Branching Out – Connections to Cottage Grove – Part 5

One of my connections to Cottage Grove lived here from 1932 to 1972. So he was living here when I moved to Cottage Grove in 1961. But he had moved to Eugene before I started researching my family history in the mid-1980s. He was the son of my grandmother’s oldest sister, so he and my mother were 1st cousins and that makes me his 1st cousin once removed.

This photo is of his parents, George and Margaret (Bond) Pullen and probably their two oldest children, taken about 1903.

According to his obituary from the Eugene Register Guard, Perry LeRoy “Roy” Pullen was born in Halsey in 1909. His grandparents, John and Mary Bond, were enumerated on the 1910 census in the Halsey precinct. Perry was listed with his parents on that census in Halsey, living on 5th Street. Apparently the Pullen family did not stay in the Halsey area because they are listed on the 1920 census in Pleasant Hill precinct and he was listed there as Leroy P Pullen, age 10.

Before the 1930 census was taken, two major events happened in Leroy’s life. In June of 1928 his father died and in September of 1929 he was married to Pearl Johnson. It is evident this marriage did not last as Leroy married Dorothea Cranmer on Christmas Eve in 1932. The 1940 census noted he was living in Cottage Grove in 1935 but had moved out to the Culp Creek area by 1940. Another major event happened in Roy’s life in May of 1948 when his 11 year old son drowned in the Bohemia Lumber Company mill pond at Culp Creek.

He found a new interest in the early 1950s when he joined the Cottage Grove Riding Club. He apparently became quite involved and was a board member during the mid 1960s. One of his daughters was rodeo queen in 1957 and his other daughter was a rodeo princess in 1964. He moved to Eugene in the 1970s and later in the early 1990s to Arlington, Oregon, where one of his daughters lived. He was called back to Cottage Grove in 1994 when he was the grand marshal for the Cottage Grove Rodeo.

It was the next year, February of 1995, when Perry or Roy died. Although he died at Arlington, his memorial service was held at Cottage Grove. As I had done enough family research by that time, I realized he was a cousin when I read his obituary in the newspaper. So I did attend his service and introduced myself to some of the family to let them know that we were related.

It seems a little sad that we can have relatives living in the same town and not realize it at the time. So again I had another connection to Cottage Grove and because of his interests it was a connection to the Cottage Grove Riding Club.

Branching Out – Connections to Cottage Grove – Part 4

During February 2022 I have been following the monthly theme of Branching Out from 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks by Amy Johnson Crow.

On 9 Feb 2022, I returned home from my 5th tri-weekly chemotherapy treatment and checked the email from Ancestry.com about hints for my family tree. One of the hints was about Frank Bond, the son of my gt-granduncle, Austin Bond. So I began following these hints. The email hint was for the 1940 census. Those living in his household at that time were: his wife Madge and 3 of his children Melvin, Lloyd and Norma. They were living in Rowland Precinct, Linn County, Oregon, the same location where Dale and Delma Drinkard lived. I posted on 10 Feb how Dale was connected to Cottage Grove.

Then I thought as I read more of the hints, how appropriate. A newspaper article showed that Norma married William Bruce Telford in Eugene, Lane County on 14 Feb 1948. She was working as a telephone operator in Eugene and William had been working in Junction City, Oregon for Chevrolet in the parts department.

Why was that article appropriate. It noted their new home would be 1216 South 6th St., Cottage Grove, Oregon. In the 1945 Eugene City Directory, living at 1200 South 6th St, were Harry Skelton and his first wife Mary Jane. After Mary Jane died in 1963, I became Harry’s wife in the 1970s and we first lived at that house. However by 1948 Harry and Mary Jane had moved to another location in the Cottage Grove area and he did not move back there until after Mary Jane’s death, so were not really neighbors of the Telford family, except that both lived in the Cottage Grove area.

I feel bad that I did not begin my genealogical researching until after Norma, my 2nd cousin once removed, had died. Then I never took the time to contact William before his death. But there was definitely a Cottage Grove connection with these relatives of mine.

