Our Parker Family History
Table of Contents
About This Book
About This Book ................................................................................................... 6
Why? ......................................................................................................... 6
Who? ......................................................................................................... 6
Thanks to Cousins, Friends and Family ........................................................... 7
Loretta Pauline Leroy Parker .................................................................. 7
The Parker History Team......................................................................... 7
Grandmother Bess Carney Parker ................................................................. 8
An American Story ................................................................................... 10
Other Resources For You: ....................................................................... 10
Ancestry.com. .............................................................................................. 10
Family Tree Maker ....................................................................................... 10
My Computer Files. ...................................................................................... 10
Great Helpers............................................................................................... 10
Beginning with Our Parkers. .................................................................... 11
Three Parts. ............................................................................................. 11
About Ireland. .......................................................................................... 11
Keep Our History Growing! ...................................................................... 11
The Parker Family in Ireland............................................................................... 12
Why So Difficult? ..................................................................................... 15
The Scarcity of Vital Records ....................................................................... 16
Comparing Ireland with Iowa, 1860. ............................................................. 16
2
The Family in Ulster; County Down ......................................................... 16
Ballinteggart, Newry, County Down ............................................................. 18
Leaving Home .......................................................................................... 19
Arrival in America ..................................................................................... 23
Our Parkers Arrive in America ................................................................. 23
Landing at New York .................................................................................... 23
West Again .............................................................................................. 23
Farming in Scott County; Making Friends ........................................................... 24
Settling in Cleona Township, Scott County, Iowa .................................... 24
The Farm ................................................................................................. 25
The Times ................................................................................................ 26
Church ..................................................................................................... 27
School ...................................................................................................... 28
Neighbors, Friends and Relationships; Ross, Paul, Lavender ................. 28
Robert and Susanna Buried at Durant ..................................................... 28
Life Without Father .................................................................................. 29
West Again; New Homes .................................................................................... 30
The Farm is Sold ..................................................................................... 30
Moving Near Gilman ................................................................................ 30
Why Here? ............................................................................................... 30
New Generations, New Connections ....................................................... 30
Parkers Near Gilman ................................................................................... 30
The Telephone Men ........................................................................................... 31
Iowa and the Parkers and the Telephone ................................................ 31
Beginnings ................................................................................................... 31
3
Robert Lavender Parker, Telephone Pioneer .......................................... 33
I Remember ................................................................................................. 33
Grandfather died .......................................................................................... 33
Growing at Gilman and Grinnell ................................................................... 34
The Family of Bess Carney .......................................................................... 36
Starting On and Down the Wires .................................................................. 36
The Traer Years ........................................................................................... 37
Moving and Building ..................................................................................... 38
To Illinois, Bloomington and Geneseo ......................................................... 38
In Geneseo .................................................................................................. 38
His Family .................................................................................................... 38
Back to Gilman ............................................................................................. 38
Robert Donald Parker, Telephone Man ................................................... 38
His Youth ..................................................................................................... 38
With Esther Pauline Swanson ...................................................................... 38
Independent Telephony ............................................................................... 38
With Mother Bell ........................................................................................... 39
Remembering Dad ....................................................................................... 39
My Side .............................................................................................................. 39
Robert Marion Parker Family ................................................................... 39
With Mom and Dad ...................................................................................... 39
My Best Decision, Loretta ............................................................................ 41
After Bradley ................................................................................................ 41
My Children, My Pride .................................................................................. 41
The Places We Lived ................................................................................... 41
4
Back to Story City ........................................................................................ 41
Diane Margaret Parker Little Family ........................................................ 41
Diane, My Sister ........................................................................................... 41
Roger H. Little .............................................................................................. 41
Their Children .............................................................................................. 41
Etc. ............................................................................................................... 41
The Family in 2012 .................................................................................. 41
Our Parkers: Histories of the 16 Who Came....................................................... 41
Introductions ............................................................................................ 41
Father Robert ............................................................................................... 42
Mother Susanna ........................................................................................... 43
Son James ................................................................................................... 44
Isaac ............................................................................................................ 44
Mary Ann...................................................................................................... 44
Robert .......................................................................................................... 45
Ester............................................................................................................. 45
Susanna ....................................................................................................... 45
David ............................................................................................................ 46
Jeane (Eliza) ................................................................................................ 46
Matilda ......................................................................................................... 46
Agnes, 1st ..................................................................................................... 46
Ellen ............................................................................................................. 46
Isabelle......................................................................................................... 46
William ......................................................................................................... 46
Richard......................................................................................................... 46
5
Samuel ......................................................................................................... 49
Agnes, 2nd .................................................................................................... 49
Unanswered Questions............................................................................ 49
Sources and Resources ..................................................................................... 50
Grandmother Bess's Notes, a Family Treasure ....................................... 50
Questions Remain ................................................................................... 50
Notes from The Team .............................................................................. 50
Stories...................................................................................................... 51
Web Sites ................................................................................................ 51
Photographs, Maps, Sketches ................................................................. 51
Sources.................................................................................................... 51
Notes .................................................................................................................. 53
6
About This Book
Why? I’m writing this because I am very proud of my family’s history, and I want
to pass on all that I know about it to my children and grandchildren. Knowing our family
history helps us to answer some questions that seem to be born in us. These questions
seem to come to mind throughout our lives, as we try to understand who we are, why
God gave us life and what should we do about our problems.

Where did I come from?

How did I get here?

Who were my ancestors?

What kind of people were they?

How am I like or different from them?

How does my own history suggest I should act now?
I have been very interested in the history of my family, my country and our
human race since I was a little boy. I have been given hundreds of photographs,
stories, memoirs and personal items from our ancestors. I hope this work will help you
– my family – know yourselves and understand your heritage. I intend this book to be
your guide to all of the information I have assembled about our ancestors. I want my
heirs to be able to find in one place everything we’ve collected about our many
ancestors and relatives. We should respect and be proud of them. They were all
Christians and American Pioneers.
Who? Like most Americans, ours is a family of immigrants. Our Parkers –
fourteen of them - came to Iowa from County Down in Northern Ireland in 1861. Here
they met other families, some of whom had preceded them to Iowa. The earliest we
have found to be Thomas Brown. He came from England in 1635, and settled in
Newbury, Massachusetts. His descendants came across Iowa by stagecoach in 1853.
Bartholomew Carney (whose name may have been Cronin in County Cork) came
over from Ireland in 1836, and began building railroads in Masssachusetts. He brought
his family in a covered wagon to Poweshiek County in 1851. His son, John, became
Grandmother Bess’s father at Gilman.
7
In this book, our family includes all of the people living now who are related to
me, Robert Marion Parker, plus all of our ancestors. My ancestors begin with my father
and mother. I have many resources on the other branches; on Dad’s side there were
Browne, Carney, Lavender, Paul, and Ross people. Mom’s side includes the Swanson
and Bartlett people. And there are Loretta’s family, the Leroys. The earliest we find in
America was Simeon Leroy, a master carpenter who was born in France and died in
Kingston, New York, in 1711.
Your ancestors begin with your father and mother. The ancestors of your son or
daughter begin with you. I might have a family tree with 700 people in it, but my
grandson or granddaughter will have a much bigger family tree because of the people
added by my wife’s family and the families of my daughters and sons. And so the trees
get bigger and bigger as the generations of our family succeed us.
I have been using two family tree programs for some years; Ancestry.com and
Family Tree Maker. Both are known as “Parker Family Tree 1,”and are publicly
available. You should be able to access them.
Thanks to Cousins, Friends and Family
Loretta Pauline Leroy Parker
My principal enabler for the last 55 years has been my wife, Loretta. Not only
has she given me our five very good children, but she has understand and supported
my engagement with our family’s history. God Bless You, Loretta.
The Parker History Team
A few years ago, in November of 2007, two distant cousins and I got together to
research the backgrounds of our Parker ancestors. John Parker1, farmer at Gilman,
Iowa and Richard Frances Ross2, who has homes at Ames, Iowa and South Pasadena,
California are distant cousins of mine.
John David Parker owns and farms land that has been in his (our) family more
than one hundred years. John is a graduate of Simpson College. His great grandfather
was Richard Parker, one of those who came in 1862. He is our link with the many
8
Parkers who stayed near Gilman. John is also acquainted with several other Irish
emigrant families who were neighbors and friends and even married with our ancestors
in Scott, Marshall, Jasper and Poweshiek counties in Iowa.
Dr. Richard Frances Ross retired from Iowa State University, where he taught and
studied veterinary medicine and was Dean of both the College of Veterinary Medicine
and the College of Agriculture. He was raised on a farm near Westchester, Iowa. His
great grandmother was Mary Ann Parker Ross, a child of Robert and Susanna Parker.
The Ross family were neighbors of our Parkers in Cleona Township.
Colin Rodgers joined us about two years ago. Colin is an anesthesiologist who
lives in Carlisle, England very near the border with Scotland. He is related to us through
families that were known to our ancestors in Ireland and in the early days in Iowa. Colin
still has close ties with his people in County Down. He’s made trips to Ireland and
discovered many old records of importance to us.
I want to thank Richard and John and Colin for their cooperation. I am proud to
know them. I wish I had found them many years ago. The four of us are still working to
uncover the exact location and circumstances of the Parkers in County Down. From
here on in this story I shall refer to the four of us as “The Parker History Team.”
Grandmother Bess Carney Parker
Bess Carney Parker, my grandmother, was through her long life a wonderful family
historian. She was mostly responsible for my own lifelong interest in the history of our
family and our country. A great many of the facts and stories concerning her pioneering
Browne and Carney families and her husband’s Parker family were passed on to us by
Grandmother Bess. I loved her very much.
Here is a photograph of Grandmother Bess taken in 1949, when I was 14 years
old. It is the way I remember her most.
9
Grandmother Bess was a lady, personified. Born Annie Elizabeth Carney at
Gilman, Iowa on February 17, 1881, she was the
great historian of our Parker family. She studied
and wrote about the history of her mother Martha
Emma Browne’s family, who arrived by stagecoach
in Blackhawk County in 1853. She researched and
wrote about her father John McCormick Carney’s
family and their covered wagon journey from
Pennsylvania to Poweshiek County in 1854.1 She
met grandfather Robert Lavender Parker at a young
persons’ church party and married him on the last
day of December, 1901.
