We want to start this newsletter with one of our best photos and it is one of our favorites. We have cousin Laraine Shoemaker to thank for sharing this photo and this story with us. Here it is:
Dear Rick,
SAKES ALIVE! SHE’S 95!!
She really made it! And in fine fettle, too! We had a lovely party for our mom, Muriel Ava Brown Webecke on her birthday, October 24, 2009. She is so proud of her heritage and her Wickwire ancestry. She has 14 grandchildren and 39 great-grands. She has grown from being a farm girl in Byron, New York, to being educated at USC, to teaching college and high school courses in French, Spanish, English and engineering math and calculus. She loves her farm roots and the work ethic she learned from her parents. She and Dad were active in researching family history for 40 years. She is one lovely, sweet, content lady and I’m so proud she’s my mom.
Thank you for honoring her by sharing her photo on our wonderful Wickwire website.
Laraine Webecke Shoemaker
That is one great-looking young lady! We certainly wish we could have been there to honor her on her 95th birthday, and we thank Laraine again for sending us this treasure! To show you her connection to our family, here is a descendant’s list for Nathaniel Wickwire to Muriel:
Direct Descendants of Nathaniel Wickwire
1 Nathaniel Wickwire 1764 – 1831
.. +Lydia Squires 1762 – 1856
…….. 2 Lydia Wickwire 1791 – 1843
………… +Abner Hopkins, Sr. 1783 – 1844
………………. 3 Eunice Uceba Hopkins 1819 – 1897
………………….. +Lemuel Hulbert Merrill 1816 – 1895
……………………….. 4 Amy Merrill 1845 – 1936
…………………………… +Melville Beverly Cox Brown 1833 – 1899
…………………………………. 5 Searls Graham Brown 1879 – 1947
…………………………………….. +Addie Belle Cole 1878 – 1965
………………………………………….. 6 Muriel Ava Brown 1914 –
Muriel married Ernest P. Webecke, Laraine’s father.