We here in the heavily timbered land of the Pacific Northwest have certainly seen and heard the name of Weyerhaeuser Company and know it has something to do with the timber and lumbering industry. We’d never have guessed that Frederick Weyerhaeuser (1834-1914) began his company in the Mississippi River town of Davenport, Iowa, but he did.

The company was founded in 1900 by Frederick Weyerhaeuser who had emigrated to the U.S. from Germany when he was 18. He worked first as a laborer in Erie, Pennsylvania, where he met and married Elisabeth Bladel. In 1856, the young couple moved to Rock Island, Illinois (across the river from Davenport). Weyerhaeuser found work in a sawmill and lumber yard, eventually becoming foreman and arduously began saving his money. Weyerhaeuser was a workaholic and by the mid-1860s he had purchased the mill and was buying pine tracts in Wisconsin, expanding into Minnesota, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.

By 1903, Weyerhaeuser owned more than 1.5 million acres of land in Washington even though he kept his residence in St. Paul. He was survived by seven children; his son, John P. Weyerhaeuser, succeeded him as president of the company. Demands for lumber during World War I led to a substantial increase in the company’s business. The military demand for lumber was so high that the Army sent soldiers to work as lumberjacks in Weyerhaeuser’s forests to increase production. By 1941, industry executives joined John P. Weyerhaeuser and Washington Gov. Arthur Lang in dedicating the nation’s first tree farm near Montesano.

And it all started with a hard-working German immigrant in a small Midwestern town.

(Thanks to www.historylink.org for the information on Weyerhaeuser.)  If you want all the details of his life, click to Google.

Who hasn’t taken Tums for the tummy?  On our bus ride from the boat to the Gateway Arch in downtown St. Louis, and not in the best-looking part of town, we passed a 5-story red brick factory building……. the home to Tums for nearly 100 years.  Everything comes from somewhere and Tums come from St. Louis, Missouri. Here’s a bit from their website:

Insomniac snacks, car crashes, tax audits, pink slips… Imagine all the gushes of gastric acid those Tums have neutralized. The brand leads the industry, selling more than 60 million bottles or rolls a year—almost double the total of its second-place rival, Rolaids. And 99.9 percent of those Tums, more than 6 billion tablets, are made right here. (The .1 percent? Wrafton Laboratories in England.)

Now you’re ready to be a Jeopardy champion!

Here’s another bit of trivia for you: 

When did hurricanes start getting named?  It was back in 1950 when the U.S. Weather Bureau began using the phonetic alphabet (Able-Baker-Charlie). In 1953, women’s names were substituted and in 1979 the World Meteorological Organization switched to a list that included men’s names. Now you know.

Minding the many, many vessels going up and down the Mississippi River is a huge challenge. There would be total chaos were it not for rules. I learned about two interesting websites to learn more about these rules and thought you might want to check them out too. First was www.MarineVesselTraffic.com. From an opening menu, you do a search for a specific ship (where it is), sea ports, military ships and planes tracking, container ports, cruise ships and more. Quite interesting if that’s your thing.

I also learned that while the U.S. Corps of Engineers is charged with keeping the river open and safe for traffic, the U.S. Coast Guard has charge of the ships. The National Vessel Movement Center is a fairly new organization, functioning since 2001. At this website, you can learn the rules and regulations concerning the ships using the Mississippi River (and they fill volumes). 

Please read clear to the end for my Big Announcement!

I knew that my maternal grandmother, Clara Ann Joseph, was born on 14 Nov 1894 in the Mississippi River town of Ivy Landing, Illinois. By 1900, the Joseph family was living several miles inland which gives a big clue as to way I could never find Ivy Landing on any map. It must have surely washed away! In those early days, men’s attempts to control the Mighty Mississippi were puny at best. It was well into the 1890s that the Corps of Engineers began building dams to (hopefully) better control the river.

In late October 2022 I tool a cruise down the entire length of the Mississippi River. I was very surprised to see miles and miles and miles of river bank looking much like the picture above. Was this where Ivy Landing was? I’ll never know for sure but I’ll bet it was a tiny town back in the trees along a stretch of river bank just like this.

Now for my big announcement:  On this recent cruise, I kept my eyes and ears open to learn everything I could about the Mississippi River and the history of states along the river, the Heartland of America. Polling several genealogy friends, and getting their thumbs up, for the foreseeable future I will be sharing much of what I learned about America’s history. One highlight was that I got to visit Graceland and see Elvis!! Stay tuned………………. Come learn some U.S. history with me!

It is now officially 2023 and why not treat yourself to a new book for the New Year???

One might guess that with eighteen books to his credit that Nathan Dylan Goodwin was running out of ideas. But nope. Book number nineteen, The Sawtooth Slayer, adds another star on his story flag.

The Sawtooth Slayer is set in April 2020 in Twin Falls, Idaho, where a serial killer is on the loose. A nameless man is kidnapping young women from their own homes, taking them out of the city to kill them before returning their bodies to random locations around the city. The local officers in charge in frustration turn to Venator—an investigative genetic genealogical company—in hopes that they can identify the killer from his left-behind DNA before he kills another young woman.

This book is definitely not another typical murder mystery. The Sawtooth Slayer is different in that DNA is featured prominently in the solving of the murders.

Will the Venator team solve this string of gruesome murders? You betchya….with the help from DNA.

The old phrase comes to mind: “Try it, you’ll like it.”  And I believe you will. You can order it from Amazon in Kindle format, hardcover and paperback ($13.99).

You could have your very own sewing machine for only $22.50! Note that it was a foot-powered model but it did come with a 10-year guarantee!

Only $39.90 for a Michigan A Grade Family Wagon…. “we must sell 1000 of these vehicles before the close of the season.” And a 3% discount was offered if you pay in full with your order. Horses not included. 

How many of us remember drooling over the pages of the Sears catalog Christmas Wish book? I do!

The first Sears Christmas Book debuted in 1933 and came in the mail for 60 years, until 1993 (when Sears went totally out of the catalog business). 

Through the decades, the items offered varied. In 1937, tractor sets and Shirley Temple dolls were offered. By 1949, Western TV shows and movies exploded and the book offered a wide variety of Roy Rogers inspired gifts and even school supplies. As America entered the space race in 1968, children everywhere dreamed of becoming an astronaut. Marking America’s Bicentennial in 1975, nostalgic theme toys appeared: fife and drum sets, Colonial dolls and models of the USS Constitution.  Transformers exploded on the scene in 1984. 

What likely did your grandparents or parents or YOU order from the Sears Christmas Wish Book???

Then www.shipindex.org is the website for you to find that image!!  I know the copied image above is fuzzy but the first paragraph says it all:

“ShipIndex.org simplifies vessel research. Whether you’re a genealogist, a maritime historian, a researcher, or just curious, we can help you learn more about the ships that interest you. We tell you which maritime resources, such as books, journals, magazines, newspapers, CD-ROMS, websites and online databases mention the ships that interest you. We enhance these references by noting which ones include illustrations or crew and passenger lists and where you can find or purchase the resource.”

You can barely see that “our full database had 3,151,517 citations to ships in 1004 resources.”

You can do a quick first index search for free but you’ll need to subscribe to view the citation…………. a whopping $6.00 for two full weeks. 

From the Mayflower to the Titanic to the Queen Mary this website will delight you and enhance your family history stories, I guarantee.