Their marriage produced three children;
Winifred, Muriel and my dad, Robert Donald Parker. Until her last days she wrote of
Parker history. Bess made charts and maps and notes and stories about our Parkers,
sometimes handwritten, sometimes typed and sometimes drawn by hand. She died in
1974. She passed them on to me and her granddaughter Carol Beachler. These
materials fill more than one filing cabinet drawer. You’ll see many of them quoted or
referenced in this book. Some are included in computer files, some still handwritten or
typed by grandmother Bess. There are many photographs, which I hope to index and
pass on to someone who will cherish them as I have.
I wrote a small booklet about Grandmother Bess in 1993. I won’t repeat all of it
here, but will see to it that readers can access it. May God bless Annie Elizabeth
Carney Parker!
1
See “The Carney Family Saga” as available on the Grinnell College Web site:
https://digital.grinnell.edu/islandora/object/grinnell:3590/datastream/OBJ/view.
10
An American Story
Our ancestors are an American story. This family is a story of immigrants and
entrepreneurs, who came to this country from thousands of miles away and made life
and livelihood for themselves and their families. Coming to America from England,
Ireland, Sweden and Germany, they are great examples of the builders of the United
States of America. They came, on their own initiative, looking for a better life for
themselves and their children. They kept working in spite of great hardships, relying on
themselves and believing that God had settled on them the responsibility for raising and
educating their children. In a word, they left their homes in Europe because America
offered opportunity, and they expected nothing more. They moved on across the
country until they found places where they could build. We are here because they were
strong.
Other Resources For You:
Ancestry.com. Most important is our tree on the Web, at www.ancestry.com,
called the Parker Family Tree 1. It contains many more documents, dates,
photographs, maps and charts than I’ve been able to show in this work. This link should
get you there: http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/57515944/family. You’ll see our tree, with
me at the left hand side, and my children below me and Mom.
Family Tree Maker. My computer also contains a program called Family Tree
Maker, which is allied with the Ancestry.com tree, and which permits us to produce
many charts and reports from the information therein which can be copied and printed
from it.
My Computer Files. My desktop computer has many, many files pertaining to
our history, including this work. I will try to gather them all into one folder called Parker,
in a directory called Family History, and copy them all to a CD disk.
Great Helpers. Early in 2006 I met two third cousins, John David Parker and
Richard Francis Ross, as a result of queries on Ancestry.com. Richard, born as was I in
1935, descended from Mary Ann Parker, is retired Dean of the College of Agriculture at
Iowa State University. He lives at Ames. John, who is about ten years younger and is
11
descended from Richard Parker, has the last Parker farm near Gilman, Iowa. About a
year ago we found Colin Rodgers, who is an anesthesiologist in Carlisle, England, and
is related to us through the Paul and Buick families. Colin has close ties in County
Antrim, Ireland, which is next to County Down. More recently we connected with John
Paul, who lives in California and is of the Paul family who were connected and related to
us during the early years in Scott County, Poweshiek County and Marshall County,
Iowa. A developing and very satisfactory relationship with all these men has resulted in
a huge increase in our knowledge of Parker family history3.
Beginning with Our Parkers. In this writing I am concentrating on the Parker side
of our family. But looking back just two generations; to Loretta’s and my grandparents, I
also have many resources on our other branches; Browne, Carney, Lavender,
Swanson, Karlsson, LeRoy and Block people.
And, of course, now my children have connections with families of their spouses.
I’d like to include them all later. I hope God gives me the time and energy.
As a convenience in writing, I’ll use the term Our Parkers often. By that I’m
referring to the 14 who came from Ireland together in 1861 and all of us who have
followed them. My lineage comes from William E. Parker, one of the 14. Please
remember that Isaac and Robert and David and little Agnes were also part of that family
but either died in Ireland or did not come to America.
Three Parts. There are really three parts to this story; first is the history of the
Parkers in Ireland, second is the history of Our Parkers in this country (beginning on
January 1st, 1862,) third is about the “modern” Parkers. This last part begins with my
grandfather, Robert Lavender Parker, and the generations following him up to today.
About Ireland. For most of us who grew up in a stable and generally
homogenous United States, Irish history can be challenging and confusing. That’s why
I’m starting this book with a chapter on the times and conditions in which Our Parkers
lived in Ireland. Our family might be easier to understand if we know from where, why
and how we came to America.
Keep Our History Growing! I hope that some of you who read this will share our
pride and enthusiasm for history and knowledge, and will want to keep our research
going. I’ll be very glad to help you get started.
12
The Parker Family in Ireland
We think our family name originated in England. Wikipedia says: “Parker is a
family name of English origin, derived from Old French with the meaning "keeper of the
park." Parker was also a nickname given to gamekeepers in medieval England. It is the
51st-most common surname in the United Kingdom. Within the United States, it is
ranked as the 47th-most common surname.”
We have a hand-written note from Grandmother Bess, said to be sent her by
Ellen Thompson, who was a granddaughter of Ellen Parker, and thus a greatgranddaughter of Robert and Susanna. It says that “Descendants of William Parker of
Norwich, England were millers of wool goods, having factories in Scotland and County
Down, Ireland. One of those descendants was James A. Parker, born County Down
1760, manufacturer of linen goods.”
James Parker may have been the father of our Robert Parker. Robert and
Susanna named their first-born son James Parker. An interest in linen mills may have
provided the capital necessary for the journey to America and purchase of the farm in
Cleona Township.
Our Parkers came to America from County Down, in what is now called Northern
Ireland, a province of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. When Our Parkers left there,
in December of 1861, the entire island was one province, ruled by the parliament of
England. Here is a map of County Down, Ireland in 1860. You can see the towns of
Newry, Loughbrickland and Aghaderg near the left side. We believe that our Parkers
lived in that area.
13
Figure 1, County Down
Our Parkers always said that they came from Newry in County Down. The city of
Newry was in Newry Parish. It seems probable that when our Parkers said they were
from Newry, they meant the Parish of Newry, not the city of Newry. We know that there
were several Parker families in County Down before 1861. Our question is; exactly
where in the Townlands of Newry did our Parkers reside?
14
We Americans – particularly those from the wide-open spaces of the Midwest –
must realize the difference in scale between our maps and those of Ireland. We are
concerned to find where our Parkers might have lived between Loughbrickland and
Newry but the distance is only 11 miles, about the same as between Ames and Story
City, Iowa!
We do have a reliable record from a Loughbrickland Presbyterian Church that
states that the Parkers lived, at least for several years, in a Townland called
Ballintaggart, civil parish of Newry, in County Down, a part of the Province of Ulster,
now part of the United Kingdom of England, Ireland and Scotland. Church records
show that five of their children were baptized there between 1844 and 1857. Richard
Ross has seen this record while in Ireland. This church record serves as our
genealogical “anchor.” It confirms that Our Parkers did live in County Down in the
middle of that century. That church still stands, although rebuilt, and is located just
southeast of Loughbrickland on this map:
Robert was born in 1806 and Susanna in 1807. They were married in 1827. All
of our family notes and records agree that Robert and Susanna had 16 children in
County Down. James, the oldest, was born in 1829. Agnes, the second with that name
and the last of the children, was born in 1857. The first to be named Agnes died in
Ireland as a little girl. The rest came to America. Isaac, Robert and David came alone;
Isaac in 1848, Robert in 1852, and David came in 1854. The remaining twelve children
came with their parents in 1861.
These dates show that our Parkers had many years of life in County Down. It
seems that a family of this size, existing as a unit for 34 years, could be located in an
area about the size of a few modern Iowa farms, but we have not yet been able prove
15
the exact location. Here is an expanded map of the Loughbrickland area that shows
clearly where Ballintaggart was; Newry was only about 11 miles to the south.
Figure 2. Loughbrickland, County Down
Why So Difficult?
There are several reasons for the difficulty of tracing ancestors in Ireland before
the Irish War of Independence in 1919-1922. They include the scarcity of vital records,
the relative size of Ireland contrasted with America’s states, counties and townships, the
nearly continuous turmoil of 800 years of Irish political and religious history, and the
struggles between Irish nationalists and the British Empire which resulted in a divided
nation. We shall see how these historical factors have hindered genealogical research.
16
The Scarcity of Vital Records
Of all the nations which sent emigrants to America, finding records of ancestors
in Ireland is one of the most difficult. Ireland has been wracked with internal strife for
several centuries. As far back as A.D. 800, and until the 20th century, there have been
only occasional governments capable of collecting and securing substantial civil
records. Wars between Gaelic and Anglo-Saxons, English and Normans, Catholics and
Protestants, and British and Irish for independence have been almost constant. The
Irish soil was liberally sprinkled with castles, forts and earthworks (called Raths on old
maps) meant for defense against raiders and invaders. In the 18th, 19th, 20th and current
centuries, struggles between Catholics and Protestants and between Irish nationalists
(Republicans) and unionists (with Great Britain) have cost lives and split governments.
Until 1864, after Our Parkers emigrated, there were no official public records of births,
marriages and deaths kept in Ireland. Churches kept the records, and the records
seldom survived the passing of the church. Then, in late June, 1922, the Irish Public
Records office was blown up, resulting in the loss of all civil transaction records.
Comparing Ireland with Iowa, 1860.
It is very important that we Americans comprehend the importance of the size
and nature of the Irish island in comparison with our own state and nation at the time
when our family migrated. The area of the entire island of Ireland is approximately
32,600 square miles. In contrast, the area of the state of Iowa is about 55,860 square
miles, or about 1.7 times that of Ireland. In 1860, there were nearly 6 million people in
the whole of Ireland. There were about 675,000 in the state of Iowa. Although the area
of Ulster, including County Down, suffered less from the Great Potato Famine, a total of
47,235 people emigrated from Down during the ten years ending in 1860. The process
was well known.
The Family in Ulster; County Down
We believe that discovering Robert’s family is the key to finding our Irish history.
We have not yet been able to establish exactly where our Parkers lived in County
17
Down, or exactly who were parents of Robert and Susanna.
Before 1922, there were
two systems of county divisions – the civil system, which used Townlands to identify
areas in the county, and the Catholic Church system, which used parishes of the
Church.