Branching Out – Connections to Cottage Grove – Part 3

In my previous post I mentioned that I discovered a connection from my childhood home at Halsey to my current home in Cottage Grove while reading a family history book at the Cottage Grove Genealogical Society library. Guess what? I read another book and found another connection.

This time I read about the Currin family. Three of this family were Donation Land Claim settlers in the Cottage Grove area: John Currin, his brother William Currin and his sister Christiana (Currin) Cooley’s son, George Cooley. It was the grandson of George that caught my eye, Dale Drinkard. You guessed it, Dale had a connection to me.

He married my 2nd cousin, Delma Falk, 19 Jun 1937 in Linn County, Oregon. Delma said that she and another cousin helped to organize the Falk family reunion which was held each summer when I was growing up. After I began my family history research over 30 years ago I again attended the Falk family reunions and almost always Delma and Dale were there. Again I have always liked this photo I took of them in 1988 at the reunion.

Delma was born in the Halsey area 31 Jan 1915. Delma’s birth certificate has been altered to include her name, since the original certificate calls her Baby Falk. She was about 3 years younger than my mother Wilma and 2 months older than my aunt Lois, although Delma’s grandfather was a much older brother of Wilma and Lois’s father. I have always liked this photo of the three of them.

Lois, Wilma & Delma

While writing this blog post, I realized that I had not been diligent in adding the available sources for them to my family tree on Ancestry (joanne genealogy). So I worked on it. It reminded me that when Dale died 17 Sept 2005, at age 93, he and Delma had been married 68 years. Delma lived for almost 8 more years and died at age 98 on 27 Jul 2013. I have missed seeing them at the reunions and didn’t have the opportunity to explain the Cottage Grove connection that I had with Dale.

Branching Out – Connections to Cottage Grove – Part 2

Last week I wrote about how I was connected to Cottage Grove through the farm where I grew up. After I moved to Cottage Grove I discovered there was a Cottage Grove connection at the church I attended in Halsey. One of the “older” ladies at the Halsey Christian Church was Mrs. Ethel Maxwell. She was among that group of ladies who wore hats to church and were almost always there.

After living in Cottage Grove over 20 years, I joined the Cottage Grove Genealogical Society and became active in researching my family history. In checking the books at the Society library, I found one about the Powell family. [Powell History, written in 1922 by James Madison Powell, then updated in 1977] I was acquainted with several members of a Powell family so I did some reading in that book.

It was on page 285 I found Ethel as the wife of Frank Maxwell, son of Nancy Powell and Antony Maxwell. Nancy and Antony were married in 1860 and about 5 years later had moved to a farm near Halsey where they lived for almost 40 years. So Ethel’s mother-in-law was Nancy Powell. But does that make a connection to Cottage Grove other than a book in the library? Well, Nancy did have brothers.

One of these was Joseph Goble Powell (1841-1924) whose daughter Nancy married John Overholser. John’s son Ross was married to Marguariete, a former president of the Cottage Grove Genealogical Society and also the Cottage Grove Historical Society and the author of some historical books. She was someone I knew in Cottage Grove.

Another of Joseph’s children was Charles. One of his sons was Archie Powell, who served as an elder at the Cottage Grove Church of Christ. This was the church I attended and I did know Archie. Among Joseph’s other children was Edward, whose daughter Geneva had married Frank Richardson. Geneva was a faithful member of the Cottage Grove Church of Christ and I considered her a good friend.

Nancy had a half-brother, Alexander Hamilton Powell (1834-1915). He moved to the Cottage Grove area in 1878. Four of his five children married descendants of Cottage Grove area Donation Land Claim settlers. One of these settlers was Henry Small. As our Genealogical Society is publishing stories about these local settlers, I wrote about Henry Small. I didn’t realize when I noted that a descendant had married a Powell that I had a connection to the Powell family from my Halsey days.

So the Powell family had connections to Cottage Grove through people I knew and someone I wrote about. I believe that as I continue to study the Powell History I will continue to find more connections between the Powell family and Cottage Grove.

Branching Out – Connections to Cottage Grove – Part 1

I want to use February to write about some genealogical connections I have found to the town where I now live, which is Cottage Grove, Oregon.

