all the nuts in the tree: found these cleaning.....assuming I didn't previously blog them....better safe than sorry, I guess. I am already lifetimes behind anyway....

letter from Aunt Mary dated Sat. 4th

Oscar's name was originally spelled SHAFER according to AUnt Dona. She said that Oscar was first married to EDNA BANKS. They were EVA SHAFER MATHES' parents. Oscar's parents GEORGE WASHINGTON SHAFER & ROSE (OXFORD) SHAFER are buried in Fairview Cemetery by ROSS, AMANDA, & RALPH. Both Oscar & Edna remarried. She married a WILLIS. Marvin Willis and Coleen Willis (who married our relative Melvin Sorenson live in Cainsville. Coleen would not answer my letter when I inquired about Eva.) Aunt Dona sent me the address of one of Eva's sons and I wrote to him and he wrote right back and even sent some pictures.

Oscar had a daughter named NADINE and she died a few years ago, so Eva's son Gene wrote. George lived in the San Jose area and he & his wife came to visit Mom & Dad. I don't remember hearing whether he's deceased.

Freeda should still have snapshots that were Mom's of her Uncle Oscar and of her cousin Eva. Hopefully she could let Mona photocopy them to you and/or this Robert Norman.

Mom's '39 diary has several mentions of Oscar, Leta, & children.

Nadine watched me and Freeda at the time (Bernard) your dad was being born on Pea Ridge. (We lived in Grp. & Grm.'s house while they worked at Rohr's in San Diego.) She was 15.

I want to help this guy all I can! Eva's son GENE & BECKY MATHES, 111 DEVENDORF ST., ELKHORN, WI 53121-1503

Uncle Oscar was a farm worker for years around DEWITT, ARK. and I imagine he's buried in that region too.

Oscar & Edna had Eva (whose Shafer grandparents took her in at age 5 to 11, I think), and a son who was adopted by Oscar's sister Inez, so Aunt Dona told me. She told me that Oscar & Inez changed the spelling of their last name hoping to get big bucks from some company.

Aunt Dona said that she was told by someone (I think Grm. Amanda) that the Shafer's originated from Germany.

Leta married MORRIS GRIFFIN and they had a child in mid to late 40's. Morris had a daug. MARGUERITE (sp) who married an OXFORD. My Mom's Shafer grandma ROSE had been an Oxford. The Oxford family lives in Des Moines (Stella Rose Bingamon and Mom were friends. She had a recipe in the Cainsville 2005 book and had URBANDALE, IA as her address.) Virginia heard that some of the Oxford's had had a successful trash hauling business in Des Moines. If some of the Oxford family could be found, then perhaps they could provide info re. Leta and her child with Morris Griffin. It seems like it was a little girl.

This is all I have on Oscar .....children with Edna Banks were EVA, CLAYTON RAY, & WAYNE. Oscar was born about 1902. Married Edna about 1920. Mom's diary 1939 mentions Oscar, Leta, & kids. I wasn't aware that they had a child younger than Freeda and me. I wish that we'd heard from him before Mom died.

Somewhere, I read or heard that Clayton Ray was deceased. Mom mentions Edna and her Willis husband & Clayton Ray & Eva in her '39 diary.

How sad that Robert & Mom lived so close (Trenton & Chillicothe) at one time and didn't know it!!!

Madean thinks that Rosie Axsom's granddaughter Gertrude Malnar is deceased. And it seemed to her that Gertrude's daughter Barbara died too.

letter dated 4-8-09

Virginia found a Christopher Shafer born 1814, died at 48yr5mo7day (maybe 3 days? can't tell deb) He is buried in a cemetery west and then north from Cainsville. We imagine he's an ancestor of you and me. The cemetery is in Harrison Co.