Family History Notes and Photos by Bob Mesenbrink

My great grandfather was Jonathan Stephenson - my mother's paternal grandfather, although she would never have the chance to know him. He died a few months before she was born, at the same home in fact while visiting in Castana, Iowa in 1919. He was born in Cayton, England, a village just south of Scarborough, Yorkshire, in 1847. His father, George, was a grocer, dairyman, and small farmer. His family had been in the Cayton area for centuries. Jonathan's mother was Mary Bielby from Bridlington, a larger town farther down the coast to the south. Jonathan and his older brother, Robert, weren't listed with their parents, sister, Jane, and younger brother, Henry, in the 1861 census. Robert had died a few years earlier, and since Jonathan was almost 14, he probably had to go to work. Yet another brother, John Robert, was born in 1862.A couple years later, Jonathan's mother died and his father remarried, to Ann Harrison in 1866  and started another family. Jonathan would ...

This is a tribute to my grandfather, who I never knew, Benjamin Henry Mesenbrink. Through the wonders of the internet, and a few family photos that I've collected over the years, I feel like I have gotten to know him a bit. He lived his entire life in and around Denison, Iowa. He was born near Charter Oak in 1888 and grew up on the farm in Goodrich Township, just to the north or northwest of Denison, perhaps between Charter Oak and Deloit. He must have been a good student. He won an award for writing. Later, his family would move to a large house near Dunlap. It was here that he likely became acquainted with the Brady family, in particular his future wife, Mildred. His brother, Charlie, married Mildred's sister, Winnie Hazel as well. I think this is around 1913 or 1914, with Mildred Brady, Ben Mesenbrink, and possibly Hazel Brady Ben and Mildred married in 1914. According to an article in the Denison Review, they took a fairly long wedding trip, and returned hom...

Wow. Did I just write that title? When Dad was a Hobo? My Dad, Russell Mesenbrink, was anything but a hobo. When I think of a hobo, I think of a bum, somebody traveling around, living off the handouts of others, but that certainly wasn't Dad. He worked his whole life. He did everything he could to make a living, even in the Great Depression. According to  Wikipedia , the term hobo originated in the late 1800s. A hobo is a migratory worker and is different from a tramp or a bum. A tramp is a migratory non -worker, and a bum neither travels nor works. One thought on the origin of the word is that it derives from "hoe boy" or farm worker. So when I think about that, it pretty well describes my Dad in the mid to late 1930s. He traveled west from Iowa, partially to see relatives who lived in Idaho and Montana, but also to work. He did this two or three times at least. But most significantly, he hopped trains to get there. A lot of people did it during the depression years,...

Augusta Nipkow was my great grandmother, although she died long before I was born, and I never knew her. She was an immigrant from Germany, coming over as a child with her parents. She was born in Pomerania, which was a German speaking region, a part of Prussia at the time. The Potsdam agreement at the end of World War II gave Pomerania to Poland and expelled the Germans living there. So, if you look at a map of the area now, you will see Polish, not German, city names. Augusta was born in Butow, and it was a little tricky to find this place as there were a couple other larger Butows that don't really make sense to be her birthplace. I haven't found a birth record for her, but her family was in the area around Stargard, and there is a Butow about 25 miles east of there which I believe to be her birthplace. See  Finding the Nipkows . Her obituary states she was born February 2, 1865. Here is an 1872 passenger list showing her with her family. The top of the right side shows ...

My dad, Russell Mesenbrink, served on the battleship West Virginia (BB-42) during World War 2. I never heard a lot about the time he spent in the war, a bit relayed to me by my mom, but nearly nothing from him. He was a cook. Dad kept some memorabilia from his time in the service. I remember seeing the Japanese occupation money he saved from the war, and being in awe of it as a child. But nothing was more mysterious than the pictures of some of his shipmates, mostly without names, in the family albums. I always wondered who these men were, where they were from and what happened to them. John Henry Robertson John Henry Robertson - This is one of few that was identified. He was born in Litchfield, Illinois in 1923, died in 1995 and is buried in the National Cemetery in St. Louis. He grew up in East  St. Louis. I haven't found any more information on him. Silvio Rende Silvio Rende was easy to pick out from the book "USS West Virgina Crosses th...

I noticed a pattern of some of my ancestors dying at their children's homes. It seemed strange to me at first, and I wondered how common this was in my family. I found more cases like this and the thought of some bizarre family curse briefly passed through my mind. It still seems odd to me, but it is understandable. It was normal for a parent to move in with a child when they couldn't care for themselves. Nursing homes just weren't used the way they are today. And visits to children's homes sometimes involved a long trip. Travel was more difficult then than now, perhaps leaving them in a weakened condition. There are probably many reasons for the timing that caused ancestors to die at their children's house's. My great grandfather, Jonathan Stephenson, who lived near Arion, Iowa, died of a stroke in 1919 while visiting his son, my grandfather, Fred Stephenson, who lived about 30 miles away near Castana. My great great grandmother, Salucia Squibb, died in 191...

My mother showed me these papers when I was in high school. I was absolutely amazed by this genealogy, written by my great grandmother, probably in the early 1950s, showing her ancestors and descendants. It took a while to get to that point though, as you might imagine, especially once you see the papers. But eventually I was able to get it sorted and make sense of it all. In fact, I don't think I've found a single significant mistake in her papers. the information in there formed the basis of my research on that line. It is truly a family treasure. It was the main reason for my interest in genealogy. My mother also told me that she hand-wrote copies of these for each of her numerous grandchildren, my father being one of those. But I'm not sure that really happened. I've yet to run across another copy, but no doubt that was her intention. Whether or not she was able to make all those copies, I want to publish her work here for the benefit of her descendants, as she in...