If Cottage Grove is the town where I now live, where did I live before? I was born over 80 years ago in Eugene, Oregon. But that was the location of the hospital not my home. My growing-up years were spent on a farm about halfway between the small incorporated city of Halsey, Oregon and the smaller unincorporated town of Shedd.

Although our address and phone indicated we lived at Halsey, the farm was on the north side of the road, so our voting precinct was Shedd. Therefore you will find me listed in Shedd on the 1940 census. After graduating from Halsey High School, I attended Northwest Christian College in Eugene. It was after college that I moved to Cottage Grove, now just a little over 60 years ago.

Did I have any connections to Cottage Grove before I moved here? The answer is yes. We lived on a rented farm. My grandparents had rented it in the fall of 1914 and after they retired, my parents continued to live there. The owner was Eugene Stockwell. He was the grandson of one of the Cottage Grove area donation land claim settlers, Ira Hawley. Apparently Ira purchased farms for several of his grandchildren. Eugene’s sister, Lena, also was given a farm in the Halsey area. Although I wasn’t actually related to the Hawley family of Cottage Grove, I did have a connection through the farm where I grew up.

It was a few years after I moved to Cottage Grove, August 27th of 1964, when the Cottage Grove Sentinel published an item with the headline, “50 Years on Farm Occasion for Fete.” It began by stating that Mr. and Mrs. E. L. Stockwell and others had spent a few days in Cottage Grove visiting his sister, Mrs. Frank McFarland of Cottage Grove. Then it continued, “During their stay here Mr. Stockwell entertained with a dinner at the Eugene Hotel for the Lester Albertsons of Halsey.” It was to celebrate the 50th year of renting his farm. Lester Albertson was my father and I was one of the 28 people who attended that dinner. 

Curious – Am I Related to an Opera Singer?

 When I began my journey into genealogical research, I contacted one of my paternal 2^nd cousins who had been working on our family’s history. He very graciously shared some of the information he had found. This section of my family had been members of the Society of Friends, often called Quakers. Since our local genealogical society had a series of books in their library, entitled Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, I eagerly began researching there. This was a 6 volume set, compiled through the efforts of William Wade Hinshaw. I was thrilled to find so many of my ancestors listed in these books. In doing more reading I found that Mr. Hinshaw had an earlier career as an opera singer. He was known as the leading American baritone singer with the Metropolitan Opera from 1910 to 1912.

Photo of W W Hinshaw, digital image from

The Musical Blue Book of America, 1916-1917, page 5

Accessed on Internet Archive, 25 Jan 2022

I continued to research my Quaker relatives in other sources. Eventually I learned that a sister (Elizabeth 1813-1882) of my 2^nd great-grandfather, Francis Hockett, had married a man named Hinshaw. Then I discovered that a sister (Elizabeth 1809-1866) of my 3^rd great-grandfather, Isaac Hockett, had also married a man named Hinshaw as her 2^ndhusband. Was it possible they were from the same family as the compiler of the books? Recently I found a pedigree chart for William Wade Hinshaw in the Family Search Family Tree. There I discovered that it was his grandfather who married my 3^rd great-aunt, so I am related to him by marriage.

Many people who have Quaker ancestors find they are related to other Quaker descendants. William was born in Hardin County, Iowa, in 1867. My Quaker great-grandparents, Nathan E. and Mary M. (Hockett) Albertson, were married in Hardin County in 1870. But, am I really related to William Wade Hinshaw by blood? Using that same pedigree chart, I found that not only am I related to him, I am related to him in two different ways.

First: William Hunt (1693-1746) and Mary E. Woolman (1692-1745) were his 3^rd great-grandparents. They were my 7^th great-grandparents, so we are 4^th cousins 4 times removed.

Second: John Beals (1685-1745) and Sarah Bowater (1689-1765) were his 4^th great-grandparents. They were my 7^th great-grandparents, so we are 5^th cousins 3 times removed.

Therefore I can say that I am related to an opera singer.

A Favorite Photo – Rebecca (O’Neal) Monroe

As I mentioned last week, (9 Jan 2022) generally I do not have favorites. But I do find photos that I especially like and this is one of them. I posted this photo once before as a part of a group of three when I wrote a post 17 Nov 2017 entitled: Fotos of Some of Sarah Lollar’s Children. Now I want to tell you more about the person in the photo.

