Mackie-Murison Connection

When Arthur Frank Vanek and Mona Inez Leeson wed on August 31, 1949 they linked the following family trees, [Maternal ~ Muench and Leeson] [Paternal ~ Vanek and Gremaux].

Muench Ancestry ~ Leeson Ancestry ~ Vanek Ancestry ~ Gremaux Ancestry 

Family ancestry charts were posted previously. Use the Archives to find them, scrolling downward and reading each previous post.

During the 1970's I began creating a family ancestry album. My intent was to feature each succeeding generation of the four families.

Later on, I discovered after a couple of computer upgrades the programs I used to create the pages did not work in the newer computers.

 

Because the task of retyping all that I'd written would be enormous, I've decided to scan each page, save it as a picture, and post them here. I hope that in addition to seeing the portraits and photographs viewers will be able to enlarge the pages on their screen and read the stories. I'm starting with the eldest members and will subsequently add each generation that follows.

 

The Mackie - Murison Families

 

Family ancestry charts were posted previously. Use the Archives to find them, scrolling downward and reading each previous post.

 

 

 

 

Elizabeth Leeson's Daughters

These portraits and photographs of Elizabeth Leeson's daughters were also in the faded and dusty box I took from a closet and started scanning to preserve them. The three children of Alfred and Elizabeth, Alice, Ethel and Albert (born October 3, 1897 at W. 458 Williams Street, Port Chester ~ a suburb of New York city) were baptized in St. Peters Lutheran Church of Manhattan. [Information furnished by Alice Leeson Dworak, who received it from Mildred Westerman, clerk.]



Alice was the eldest daughter. This portrait

could have been taken when she was about

eighteen, or perhaps when she married John

Dehaven. They had a daughter, Frances, and

a son. Later, Alice married a man named Bailey.

 

Frances married Peter McCurdy February 3, 1938.

Their two children, Paul and Pamela, died at a

young age in Gold Hill, Oregon.

 

Whether later widowed or divorced, Alice re-married.

At the time of her death in 1970 her name was Alice Dworak.

,

This snapshot, taken September 7, 1937

in Medford, Oregon is labeled, "Dew

and Alice."

 


 

Ethel's portrait was also undoutably taken in Spokane, Washington before she married.

 



 Family portrait of Ethel, her husband,

Ray Garland, and their son, Ellsworth.

During the early 1930s they lived at

Spirit Lake, Idaho where Ray cut cordwood

and sold it to Spokane businesses. Later,

Ray and Ethel moved to Oregon, and then

to California. Ethel was always clever with

her hqnds, making all sorts of crafts, and

selling them.

 

As a young girl, she sold belts and purses she

made from rattlesnake-skins. She and Ray had

a small gift shop, and for some  years, earned

their living from handmade items they sold. 



Ethel died in Stockton, California in 1970.

Family ancestry information has been posted previously. Use the Archives, scrolling downward and reading each previous post.

When Arthur Frank Vanek and Mona Inez Leeson wed on August 31, 1949 they linked the following family trees, [Maternal ~ Muench and Leeson] [Paternal ~ Vanek and Gremaux].

Muench Ancestry ~ Leeson Ancestry ~ Vanek Ancestry ~ Gremaux Ancestry

  

 

 

A Box of Old Photographs

When Arthur Frank Vanek and Mona Inez Leeson wed on August 31, 1949 they linked the following family trees, [Maternal ~ Muench and Leeson] [Paternal ~ Vanek and Gremaux].

Muench Ancestry ~ Leeson Ancestry ~ Vanek Ancestry ~ Gremaux Ancestry

 

January is the month I traditionally do house cleaning. And although for the past several years I haven't browsed the contents of a frayed and graying box sitting in a closet, the people in those photos came to mind every now and then.

I'd met some of them as I grew up, but many I know only through stories told by my parents during the era before television when the box was brought out to entertain visitors.

During my childhood photos and portraits were passed from hand to hand and memories of times spent with them became stories of not only them, but also of their past. I wish I could recall the vivid past our parents evoke in those intimate stories today. However, you'll find some of the details in the pages posted on this website, from time to time.

Tonight, I'm simply going to upload digital scans of a few photos from the old box, and name each one. Perhaps I'll write a paragraph or two, but more likely most of their life stories won't show up for quite a while yet. My immediate goal is to show our kinfolk as they looked during various periods in their lives.

Please enjoy them and share them with other kinfolk. I'll start with my father's mother, Elizabeth Margaret (nee Murison) Leeson.



I found this September 7, 1926 image of Elizabeth

Leeson behind a studio portrait of her taken several

years later in Spokane, Washington.



I don't know the year this studio

portrait was taken of Elizabeth,

who had wed Jack Roberts earlier.

Mounted in a beautiful oval wooden

frame, her portrait hung on the wall

over her son and his wife, Tillie's bed

until Tillie died in 1987. The whereabouts

of this family keepsake is unknown today

is unknown.

After Elizabeth was widowed when her husband dropped dead of a sudden death heart attack when son Albert was 10 years old, she moved her family from their homestead at Stratford, Washington to Spokane, Washington, There, she purchcased this home and supported herself and her three children by turning it into a Board and Rooming House for working men. She also catered gormet dinners to wealthy Spokane residents.

 



Albert Leeson, circa 1909-10, holding his dog.

Please feel free to contact me. Email Mona: mtscribbler [and] @ [and] air-pipe.com.

Family ancestry information has been posted previously. Use the Archives, scrolling downward and reading each previous post.