Family roots in Keota

Susan always leaves flowers and chocolates and magazines by my bed when I visit her. She moved from Pittsburgh to Coralville, Iowa this year, so this is my first visit here. It's like a perfect bed and breakfast inn. Susan and I left for Keota about 8:20am after her twins were on the bus to high school. Susan was plugged into her Garmin and I was plugged in to my iPhone Mapquest. The two GPSs synched the journey most of the way—both had us going one hour and 11 minutes over miles of dirt/rocky roads through expansive fields of dried up corn and soybean fields. The dirt roads weren’t bad-- we just kept saying to each other that there must have been a less-direct, more-paved way there.  Susan had seen a table at her Iowa City farmers’ market, selling soap from Keota and she had mentioned my grandmother’s house to them before I ever arrived. The folks seemed to recognize the house picture I gave her or they recalled a story that the particular Keota house had burned down.  They told Susan what street to go look on: Ellis Street across from the church, near the copper-roofed house. 

the 40 miles between Iowa City and Keota

Downtown Keota

I did get a bit excited to see the Welcome to Keota sign and the Keota-labeled water tower over head.  On the web map, it had looked like Keota was about 12 blocks big—3 big streets times 4 smaller streets in a nice regular, rectangular grid. Downtown still has a Maytag Man and Zenith TV stores as well as a shop called Timeless Treasures. Our first stop was the Post Office where I had to mail a package. I showed Postmaster Diane Glandon my homestead photos and asked if she knew any Page family members still around. She called up Dean Ridley whom she thought would know because of his work on the Keota Eagle Newspaper.  He knew the house. He believed a picture had been in the Keota Centennial book.  Diane thought Stibe Peter might recall the family and he should be right along for his mail.  I left my cell number and we followed their direction to Ellis St and to the local cemetery down by the schoolhouse.  I took a picture of a lot next to “the copper roofed house.”  It seems my greatgrandparents’ house might have been big enough to take up two lots –one where there is now an apartment building on the corner and this empty-ish lot next door. Stibe did not  call.

Vintage photos of my Grandmother's house

the present day lot

The big find was at the cemetery.  I didn’t know if my ancestors were buried there at all, let alone in the Catholic vs. Protestant sides of the cemetery.  Susan drove past the schoolhouse right onto the cemetery road and we parked a little off the grass. We heard children laughing and playing in the distance as we each walked a row of gravestones.  The stones were situated, some facing east some west some north some south,  some flat facing heaven-ward, all in the same row so you literally had to walk in circles or weave in and out to see a family name on each stone.  One could easily miss the one family name you were seeking.  I followed Susan across the road to one plot up on the hill overlooking more dried up cornfields.  I went back across a different road while Susan moved the car.  About 4/5ths done with the looking, I found a large stone marked PAGE and beckoned Susan to join me with the papers and crayons she had pre- packed.  In front of the PAGE marker, I found a marker for my grandmother Eva, married to both August Schmitt (father of her 4 children) and later in life to Robert Kerndt. There were two flat stones for Eva’s two children, deceased in childhood, Donald – died in an airplane accident and Marilyn who died at 3 years old of pneumonia. Geraldine  (my mother) and her sister Greta were her two surviving children, though now, both deceased. A separate marker named my Grandmother Eva’s first husband, August Schmitt. Susan and I rubbed gravestones, took pictures, and Instagrams and posted to Facebook.  I really couldn’t believe it.

Some questions remain: of all the Page family names on the genealogy paper** I have, were these the last Pages in the area? Had none of those Keota Pages my grandmother’s age had children?   Why were there markers for Pages who had married into other families? (i.e. the matriarchs NOT the patriarchs of the clan?)

Susan, combing the cemetery for Pages

Why was there no place-saver for Grandmother Eva’s other two children (my mother and my aunt Greta)  AND, I’m pretty sure Grandmother Eva was cremated in San Diego as I attended her memorial (pretty in purple, pregnant with  Kelcy—I can find THAT picture) so, had my mother mailed Eva’s urn to Keota?  Or was this just a nice stone marker with the correct date?

**When looking in my cellar for my Grandmother Eva’s birthday book, I found an old letter from a William C. Page. I had mailed him back in 1978 about my genealogy. I had no recollection of this. He said I’d do better to look to my father’s genealogy if I was looking for DAR(Daughters of the American Revolution) membership. Anyway, he included a family tree dating back to 1765 from the cover of a family Bible from Brattleboro, Vermont.  I’ll include it next when I figure out how to format a family tree.

It was a happy sad feeling to find my roots, albeit so late in life.  I think it would have made my mother and Aunt Greta very happy to know I’d made this effort.  I can still share with my living relatives:  my brother Brent in Los Angeles, my five cousins Donna, Tracy, Monier, Kim and Kristie (Greta’s daughters) in Chicago and my surrogate grandmother, Ruth Morrison, who knew Eva when I was still growing up in San Diego.