One ancestor, Runyon C. Tunison, comes to mind as a person of interest.

1817. C. was the oldest of 6 children born to William and Elizabeth Fitz Randolph in 1817. Siblings were Tunis, Ira, John, Alexander, and Sarah E.  He died at age 72 + months per the obituary of Humboldt County IA (putting birth year in 1815 which agrees with enlistment in Civil War Iowa Regiment 31 as age 45).

Runyon married Margaret Breese in 1840, had son William, then Wallais and Ira C in New Jersey.  Margaret died in 1854 of heart failure and he married Elizabeth Chandler Turner, widow of Henry B, and they had two sons – Adelbert John and Willis Wesley …residing in Buffalo NY.

During his lifetime, Runyon lost siblings, a wife, and children – health and tragedy.

1. Brothers: Ira was killed in Battle of Chapultepec, Alexander died of wounds two weeks after the battle in 1847.
2. Son Wallais died in 1853 Congestion of brain
3. Wife Margaret died in 1854 of heart failure
4. Brother Tunis died in Buffalo in 1873
5. Son Adelbert “Del” was murdered in Kansas in 1885

In 1880 Runyon was listed on census as a boarder, widowed, in Newark.  His son William was living in Union NJ.  He had divorced Elizabeth and by late 1880’s was living in a County Farm home likely for veterans in Humboldt County IA where his son Ira resided.  Runyon died in May of 1887.

A newspaper article in Rock Island IL in 1870 was titled “Misdeeds of R. C. Tunison” – it was about a scam when Runyon started a collection to provide funds for a man who was injured in a plow works factory, unable to work thereafter.  He recorded names and amounts donated for a time until someone became suspicious, contacted the injured man, and found out he (Mr. Cook) asked R. C. to stop collecting on his behalf.  Within days, “Tunison had eloped, gone – subscription paper and all with a report he had likely collected about $25.  He left a letter with the watchman on the Island bridge telling him to go to his shop and secure a few scraps and keep them, also bidding him good bye, as this place would see him no more”.  The closing line of the newspaper article:  Good bye, Tunison, thy charities covered a mighty mean specimen of morality”.

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Researching my ancestors has been fulfilling beyond belief. My grandmother Maggie Tunison’s line and her mother’s line of Hewitt provided 400 years of insight into the lives of my ancestors in America.

ADDITION FROM LOIS July 3:

The link with your ancestor’s origin and all the facts was very interesting.  A cousin published my mom’s side (German/Polish) in a book the size of an encyclopedia in 1996 almost 15 years before I started research on my paternal grandmother – cannot imagine the difficulty without the Internet and all the resources since then.  Lots of surprises on the “grandmother’s sides” like being related to Humphrey Bogart.      Thought of a few facts on my family and how after 185 more years we are “Midwesterners”.

My grandmother Maggie descended from English, French, and Dutch.  No records of marriage on two Great GM and 4X GGM has no clues.  From 1640 to 1840 my blood line of ancestors moved from Manhattan Island to Somerset County New Jersey.  Without the military land grant for service of Runyon’s brother in the war against Mexico, the move to Iowa most likely would not have occurred. Hmmmmm I wonder how Runyon and his family traveled from Buffalo NY to Waterloo IA.  Just noticed in the 1860 census it listed info on value of estate – Runyon had $25 which is about the amount he supposedly collected in his scam.

I have an interesting, somewhat seminal story of my immigrant roots.  I had the foresight to gather assorted facts and information several decades ago when older relatives freely shared their stories. My father’s mother migrated from rural Norway and his father from Trelleborg the southern tip of Sweden near Copenhagen Denmark. I speak the languages and have visited their original neighborhoods, including historic cemeteries to gather a lot of interesting facts. Life was simple and yet some ways dreary.  Society was rigid with little mobility and few economic opportunities. The news of America was exciting and enticing for the adventurous young people.

My father’s mother Cecilia has a unique story. While very young she bore an out of wedlock child. Her future would be a predictable life with a poor farmer. She made a bold move to leave her baby in the care of her sister and seek passage to America. One way to have American sponsor pay her passage in return for 18 months of service as a domestic servant. My father’s father William had a different challenge. He was apprenticed as a steamfitter with little direct wage and found few opportunities to advance. I believe his family helped him pay for his long passage to Minnesota. He took a very low paying laborer job when he arrived in Minneapolis in 1906. My father’s parents met at a social gathering Dania Hall near the seven corners area in South Minneapolis. After a brief courtship they were married and continued to live in Minneapolis. As Minneapolis residences converted from coal to natural gas there was ample work and the family including my father and aunt thrived.

Later our family story had a heart-breaking challenge. My paternal grandfather, the breadwinner, developed a severe heart condition during the 1930’s and could not do heavy work. As a response, my father’s parents developed a novel solution. In the same South Minneapolis Scandinavian neighborhood, they found an empty underutilized building. They divided the building into 15 separate sleeping rooms and rented them to recent Scandinavian immigrants. Residents could obtain breakfast, a packed lunch and return at the end of the work day for a nutritious supper in a dining room with a radio and phonograph. My father and his lovely (accordion playing) sister grew up in the company of up to 15 adult males. Some of the most colorful family stories are remembered from this austere Boarding House era during the 1930’s.

My mother’s family name is Scanlon, almost pure Irish.   Immediately before living in Minneapolis, the Scanlon’s lived 40 miles south of Minneapolis in the small historic railroad towns Farmington and Elko where her father was Station Manager. Imagine my mother and her four siblings lived their childhood in a series of Railroad stations during my grandfather’s 50-year career for the Milwaukee Railroad.   My mother’s father Francis (nicknamed Pat) grew up in the small town of Adams, MN near Austin (famous for their Spam canned meat). James Scanlon, Francis’ father was born in Montreal Canada in August 1866. We know that James’s father was John Scanlon and his mother was named Jane. John was born County Wicklow and Jane in County Sligo in Ireland. They were married in 1848 in Ireland. The chief reason for the migration was The Great Potato Famine (a massive crop failure due to a fungal disease). While still a young man John migrated first to New York and served with the Union Army and fought in several Civil War battles including Gettysburg. After the war he migrated to southern Minnesota to participate in the rapidly expanding railroad industry and started a family of five children including my grandfather Francis.  My mother’s maternal grandmother Harriet was born in Vermont April 1865. I have names and relevant live dates of her grandparents’ parents that migrated there from England.

The eventful odyssey of   two families Nelson and Scanlon joined together in the late 1930’s.  The two families lived directly across the street from one another in South Minneapolis. My father was Walter Nelson and my mother Frances Scanlon, together was an old fashioned love story. They were married in 1940 and I was born in 1943.  My daughter, Kristin from my first marriage has Dutch ethnicity. Her grandparents immigrated to Minnesota in 1953. My current wife Nenita immigrated to Minnesota in 2012. Many of our social friends are immigrants from the Philippines, so we have an opportunity to explore and appreciate and preserve some of the beautiful and interesting details of each culture.

There are some common threads from my immigrant’s roots. The immigrant experience tends to highly value three human qualities. One is that all worthwhile achievements are the product of hard work. Second, our strong healthy family relationship are vital to our well-being. Third we should always be willing to lend a helping hand to those in need.