drug.

My grandfather Clabe Wilson had a sister, Alice (Wilson) McLuen. I met Alice’s granddaughter, Madeline, last year. Clabe and Alice’s parents (Dan and Georgia Wilson) are our mutual great grandparents. Stories of Clabe’s (and Alice’s) early years are part of the book, as well. It was a delight that they got the first copies of Leora’s Early Years: Guthrie County Roots. 

I’d ordered regular copies for first readers, endorsers, and encouragers, which I mailed out yesterday. I just realized that I didn’t keep a copy, but the “author copies” are to arrive by October 8.

—–

Autographed copies won’t be available locally until the week of October 10, but paperbacks, hardbacks, and ebooks (any day for ebooks) are “live” now on Amazon.

After October 10, autographed copies will be available in the Des Moines area at Beaverdale Books, the Urbandale Machine Shed Restaurant, and Off the Rails Quilting in Bondurant. Beaverdale Books offers shipping (515-279-5400)

Hear this, you elders; listen, all who live in the land.
Has anything like this ever happened in your days
or in the days of your ancestors?

Tell it to your children,
and let your children tell it to their children,
and their children to the next generation.

Joel 1:2-3

Laura (Jordan) Goff Turns 92 (Leora’s mother)

“One of Guthrie Center’s ‘young’ residents observed her 92nd birthday Wednesday [September 28, 1960], and many friends and neighbors called to extend congratulations, and many more unable to drop by or phone, sent cards.

“The celebrant was Mrs. Laura Goff, who has been a resident of this community for the past thirteen years. However she has been a Guthrie countian for many years of her lifetime.

“Beginning with her birth in a log cabin on a farm near Monteith, she grew up in that area and attended the schools in the county. After her marriage she resided in Nebraska for four years, and in Minnesota for two years, returning to Iowa and Guthrie county to again make her home. Mr. Goff died in 1930 and Mrs. Goff then resided in Omaha for 13 years, before returning to Guthrie Center to again take up her residency.

“Mrs. Goff has nine living children, and there are 12 grandchildren and 18 great grandchildren.

“Mrs. Goff feels a necessity to ‘keep on the go’ so that she will not get old with her years. She does the dishes each day for she [sic] and her daughter, Mrs. Leora Wilson, with whom she resides. She also takes complete care of her room, does cleaning and dusting in the home and goes for rides, and visits to the homes of her other children. As recent as two years ago Mrs. Goff accompanied her daughter, Mrs. Wilson to the west coast by plane to visit relatives.

“Daily papers are read by Mrs. Goff, as well as the local newspapers, and other magazines and literature which keeps her mind abreast of the activities of the community and world. She also hears well, and daily enjoys some television programs.

“Sunday, Merle [sic] Goff and daughter Phyllis, also Mr. and Mrs. Willis Goff and Mrs. Shirley McSharry and two children of Omaha joined Mrs. Goff for a birthday celebration in advance of the date.

“On Wednesday, grandchildren from Dexter and Earlham came to bestow regards to one of Guthrie Center’s grand ‘young, old ladies’.”

The Guthrie Center Times, September 29, 1960

Three of Laura Goff’s children lived in southern California: Wayne Goff, Ruby (Goff) Blockley, and Willis Goff.

Those daily TV programs were mostly “soap stories,” which were only 15 minutes at first, then grew to half an hour. The great grandchildren from Dexter were Joy and Gloria Neal. Those from Earlham were Richard, Robert, Dennis, and David Scar, the sons of Darlene’.

Gold Star Mother’s Day

The five-star service flag in the farm home of Clabe and Leora Wilson near Minburn, Iowa, late 1943.

The service flag is an official banner authorized by the Department of Defense for display by families who have members serving in the Armed Forces during any period of war or hostilities the United States may be engaged in.

A Blue Star family refers to one with a member in active service. A Gold Star means the loss of a family member in military service.

When Dale Wilson joined the Army Air Force in 1943, his mother Leora couldn’t find a service flag with three stars. Dale’s two older brothers were already in the US Navy.