There are two major sources of Irish records of the 1850’s, compiled by and kept
in England, that show evidence of Parker families in County Down. We can see Parkers
in County Down in the “Ordnance Survey of Ireland,” taken beginning in 1824 by the
British Army. Parkers are also seen in “Griffith’s Valuation of Irish Land” and other
property made between 1846 and 1864. Both can be seen at the Public Records Office
of Northern Ireland, at Ancestry.com, at Family Search.com, and several other Web
sites.
The name Robert Parker was popular in several of the families of Newry Parish,
County Down listed in Griffith’s Primary Valuation of Ireland. We find it in Ballinteggart,
Curley, Saval More, Castle Enigan, and Clonduff Townlands. Although the official
Griffith’s Valuation for County Down was published in 1864, after our Parkers
emigrated, we know that the survey of a large county took many months to develop and
record and publish, so it is very possible that relatives of our people are included in it.
According to Grandmother Bess, Our Robert Parker was born in 1805 or 1806.
Other references state that he was born in 1800. We are certain that he and Susanna
Lowery (or Lowry?) were married in 1827. Their eldest son, James, was born in 1829.
We know now, from baptism records of the Loughbrickland Presbyterian
Church4, that our Parker ancestors lived from at least 1842 to 1857 in Ballinteggart
Townland, Newry Parish, County Down, in what is now Northern Ireland, a part of the
United Kingdom of Great Britain. Seven children of Robert and Susanna are mentioned
in those records; Matilda, Eliza (who must have been called Jeane Elizabeth,) Agnes 1 st
(who died before 1857,) William5, Richard, Samuel, and Agnes 2nd. There are also
records of other branches of the Parker family in County Down.
18
The first baptism mentioned in the Loughbrickland Presbyterian Church records
was of Matilda in 1842. She was, we think, the 7th child of Robert and Susanna.
At present we do not know where the other children were baptized.
Ballinteggart, Newry, County Down
Ballinteggart Townland had about 800 people and about 500 acres in the 1850’s.
Today, the average farm in Iowa has 338 acres, so just one Iowa farm today is nearly
as large as was our ancestor’s Townland. Our Iowa state has 56,000 square miles and
has 3.5 million people now, whereas the entire Irish island contained only about 31,500
square miles and had about 8 million residents in the middle 1800’s.
During the summer of 1845 a terrible blight struck Ireland. Potatoes were the
common staple of diet among the mass of Irish people, for it was possible to raise many
pounds of them on small tracts of land. Because most Irish farms were so small, there
were no other crops that could sustain eight million Irish people. The average farm in
Ireland was about 1.5 acres; a very large farm was 30 acres. The blight caused a great
famine; more than three quarters of a million peopled died of starvation; another one
million and a half left the country. The population of Ireland declined by about 30% in
ten years! Here is a description of the causes and effects of the Great Famine6:
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/irish_potato_famine.cfm
The Great Famine was not so serious in northeastern Ireland, where Our Parkers
lived in County Down. That area had other crops, such as flax, sheep and cattle, and a
much larger industrial base producing linen, wool, meat and manufactured metal
products which paid for food imported from England and Scotland. When our Parkers
were there, few farmers owned the land they farmed – they leased or rented land that
was owned by absentee landowners, most of whom lived in England. It was very difficult
to buy land to increase the size of a farm. When the famine abated in the late 1850’s,
many more Irish families had the resources to emigrate to the United States, Australia,
and South America.
We have found some church records of baptism for children of Robert and
Susanna Parker in the Loughbrickland Presbyterian Church between 1844 and 1857.
Eliza, Agnes (1st,) William, Richard, Samuel and Agnes (2nd) are mentioned. During
19
those years our Parkers lived in a townland called Ballinteggart which was just south of
Loughbrickland and north of Newry. Before and after that period we have found no
record of the residence of Robert or Susanna. We do know that Susanna’s last name
was Lowery (or Lowry.) We think her father was named James, and her mother’s
maiden name was McGaffey. The Parkers all said that their homeland was Newry, in
County Down. Loughbrickland and Ballinteggart, as well as Saval More and Savalbeg
and Curley and Donaghmore were townlands in Newry in those days. Families named
Parker lived in all of them.2
Leaving Home
By the last years of the 1850’s the potato famine in Ireland was nearly over.
Although the famine was not severe in Counties Down, Antrim or Armaugh,3 the
opportunity to buy land was very limited by the laws of Great Britain which were crafted
to maintain control of real property in the hands of large landowners. A large family that
desired to stay together found it next to impossible to buy enough acreage to maintain
themselves. Consequently, many Irish families chose to move to America where they
might acquire sufficient land to support themselves.
Moving to America was not a new idea to the Parkers in late 1861. Three of their
sons, Isaac, Robert and David are shown in ship records of voyage in 1848, 1852, and
1854, respectively. We believe that Robert the father made a trip to America in 1860 or
earlier 1861. It seems reasonable that he would have made plans for the journey of the
rest of the family as a result of that trip.
Records of other families suggest that emigrating from County Down took some
time to arrange and execute. A family of fourteen did not just pick up and leave their
country to go 3,500 miles to a new home without planning the trip carefully. We can
imagine that preparation was necessary for several weeks of travel, including saying
2
One of Grandmother Bess’s records says that father Robert was a blacksmith in Ireland.
Another record shows that oldest son James was also a blacksmith.
3
Not only Parkers, but Lavenders, Pauls, Wileys, Grahams, McCormicks and others in our
ancestry came from these mostly Protestant counties.
20
goodbyes, arranging business affairs, packing clothes for 14 people, collecting and
packing household goods for the new home, all of this took time and organization.
Remember also that three sons of the family had already gone to America. Many
families leaving County Down went to Belfast or Dublin, thence to Liverpool. Some
traveled down the Newry Canal to the sea, thence to Liverpool. We don’t know which
route was used by our Parkers; both routes took at least two days. Most Irish families
went from home to Dublin, then by boat across the Irish Sea to Liverpool – this voyage
took about 14 hours.
Liverpool was then the busiest English port from which Irish and Scotch
emigrants crossed the Atlantic Ocean on British ships. An article in the Cork Examiner,
of Queenstown, County Cork, Ireland for December 19th, 1861, states that “The screw
steamer Etna, Captain Kennedy, arrived in Queenstown this morning, having left
Liverpool at one o'clock yesterday. She leaves to-day for New York with 250
passengers, a full cargo, and the mails, which arrived from Cork at 3 o'clock,
immediately after which the Etna steamed away.” Our Parkers were among the
Etna passengers, which actually numbered 250. Here is a map showing the route of
the Etna’s voyage. Points on it are:
1. Liverpool, England, where they boarded the Etna.
2. Queensland (now called Cobh,) County Cork, Ireland, where the
Etna stopped on Dec. 18th.
3. New York, New York, USA, where Our Parkers landed on Dec. 31,
1861.
21
The Etna, built in 1855 in Glasgow, Scotland, was one of the fastest “Iron Screw
Steamships” on the sea when she was built. Passage was often accomplished in less
than two weeks, whereas even the fasted sailing ships required more than twice that
time. The Inman Line brought more immigrants from northern Europe than any other
line for many years. Inman catered to steerage passengers; their rates were lower and
accommodations were better than on many other lines, and far better than on the sailing
ships taken by most emigrants from Ireland during the Famine.
Here is a likeness of the Etna:
22
Passage from Liverpool to New York cost about $8 per person, whether adults or
children. Here’s a contemporary description of the departure from Liverpool:
“There were usually a large number of spectators at the dock-gates to witness the final departure
of the ship. The sad scene of the departure was described in the Illustrated London News in 1850: ‘The
most callous and indifferent can scarcely fail, at such a moment, to form cordial wishes for the pleasant
voyage and safe arrival of the emigrants, and for their future prosperity in their new home. As the ship is
towed out, hats are raised, handkerchiefs are waved, and a loud and long-continued shout of farewell is
raised from the shore, and cordially responded to from the ship. It is then, if at any time, that the eyes of
the emigrants begin to moisten’” [in: Préteseille 1999]. See http://www.eustice.info/irish-
emigration.htm
After leaving Queensland, Etna was at sea for thirteen days. Steerage
passengers had to take along and cook their own food on stoves used by all. On the
Etna’s passenger list as filed at New York, our Parkers were all shown as citizens of
Great Britain because Ireland at that time was not an independent nation but a part of
Great Britain.
23
Arrival in America
Our Parkers Arrive in America
On the last day of the year 1861, the steamship Etna, from Liverpool, England,
docked at New York Harbor. Among the passengers entering the United States that
day were Robert Parker, his wife, Susanna, and twelve of their children. They left their
home in County Down, Ireland, traveling first to Liverpool, England, there boarding the
Inman Line Steamship for New York. Three other sons of the family preceded them to
New York. And so, the first day of the year 1862 found all of Our Parkers in America.
Landing at New York
The Etna, like all immigration vessels of the time, was caused to anchor in
quarantine (passengers could not leave the ship) near Staten Island while a team of
inspectors from New York City boarded to check each person for dangerous diseases
like smallpox, typhoid fever or cholera. Those passing inspection were taken on to a
processing center at the very tip of Manhattan called Castle Garden. There an affidavit
from the ship’s captain, including a list of all passengers, became the immigration
record. The Ancestry Tree shows this list.
A description of Castle Garden and its procedures can be seen at
http://www.immigrantships.net/newcompass/ancestral/imm_exp/castlegarden.html
At Castle Garden there were railroad ticket agents from whom tickets to Iowa
may have been purchased. I suspect that one or more of the Parker sons – Isaac,
Robert or David - who had already come to New York, may have met Our Parkers
there. The family may have enjoyed a great reunion. The three sons had not seen their
mother or siblings for several years.
West Again
The fourteen Parkers were bound for Scott County, Iowa and a new home in a
young country that had just gone through the first year of a terrible Civil War. I believe
that they must have come across the country by railroad. We don’t know the date they
left New York, but by train, with one change at Chicago, they may have taken about 4
24
days. If they had come to Iowa by wagon, as did the Browne and Carney4 families just a
few years before, it would have been very difficult to journey and prepare to buy a farm
in less than two months’ time.
They would not have brought farming implements on a train, even if they had
known what to bring. Remember that they had no experience with large-scale farming
in Ireland.
