Genealogy Makes History

Imagine living in an environment with little electricity or running water, no television, and where a radio was so rare it rated a special checkoff column in the 1930 census.

Think of an age when ungainly black telephones represented the epitome of high tech communications for the few who had telephone wiring and could afford to subscribe.

Re-live a world where the magic of the train system and the new automobiles put mail into your box virtually the day after the writer posted it.

And visit a world where a new invention called a "talkie" did what it meant - presented actors and actresses on magic celluloid in a way that you could hear them talk!

But lurking in the background of everybody's life in those days was "The Great White Plague." Tuberculosis was a killer just like it is today in its new, multi-drug resistant form. Learn about the procedures Amy underwent at the Missouri State Sanatorium. See how she relied on her God when all else failed.

Every copy of Amy Utter's Journeys - TB and Other Tragedies in Rural America's Heartland includes a 37-page bonus genealogical section in two of the appendices.

First is a listing of Amy's direct ancestors back to Nicholas Mattson Utter, who my records show was born about 1636 in Westmanland, Sweden, and died before Aug. 7, 1722, in Stonington, Conn.

Second, because Amy left no children, the descendant list shows direct descendants down to the sixth generation of her father, Leander Scott Utter, who was born Dec. 14, 1862, in Franklin, Ind, and died June 14, 1948, in Wheaton, Mo.

Besides the family name, Utter, the ancestor lists (moving upstream) include Witt, Russell, Carver, Allen, Parkhurst, Yeager, Hayes, Wheeler, Gibson, Morris, Luttrell, Gibson, Houston, Capwell, Littlebury, Cottrell and Daux.

The descendant listing (going downstream from Utter) shows Pierce, Marlow, Boyer, Patton, Condry, Beam, Gibbons, Tucker, Nelson, Dodson, Green, Lawson, Nodine, Blythe, Edwards, Rockstead, Giammarino, Conley, Shamblin, Tucker, Barnes, Carder, Laizure and Murray.