Leora borrowed her mother’s three-star flag from WWI, when three Goff brothers served with the 88th Infantry Division in France.

Eventually all five Wilson brothers were helping with the war effort. Leora was able to buy a service flag with five blue stars.

With all five sons gone, Clabe could no longer take care of the landlord’s farm plus all the livestock, even with a hired man. The service flag moved with them when they bought a small acreage near Perry in late 1944.

In 1945, Leora pasted a gold star over one blue one when Junior was killed August 9. In early 1946, they received word of Danny’s death (which had occurred nearly a year earlier) and an official Declaration of Death (DOD) date was set for Dale Wilson. Leora reluctantly added two more gold stars.

After she was widowed and moved to Guthrie Center with her own mother, Leora Wilson was honored by the American Legion as a Gold Star Mother. Gold Star Mother’s Day is observed on the last Sunday of September as a day to recognize and honor those who have lost a son or daughter while serving the United States Armed Forces.

The Wilson family service flag is now owned by the Dexter Museum. All seven Wilson children grew up in Dexter during the Great Depression.

Leora’s Letters: The Story of Love and Loss for an Iowa Family During World War II

Tomato Recipes from the 1920s

When Doris Wilson was in third grade, back in the Roaring Twenties, the country kids ate dinner at school, since they couldn’t go home during the noon hour. They brought what their mothers had packed for them in metal pails.

“What’s that?” someone asked her. “It looks like blood!”

Doris’s mother made tomato butter, then used it for sandwiches, just like apple butter. Leora Wilson always made whole wheat bread. You can imagine slabs of bread with red stuff seeping out.

Tomato Butter

Cook peeled tomatoes down to puree. Add sugar and the slivered rind of oranges (Doris’s favorite) or lemons. Cook some more.

Raw Tomatoes

Doris’s father ate tomatoes with sugar and cream. Clabe’s family ate them that way when he was a child. He said they taste “just like strawberries” that way. (Doris was skeptical, even after she tried it that way.)

In late autumn, the kids could smell piccalilli when they came home from school. The pungent aroma also drew flies to the kitchen door, so Leora had the kids go around to the front door. They waited for her to unlock it and shoo the flies away with a dish towel.

Leora made piccalilli or chili sauce from chopped up vegetables and fruits from the the end of her garden, with sugar, spices, and vinegar.

Chili Sauce (or Piccalilli)

1 peck ripe tomatoes
1/2 peck apples
1/4 peck onions
1 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
2 tablespoons salt
1 quart vinegar
1 quart sugar
pepper - to suit taste (a red pepper is better)

Serve with any kind of meat.

Leora canned most of this concoction. Toward the end of the season, it included more apples.

From: Leora’s Early Years: Guthrie County Roots

Cover Reveal: Leora’s Early Years: Guthrie County Roots

“Dive into these pages and experience adventures akin to Little House on the Prairie meets Our Town.” –John Busbee, Founder of The Culture Buzz—–The photo on the cover was taken in 1914, the year Clabe and Leora Wilson were married. They are in front of his mother’s house in Panora, Iowa. The house still stands!No word yet about the formatting of the book, but I’ve already got orders for copies from the Off the Rails Quilt Shop in Bondurant, along with a dozen more of the first two Leora books! Yes, quilters are readers!

GI Night School and President Truman’s Platform

“Your dad and I helped make that platform for the president, you know.” Earnie and Dorothy Kopaska visited the Dexter Museum, which has a large display about the 1948 National Plowing Match. President Harry Truman gave a speech there that day, with an audience nearing 100,000 sweltering souls.

“Dad? Warren Neal? How did that happen?”

Earnie and Dad were both veterans of WWII and taking a class at GI Night School. They were asked to build the platform for the historic event. Dexter historian Bryon Weesner said that the platform was built with bridge deck planks upon 55 gallon oil drums.

The platform was large enough for the row of those who brought the National Plowing Match to Dexter, Iowa. Dignitaries included Herb Plambeck of WHO Radio.

