Bill and Nancy Smith Family
Travels and Holidays
Nancy visits her ancestors' trails in
Southwest Washington
Nancy flew out to Portland, Oregon, a few
days before the Labor Day weekend, rented a car at the airport, and
went exploring in southwestern counties of the state of Washington
for her ancestors who lived there around the turn of the last
century. They were loggers. This is an example of the beautiful
country she was exploring:
This church, Wilapa United Methodist, was
typical of the small towns she visited:
Logging is still a big business in the
area, of course. Even driving through the small towns:
Of course, some aspects of logging have
discouraging elements - until they get in to replant, the land can
look pretty bad...
But, the cemeteries can be beautiful.
This is one of the benefits of seeking ancestors, you get to walk
some beautiful areas, such as these:
Nancy was looking for Dolan descendant on
this trip. She actually had some success, as you can see from the
following stones she found:
Leonard was in Iowa and Minnesota around
the time Nancy's father was born. Leonard was an uncle. He moved to
Washington where others of his family were already living, including
John Dolan:
Susan was a Dolan, and Nancy had looked
long and hard to follow her trail. She found this stone at the end of
her trail on this visit:
Nancy found many answers during her
visit, but, as usual, found more questions to search out. Some of
these folks went to the Alaska Gold Fields in the early years of the
twentieth century... but, that is a story for another time and
place.
Nancy's
"My Pioneers" web
site.
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Page created 10 Jan 2000, last updated 28
Jan 2000.
Direct questions and comments to Bill
or Nancy.