VISITORS AND QUERIES
BY KAREN HANSEN
Our summer intern, Erika Lees, helped with several queries in July. Harold Cahill called wanting to know where his EROE relatives had lived. Erika found that his grandfather Harold Eroe was born at 401 Country Street in Walnut. His grandfather’s sister was Laura Eroe FUREY. She wrote about the Walnut Flour Mill for Walnut Memoirs. George E. Eroe, Laura and Harold’s father, was associated with the mill for a number of years. His home was at 313 Antique City Drive, now the home of Trace Frahm.
Duane Chesley from Colorado called and visited. Erika found the home where Anna Catherine PRIESS lived in 1914 at 509 Atlantic Street in Walnut for him.
Roland McLaughlin from Walnut visited and spent some time reading the old Walnut newspapers on the microfilm reader.
Douglas Hardwick from Normal, Illinois visited seeking the I. T. Spangler house where O. F. GREEN and Maud PERIGO married in 1879. Erika found an article about their wedding and that the house was on the east side of the 200 block of Country Street. The map of Walnut shows a different house than the one that is there now.
Another visitor was Mark Mahnke from Bath, Maine; he was looking for REIMER family information. Erika found obituaries of Bertha Reimer and Marx Reimer and locations of the homes of Marx Reimer and Anna Reimer. Marx lived at 719 Antique City Drive, now the home of Evan and Julie Laehle and Anna lived at 607 Antique City Drive, where Gene Clayton’s new home sits.
In September, Laurie Stevens from Oregon visited seeking information on her POPE family. When she mentioned her grandmother was Lottie Pope, I knew that she was related to WGS member Mabel Buboltz. I called Mabel, and together, we were able to help Laurie. Mabel had POPE and DRAKE photos and information that she shared. I found obituaries from Layton Township Cemetery and Lincoln Township Cemetery that we scanned for her.
I received a phone call from Rowena Rains from Kearney, Nebraska. She was looking for obituaries for her husband’s great-grandparents Theodor and Margaret THOMS, who are buried here. I found obits for them and also for Otto and Walter THOMS. She also asked about obits for Sophia and Frederick William NAGEL, her husband’s grandparents, who are buried in Atlantic. We had those for Sophia, Frederick Henry, and Betty Ann NAGEL.
Gene Clayton of Walnut purchased an old yardstick that read “Farmers Supply Company, Grain, Feed, Coal & Seed, Walnut, Iowa.” He visited to find out if it may have been the name of the elevator owned by his relative Eli CLAYTON. Leo and Gayle Stuart have the same yardstick and helped with the research. Eli Clayton had the elevator that burned on August 16, 1887. The Farmers Supply name was not used until many years later.
I received a phone call from Carla Conroy of Omaha, Nebraska. She would like to bring her father, Hoyt Langholz, to Walnut to see where he was born in 1929 and visit the grave of his infant brother Marvin and other relatives. We located the home of his parents, John and Pearl Langholz, at 503 Pleasant Street and found when he purchased and sold the home. We also found ads for his painting and wallpaper hanging business that he ran from his garage behind the house.
KH