I was a four-year-old that day, hoisted on Dad’s shoulders to see the man on the platform, but I’d never heard that story. After my folks bought the farm south of Dexter in 1952, I remember Dad’s being gone at night for those classes at the Dexter school, probably because Mom was a little more nervous about being alone with two small daughters in an unfamiliar neighborhood.

That night school was part of the GI Bill of Rights, passed in 1944, which provided funds for college or training for veterans after WWII. After the war, Mom wanted Dad to go to college, but he thought he was too old, at 27, with one child (me) already. He really wanted to farm.

From Bryon Weesner: From June 1949. Dexter was one of many On-Farm schools that were created under the GI Bill after WW2. At one point there were 243 area farmers who had served in the war enrolled in classes at night. In the photo are Glen Patience, Gail Higgins, Clifford Rater and Ag Instructor at Dexter, Jim Kleen.

Earnest Kopaska was a 1947 graduate of Redfield High School. He dropped out of high school to serve in WWII, then returned to earn his diploma.

The tote boards from the 1948 National Plowing Match, part of the WELCOME TO IOWA backdrop on the stage, are now owned by the Dexter Museum. (“Museum season” is April through October.)

 

Leora Wilson writing in her Diary

Leora Goff Wilson, Guthrie Center, Iowa, writing in Diary Book. Sept. 24, 1976. Taken by Delbert Goff Wilson of Fremont, CAI’m thankful that Uncle Del took this photo of his mother. I’ve posted it several times, but just recently remembered that I’ve become the “keeper” of her diaries! Inside the cover of the1976 diary, she noted that my sister Gloria gave it to her for Christmas in 1975.Another note said that she had been to patch at the hospital 318 times from 1957-1976, 42 times during 1975.Grandma Leora began September that year by cleaning and making up the bed in the basement, spading a spot for planting 30 bulbs, walking several blocks to the post office to mail birthday cards to two of her five Goff brothers (she remembered everyone’s birthdays), dug around the seedless ash to add wood chips, and watched the parade for the Guthrie County Fair.Son Delbert and Evelyn arrived from California on the 6th, to stay for three weeks. Delbert fixed so many things in the house (basement light, sunroom door latch, bathroom fan, caulking), even stretched his mother’s clothesline. Friends and relatives came to visit with Delbert and Evelyn. A week later, Donald and Rose (and dog Mitzi) came for a week. (They slept in the basement.) Leora relished all the visitors, phonecalls, going places. And capturing it all in her orange diary.“Seems like a dream,” she wrote, “to have all here.”On the left are Donald and Rose Wilson from WA. Sam and Darlene (Wilson) Scar, Dexter, Iowa. Leora is in the middle. Then Warren and Doris (Wilson) Neal, Dexter. On the right are Delbert and Evelyn Wilson from CA. Taken at Darlene and Sam’s September 19, 1976Former classmates (1933) and shipmates (1930s) Howard Benz, Donald Wilson, and Delbert Wilson. Diamondhead Lake, Guthrie County, Iowa, September 1976They spent one Sunday at Darlene and Sam’s at their home at Diamondhead Lake. Leora’s brother C.Z. Goff, and nephew, Merrill Goff, came from Omaha. Howard Benz, high school classmate and shipmate (USS Chicago CA-29) also stopped to see Del and Don.

 

September 20, the four siblings drove to Monteith with their mother to see the house just west of town where Leora’s mother grew up. Clabe and Leora also lived there when they first married, in 1914. The group also visited the nearby pioneer cemetery, where Leora’s Jordan grandparents are buried, as well as her Grandpap Goff.

Delbert, Darlene, Doris, and Donald Wilson

After all this whirlwind of visits, Darlene left with Delbert and Evelyn on the 26th, to visit a son in Colorado. It was a Sunday, when Grandma felt more lonely after church. Doris and Warren drove up from Dexter to take her to church, then to The Port on the east side of Lake Panorama at Panora for for dinner. “Sure helped me from getting such a lonely feeling after Delbert & Evelyn & Darlene left.”

