Terri Napoli - From the Loess Hills of Iowa with the Descendents of Dennis Conyers

From the Loess Hills of Iowa

And

The Descendants of Dennis Conyers

From the Loess Hills of Iowa:

The memoirs of

Iva Conyers Hansen (1899-1988)

As retold by

Arden Iva Sleadd

With

The Descendants of

Dennis Conyers

As compiled by

Terri Napoli

TRAFFORD on-demand publishing service

Suite 6E, 2333 Government St., Victoria, BC, Canada V8T 4P4

Copyright 2002 Terri Napoli and Arden Iva Sleadd. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,

or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission

of the author.

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Napoli, Terri

From the Loess Hills of Iowa with the descendants of Dennis Conyers

/ Terri Napoli and Arden Iva Sleadd.

ISBN 1-55369-649-2

ISBN: 978-1-4122-4842-6 (ebk)

1. Conyers, Iva Agnes. 2. Conyers family. 3. Farm lifeIowa

History19th century. I. Sleadd, Arden Iva II. Title.

F62 7.L7 6N3 6 2002 977.702092 C2002-902731-4

This book was published on-demand in cooperation with Trafford Publishing.

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Suite 6E, 2333 Government St., Victoria, B.C. V8T 4P4, CANADA

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

CONTENTS

This book has been a long time coming. Since the time I wrote the introduction in 1977, many changes have taken place. Iva and Julius are both gone now, perhaps watching approvingly from above. I have obtained degrees, taught public school, married and birthed five children, ages four to fourteen. Moves and changes are part of life, but one recent move to Oregon started me once again on the trail of our familys history. I unwittingly moved within close proximity of my grandmothers long lost relatives, who were pioneer immigrants from Iowa, and made new contact with relations that she had only dreamed of meeting. The search has only begun; new relations are cropping up daily through Internet contact, and more light is being shed on my grandmothers story, which constitutes Part I of this book. The Conyers and Hanscom family trees are coming together at a rapid pace, with new mysteries solved with each passing day. I would be remiss not to mention the fact that a nine-year chronic illness has created in me a sense of urgency to get this life dream accomplished before its too late. My grandmother was grieved that she did not finish the work she began in her lifetime, and for her sake I dont want to repeat history.

Due to space constraints, we have chosen to confine the subject of Part II to the Conyers descendants and spouses, and have included only those Hanscoms who were Ivas contemporaries in Part I. A complete Hanscom tree will have to await the work of others. Indeed, the work is being done already, and may reach publication before I do.

This has truly been a family effort. My thanks go to Heather Morris who typed the original manuscript for my college paper. Her work has saved me many hours labor by scanning her pages in for revision.

Ivas four surviving children, Curtis E. Hansen, Hiram Kent Hansen, Cleo Hansen and my mother, Yoyla Marie Steves, have been invaluable helpful in recalling their Iowa upbringings. Yoylas and Uncle His memoirs are included here; thanks, both of you. Curtis and Mom, in particular, have endured many pepperings of questions. Curtis and his wife Shirley, and Yoyla made a special fact-finding trip, driving from the Pacific Northwest to Idaho and Iowa for the purpose of researching for this book. I owe them many thanks for their expense of time and resources for my sake. They were in turn aided by Kelly Kast and her 93-year old stepfather, Henry Howard, of Bliss, Idaho; Diane Houser of the Gooding, Idaho City Courthouse; Linda Dickman, of the Harrison County Historical Society, Woodbine, Iowa; Frederick Bill Knudsen and his wife Sarah of Moorhead, Iowa; Mary Conyers Anderson, 92 years old and still very spry, who provided a D.A.R. ancestral chart done years ago by Cecil McManis; Clive and Betty Lloyd, Hagerman Cemetery records keepers; and historical Sharon Cheney of Hagerman. I am indebted to all of you; thank you.

To Lorna Perrin Wessell, historian, who helped fill in many details on Ivas teaching years, and provided the sad story of the Johnson family, I am very grateful.

To my father, Harold Carleton Steves, who was bitten by the genealogy bug long before I was; I owe him my thanks for his seminal and extensive work on our family tree, and for his Christmas gift to me of Family Tree maker 8.0!

To Ruby Hanscom, my neighbor, new friend, and wife of my third cousin Charlie (one of those long lost relatives I found) who has shared the excitement of finding lost clues and has always been ready to receive my phone calls with squeals of delight over each new-found bit of information. I credit Ruby with doing the detective work necessary to discover the whereabouts of Hannah Hanscom Lonigan, buried in Jacksonville, Oregon Cemetery, just down the road from us. Her genealogy research on the Hanscoms has been very helpful. Thanks Ruby.

To Robert Hanscom, who has confirmed my mothers memory of the Hanscom names with his research, and filled in the details; I hope your Hanscom book goes to press soon as well!

And to all of you who graciously responded to our call for submissions to be included in this book, we thank you.

I owe a debt of gratitude to many on the Internet who have helped me along as a newbie genealogist. My thanks especially to distant-cousin Charles Miller and his genealogy website; to distant-cousin Larry Vredenburgh and his genealogy website; to distant-cousin Patrice Hartman who pointed me to Terrisweb page and started this bookmaking partnership, and for other valuable sources; to Patricia Daugherty for her help providing Monona County histories; to the folks on the Iowa Gen Web email list for their tips and encouragement; and most of all to Terri Furgiuele, whose painstaking research, as well as her graphic artist/business background, has made this whole project far more feasible than I could have made it on my own.

To my wonderful husband, John Buckley Sleadd, and my five stars Naomi, Nathan, Aaron, Alexa, and Caleb; you have put up with my many hours at the computer to finish this dream. It is my gift to you as well; a piece of who I am and where I come from, in hopes that through our sharing it with one another we will be drawn closer.

Finally, to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, from whom I draw my every breath; to Him alone be theglory.

Soli Deo Gloria

Arden Sleadd

2001

Her name is Iva Conyers Hansen. She is my grandmother. Even as I write this, she sits here in the same room, beside her husband, Julius, on the sofa in their small home. The old mantle clock with the blonde marble-like finish continues to tick after sixty-two years if servicea wedding present to Iva and Julius when they married in February 1915. Their home is a permanent part of my childhood memoriesthe beautiful garden with roses, geraniums, and fuchsias which Julius (renamed Pop by the grandchildren) has nurtured and cared for; the squeaky bedsprings I slept on in the guestroom; the handmade swing in the basement that I spend hours on, swinging through the air in any and all weather; the carpenters bench on which Pop made yearly Christmas presents for all hit children and grandchildrenbut most of all, the old mantle clock and the sound of its chimes on the hour and half-hour.