Charles McConnel and Laura Kirby met at the Normal School in Humeston, Iowa. In 1879 Charles was teaching school in the Dixie Valley (west of Boise, then Ada County) near his brother John's place. His brothers David and Ben were also living in Idaho. In October of that year Laura went to Idaho from Iowa with Charles' brother George and his wife and their 3-year old son John. They went by train as far as Kelton, Utah (where the train turned south to California) and from there by mule team and covered wagon to Boise.

Charles and Laura's wedding took place the evening she arrived, at the brother, John McConnel house in Dixie Valley. David and Ben's families from McConnel Island were present.

Laura took the teachers' examination and started teaching immediately after the wedding at Central Park School. Charles was teaching at Middleton. . . In the summer of 1880 Charles and Laura moved to Thurman's Mill, on the Boise River, about seven miles from Boise, where Charles taught the summer term. Their first child Daisy was b. Sept. 28, 1880, at the John McConnel ranch in Dixie Valley.
Vina McConnel delivered the baby.

In October 1881 Charles and family returned to Iowa and lived for a year on the McConnel home farm with William and Nancy and Charles' brothers Sam and Elmer. . . After they moved back to Idaho in 1882, he never returned to Iowa. He filed a homestead claim on McConnel Island near David's ranch and built a two-room frame house. . . In September 1883, Charles became bookkeeper and accountant in the Caldwell branch store of Coffin Brothers Hardware Co., Boise and they moved to Caldwell.

In the fall of 1884 Charles was elected county auditor.
They moved to Boise. . . Soon after the family moved to their newly built house, William and Nancy left Iowa and lived their remaining years with Charles and his family.

After completing his term as Ada County Auditor and Recorder, Charles opened a grocery on Main Street. However, he lost it from too much undebtedness from unpaying customers. He went back to eaching in the country at Cloverdale, on the road to Nampa, 5 or 6 miles from Boise. He was later elected Auditor and Recorder again. . .

Following a 4th of July weekend spent on Dagget Creek in 1922, Charles had a fatal case of spotted fever.

--- biographical sketch from Mabelle McConnel Allen Young, in unpublished McConnel Family History, by Lorena Estlow Hyde, 1983.