Farming in Scott County; Making Friends
Settling in Cleona Township, Scott County, Iowa
We don’t know if there was a cabin or house on the acreage. The people who
previously owned, the farm, Sarah and David Young, had given it up to a trustee named
Charles H. Kent, a money lender, seven months before. On March 8, 1862, at two
o’clock in the afternoon, on the courthouse steps, Robert Parker purchased the North
East Quarter of Section 18 in Township 79 North of Range 1 East in Scott County. He
paid $1,416.21. It seems likely that the Parkers came to Scott County on advice from
former neighbors in Ireland, such as the Paul brothers, James and William.7
Next to the new place, to the North, was a farm owned by W. J. Paul. Both
William and James Paul – brothers - owned tracts only about five miles away, in Section
23. They came to Iowa from County Antrim, adjacent to the north of County Down.
“The first settlement made in the township was in 1851. In April, 1852, Robert
Johnson and James Paul, both from Ireland, entered the west half of the southeast
quarter of section 23, and the southeast of the northeast, and northeast of the southeast
of the same section. Mr. Paul alone entered the northeast of the southwest quarter of
section 23. At that time the only house in the township was John and Joseph Sinter's,
on the northeast quarter of section 12……”James Paul broke 30 acres in the same time
(1853.)….”In the fall of 1853 William J. Paul, a brother of James, with his family came
out, and James erected a house on his claim, in which his brother lived until 1858.
These Pauls came from Ireland.”8
4
Browne and Carney are two more families that are ancestors of ours.
25
We have not clear knowledge of why Robert and Susanna chose to settle in
Scott County, Iowa, or why in Section 18 of Cleona Township. We do know that three of
the Parker sons, Isaac, Robert and David, preceded the fourteen that came west in
1862. We believe that Robert himself made a previous trip to America in 1861, returning
to County Down. We also know that there were other Irish immigrants nearby them in
Cleona Township. The families of James Paul, William Paul, and Robert Johnson are
listed in the 1860 Federal Census, so we know that they were in the township before
our Parkers arrived. By the time of the 1870 census for Cleona Township, Parker and
Paul and Ross and Bennett families were very near neighbors, and families named
Wilson and Swindel, identified as being from Ireland, also were close by.
The Farm
On 2 March, 1862, Robert and Susanna purchased by Indenture (with a recorded
mortgage) 160 acres (a quarter section) of ground at the North East Corner of Section
18 in Cleona Township, Scott County, Iowa. That land is only 5 miles northeast from
the town of Durant, about 6 miles north of Stockton, and about 7 miles north of Walcott.
They purchased it through Mr. Charles H. Kent, who was trustee for David O. and Sarah
M. Young. The Youngs, it seems, had purchased the land from James Thompson for
$520 in 18609.
Below is a map of Cleona Township in 1868 that shows the location of the Parker
farm. See Section 18 (along the left side,) NE corner.
26
The plot in this map includes 240 acres. The initial purchase was for 160 acres (a
quarter section) that Robert and Susanna purchased for $1416.21 on March 2, 1862.
They purchased 80 adjacent acres on Oct. 26, 1866, for $1,040 payable in three annual
installments, from a Samuel Slemmons who lived in Ohio,. This made up a very good
sized farm for that day. Remember; no tractors then, only oxen and horses.
The Times
What was happening in this country and this state when the Parkers arrived,
early in 1862? Between 1861 and 1863, the population of Scott County increased by
only 1.5%, or 388 persons. That was a very low rate in comparison with previous years.
At least fourteen of those new residents were Parkers.
Of course, the Civil War which began in 1861 was the greatest influence on
those times. Many of Iowa’s young men were joining the Union Army; in fact, more of
the state’s population than from any other northern state. Some historians have stated
that approximately 80,000 of Iowa’s 150,000 men served in the Union army. Many Iowa
towns became camps and enlistment centers as the army grew in 1861 and 1862.
Davenport, only 15 miles away, was a very important embarkation point for army units
27
going south on the Mississippi and for railroads running east and west. Davenport was
also used as the place where many Iowa men set foot in Iowa after their injury or
discharge. Certainly, the War was much on the minds of all Iowans during the war
years. Market prices of Iowa farm produce were also higher because of the war needs
and the availability of rail transport to the east where farms were devastated.
When so many Iowa men went to war many farms and businesses were short of
manpower. This also caused increased opportunities for those who stayed. Although
thousands of Irish immigrants from the northern states had joined the army, none of the
Parkers can be found to have gone to war.
The building of railroads was another great story of the times. The first railroad
bridge across the Mississippi was built at Davenport in 1856. It was possible that our
Parkers may have traveled all the way from New York to Scott County by rail. By 1862,
the Mississippi and Missouri Railroad (later called the Rock Island Line) reached Iowa
City, passing very near the south side of Cleona Township. The towns of Durant,
Stockton and Walcott, all within ten miles of the Parker farm, were early stations on the
M & M where farm produce could be loaded on trains.
It is important to note that when our Parkers arrived, less than ten years after the
first pioneers, many of those pioneers were neighbors. Much of the prairie ground had
not yet been broken by the plow. A note in the History of Scott County says that in
Cleona Township, “James Paul broke 30 acres in the same time.10” The year was 1853. At
the rate of 30 acres per year per plow team it took several years to open 240 acres of
prairie.
By 1862, almost all of Iowa’s native Indian people had left the state. The years
from 1845 to 1855 saw the greatest exodus of native Indians from Iowa. However, an
incident occurred in 1857 at Spirit Lake in northwest Iowa that reminded many pioneers
of the insecurity they lived with in earlier years. The nearest settlement of Indians was of
the Mesquakie (Fox) settlement in Tama County.
Church
While in Cleona Township, the family connected with a Congregational Church in
Durant, less than ten miles from the Parker farm. Unfortunately, that church building
28
was sold to a St. Paul’s Episcopal Church congregation in 1896. We have not been
able to find any records from the Congregational church. Here is a picture of the original
church building as it stands today:
School
Neighbors, Friends and Relationships; Ross, Paul, Lavender
A close neighbor, Francis Andrew Ross, did enlist on Dec. 13, 1861, just a few
weeks before the Parkers arrived. We shall see more about Francis Andrew Ross later
in this study. Another close neighbor was James Paul, who with his brother William first
entered land in Cleona Township in 1852 and moved to this farm in 185711.
Robert and Susanna Buried at Durant
When father Robert Parker died on February 23, 1868, he was buried in the
cemetery just southeast of the town of Durant, Iowa, and only about 5 miles south of the
Parker farm. Son Samuel and daughter Susanna joined him. Mother Susanna’s body
was brought here when she died in 1893. Here is a picture of the grave site which I
took in 2006.
29
Life Without Father
30
West Again; New Homes
The Farm is Sold
The family sold 160 acres of the farm in 1879, ten years after Robert died.
Susanna’s name was still on the plat map of Cleona Township in
Moving Near Gilman
Why Here?
Another question that I have not yet solved is this: why did the family move to the
area around Gilman, in Marshall County?
New Generations, New Connections
Parkers Near Gilman
Richard
Samuel
William
Paul
Lavender
Carney
Etc.
31
The Telephone Men
The business of telephony has been part of our family’s history for four
generations. My Grandfather, Robert L. Parker, was a real telephone pioneer. He
began his career building rural telephone lines in Iowa in 1901and stayed in the independent (non-Bell) telephone business until he died in 1940. He taught the phone
business to my dad, Robert D. Parker. He also stayed in it throughout his career, first
as an independent and then for 30 years with Illinois Bell Telephone Company.
My first employer after college graduation was ITT-Kellogg, for many
years known as Kellogg Switchboard and Supply Company, in Chicago, one of the
oldest and largest manufacturers of phones and switchboards for independent
companies. I remember writing the design specification for a Kellogg “Relaymatic”
switchboard system for the town of Quimby, Iowa in 1959.
After graduating from Iowa State University, my son Roger D. Parker was
employed by the Iowa Department of Transportation in their communications
operations. He is still in the communications business today with the DOT at Ames.
Iowa and the Parkers and the Telephone
Beginnings
Although today’s phones may look very different from those of 1900, their basic
purpose is the same. In whatever shape or size, telephones enable personal
communication between people over distances.
In 1876, in Chicago, the Cubs won their first National League game, in
Wyoming, George Custer was killed in the Battle of Little Big Horn, in Massachusetts,
Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first patent for a speaking telephone, and in
Gilman,Iowa, Robert Lavender Parker, my Grandfather, was born. While grandfather
was growing up, the telephone business was also growing. They seemed to run into
each other right after Rob graduated from Iowa College in 1900.
32
Many of us think about the telephone as beginning with the United States
patents awarded to Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. Actually, many men had been
working on “telephone” ideas for several years. In addition to Bell, Thomas Edison,
Elisha Gray and several others were working on devices for speech transmission and
applied for patents during 1876. We know now that Gray and Bell applied for patent
protection on almost the identical device on the same day, in February of 1876.
Neither of them had actually constructed that device by that day. The story of
telephone invention patents reads like a minute-by-minute thriller novel. By 1900,
although the telephone had been in use in many of the great cities of the United
States, very few existed in Iowa. That’s because the Bell Telephone companies didn’t
pay much attention to rural areas or small towns.
One of the benefits that come from a U. S. patent is that the law gives exclusive
use rights to holders for as long as XX years. If you don’t want to use your invention
yourself, or to make and sell copies of it, you can sell those rights to others for money.
The Bell Telephone companies chose to keep their rights, so no other people could
make or sell or lease telephones for 17 years. If you lived in a small town, or out in the
country, expensive poles and wires had to be installed to give you telephone service.
The Bell companies decided to use their time and money where they brought the most
income and that meant in big cities. So, while the important Bell patents were in force
until 1893 and 1894, about 150,000 telephones (a lot!) were installed, but almost all of
them were in big cities and most near the east coast. Rural states like Iowa had just a
very few. The Bell companies set their prices for instruments and services high, to
give them good profits. When the Bell patents expired after seventeen years, in 1893,
thousands of small companies rushed to organize telephone service, at much lower
than Bell rates, in states like Iowa. That’s when Robert L. Parker began his telephone
career.
