Pike Township Family Stories
LONGSTRETH, RYAN, MacKENZIE FAMILY
Nichols, Iowa Centennial Book 1884-1984, pages 215-219
By Loretta Longstreth MacKenzieIt was necessary to look through many records and pictures to get information for this family story, and thus, as I start to write this, I find myself deep in nostalgia.
I’m writing this in the same house, the same dining room, that my mother grew up in. We [Loretta Longstreth MacKenzie and Ernest Palmer MacKenzie] live on my maternal grandparents’ farm, the old Ryan place.
I have heard my neighbor, Robert Elder, tell how his dad, Fred Elder, remembers when this house was moved from the Elder farm to its present site, but we have not been able to pin-point the actual date it was moved here.
The farm ground was rented out for a time, and the house stood empty for a while before my folks, Ralph Longstreth and Theresa Ryan Longstreth, moved from what I always heard them refer to as the “old Baker place” (Orville Werner lives there now [1984]) where they spent the first six years of their marriage.
We moved to the old homestead in 1930, and it was a very discouraging task my folks faced. There was not a spear of grass in the yard, and Mother finally asked Dad to fence in a small space south of the house so she could grow some flowers, safely fenced in from the marauding chickens. Mother grew the coarse, hardy zinnias, dahlias, gladiolas, the old-fashioned smelly marigold and the little golden nasturtium. Water had to be pumped and carried to keep the flower bed going through those dry years, but how that little patch of brightness must have sustained my mother through many discouraging times.
A straggly little wild grape vine struggled to survive at one corner of the house. Dad drove a tile down near it and carried water to fill that tile faithfully. The grape vine responded and grew to provide wonderful shade along the south side of the house. It has survived remodeling, painting, being cut back and directed to grow along the west side of the house, and it is still there today [1984], some fifty-five years later, redirected back to shade the south dining room windows, providing wonderful natural shade and giving an assist to the air conditioner.
The little elm tree south of the house that the folks had nursed along so carefully from its seedling days, as well as the two big elms near the road, fell victim to the Dutch Elm disease that swept the state about ten years ago.
I remember Dad staring, grim faced, at a field that the chinch bugs had ravished and the furrow he plowed surrounding the field, using some kind of oil mixture to try and halt their progress. As they crawled from one devastated field to the next, the theory was that they would fall into this oily moat surrounding the field and die. I can remember the folks walking out to check the fields in the early evening, but since I was just a kid, I did not realize how serious this chinch bug problem was. I’m not sure how much good these measures did.
The old barn is still standing, but it is in bad condition, and we have discussed having it demolished. But ghosts linger in that old barn – ghosts of horses. Dad farmed with horses nearly all his life. The last team he had was a pair of big old greys named Ben and Babe. I can see them yet, plodding patiently toward the barn after a long day in the field. I remember the winter of the ice storm, with ice so think on the slightly sloping lot that Dad had to carry water to the livestock in the barn for several weeks. That was the winter I was confined to the house with whooping cough and I thought it would be so much fun to be out sliding around on the ice and I could not understand why my folks were complaining so much about it. There are ghosts of the numerous cows we had over the years: Rosy, Bossy, Bessy, Big Red, Frisky, Big Girl, the velvet-eyed gentle little Jersey or the heftier Guernsey. There were countless mama cats and the kittens they hid in the haymow, and the squeals of children playing in the haymow.
Mother drove the old Model T flivver, but once we progressed to a car with a gearshift, she never mastered that. I remember one ride in the old Model T – Mother and I had been in Nichols on a hot, sultry afternoon. A bad storm was threatening, and Mother was determined to get home before the storm. Apparently the storm fizzled, for I remember nothing of it. What I do remember was Mother gripping the steering wheel tightly and staring straight ahead, her lips set tightly, and with the gas throttle wide open, she sent that light, little old Model T kangaroo leaping down the road, trailing a cloud of dust behind us. She made a turn at the entrance to the lane worthy of an Indianapolis 500 driver and roared up and into the garage. By golly, we’d beat the storm, but I was too scared to utter a single word.
Another time a salesman had just delivered a new Montgomery Ward wringer washing machine to our place. Black looking clouds were building up in the west, and he was in a hurry to be on his way. He unloaded the washing machine in the garage and left. Fifteen minutes after he’d gone, a terrific wind storm hit us. The bit maple tree at the corner of the garage was uprooted and crashed through the garage roof. Fortunately the new washing machine came through undamaged and served us many years.
Many a winter Saturday night was spent listening to the Grand Ol’ Opry on the radio. Reception on a crisp winter night was always good. In the summer, it was often hard to get Nashville without a lot of static, but that didn’t matter so much in the summer. There were other things to do then. In the summer the high school band played once a week so that was an outing to look forward to – got to town, sell some cream and eggs, get some groceries and listen to the band play.
Pleasures were simple, and a trip to Muscatine was an event. Now a trip to New York or San Francisco is taken more casually than a trip to Davenport when I was a kid.
I look about the old house. I remember the old “summer” kitchen that the folks tore down soon after they moved here. The old porch on the west side of the house was in bad condition, so they tore it off, too, but left the cement platform. In a way we have come full circle – just last year we rebuilt a porch and screened it in. This time it is a bit longer and a bit wider than the original, but once again a porch is on the west side of the old Ryan house.
And as Dragnet star, Jack Webb, was always saying, “The facts, ma’am, just the facts, please!” Following are just the facts.
The early Longsteths were probably English. The earliest records we have list a John Longstreth, Sr., living in Green county, Virginia, in the late 1700s. This family moved to Montgomery county, Ohio. They had three daughters and one son, Oliver, who was born in 1824.
