Family History Notes and Photos by Bob Mesenbrink

William Combs was my 3g grandfather. He has many descendants and the Combs name isn't uncommon. But his origins have always been a question for me and others. He was born in Pennsylvania ca.1789, married Barbara Baum in Ross county Ohio ca. 1808, lived in Crawford county, Ohio, Buchanan county, Missouri and Madison county, Iowa, where he died in 1872. It is  common for people to trace him back to Job Combs of Shenandoah county, Virginia and Jefferson county, Tennessee. But I don't know what evidence there is for that. It seems reasonable. William claimed to have been born in Pennsylvania, not Virginia. But Shenandoah county was only 50 miles or so south of Pennsylvania, across the Maryland panhandle. Families were somewhat mobile. It is possible that Job Combs lived in Pennsylvania for a time, when William would have been born. But I haven't found evidence of Job Combs being in Pennsylvania. It is also possible that William was wrong about his birthplace. We really aren...

Cyrus Van Gundy, or Vangunda as he would later be called, was my great great grandfather. Born in Ohio, he grew up in Iowa, and homesteaded in Kansas and Colorado. The lure of cheap land and the new possibilities of the frontier, led his father, John Van Gundy, to take his family from rural Sycamore, Ohio to Jasper county, Iowa, near Prairie City. And Cyrus, likewise, was moved to leave that area for northwestern Kansas, and then again for eastern Colorado, and yet again for northwestern Colorado. So when he came home for a visit to Prairie City Iowa in 1915, it was fitting that he described himself as "An Old Man Looking Toward the West" to the Prairie City newspaper. Cyrus was born February 3rd, 1835 in Crawford county, Ohio, in the part that would later become Wyandot county. His father was John, and his mother was Susannah Combs, daughter of William and Barbara Baum Combs. The Van Gundys moved with William Combs and his family to Andrew county Missouri where they lived ...

1931 Class Photo - Palo Alto County, Iowa - Highland Township, Section 1 Back Row - L to R: Arnold Maiden, Kathryn Brown, Allen Maiden, Maytha Smith, Ruth Iverson, Bob Brown. Middle Row - L to R: Edith Iverson, Lela Larsen (Jones), Betty Morck. Front Row - L to R: Esther Iverson, Dick Brown, Elliott Larsen, Rose Brown, Leo Wikert, Roland Wikert. Mary Doyle taught this class. The school was located on the southwest corner of section 1, Highland Township, about 4 miles east and 1 mile north of Ruthven, Iowa. You can see the Browns and Iversons on this 1929 plat map. Larsens purchased the Sullivan farm.

William Turner was my 2g grandfather. His life was divided about equally between Scotland, Iowa, and Washington, with a brief time in England. He was born 13 July 1828 in Burnt Island, Fifeshire, Scotland, which is on the east side of Scotland, across the Firth of Forth from Edinburgh, son of Robert Turner and Isabella Cowan. His Turner ancestors had been minor landowners at Balgrochan, north of Glasgow. By the time William came along, the family fortunes seem to have gone. In 1851, the census showed that his father was a quarryman. In 1855, William married Margaret Bell, in Glasgow. Their first son, Robert, was born 16 October 1856 in Govan, Lanark, Scotland, on the outskirts of Glasgow. The second son, William, was born 8 March 1859 in Strathblane, Stirling, Scotland, not far from the home of his ancestors. The Turners soon moved to Sunderland, England, where William could pursue his boilermaker trade. Sunderland was known for shipbuilding and boilermakers were in great de...

Growing up in Iowa, I was surprised to learn that I had g.g. grandparents who had lived in Colorado. So after moving to Colorado myself, I wanted to find out more about their lives in Colorado. Cyrus and Hannah (Dippery) Vangunda homesteaded near Ramah, Colorado in 1906. I found the paperwork, located the land, and I went to see what was there. Even when you can identify a plot of land on a map, it isn't always easy to find it from the road. And this was rural eastern Colorado which doesn't have many people. No doubt the homesteaders filled up the land well in that day, but this wasn't prime farm land and families couldn't make it on 160 acre farms. People moved away, as did Cyrus Vangunda. I wasn't even sure the roads were still passable. But they were. By carefully watching the map and monitoring the car's odometer I came to the place I thought would have belonged to Cyrus Vangunda, and the land further back, to his daughter and son-in-law, Nancy and Norma...

Einer was my stepfather, really more than that. He had a huge impact on my life. From left to right: Hans, Ingvert, Einer, Henry, Paul - taken about 1936. Einer, taken around 1940.Here are the five brothers, Back: Hans, Henry, Einer; Front: Ingvert, Paul; taken about 1946. Confirmation Class: Taken around 1945. Einer 2nd row, farthest right. Virginia Bisgard to his left. Einer, Graettinger High School Class of 1949. Einer with his parents, Otto and Bothilde Appel, taken around 1955. Appels at dinner table:Henry, Paul, Einer, Ingvert, Hans, Gwenna, Bothilda, and Otto - around 1950. Einer with niece, Kathy Appel, 1958. Einer married my mother, Dorothy Mesenbrink, in 1970. Einer had been a bachelor for quite some time. Here we are, a new family. Milking cows was an important part of farm life. When we got the pipeline in we didn't have to haul the milk to the cooler, and we could sell Grade A milk. This w...

On November 26, 1857, Robert Squibb left his home south of Elvira, Iowa to go get married. He had been into Clinton the week before with his bride-to-be, Salucia Sophronia Clark, to get the license, and now he had the necessary paperwork. The crops were generally harvested by then, so he had some time off. November 26th was a Thursday, the fourth one of November in fact, but Thanksgiving hadn't yet been established as a national holiday. Robert Squibb just had to take his bride to the Justice-of-the-Peace for the ceremony. The JP was William W. Beatty, who lived just a few miles north. This 1865 map of a portion of Clinton county, Iowa shows where Robert's father's farm was, in the lower left, and the Justice-of-the-Peace in the upper right, just four or five miles away. You will also see, not far from the Squibbs, an A. Clark. Could it be that Salucia lived on the road to the JP? Is it possible that A. Clark was father or, at least, a relative of Salucia Cl...