One of the earliest telephone companies in Iowa was at Brooklyn, in Poweshiek
County. The Web site of the Brooklyn Mutual Telephone Cooperative12 says that the
first phones were installed there in 187813. Brooklyn is only a few miles from Gilman
and Grinnell. Some of our Lavender relatives lived near there. In 1900, when Rob
33
Parker graduated from Iowa College, he was working to build farm telephone lines
around Brooklyn.
Robert Lavender Parker, Telephone Pioneer
My grandfather, your ancestor, was an example of the American dream
realized. He was born and grew up on an Iowa farm. He was the first in his family to
graduate from college. He used his early working years learning a new technology
which began in the year of his birth. He lived a life pioneering that technology,
developing it in two states, was a proud family man and a respected business man
and a great community leader.
Yes, Rob (as his wife called him) L. Parker and the telephone were born in the
same year – the Centennial year of the United States. His father, William, was of a
family of 16 that came to Iowa from County Down in 1861. They bought land and
farmed in Cleona Township in western Scott County. In 1873, William and two of his
brothers, Richard and James, moved to the area where Marshall, Jasper, Poweshiek
and Tama Counties join. They bought land and farmed in northeast Jasper and
northwest Poweshiek Counties. There, William met and married Hannah Jane
Lavender, whose family also came from northern Ireland. Robert Lavender was born
on October 23, 1876 on the farm in Hickory Grove Township, Jasper County.
Grandfather made the development of telephone service to small towns and
farmers his personal business for all of his working life. He was certainly a Telephone
Pioneer in Iowa and Illinois. He introduced his son, my Dad, to the telephone business
and he, too, was a telephone man for all of his working life.
I Remember
Grandfather died when I was five years old. Here’s the way I think of him:
I felt good in his lap and his arms,
34
he helped me, and
I am very proud of him.
Here is a picture of him and me on the front steps of his
house, when I was less than a year old. Grandpa was still in working condition then,
and was already helping me to make word sounds.
Here is another one, taken about four years later, with
Dad. By that time, Grandpa was pretty sick. This picture appeared in The Geneseo
Republic on Feb. 10, 1939, in an article titled “Parker Serves as Head of Phone
Company 10 Years,” and in Telephony Magazine, in an article titled “Three Generations
of Telephone Men.”
Growing at Gilman and Grinnell
Rob was born on October 23,1876 on a farm a few miles southwest of Gilman,
in Jasper County. His father was William E. Parker and his mother was Hannah
Lavender Parker. He was their first child. His sister, Edith was born three years later
and a brother, William E, followed in another two years.
35
Rob’s father was a son of Robert and Susanna Parker, who came from Ireland
with twelve of their sixteen children. Hannah’s family, the Lavenders, also came from
Ireland. So you would definitely call my grandfather an Irishman.
Young Rob was a cheerful, friendly and gregarious kid. He was of only average
height and weight, but was well-coordinated. Rob and his parents were close, and he
was helpful to his father on the farm. He took part in school activities, and was a good
student. Their farm was about half way between the towns of Gilman and Newburg,
Iowa where Rob was active in young people’s groups at the Congregational Churches
in both Gilman and Newburg. After high school, he enrolled in Iowa College, now
known as Grinnell College, in Grinnell, Iowa. He graduated in 1900, with a degree in
History and Political Science. College records from that year show that at
commencement he was awarded a prize for excellence in extemporaneous speaking;
a very good skill for a future salesman. He got to know his future wife, Annie Elizabeth
Carney, whom everyone called Bess, at a young persons’ Christian Endeavor party.
Figure 3 - Spring,
1896, Gilman Congregational Church Y P S C E
36
Top Row - Will Wylie, Linda Dunkle Wylie, Gertrude Ingersoll Evans, Clara Lavender Buck, Grant
Ramsey, Mariam Ingersoll Howe, Abi Ramsey Frankforth, Lillian Ingersoll Ramsey.
2nd Row - Robert Lavender Parker, Roy Wylie, Archie Pence, Frank Williams, Mamie Paul Madill,
Elba Neely.
3rd Row – Jesse Ramsey, Rev. R. F. Lavender, Arthur Funk, John Frankforth, Edith Parker Lewis.
Bottom Row – Jennie Lavender Fanton, Ida Hulin Carmer, Eva Williams, Ida Lavender Hayes.
Grandfather helped Bess enroll at Iowa College and helped her with college
costs. Her mother, Martha Emma Browne Carney, was one of the first women in Iowa
to graduate from college.
They were married on the last day of December, 1901 and took a honeymoon
trip to Chicago.
The Family of Bess Carney
Bess’s father, John M. Carney, was a realtor, a Justice of the Peace, and the first
mayor of the town of Gilman; a very interesting fellow. He was one of the first rural
school teachers in Poweshiek County. He was a member of the matriculating class of
1860 of Iowa College (now Grinnell College,) and joined all but three of that class who
joined the Union Army before completing their freshman year. A member of the 4 th Iowa
Cavalry Volunteers, he served as Regimental Commissary Sargent until the war ended
in August, 1865.
Starting On and Down the Wires
Shortly after his graduation, Rob visited a family friend southeast of Grinnell
who had recently installed one of the first telephones in the area. He was fascinated,
and decided to make the telephone his future. By that time, about 1901, there were
companies in many Iowa towns setting up telephone services.
Rob took his bicycle and went west, looking for a telephone job. We have two
letters that Rob wrote to his sweetheart Bess before they were married.
37
The Traer Years
The Robert L. Parker family moved from Gladbrook, Iowa to Traer in Oct. of 1905. Thru
the winter of 1905-06 they were living in rooms back of the telephone office which was located
in the central portion of the second story of the building, with living rooms to the north.
The Henderson Brothers owned, and operated, a grocery business on the first floor of
this building – located on the north-east corner of the main intersection of the town. The B.
Frank Thomas law office occupied the front room of the 2nd story.
Mrs. Parker, and her sister, were operating the telephone switch board when the first
news came over the wires concerning the great San Francisco earth quake of 1906.
In the spring of 1906 the Parkers moved into rooms owned by Mrs. Kordena, located on
the ground where Dr. Farnham later built his hospital. After living in these rooms for 6 months
the Parkers moved – in Sept. of 1906, to the McComas house on Woodlawn Avenue. Mrs.
Grace Armstrong, a friend of the Parker family, lived with them in this home for some time. The
Parkers lived in this home thru 1907 and 1908 but in the spring of 1909 Mr. Parker took a job for
the Central Iowa Telephone Co. and moved the family to Prairie City, Iowa.
This job lasted only one year and in 1910 Mr. Parker was hired by the Farmers Mutual
Telephone Co., of Traer, so back the Parkers came to the town of Traer, Ia.
At this time (Sept. 1910) the Parker family moved into the house at 302 So. Main St.,
which was owned by Mrs. Eleanor Carrick, and was located across the alley to the north from
the Methodist Church. This was the first of two spells of living in this home for the Parker family.
In the year 1913 the Parkers moved into the residence owned by Miss Grace Wood,
located just west of the Frank Thomas corner.
In the fall of 1915 the Parkers moved to a house located 2 blocks east of the park,
owned by the Metcalf family. After two years in this home the Parkers moved across the street
south into a house owned by B. Frank Thomas, remaining here for only a few months.
On Oct. 23rd, 1917, Parkers left this section of town, east of the park, moving for the
second time into the house on So. Main St. owned by Mrs. Carrick. After about 3 years the
Parker family moved, on April 1st, 1920, from this house on So. Main St, into a house which Mr.
Parker had purchased for a family home from Mr. Wm. Kuhl. It is located to the west of the high
school and across the street north from the school athletic field.
In the fall of 1928 Mr. Parker changed jobs again, this time to Bloomington, Illinois,
where he managed telephone companies.
38
Moving and Building
To Illinois, Bloomington and Geneseo
In Geneseo
His Family
Back to Gilman
Robert Donald Parker, Telephone Man
My Dad was born in Traer, Iowa on the 8th of September, 1914. His oldest sister,
Winifred (Winnie) was eleven and Muriel was six. The Parker family lived in a house at 302
So. Main St., which was located across the alley to the north from the Methodist Church, just
two blocks from Traer’s main business street. The church and the street (2nd Street) are still
there.
In the year 1913 the Parkers moved into a residence owned by Miss Grace Wood,
located just west of the Frank Thomas corner.
His Youth
With Esther Pauline Swanson
Independent Telephony
Mention Telephony Magazine, Jan. 7, 1939 for Dad’s article and other
ads.
39
With Mother Bell
Remembering Dad
My Side
Robert Marion Parker Family
With Mom and Dad
My story started on June 5th, 1935, when I was born in the Hammond Henry
Hospital in Geneseo, Illinois. Geneseo, in Henry County, had less than 3,000 people
then. It was mostly a farming town, but it had its own telephone company. My
grandfather was its manager. Dad worked for him as Line Chief, which meant that he
was in charge of building and keeping up the company’s lines and poles throughout the
town and for about 15 miles around. It was outdoor work, mostly, and he worked long
hours. When storms tore through, dad and his men went out to splice and put them
back up. I still have a pair of pole climbers with sharp hooks which he strapped to his
shins for mounting poles. Mom worked as a switchboard operator for a while.
Grandfather was a leader in the community. Both he and Dad were presidents of
the Kiwanis Club. We had a lot of family around us; Dad’s mother, Bess Carney Parker,
Mom’s father and mother, Swan and Olga Swanson, who farmed a few miles to the east
of town, Mom’s sister Lillian and her husband Tom, and one of Dad’s sisters, Winifred
Beachler and her husband. Aunt Lil’s husband ran the maintenance shop for a large
coal strip mine. Aunt Winnie’s husband Russ was personnel manger for the great John
Deere Harvester Works at Moline. Winnie also owned the Beachler Shop, the best
women’s wear shop in Geneseo.
I can’t imagine my parents’ feelings when I was born with a cleft palate and a
hairlip. I do know that they borrowed a substantial amount of money so I could have
corrective surgery in Chicago when only a few months old. It took them several years to
40
pay that money back.14 I’ve always felt a great debt to Mom and Dad, not only for their
love but for their extraordinary investments in me.
