Old Family Photos ......

Both of my parents have passed away. My dad, Jesse, died in 2000, and my mom, Zella, passed away this last May. As a result of this, I am left with many pictures. So many pictures that one could of asked questions about, but it didn't seem relevant at the time when they were alive. I have a large set of pictures that were from my Dad when he was in Belgium and Germany during the final Battle of the Bulge. Those will become a blog of their own someday, maybe next winter, but Mom had pictures of her Grandmother who after having two childern lost her husband early in their marriage. She then remarried, creating a large group of half relatives by the name of Driver which I will never be able to figure out in the pictures.
Today's pictures posted above are some that I now find have more stories to them that when I first started this blog. I looked closer at the one picture and realize that everyone in that picture has an interesting or sad story.
Where to begin, I guess at the top. The photo of the house is one of a house built north of Murray, Iowa on a farm. I have been told that my Grandfather Burgus built this house. I saw it when I was seven or eight years old but never again. My mom helped out with a funeral meal out at that house probably fifteen years or more ago but the house now isn't there and was moved to a small town area of Lorimer. Why? I don't know and I don't know where.The questions that I also have now is, was my Great Grandfather Charles Burgus alive at that time and did he help build it? Also, the other question that I have but never asked before is, did any of my Grandfather's family members, he had 12 other brothers and sisters, help with the building of this house? Was it a Sears kit home?
Regardless of all the unanswered questions, my Grandfather sold that farm before the 20's and bought two other farms, one was near Murray so that some of the kids could go to high school, and the other southeast of town near a small French village called Lacelle. Due to the depression, my Dad and his brother dropped out of school to try to help save the farm but it didn't work. Grandpa Burgus lost that farm and they moved South to their other farm with a very small Victorian, gingerbread decorated farmhouse on it. That property they lost is presently owned by Pinky Phillips and his wife Sally.
The second picture down, is one of Grandpa Charles Burgus and his wife Grace Elizabeth (Turner) Burgus and their ten kids, five girls and five boys. One boy and one girl of the ten were twins. None of the family is alive today. This picture was taken at a park, and World War 2 had not started yet.
The bottom picture is the one that struck me as unusual once I started to think about it. My Uncle Donald is on the left, and he is dressed in uniform. He was stationed at the Alussion Islands in Alaska during the War, not a state of the United States then. My dad, Jesse is on the right, in uniform, could of been home on leave because my brother Rex had been born. I don't know the whole story here as it was unusual that both Dad and his brother were home at the same time.
Dad was stationed in Wash. DC for a while reading radar, watching for enemy planes. He was there for a year or two, before he was shipped out to Belgium to enter the war at a difficult time for the US. He was being sent in with others as reinforcements for a very hard and long battle that had been going on. They were invading Germany for the last time and the German troops were resurging for their last final attack trying to save their border. It was the bulge of their successful attack that caused US General's concern as we were loosing thousands of troops. Anyway, my Dad was there involved carrying a radio in front of the front lines with scouts until the end of the war.
In the picture, besides Grandpa and Grandma Burgus is my Dad's oldest brother Cecil and wife Bertha. The tall girl was their daughter Cecilia, who passed away this year. She was my oldest first cousin. Next to her is her brother Roger. He eventually grew up to be a scientist who did research at the Salk Institute in California. He worked with Dr. Salk, the famous Polio vaccine scientist, and in the 80's with others they successfully develop a drug for dwarfism. Before he died in the 90.s he was doing cancer research. The little boy with a gun in the picture, is Uncle Carl's and Aunt Pauline's only son. He drowned tragically, at the age of sixteen trying to swim across the Thayer Lake near Murray. He was with relatives at the time and just wasn't strong enough of a swimmer to make it all the way across. The woman next to my Uncle Donald on the left is his twin sister Doris. Uncle Donald eventually met an English woman during the war, who was in the service and he married her. He brought her back to the states. His wife, Eileen had been an only daughter of an English Officer that supervised the British colonial countries like India and she lived in grandeur most of her young life in foreign countries.
The family lineage is an ironic mixture as my Grandfather was very German, Prussian, and my Grandmother Burgus was very English. Grace Burgus came from a family of Turner's and her mother was an Abernathy. It was unusual that my Dad would be fighting with England and all of the allies against German's. It was a strange sad time and we were really fortunate that my Dad survived such a dangerous time. Enough for now.
Thanks for reading.