Delk Family History (and more!)

One of the great and tragic things about the World Wide Web is its vastness. So much information is out there that
it is overwhelming. On the other hand, information is out there, you just need to know how to find it. The other day I
did a shotgun type search for Fernandis and found out he had a ruling in the Iowa Supreme Court. This information comes
via courtesy of Google Books. In general it deals with land, mortgages and liens. And even though I play a lawyer on TV, it does not mean I understand what was going on. For copyright reasons I am not going to put the documents on his page, but here is a link for your viewing pleasure.

Brian

I have started to post pages of my great-aunt’s diary, located here. So far I have the month of January for all four years posted. This time span covers the birth of my father and his brother, plus a few family deaths and her teaching job in Stringtown, Iowa, near Lamoni and Davis City, Iowa. This, and all of her other diaries are important on several levels. One, it gives a general picture of what life was like during the Great Depression. On another level, it gives a glimpse of what the Delk family was up to, from Martha and Elmer’s health to what jobs Mary’s brothers were doing during that time period. It also shows that they ate a lot of pies, canned quarts upon quarts of fruits and veggies and ran a flower business. I have not transcribed the diary yet, but if someone would like to index the names of not just family members, but friends and customers, that would be helpful for people who are searching for relatives that lived in the area.

I have everything scanned, so it will be just a matter of me getting the html done and posted. As always, look forward to any comments.

Brian

Which is what I should learn to do. I was given four cloth samples from Martha Maitlen. I only posted three. The fourth one is now posted and can be seen here. I must say, the story of how Martha and Elmer met should be told, especially after looking at the swatches of dresses that Martha saved along with notes for each one. Look at the dates. First date with Elmer, April 6th, engaged four days later, and married two months later. How well did they know each other before dating? Since they were first cousins, what did their parents, who were brother and sister, think? And, we know that Elmer’s brother Fernandis Orien, had been in communication with Martha before the marriage because of the letters that Martha had saved. Could he have gotten them together? Just speculation. Will post more soon.

Brian

Just added about ten Documents for Elmer, almost all of them are State licenses for operating his store. Also, obituaries for his Aunt or mother-in-law, depends on how you look at it since he married his 1st cousin, which is stated on the back of one of the obituaries. Thomas Maitlen is also updated with his obituary, which includes his life story.

As always, let me know what you think.

Brian

I have updated some documents, most notably some newspaper clippings about Warren and Bob. There are also some photo updates of Sarah (Delk) Maitlen and family. One major change is that I am starting to post photos and documents as jpegs rather than png files. The reason is because I like to use metadata to tag all of my scans, and for some reason beyond my knowledge, png files do not keep the metadata given to them. Will anyone notice? Maybe. But that is because the file size has been cut in half, so faster loading times of the files. On the other hand, the file data is going from 16 bit to 8 bit. That only makes a big difference on the editing side, not the viewing side, so it is a win-win for everyone.

In other update news, I need to hold off scanning for a while until my computer that I use to scan with can be replaced. This will allow me to catch up and post every thing that has been scanned so far and it will allow me to post more letters.

Until then, enjoy the summer.
Brian

I have uploaded a biography of George Washington Delk, written by his son, dictated by GW. Elmer and Martha’s obituary are now posted as well as some poem’s that Martha had written during World War I. Some photos of Franklin Elsworth Delk before he left for the War are on-line and one of Solomon Bennet Delk, date unknown, is also posted.

Remember to give everything time to load. I am trying to keep everything below 3mb in size, but if you do not have high-speed internet, it will take a few minutes. If anyone wants a photo at a higher resolution for printing, please let me know and I will give you a separate download link.

Brian

Dad just finished up John’s Bio, please look and if you have any more information to add to it, that would be great. Also, I have added death notices for George Washington, John and his wife Sarah. More to come soon.

Figured out how to get something to work in CSS, so now the Document section is working. I posted Fernandis Orien’s obituary. This is a learning process for me since CSS is not my normal cup of tea, but I am getting the hang of it. I just now need to make the dates of the letters into columns and I will be happy. It should be easy to do and it will look nicer. I have been having an internal debate with myself about the photos. Part of me wants to dust bust all of the photos and have them look as good as the day they were taken. The other part of me is realistic, and I know this is not a feasible task. So what I am going to do is split this down the middle. I will continue to scan at a high bit rate, fix the color cast’s in the photos and them look presentable, and move on. If at anytime someone wants a print of one, or when I have time, then I will fix it up. But for now, I just want to get them posted.