Country Ramblings

I went for a Sunday drive today with brother Gary and Donnie Wilson, a second cousin.  We drove all around Pleasant Township, Union County, Iowa.  My ancestors were some of the earlier homesteaders to move into this part of Iowa.  So as not to lose all the oral hand-me-down family history, I think a project this winter will be to write down a little about different family lines.  This will include your dad's side too as I have done a lot of learning and recording of the Hofmeisters and related family lines.  Someday, if someone develops a a thirst for family history, these small bits and pieces will give you a place to start.


Today's drive was to rediscover homes and farms of the Union County Wilson line.  I had been by these houses and down these roads as a child and young adult but I never paid enough attention.  Now, wanting to document the homes and farms, I needed help from family members.


James Blackburn Wilson was born in 1811 in North Carolina.  He married in 1832.   After a financial set back and loss of his farm about 1847, George, his wife and two oldest children walked the 400 miles aross the mountains to Randolph Co, Indiana where George had a sister living.   The Blackburns were of the Quaker, or Friend, religion and George's sister was in a Quaker community.  During the westward jouney, George's 3-year old daughter rode on a horse and later a wagon.  In Indiana for 9 years, the family worked and saved and planned and in 1856 they left for Iowa with two wagons, one pulled by 4 oxen and one pulled by a team of horses. 

The James B Wilson family first settled and lived in a log home in Iowa in what would become Pleasant Township, Union County, Ia.  They put a house on the south side of what is now called 255th Street, Section 22 Sandcreek Township.


James later built a house of lumber that was sawn from his timber on his home place.  He broke the prairie sod with a 14-inch walking plow and harrowed it with a thorn bush tree.  He hunted squirrels with a muzzle loading rifle and if he could get a squirrel between himself and the tree, he would shoot the squirrel and then dig lead shot fom the tree to melt down, remold and use for the next squirrel. 

James Blackburn Wilson

5 Nov 1811 - 7 Jan 1893

Martha, his wife, had sheep that she sheared and the wool made into yarn.  She had a loom that she wove cloth on,  She raised geese for the feathers for beds and pillows.  She could not read or write but was midwife and nurse for any neighbor who was sick or delivering a babe.  She planted apple trees and flowers and vegetables, saving the seeds from year to year and for herself and the neighbors.  When they first made their home in Union County, the closest store or town of any size was Burlington, Iowa.  Later, the railroad came bringing more homesteaders and towns were platted.  Iowa grew up around these pioneers.


James and Martha Wilson died in the 1890s and are buried in Oak Hill Cemetery, Sand Creek Township, Union Co, Iowa.


Descendents are:  son, George Washington Wilson who married (1st) Elizabeth Wright and had seven children.  After Elizabeth's untimely death, George married (2nd), Mary Ella Willis and had seven more children.


Mary Ella Willis married George Washington Wilson on 14 Nov 1881.  He (George) had a family of seven children.  From the Wilson history:  "One girl was married and the others were still at home with their father.  She (Mary) helped them until they finished school and married.  She welcomed them when they visited the home with their families.  She remembered the birthdays of all their children, and visited them in their homes."  Mary must have been a good stepmother for this to be handed down all this time.


From  the "James B Wilson Family History, 1763 to 1964" written by Lyman Wilson (my great uncle), "George (Washington Wilson) voted for Abraham Lincoln when Republican party was first started.  Later he was interested in new Populist party and in the Democrat party.  He served as school director and treasurer and was township trustee for several years . . .

George and Mary Willis Wilson, front left

Mary in white full apron and George, with Gramps' beard and stance.



George enjoyed visiting and made many trips on trains to other states to visit relatives.  He went to World Fairs in St. Louis and Portland, Oregon."


So that's where Gramps got his wanderlust!


George's daughter Martha Jane (Mattie) Wilson married Robert Briggs Austin.  Robert's family had been hired to dig tile ditches to drain the wet farm bottoms for the Wilsons.  George and Mary Wilson were not impressed with their daughter's decision to marry the son of a ditch digger.  "We would have been better to leave the farm wet", mother Mary supposedly said,  I learned to today on our pilgramage.


BUT!  if George Wilson hadn't hired the Austins, Mattie wouldn't have met her Bob, married, and had eight children including Forrest, my dad -- and that would have been the end of this story!  So I'm glad Mattie met her Rob and had her nomad life.  My Gramma Austin was always cheerful and kind and quick to laugh and play jokes -- somehow, I don't think she was regretful about her life.  I know for certain she wasn't sad nor bitter.  Here are my grandparents about the time I was born. 

Grampa, Robert Briggs Austin

and my cheerful Gramma,

Mattie Jane Wilson Austin

The Wilson line goes back 4 or 5 more generations beyond James Blackburn Wilson, right back to Ireland.  The Wilson line leads us back to the Blackburns.  There is a huge active Blackburn Family Association of which I am a member and the Blackburn line also begins in Ireland.  So there, that explains partly my long-time interest in Ireland, traveling and all things family.


The Austin line.  Ha!  Now that is a story for another day. 


                                                     Thanks for listening . . . love, Ma