Sister Diane Margaret was born just thirteen months after me, and was a perfect
baby. We were playmates and friends for all of our lives together. Geneseo had to
elementary schools, then, the South Side and the North Side. I went to the South
School for kindergarten and first grade.
41
My Best Decision, Loretta
After Bradley
My Children, My Pride
The Places We Lived
Back to Story City
Diane Margaret Parker Little Family
Diane, My Sister
Roger H. Little
Their Children
Etc.
The Family in 2012
Our Parkers: Histories of the 16 Who Came
Introductions
This section is an introduction to the members of the family that came from
Ireland and started our history in Iowa. Many of their stories will be covered in the
chronological (more or less) sections above.
The notes below came from the wonderful little notebook made by my
Grandmother Bess in the 1940’s: Here is a picture of the precious little hand-made
memoir which my Grandmother Bess Carney Parker left me. Her husband, my
grandfather, was Robert Lavender Parker, son of William E. Parker, who was the son of
42
Robert Parker who came from County Down in 1860.
This little notebook has 21 leaves, some written on
both sides, and is 4 ½ inches wide by 5 ¾ inches tall.
There are many mentions of our common ancestors.
Some of the pages contain handwriting not of
Grandmother Bess. Perhaps you can guess the
authors from the sense of the notes. If you think
seeing the hand would help, I can send you pictures of
the pages like the one above.
The memoir is not dated, although I see on p. 7
a note, obviously added, that one of our people died in
Sept., 1950. I suspect that most of it was written in the
1940s, after my grandfather died.
So you won’t have to read Grandma’s
sometimes difficult writing, I’ll summarize them for you hereafter, shown
thus:
Father Robert
Robert Parker, 1st, as I call him, was born in 1800 or 1805 or
1806 in Newry, County Down, Ireland. He was the patriarch of our
Parker line. Husband of Susanna, father of 16. Died on Feb 23, 1868
at home in Cleona Township, Scott County, Iowa. Buried at Durant
Cemetery, Durant, Iowa.
“Robert Parker, born in Ireland in 1800, he came to America,
bringing his family with him, in 1861, from Newry, County Down, arriving
in January, 1862. They were of Presbyterian faith in northern Ireland,
not being catholic as was the southern part.
In 1827 he married Susanna Lowery, also of County Down. Her home
was in a town called Newry, near Loch Brickland.”
43
Mother Susanna
Matriarch of the family. Born Susanna Lowery, in Ireland in
1807, married Robert in 1827, came to Scott County, Iowa in 1861,
lived on the farm in Cleona Township for 17 years, moved to Jasper
County in 1879, where she lived with son James. She had 16
children. When she died in 1893 she was buried at Durant beside
Robert 1st and her son, Samuel, and her daughter, Susanna.
In 1827 he married Susanna Lowery, also of County Down. Her
home was in a town called Newry, near Loch Brickland. Her father’s name was James
Lowery and her mother’s maiden name was Magaffin. After the death of
her father, James Lowery, Susanna’s mother (Magaffin) married a 2nd
time; James Wilson. Their descendants are Alex and Kimberly Wilson, of
West Liberty, Iowa.
They were 6 weeks on a sailing boat crossing the Atlantic. They
settled on a farm in Scott Col, Iowa, northeast of Durant. In this country
they became Congregationalists, bringing their church letters from the
church in Ireland.
He died 2/23/1868 at his home in Scott County, at the age of 67, and
is buried in the cemetery at Durant, Iowa.
“My husband Robert L. Parker and young son Robert Donald (my
father /RmP) visited this cemetery in 1930. This verse is engraved on the
tombstone;
‘Go home, dear children, and cease from tears,
We must be here till Christ appears,
Repent in time, while time you have,
There is no repentance in the grave.’
44
Son James
James, the oldest son of Robert and Susanna, was born in
County Down, Ireland on May 13, 1829. James never married. After
his father’s death, when the farm in Scott County was sold, he moved
to Hickory Grove Township, Jasper County, just southwest of Gilman,
Iowa. His mother, Susanna, lived with James for many years, as did .
He died on June 10, 1899 and is buried at Prairie View Cemetery at
Gilman.
Isaac
Isaac was born in County Down in 1831. He came to America in June, 1848 and
settled in New York City. He married Etta Conacher, daughter of John (a merchant)
and Eliza Conacher, with whom he had one child, named Euphemia. Isaac died on
January 7, 1879 and was buried in New York City.
Mary Ann
Mary Ann was the oldest daughter of Robert and Susanna,
born in County down on Christmas Day, 1833. She was 28 years
old when the Parkers arrived in Scott County. In 1867 she married
Francis Andrew Ross, a neighbor of the Parkers who had served in
the Civil War. In 1875 they moved to a farm that Francis bought in
Washington County, near Franklin. They had six children. She
always was proud of her family. Matilda, her unmarried sister, lived with her for some
time, and she was visited by her sister Esther. Mary Ann died on October 1, 1900, and
is buried in Elm Grove Cemetery, Washington County, Iowa. Richard F. Ross, of Ames,
Iowa, is the great grandson of Mary Ann.
45
Robert
Robert, third son of Robert and Susanna, was born in County Down in about
1831. He left Ireland at Belfast and came to America in 1852. He stayed at New York
City, where he married Sarah Jane Blackwood. Robert died on Nov. 5, 1866. He
founded and owned a substantial business called Parker Varnish Works, in Brooklyn.
They had two children, Jennie and Robert Alexander Parker. Jennie, who married
Charles A. Resch, had two children, Robert Parker Resch and Charles Arthur Resch.
Robert Alexander Parker had no children.
Ester
Grandmother Bess’s notes say that Ester (or Esther) was born on Dec. 21, 1833
in County Down. However, several census records made during her life in Chicago all
point to 1843 as the probable year of her birth. On June 11, 1866, she married William
B. MacCauley (or McCauley, or MacAuley?,) in Scott County. He took her to Chicago,
where he became a policeman. They had six children. Esther (or Ester) lived until 1934.
She remained in contact with her family in Iowa.
Susanna
Susanna Parker was about 27 years old when the Parkers arrived in Iowa.
Grandmother Bess’s notes state that “Susanna was very good at needlepoint sewing.”
Susanna married Eralza Allen Bennett on June 17, 1865. Eralza’s family were
neighbors of the Parkers in Cleona Township. After Susanna died on May 13, 1869,
Mr. Bennett married Hannah Smiley on 4 July, 1870. Eralza and Hannah cared for
Evelyn, handicapped daughter of Eralza and Susanna, until she died on Nov. 30, 1905
at the Glenwood Institution in Mills, Iowa. Evelyn is buried with her father in Ida Grove.
Susanna lies with her mother and father and her brother Samuel in the Durant
Cemetery.
46
David
We think that David Samuel Parker was born on Dec. 11, 1836 in County Down,
and came to America in 1854 on the ship Alleron. We know that he came out to Iowa,
either with or after Our Parkers arrived there, where he married Georgia Margaret
Sherfey at Muscatine on his birthday in 1866. David and Georgia witnessed the
marriage of his sister Mary Ann to Francis Andrew Ross in 1867. He and Georgia had
three children named David Burton, Estelle Gay, and George Hull Parker. It seems
possible that David may have influenced Robert and Susanna to settle in Iowa. He and
Georgia moved to Chicago, where David was a salesman. He died on Dec. 26, 1889,
and is buried in Chicago’s Graceland Cemetery.
I’d like to know more about David.
Jeane (Eliza)
Matilda
Agnes, 1st
Ellen
Isabelle
William
William, born on September 10, 1849, was my great-grandfather.
Richard
The following piece on the history and family of Richard comes from the hand of
John David Parker, one of the Parker Team:
Richard Parker, one of 14 children of Robert and Susanna Lowery Parker,
immigrated with his family from County Down Ireland to Scott County, Iowa in the early
1860’s. Loughbrickland Church was the site of young Richard’s baptism into the
Presbyterian faith in Ireland.
47
Richard’s father died a few short years after their arrival in Iowa. He (and
eventually his wife Susanna along with a son Sam) is buried in the Durant, Iowa
cemetery. Robert acquired 240 acres in Cleona township Scott county prior to his
death. Oldest son James along with the younger boys and their sisters kept the family
together during those tumultuous years including the panic of 1873 by tending to the
farm together. Teamwork learned as a family and by working with other Cleona
township residents late of the Old Sod such as the Pauls, Ross’, and more served as a
template for the Parker’s for generations.
Eventually, Richard and his brother William, exercising their inherit Scotch-Irish
independence set forth to make their own way in the world. They arrived in central Iowa
and soon (1875) bought a farm in Hickory Grove township, Jasper County, Iowa. They
purchased 100 acres apiece plus sister Mary Ann’s brother-in-law S.H. Ross invested in
40 acres to make a 240 acre farm for the brothers to operate. Other family members
and Cleona township neighbors came to join the brothers in the ensuing years.
The brothers prospered. The young brother’s soon found themselves on the
path to marriage alter. William married Hannah Lavender and shortly thereafter Richard
married Matilda Paul. William and Hannah’s family history is recorded by Robert
Parker, their great grandson. Richard and Matilda were my (John D. Parker) great
grandparents. I will focus primarily on Richard and Matilda’s branch.
Matilda Paul Parker’s father was William John Paul. Her mother was Martha
Buick Paul. They hailed from County Antrim. William John Paul’s brothers were
amongst the very earliest settlers of Scott County, Iowa. The Paul family, along with the
Ross’, Buick’s, Lowry’s, McIlrath’s, Lavender’s, etc. are forever interwoven with the
Parker’s through marriage, land, church, spirit, money, and common heritage. Their
names are forever etched in the history and records of the Gilman (Marshall county)
and Newburg (Jasper county) areas of Iowa.
Shortly after their marriage and the birth of their firstborn William John Parker,
Richard and Matilda bought a 160 acre farm in section 12 Hickory Grove Township
Jasper county Iowa. (Brother William bought 160 acres just down the road a mile in
Poweshiek County, Chester township.) Soon brother James and Mother Susanna
arrived in Jasper county along with, at various intervals, sisters Aggie and Matilda.
48
Sister Isabelle married David Paul and lived nearby. Sister Ellen married James L. Paul
and also farmed in close proximity.