This photo of Rebecca (O'Neal) Monroe was handed down to me from the belongings of my grandmother, Florence (Bond) Falk. Rebecca was my grandmother's mother's aunt. This photo was one of those printed on a postcard and the card was sent to my great-grandparents, probably in an envelope since it has no stamp. But a message was written on the post card side. It was addressed “To John and Molly Bond From Aunt Becca.” This was first time I learned that my great-grandmother Mary Ann was called Molly.

The message section said: “We are all well and hope your the same. I wish you was here to have thanksgiving dinner with me. Write soon. Becca Monroe 286 11st Portland, Org.” Using the book, Real Photo Postcards Kwik Guide, I discovered that the post card stock used was from 1908 to 1924. Since Rebecca gave her address, I decided to try to find out when she lived there. I did find her on the 1910 census, living with a married daughter, at that address. Then I wondered about how long she had lived there. The next logical step was to look at city directories, since Portland was the largest city in Oregon and Ancestry.com had many directories in their database from Portland. A search for Rebecca Monroe showed me that she was listed in 6 different years from 1906 to 1920. I was surprised to find that she was at a different address in each one of those. However,in the 1911 city directory, her address shown was 286 11^th. Possibly the information was gathered near the same time that the 1910 census had been taken. So this dates this postcard to about 1910.

But what other information have I found about Rebecca She was born 9 Jun 1845 in Bartholomew County, Indiana, the youngest child of Thomas and Sarah (Lollar) O'Neal. She would have been a small child when her father died in 1847. The 1850 census gives the family location as Sand Creek Township in Bartholomew County. Rebecca was still young when her mother died in 1854. Some of the family had moved west to Davis County, Iowa, and by 1860, as a teenager, she was in the household of her brother Commodore Perry O'Neal and his wife and daughter. When Perry and family went to California with his wife's family in 1865, Rebecca traveled with them. But this signaled a big change in Rebecca's life. On the journey west, in Salt Lake City, Rebecca married Alexander Monroe. They apparently stopped in Nevada for awhile, since their oldest daughter, Alice, was later listed as born in Nevada. But by the 1870 census the family; now with 3 children: Alice Augusta, Perry and Mary; was located in Coyote Valley, Lake County, California.

It was probably the next year when Rebecca's family moved north to Oregon. They were near where Rebecca's brother, Commodore Perry O'Neal, had settled in 1870 in the Coast Fork Precinct of Lane County, Oregon. Rebecca and Alexander and their 8 children were enumerated on the 1880 census in Coast Fork Precinct. The younger 5 had been born in Oregon: Rachel, Sarah, James, Charles and William. Then 4 more children were born: Mattie, George, Marie and Lottie. Alexander bought 8 acres of government land in 1895 in the nearby Cloverdale area. But it was just a little over 3 years later, 29 Sep 1898, when Alexander died. He was buried in the Pleasant Hill Cemetery.

So, on the 1900 census Rebecca was enumerated with her oldest daughter's family in the Creswell Precinct of Lane County. Alice had married John Cruzan in Dec 1883 and they had 4 children by 1900. I found it interesting that Rebecca’s 2 youngest children, Marie and Lottie were very close in age to her Cruzan grandchildren.

It was in 1905 that a tragic incident happened for the Monroe family. One of Rebecca’s married daughters, Rachel (Monroe) Stoops, was murdered. This could never be a pleasant memory for Rebecca. I did write about the tragedy on my blog on 10 Oct 2017.

By the 1910 census Rebecca had moved to Portland to be with another daughter, Lottie, listed as Bernie Pinard. As I noted earlier, they lived at 286 11^th. Rebecca’s son-in-law, John Pinard, worked as a bartender in a saloon. Rebecca was living with yet another daughter, Marie Adams, at the time of the 1920 census. Marie was working as a housekeeper at a hotel.

At age 79, Rebecca died on 10 Oct 1924 in Portland, Oregon and was buried at Rose City Cemetery there. Her obituary stated 10 of her children were still living, 6 daughters and 4 sons. I am glad that now some of her descendants are among my DNA matches.