Cover photos: L to R starting at the top. Martin, Frederick & Anna Ruud in their buggy; Joe Johnson’s 1919 Franklin car, my Grandparents drove this car to Chicago on their honeymoon in 1923; Windmill climbing at my Great Grandfather C.T. Swanson's farm; My Dad, Calvin Johnson in his Sunday best; The Swanson children: Emil, Elmer, Mabel & Phoebe (my Grandmother); & Sunday School at the Granite School, 1912.History is important to me, especially family history, as my regular blog readers will already know. A few years ago, I wrote a book about the area I grew up in, the extreme NW corner of Iowa, in Sioux township, Lyon County. It was an experience I'll never forget, after years of compiling information; interviewing neighbors, going through county court documents, reading microfilm of old newspapers, searching family documents, paging through scrapbooks, e-mailing strangers, friends and family alike, phone calls, walking cemeteries and scanning photos and documents.
My parents instilled in me this respect for family, neighbors and history and helped me with my search and the path to selling the copies I had printed in 2004. Now, years later, I still get a few requests for books every few months. The latest just arrived from a library in Texas wanting to purchase a copy! (I still have a few copies left for sale, contact me if you are interested.)
The title, “A West Ender’s Scrapbook”, was conceived from hearing the people of our community described as “West Enders” more often than not, we occupied the west end of the county. The scrapbook reference is just that, the items in the book have been gathered from a variety of sources and peoples memories.
The book starts with touching on the history of the area back to the time when Native American's inhabited the prairies (the Blood Run Site is located here) and follows through with current sites of interest, information and biographies I could include in 2004.