The last week of September, Leora went to a funeral, canned a little tomato juice, cut back the peonies and iris, filled three clothes lines with all the bedding she’d washed (and hauled up from the basement), and went to the hospital to help patch with the Rebekahs. (They still have a small hospital. That group of ladies volunteered regularly to patch hospital gowns, sheets, anything else that needed sewing. Leora was in charge of the treadle sewing machine.)

What a sturdy and courageous woman at age 85! I’m so blessed to be her oldest granddaughter, and the “keeper” of her stories. 

Leora’s Letters is the story of the Wilson family during World War II. All five brothers served. Only two came home.

Leora’s Dexter Story takes place during the scarcity years of the Great Depression.

Leora’s Early Years tells her childhood stories, also Clabe Wilson’s, their marriage and first seven children.

Did “close application to work and studies” cause the death of Georgia Goff, age 28?

Leora was the oldest of the ten Goff children. She had two sisters. Georgia Laurayne was four years younger, and Leora was nearly 10 when Ruby Belle was born. She said that Georgia was the only nearly blonde one in the family.

From Leora’s memoirs: “Georgia was hurt by falling downstairs while we lived at Key West [Minnesota]. She was about 9 years old. She went upstairs to ‘make the beds’–spread them up. She got her job finished and, like young ones are apt to do, two beds were just right to hold to each foot of the bed and swing. Georgia did that, as she could remember, and lost her hold some way and fell and bumped her head on the foot of the bed or the floor. Then she sat at the top of the stairsteps and fainted and fell down the stairs.

“Mamma and I were doing things in the kitchen and heard a bump sound on the stair door and then another sound. Mamma  said, ‘I wonder what Georgia is throwing downstairs,’ and went to see, and Georgia rolled  down unconscious. I rushed to get cold water and cloth while Mamma was putting her on a couch. Georgia ‘came to’ in a little while, but felt kind of sick for awhile. We never got a doctor. She got a bad bump on her forehead.”

Georgia Goff, about age 13, 1907, Audubon, Iowa

Iowa

The family moved back to Iowa. Georgia and Ruby, as well as their older brothers, weren’t allowed to go to high school. But when their parents eventually moved to a Victorian house in Guthrie Center, the sisters studied piano and took other classes at Des Moines University, although Georgia had “spells” once in a while. According to her older sister, she could attend a lecture and remember nearly the entire thing.

The Goff sisters also worked for the Carl Weeks family, who later built the Des Moines treasured Salisbury House. Georgia accompanied the family to Clear Lake in 1921 to help with their active sons. Later, she gave piano lessons in Guthrie, but she eventually had to give up those lessons, and a beau, when the spells worsened.

Ruby and Georgia Goff

Their mother, Laura Goff, thought maybe having a diversion would help Georgia feel better, so her daughters had sister portraits taken in fancy clothing.

Georgia and Leora Goff Wilson

At his wit’s end, Sherd Goff took his daughter to Clarinda Mental Hospital, where she was admitted August 22, 1922. 

A letter from the Clarinda Treatment Complex states that Georgia Goff was intelligent and obedient to her parents, was a student of music and dramatic art, and also studied “applied psychology by intensive concentration.” The reason for admission: “Over study and nervous breakdown.” Diagnosis: “Manic Depressive Psychosis: Mania.”

Congestion of the brain

She died September 7, 1922. Cause of death: “Exhaustion and acute Mania: Congestion of the brain.”  Her funeral was held in the parlor of the Victorian home.

The house was full of mourners because 28-year-old Georgia had taught piano to the children of so many families. She was the first of the family buried in Union Cemetery.

In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell states that early educational reformers were concerned that students could get too much schooling. A study of 1741 cases of insanity by Edward Jarvis, published by the US Commissioner of Education in 1871, concluded that “over-study” was responsible for 205 of the cases. He wrote, “Education lays the foundation of a large portion of the causes of mental disorder.”