A close relationship was maintained with the Ross’ of West Chester—sisters
Aggie and Mary Ann married Sam H. and Francis Ross, respectfully.
Richard and Matilda were devoted to the land all of their lives. Two more sons
were born to this union, Samuel and James. Note that Richard named his boys after his
brothers---Matilda named her boys after her Dad and brother. As the boys grew to
manhood Granddad W.J. Paul, Uncle James Parker, Uncle Will Parker, Aunt Ellen
(Parker) Paul, Uncle’s James and John Paul all farmed in the vicinity. More Irish
relatives and friends were nearby together making a formidable enclave. Soon
German’s and Norwegians joined the group. Individualism reigned but no one was a
success without his neighbor prospering with him through utilization of joint thriftiness
and hard work. A neighbor’s problem was your problem.
Richard’s dream was a farm for each son. Before he died he had achieved this
goal but the land was mortgaged. His sons, William John, Sam, and James paid the
notes and bought more farms eventually owning farms in Jasper, Marshall, Poweshiek,
and Grundy counties.
Sam and his wife, Grace McIlrath Parker, had no children. James and his wife
Ester Wallace Parker had a son Paul and daughter Frances. Paul’s son Jim lives in the
area while his sisters are residents of other states. Frances and her husband Bob Ross
ran a highly successful resort near Spirit Lake, Iowa. Their children Carl, Larry, Kathy,
Mary, and Jane are spread throughout the county but maintain close communication via
modern technology. William John Parker and his wife Etta Shayer had a daughter
Marie and a son Richard. Marie’s daughter (her son Charles is deceased) maintains
ownership of a family farm north of Newburg. Richard’s daughter Mary is deceased—
her family keeps her property in Marshall county. Richard’s son John (the writer of this
missive) continues to farm (with wife Susan) in the Gilman Newburg area just like Dad,
and Granddad, Great Granddad, and Great Great Granddad in earlier times.
The entire Parker clan should be forever grateful to Robert and Susanna for
instilling all the intangibles such as independent spirit, self reliance, perseverance,
courage to try, common sense, respect for fellow man, perhaps some wit (and
49
wisdom?), and old fashioned work ethics throughout the family. We feature farmers,
inventors, scholars, warriors, pilots, business men and much more amongst our
numerous careers. But family ties (perhaps this is Susanna’s gift) built upon devotion,
caring, and more continue to shine through time and over oceans and miles to this day.
Thank you, Robert and Susanna.
Samuel
Samuel was born in 1856 in County Down. He died at age 19, on March 10,
1875. He’s buried in the Durant Cemetery, in the plot with his father, mother, and sister
Susanna.
Agnes, 2nd
Agnes was born on June 20, 1857, in County Down. She moved with her family
to Cleona Township, where she met and married Samuel Hildreth Ross. She died on
Feb. 22, 1945 and is buried in Elm Grove Cemetery, Washington County, Iowa.
Unanswered Questions
Why did not our family pass down stories about their life in the homeland?
Why did they come to America?
How did they get the money to do it?
Why to Cleona Township?
When arrive at Cleona?
Why to Jasper/Marshall/Poweshiek County?
Did William and his father, Robert; journey to America early in 1861? Did
William stay?
50
Sources and Resources
Grandmother Bess's Notes, a Family Treasure
Questions Remain
Our research has turned up several mysteries. Sometimes the notes of
Grandmother Bess (GB) do not agree with other records. We also have found several
conflicts between records. For instance, Grandmother Bess’s notes consistently state
that Robert Parker was born in 1800, whereas other records claim his birth in 1805 or
1806. Since there are no official birth records from Ireland, the truth is hard to
determine.
In another instance, the list of Parker passengers on the Steamship Etna
includes the name of a Millie, born about 1858. No other record of Millie has been
found. All family notes include son William as one of the 12, born in 1849, but there is
no William in the Etna list nor is there any other record of his passage to America. I
think that William (Willie) was the Millie on the list, even though the birth date is off by
about ten years15.
I’ve included a list of questions about our heritage that I think are still
unanswered in a section near the end of this work. I hope that the answers are found,
by someone some day.
Notes from The Team
Although Richard and John and I have met a few times, most of the information
passed between us has been via email. Of course, all of our communication with Colin
has been electronic. There are hundreds of messages, many of them very valuable and
great contributions to our history. I hope to make all of it available to readers of this
book.
You will also see messages from others who have been helpful; Ros Davies, who
has a wonderful County Down Genealogy Web site at
51
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~rosdavies/SURNAMES/Afrontpage.
htm .
There is an Irishman living in Loughbrickland today, David Hanna, who might be
related to us (if we could only prove the relationship.) He sent me a chart showing his
line of Parkers and Hannas.
Stories
I want to include many family stories in this book. I’ve not yet decided on the best
way to do this. Links make that easy, so maybe I’ll publish this whole thing on a Web
site. I’ll have to digitize many of the pages from Grandmother Bess – perhaps as .pdf
files.
Web Sites
Photographs, Maps, Sketches
Sources.
From Prairie to Corn Belt, by Allan G. Bogue, is probably the best source on
agricultural practices in Iowa of the pioneer period, but see also John Hudson, Making
the Corn Belt: A Geographical History of Middle-Western Agriculture (Bloomington, IN,
1994);
David B. Danbom, Born in the Country: A History of Rural America (Baltimore,
1995);
Hall S. Barron, Mixed Harvest: The Second Great Transformation in the Rural
North, 1870-1930 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1997);
Malcom J. Rohrbough, The Trans-Appalachian Frontier, 1978, and
Lewis Atherton, Main Street on the Middle Border, 1954.
52
Cyrenus Cole, Iowa Through the Years, 1940 and George F. Parker, Iowa Pioneer
Foundations, 1940, both published by the State Historical Society of Iowa, contain many
reminiscences of Iowans who experienced the 19th century.
Earle D. Ross, Iowa Agriculture: An Historical Survey (Iowa City, 1951).
Marvin Bergman, Editor, The Annals of Iowa, State Historical Society of Iowa.
Dr. Bergman has helped me in both these pages and in my writings on Iowa Telephone
History. He can be reached at: Marvin-Bergman@uiowa.edu | 319.335.3931 |
iowahistory.org , 402
Iowa Avenue, Iowa City, IA 52240. Here are some references he
sent me in April, 2015.
For the political culture of the period,
Robert Cook, Baptism of Fire: The Republican Party in Iowa, 1838–1878 (Ames,
1994)
Cook’s article, “The Political Culture of Antebellum Iowa: An Overview,” in The
Annals of Iowa 52 [Summer 1993], 225–50 [and reprinted in my Iowa History Reader].
For town development, see Lewis Atherton, Main Street on the Middle Border
(1954; repr., Bloomington, IN, 1984);
Timothy Mahoney, River Towns in the Great West: The Structure of Provincial
Urbanization in the Midwest, 1820–1870 (New York, 1990);
and Timothy Mahoney, Provincial Lives: Middle-Class Experience in the
Antebellum Middle West (New York, 1999)
(or Mahoney’s articles in the Annals of Iowa [Summer 1990 and Fall 2002])
. On women’s experiences during the period (which, of course, reflect the
broader frontier experience),
see Glenda Riley, Frontierswomen: The Iowa Experience (Ames, 1981) (as well
as a number of articles Riley wrote for the Annals of Iowa and other publications, one of
which is reprinted in my Iowa History Reader).
For the immigrant experience, see Jon Gjerde, The Minds of the West: The
Ethnocultural Evolution in the Rural Midwest, 1830-1917 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1997).
53
For Iowa’s natural history, see Cornelia Mutel, The Emerald Horizon: The
History of Nature in Iowa (Iowa City, 2008). Also possibly relevant is Robert Swierenga,
Pioneers and Profits: Land Speculation on the Iowa Frontier (Ames, 1968); Steven Hahn
and Jonathan Prude, eds.
The Countryside in the Age of Capitalist Transformation (Chapel Hill, NC, 1985);
David W. Galenson and Clayne L. Pope, “Economic and Geographic Mobility on the
Farming Frontier: Evidence from Appanoose County, Iowa, 1850–1870,
” Journal of Economic History 49 (1989), 635–55;
and Fred W. Peterson, Homes in the Heartland: Balloon Frame Farmhouses of
the Upper Midwest, 1850–1920 (Lawrence, KS, 1992)
(or Peterson’s article, “Tradition and Change in Nineteenth-Century Iowa
Farmhouses,” Annals of Iowa 52 [Summer 1993], 251–81).
One of the best general accounts of the frontier experience is in Malcolm J.
Rohrbough, The Transappalachian Frontier: People, Societies, and Institutions, 1775–
1850 (New York, 1978), especially chapter 13, “The Last Frontier of the Old Northwest:
Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa.”
Notes
1
John lives at 3169 Yates Avenue, Gilman, Iowa on a farm that has been in
Parker family for over one hundred years. ETC.
2
Dr. Richard F. Ross lives in Ames and in California. ETC
3
Perhaps there is a lesson for you; John and I have both lived for more than 60
years! Richard Frances Ross and I were born in 1958. We should have met long, long
before. Please find and get in touch with your relatives! You’ll find it very rewarding.
This book and the Robert Parker Family Tree 1 at Ancestry .com will help you identify
them, but making contact is up to you.
4
Loughbrickland Presbyterian Church baptism records, Parkers, 1844 to 1883.
5
In the church record of baptisms the name of a child born in 1849 is blank. It
must have been William, who was born on Sept. 10, 1849.
54
6
See also: “The Graves are Walking; TheGreat Famine and the Saga of the
Irish People,” John Kelly, Henry Holt, 2012.
7
From The History of Cleona Township, History of Scott County, Iowa, 1882,
Chicago: Interstate Publishing Co.
Interstate Publishing Co: “The township of Cleona is an exclusively agricultural
one, there being neither village nor post office within its boundaries. It comprises
congressional township 79, range 1 east. It is wholly prairie, there being not more than
15 acres of timber in the entire township. Notwithstanding the late date of its settlement,
in comparison with the townships lying along the river, it is now (1888) all under fence,
and under a high state of cultivation. There is practically no waste land in the township.
“The first entry made in the township was by Jacob Royal, Sept. 15, 1851, and
comprised the southeast quarter of section 25, township 79, range 1 east. The last was
by Ebenezer Cook, eb. 28, 1856, the north half of the northwest quarter of section 34.