In 1850 Oliver Longstreth moved to Fulton county, Indiana, and married Nancy DeWeise, probably of French descent. Their first child, John Longstreth, was born in 1853. In the fall of 1854 the family decided to move west, and three weeks later they arrived at the banks of the Mississippi river. They ferried across the river to Muscatine and purchased land about twelve miles west of that city, in the Letts area.
The children of Oliver Longstreth and Nancy DeWeise Longstreth were born and raised in the trying times preceding and during the Civil war and the reconstruction period following. Nine children were born to this marriage, including my grandfather, Oliver Jesse Longstreth, the youngest child of the family. He was born 6 February 1866. A terrible toll of death from tyhoid fever hit this family in 1894, including the death of the father and two married daughters, Elnora Longstreth Eichelberger, age 31, and Cora Longstreth Cochran, age 22.
Oliver Longstreth, Jr. remained on the home place for a time after his father’s death. On 17 February 1892 he married Carrie McMichael, who was born 13 September 1868, died 1 October 1948. They moved to a farm south of Nichols; this farm is still in the family. Oliver Jesse Longstreth died 13 June 1931.
Three children were born to Oliver Longstreth and Carrie McMichael Longstreth: Ralph Willard Longstreth, Lloyd Longstreth and Katherine Ruby Longstreth.
Katherine Ruby “Katie” Longstreth was born 6 March 1898. She never married, and she died 27 June 1921.
Lloyd Longstreth was born 22 November 1899. He married Edna Bernice Hillyer 1 October 1939. They are parents of Nancy Edna Longstreth, who lives with her husband, Harry Schultz and three children on the family farm in the house built by her grandparents. Since Lloyd’s death in December 1975, Bernice lives in a mobile home on the family farm. Nancy’s children are Teresa Schultz, Scott Schultz and Steven Schultz.
Ralph Longstreth was born 17 July 1893 and died in 1966. He served in the U. S. Army in World War I and was in France. He married Theresa Marie Ryan. A son, Leonard Laverne Longstreth was born 24 December 1924 and died the following day. They were also parents of a daughter, Loretta Erma Longstreth.
Theresa Marie Ryan was the youngest of eight children born to Joseph Ryan (died 1929) and Catherine White Ryan (1861-1921). Joseph Ryan emigrated from Ireland and became a citizen of the United States on15 January 1876. Joseph’s father, Thomas Ryan, was born in Hawketstown, Count Carlow, Ireland (1838-1890). The children of Joseph Ryan and Catherine White Ryan follow.
Mamie Ryan married Frank Neff and farmed in the Parnell, Iowa community. Both are deceased. They had three children: Alfred Neff entered the priesthood, Miles Neff and Lucy Neff live in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Julia Ryan, born 25 July 1885, died 9 April 1879. She married Guy Swails 23 December 1915; he died 29 December 1961. They farmed in the Morning Sun and Burlington, Iowa, communities, and Julia lived in Wapello, Iowa, the last years of her life.
Teresita Ryan, born 1892, died 1918, did not marry.
Bert Ryan, born 9 October 1890, died 29 December 1979. He lived in the Nichols area for a number of years and then moved to Kewanee and Galva, Illinois, area.
James Ryan, born 1888, died 1921. His wife was Selina Ryan. They had two daughters, Alberta Ryan O’Donnell and Agnes Ryan.
William Ryan, born 1887, died 1932, was a bachelor who farmed near Mechanicsville, Iowa.
John Ryan, born 1893, died 1980, was a bachelor. He farmed near Mechanicsville and Solon, Iowa.
Teresa Ryan Longstreth was born 4 November 1894, died 19 April 1944. She taught school in the Nichols rural schools for several years before her marriage.
Loretta Longstreth graduated from Nichols High school, taught two years in a rural school and married Ernest Palmer MacKenzie.
Ernest MacKenzie’s ancestors are Scotch. His great great grandfather, Donald MacKenzie, was born in Bol Dru, Scotland, in 1784. He came to the United States in 1804 and married Hannah Hincher, daughter of William Hincher of Brookfield, Massachusetts, in 1809. Ten children were born to them, including Daniel Rowe MacKenzie, who was born 15 January 1818 and died 8 August 1891. He married Adeline Travis, and the moved to Indiana. They had nine children, including Ernest MacKenzie’s father, William Eldred MacKenzie, born 28 November 1885 at Kingsbury, Indiana.
William MacKenzie married Nellie Burdick in 1906 in Indiana. Nellie was born 14 February 1888 in Cherry county, Nebraska. The family moved to Davenport, Iowa. There seven children were born, one son dying in infancy. William MacKenzie died in 1952, and Nellie Burdick MacKenzie Aitkens died in 1970.
Three children were born to Ernest Palmer MacKenzie and Loretta Longstreth MacKenzie: Mardella Marie MacKenzie, Ernest Keith MacKenzie and Joan Ellen MacKenzie.
Mardella Marie MacKenzie is a graduate of West Liber High school and of AIC Business school in Davenport. She married Larry Brown of Mt. Union, Iowa. Larry was in the Marines, and they lived in Oceanside, California before they returned to Davenport. They now [1984] live in Blue Grass, Iowa and are parents of a son, Timothy Paul Brown. Larry works at the Caterpillar plant in Mt. Joy, and Mardella works at the Rock Island Arsenal.
Ernest Keith MacKenzie was born and died in 1952.
Joan Ellen MacKenzie is a graduate of West Liberty High school. She spent a year in Denmark as an American Field Service exchange student. She is a graduate of Grand View college in Des Moines and received her MBA from The University of Iowa. She married Randy Moad of Lake City, Iowa. They make their home in Dumont, Iowa, where Randy has a pharmacy. Joan has worked as business manager at the Franklin county hospital until recently. She resigned her job to help manage a store she and Randy bought in Dumont.
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