Even pioneer of public education Horace Mann believed that “Not infrequently is health itself destroyed by over-stimulating the mind.” Education journals worried about overtaxing students! Was this mindset still common 50 years later?

Do you suppose that Georgia Goff might have suffered from a brain tumor instead?

From: Leora’s Early Years: Guthrie County Roots

Report of Major Accident – F/O Claiborne J. Wilson

Junior Wilson’s last furlough home, right after receiving his pilot’s wings. March 1945, Perry, Iowa. His folks had just received a telegram that his brother Dan Wilson was MIA in Austria. Another brother, Dale, had been missing in New Guinea since November 1943.

In late 1989, I asked for the Junior Wilson’s August 1945 accident report. The Headquarters Air Force Inspection and Safety Center, Norton Air Force Base, CA, sent five pages of “releasable portions” and photocopies of nine photos. Reports of mishaps more than ten years old are stored on microfilm,  they noted, “which does not lend itself to quality reproduction,” so most of the photos are too murky to make out anything.

ARMY AIR FORCES REPORT OF MAJOR ACCIDENT

“On 9 August 1945, F/O Claiborne J. Wilson was pilot of TP-40N-5CU aircraft AFF 42-105364, when the aircraft crashed and burned thirty (30) miles northwest of Aloe Army Air Field, Victoria, Texas. F/O Wilson was a member of a four (4) ship formation, which took off from Fannin Auxiliary Field individually and assembled over the field at 3,000 feet. F/O Wilson was flying number four (4) position. [words blacked out] F/O Wilson was rather slow in joining the formation, but {word blackened] he reported no difficulty whatsoever over the radio. The formation climbed to 10,000 feet and made a series of ninety (90) and 180 degree turns. As the formation completed one (1) 180 degree turn, the officer flying number three (3) position noticed that F/O Wilson was not on his wing. At about the same time the instructor noticed his absence also. The instructor immediately called number three (3) man and asked him where F/O Wilson was. The officer in number three (3) position then looked around and states that he saw a P-40 aircraft off to his left and approximately 4,000 feet below the formation in what seemed to be a normal glide. This aircraft was the one piloted by F/O Wilson, who had said nothing over the radio that might indicate that he had engine trouble. The officer flying number three (3) position further states that there was no smoke coming from the aircraft, nor was there fire visible. The instructor leading the formation immediately began calling F/O Wilson, but received no reply. The instructor then dismissed the formation and went down to look for the aircraft piloted by F/O Wilson. At the time of this occurrence, the formation was flying above scattered clouds, and the aircraft piloted by F/O Wilson had disappeared below the clouds. The instructor then went below the clouds and circled and finally located Wilson’s aircraft, which had crashed and was burning approximately seven (7) miles south of Nordheim, Texas.

“Investigation revealed that the aircraft was [words blackened] flying at a low altitude and was smoking and on fire. The aircraft continued toward the ground out of control, almost struck some haystacks, pulled back up, and crashed. Before the airplane crashed, [blackened] two (2) black objects came out of the aircraft which they were unable to identify and which could possibly have been the pilot and his parachute. Pieces of the aircraft were strewn along a path approximately three (3) miles long, indicating that the aircraft exploded before hitting the ground and after striking the ground, exploded again. Examination of the engine revealed that a connecting rod was thrown from the number four (4) cylinder. 

“[Four lines blackened] when the aircraft reached a low altitude, it caught fire and exploded. Examination of the parachute worn by the pilot revealed the fact that every shroud line had been torn from the canopy; [words blackened] the pilot did not attempt to bail out, but was thrown clear of the aircraft when it exploded. The body of the pilot was found one-half (½) mile from the spot where the aircraft crashed. [Three lines blackened, as well as the next word] and whatever was listed in ‘Action Taken’.”

An official photo of the wrecked P-40

I shared the document with my mother, Junior’s older sister, but I didn’t show her any of the photos. Doris had nightmares after the war, crying out for Junior to jump sooner. Photos of her brothers were displayed on bookshelves at home, but when she’d sink into depression because of those reminders, she’d put them in a drawer.