The first settlement made in the township was in 1851. In April, 1852, Robert Johnson
and James Paul entered the west half of the southeast quarter of section 23, and the
southeast of the northeast, and northeast of the southeast of the same section. Mr. Paul
alone entered the northeast of the southwest quarter of section 23. At that time the only
house in the township was John and Joseph Sinter's, on the northeast quarter of section
12. Early in the spring of 1853 Robert Johnson built a house, hiring the Sinters to help
him, and boarding with them while the work was being done. Thomas Johnson, the
father of Robert, went on his claim in April, 1853, and during the same year broke 20
acres of land. James Paul broke 30 acres in the same time.
In the fall of 1853 William J. Paul, a brother of James, with his family came out,
and James erected a house on his claim, in which he and his brother lived until 1858.
The Sinters came to this country from England. Joseph Sinter is now (1888) dead and
John now lives in Hickory Grove Township. The Johnsons and Pauls came from Ireland.
James is yet living in the township, and William is in Cedar County.”
55
56
57
Index
Here I hope to index the entire book.
9
10
“History of Cleona Township
11
See “History of Cleona Twp,” att’d.
12
See http://showcase.netins.net/web/brooktelco
13
I don’t know if that company stayed in business until the patents expired, but I’ll
try to find out.
Shulman, The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell’s Secret.
14
Just before I went to college, in 1953, they paid for another series of “cosmetic”
operations in St. Louis.
Isaac came to the United States in 1848 and lived in Brooklyn, New York. He
married Etta (Effie) Conacher, and died in New York in 1879. Robert came over in 1852,
married Sara Jane Blackwood, and built a varnish works in Brooklyn. He died in 1866.
David came to America in 1854.
Another daughter, Agnes, died as a child in Ireland before the rest of the family
came to America. We call her Agnes the first, because another, Agnes 2nd, was one of
the 14 who came together. We believe that Robert and Susanna had 16 children in
County Down. Isaac came to the United States in 1848 and lived in Brooklyn, New
York. He married Etta (Effie) Conacher, and died in New York in 1879. Robert came
over in 1852, married Sara Jane Blackwood, and built a varnish works in Brooklyn. He
died in 1866. David came to America in 1854.
Another daughter, Agnes, died as a child in Ireland before the rest of the family
came to America. We call her Agnes the first, because another, Agnes 2 nd, was one of
the 14 who came together.
58
15
I’ve found a problem in transcribed ship’s passenger lists: If you look at a copy
of the original, handwritten lists as signed by the ship’s captain upon arrival, you’ll see
that a passenger’s Age is listed, in years. The transcribed lists, shown as typed, often
change that information to Year Born. Because the transcribers have no other
information at hand, they must guess whether a passenger was born in the early or later
part of a year. For instance, a woman recorded as 30 years old may have been only a
few days from her 31st, but a transcriber would not know precisely in which year she
was born. Passenger lists are not accurate records of date of birth.
Many Roberts You will see that Robert Parker is a very popular name in this
family. To reduce the confusion this causes, I will refer to them this way:
Robert 1st – Husband of Susanna, father of the fifteen immigrants,
Robert 2nd – Second son of Robert 1st, husband of Sara Blackwood and
one of the fifteen,
Robert 3rd – Robert Lavender Parker, son of William Edward of the fifteen,
husband of Bess Carney, father of Muriel, Winifred, and Robert Donald, my grandfather,
Robert 4th – Robert Donald Parker, son of Robert Lavender Parker,
husband of Esther Swanson, father of Robert Marion and Diane Margaret.
Robert 5th – Robert Marion Parker, son of Robert Donald, husband of
Loretta LeRoy, author of this book,
Robert 6th – Robert Dana Parker, my son,
Robert 7th, - Robert Paul Parker, son of Robert Dana.
There are several other Robert Parkers, sons of sons and daughters in our line
and scions of Irish families. Continuing research might prove their connection to us.
Our Iowa Pioneers. The history of the Parker family in the state of Iowa is
deep and broad. We have several other ancestors who came to Iowa and Illinois as
early settlers. Grandmother Bess’s ancestors included two families who were real
pioneers; that of William Penn Browne, her mother’s father, and John M. Carney, her
father.
Browne came to Iowa from Massachusetts in 1853, traveling from Dubuque to
Blackhawk County by stage coach. We have traced his family back to England before
59
1635, when the first Brown came to America. John Carney came to Poweshiek County
with his father and mother and a brother and a sister by covered wagon from
Pennsylvania in 1854. LeRoys came to central Illinois from Indiana before the Civil War
and settled in the area from Champaign to Peoria. Since this story will be most about
the Parkers, I hope to write about the Browne and Carney and LeRoy families in
another book.
Life Stories Wanted. This history needs life stories of Robert and Susanna
and their children. I hope this will motivate any descendant, whether direct or remote,
who has tales or reminiscences or anecdotes to send them to me. I’ll provide a Web
Blog for that purpose at www.ourparkers.info.
Thanks to Cousins, Friends and Family
The Parker History Team
Since Robert and Susanna, with twelve of their sixteen children, settled in Cleona
Township of Scott County, Iowa early in 1862, their residences and relationships have
been well recorded. Tracing their history in County Down, Ireland has been difficult for
us.
About five years ago, in November of 2007, two distant cousins and I got
together to research the backgrounds of our Parker ancestors. John Parker15, farmer at
Gilman, Iowa and Richard Frances Ross15, who has homes at Ames, Iowa and South
Pasadena, California are distant cousins of mine.
John David Parker owns and farms land that has been in his (our) family more
than one hundred years. John is a graduate of Simpson College. His great grandfather
was Richard Parker, one of those who came in 1862. He is our link with the many
Parkers who stayed near Gilman. John is also acquainted with several other Irish
emigrant families who were neighbors and friends and even married with our ancestors
60
in Scott, Marshall, Jasper and Poweshiek counties in Iowa. He lives today on a farm
north of Gilman that has been a Parker farm since 1901.
Dr. Richard Frances Ross retired from Iowa State University, where he
taught and studied veterinary medicine and was Dean of both the College of Veterinary
Medicine and the College of Agriculture. He was raised on a farm near Westchester,
Iowa. His great grandmother was Mary Ann Parker Ross, a child of Robert and
Susanna Parker.
Colin Rodgers joined us about two years ago. Colin is an anesthesiologist who
lives in Carlisle, England very near the border with Scotland. He is related to us through
families that were known to our ancestors in Ireland and in the early days in Iowa. Colin
still has close ties with his people in County Down. He’s made trips to Ireland and
discovered many old records of importance to us.
I want to thank Richard and John and Colin for their cooperation. I am proud to
know them. I wish I had found them many years ago.
Bob and Bob Recently, my son Robert Dana Parker, 6th, and his son, Robert
Paul Parker, 7th, sharing my interest in our family’s history, have agreed to join our
Team. Robert Dana lives in Dousman, Wisconsin, where he is Assistant Director of the
Old World Wisconsin museum at Eagle. Robert Paul, his son, lives near Minneapolis.
Both of these Parkers are graduates of Cornell College. From here on in this story I
shall refer to the six of us as “The Parker History Team.” We are still working to uncover
the exact location and circumstances of the Parkers in County Down.
Grandmother Bess
61
Bess Carney Parker,
my grandmother, was
through her long life a wonderful family historian. She was mostly responsible for my
own lifelong interest in the history of our family and our country. A great many of the
facts and stories concerning her pioneering Browne and Carney families and her
husband’s Parker family were passed on to us by Grandmother Bess. I loved her very
much.
Here is a photograph of Grandmother Bess taken in 1949, when I was 14 years
old. It is the way I remember her most.
Grandmother Bess was a lady personified. Born Annie Elizabeth Carney at
Gilman, Iowa on February 17, 1881, she was the great historian of our Parker family.
She studied and wrote about the history of her mother Martha Emma Browne’s family,
who arrived by stagecoach in Blackhawk County in 1853. She researched and wrote
about her father John McCormick Carney’s family and their covered wagon journey from
Pennsylvania to Poweshiek County in 1854.
The marriage of Bess and Robert Lavender Parker produced three children;
Winifred, Muriel and my dad, Robert Donald Parker. Until her last days she wrote of
Parker history. Bess made charts and maps and notes and stories about our Parkers,
sometimes handwritten, sometimes typed and sometimes drawn by hand. She died in
1974. She passed them on to me and her granddaughter Carol Beachler. These
materials fill more than one filing cabinet drawer. You’ll see many of them quoted or
62
referenced in this book. Some are included in computer files, some still handwritten or
typed by grandmother Bess. There are many photographs, which I hope to index and
pass on to someone who will cherish them as I have.
I wrote a small booklet about Grandmother Bess in 1993. I won’t repeat all of it
here, but will see to it that readers can access it. Annie Elizabeth Carney Parker was
an inspiration to me.
Great Helps on Other Sides
Cousin Carol Beachler Wagner has given me many materials passed to her
by Grandmother Bess. She also has furnished stories and recollections of her parents,
my dear Uncle Russ and Aunt Winifred Parker Beachler, my Dad’s sister. Carol was
born just a few months after me, and has been a dear friend for all of our lives.
Cousin Tom Bartlett, Jr. is another lifelong friend of mine. He’s the son of my
Uncle Tom and Aunt Lillian Swanson Bartlett, my mother’s sister. Tom is a very well
known Jazz trombonist and a school teacher. His sister, Karen, a farmer’s wife and
mother, was also a musician and a dear cousin of mine.
Lillian Swanson Bartlett, mother of Tom and Karen, was a wonderful Aunt
and very interested in the Swanson family’s history. She and Uncle Tom made trips to
Sweden which give us insight into the lives and circumstances of my mother’s Swedish
emigrant parents. Thomas Bartlett, Sr. was also interested in his family’s history. He
provided information about the Bartletts, who also had Iowa ties.
Roger Vernon LeRoy should also be mentioned here. Roger, my wife’s older
brother, worked with his mother for many years on the LeRoy family history. He has
provided a very great deal of wonderful information about Loretta Pauline LeRoy
Parker’s family. We do owe a debt to Loretta’s brother Roger for his work on their
family’s history.
63