Sunday, October 7, 2007

last day in Iowa Oct 5 Day 58 from home

DAY FIFTY-EIGHT KEOKUK IA 24.12km (to see the Iowa pictures go to the post below and the link to Iowa log]
Oct6 Saturday D24.12km M 35.4 A 9.6 REST DAY total 4576.9km

Well what a day we have had. Started out by going by 521 Morgan street which is the address the French’s lived at in 1901 It is not the house I have a picture of that was thought to be their house, but I think this is definitely where they lived. No answer so I took pictures and spoke to a fellow across the street who said their house was built in 1890 so I’m sure this house was here in 1901. It is a neat looking house and would have been fun to go inside but we returned later in the day and still no one home.


We also did a ride along Grand Avenue which has a lot of history of houses built when they would have lived here. One [4 Park Place] is the house of Thomas R Ayers a jewelry and music merchant who the city listing for 1901 states that Eunice [grandma’s mother] was the secretary for… it doesn’t say that Frank worked as a jeweler there or if he had his own shop. It is only a few blocks from the French home on a tree lined street with other large homes.


We went to the library for a map of the grave yard and the info on the internet says they are buried in section E Well we walked for almost 3 hours and we found the other 3 French’s which I don’t know if they are relations, in a section we are sure is R but in all the areas we think are E we found no French’s. It is a very hilly graveyard, very large and not well marked out. Also there are a lot of stones in disrepair so the stones may have been removed if damaged. We were exhausted by the time we walked and walked.



Picture of one part of E section of Oakwood Cemetary Keokuk Iowa

Church around the corner from Morgan St Court house that might have been the University in 1900

This was a very busy port town in 1901. Today the population is 11,427 I will have to research if it is more or less than 1901. It is full of brick buildings, homes and businesses. I did find out that Mom’s Aunt Ada graduated 1900 from the University of Iowa as a physician. Keokuk was the first site of this university, but it is now in Iowa City. There is a medical museum there but we are not able to go there at this time. I have emailed them to see if they have any information on her. I do know she was not able to work as a Dr when she was in Canada as she would have had to write her exams again

Chief Keokuk [town named after] View from Grand Ave houses of the Mississippi River


View from the Chief Keokuk statue site.

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