Ancestral Wandering

Over Memorial Day Weekend, cousin Dick and I enjoyed many stories of family. One of the topics was the "McGuire Family Farm" near Badger, Minnesota, which was a part of the lives of my older cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents from about 1930 to 1954. Cousins Dick and Bob lived on that farm for a bit in the mid-1940s. Cousins David, Jim, Janice, JoAn, Patrick and Paul and their parents Frank and Lillian McGuire were there after 1947 and until 1954, when they left farming for a new life in Springfield, Oregon.

The farm itself was purchased by my great-uncle Rueben. With his position in the Department of Agrigulture, he had a particular interest and knowledge of the soils in Minnesota. He thought this farm would make a good living for Edwin McGuire and Mabel Pinckney McGuire. Mabel was his younger sister (and my grandmother). Edwin, Mabel and family had been farming a rough piece of land near Randle, Washington.

For me, the details of all these trans-continental migrations and places are sketchy and they will remain so, because I wasn't there. But they are fodder for great stories from the people who were there. I've heard versions of the stories from many and enjoyed new stories and new versions from Dick. I never met Rueben, but my Dad had spoken of Uncle Rueben with admiration and respect for his accomplishments. Dad soaked up knowledge voraciously from those around him, and today I have a better appreciation of Dad's respect for his Uncle Rueben.

After the weekend of story telling, I went looking for details in the historical record with Google, and I was pleased with this find. It's a marvelous detail in the the history of my family.

Source: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015067166143