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"Ranch" of Jeff George: Eva with dau. Selma and son Oral
"Ranch" of Jeff George near Niangua and Marshfield, MO. Son, Oral George is at left; Jeff is seated; daughter, Selma; wife, Eva Langdon George at far right. No date given. -
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April 1919, Wallace C. Bohannon at age 11. -
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November 1895, Nerva Duff, "teacher." When Frank graduated in June of 1894 and planned to study law in Washington, D. C., Nerva decided she did not want to return to the University of Kansas. (Apparently, she never graduated.) Because she was engaged, she would, in her own words, "have no dates." So she decided to teach school in Horton. She said, "Teaching was a wonderful experience. I loved it." She taught 5th through 8th grade. The students' parents even petitioned her to stay. -
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Map showing the rich bottomland of the Platte Territory that drew the Duffs to the area. You can see how settlement just followed the river. -
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Bean Lake, MO. The second location was Bean Lake, a horseshoe of the Missouri River that flooded often enough that families were relocated in the late 20th century. We walked along just to get a sense of the place. -
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Iatan, MO. November of 2004, Jerry and I visited Chris and Brian in Kansas City. We had decided to try to find some of the towns mentioned by Nerva Duff Moore in her family history. They were all just a few hours outside of KC. I wrote up a synopsis of Nerva's text organized by town and Jerry laid out a course on his GPS. The following descriptions are taken from my text. The first town was Iatan, a little town sandwiched behind the river on the west, followed by the rail road, with the town on the east. The rich bottomland stretched from the highway to the river. -
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Iatan was established in 1842 and appears to have not been built in or updated since the early part of the 20th century. It was generally in poor condition, but with darling homes and buildings tucked in and around the rolling hills and winding streams on their way to the river. -
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Iatan, MO. The town was built on a small grid, perhaps 2 or 3 streets square. This road ran north and south. -
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Iatan, MO. We liked these nifty street signs. -
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Another view of the River House. It was really disappointing to learn that it was not a log hotel. The guy at the museum really had our hopes up. -
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Atchison, KS. This, our third destination, was also the largest of all. It took us over the Missouri River to Kansas. There we found a bustling, charming old town with shops, restaurants and a musem. We had lunch and learned that this might be a good place to return and do research. -
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River House on the right and the nice development of the river front in the foreground. It was a great view of a natural river front. -
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River front as it passes in front of the River House. Boh is walking on the sidewalk. -
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Boh and Jerry on the river walk. -
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Atchison, KS library. The woman at the museum said the librarian was very knowledgeable. In 2005 we were able to find ads and listings for John Reisner's hotel, as well as some of his relatives' businesses, in city directories. We were also able to find some atlases of Atchison.