This information added by contributor Kenneth G Carpenter.

This story came to my attention from Margaret Grace Corrin, via (Neva Kahler the granddaughter of Amos Warren Hanks, brother of Ira William Hanks of Cooperstown, PA,) and makes interesting reading about life In United States in about 1880 as it concerns our Family. Ira William Hanks Story While In Pennsylvania Ira worked In the woods taking out timbers for making oil derricks. When his wife, Martha Ann Culbertson, who died in 1881 and the children were cared for by "Auntie Phillips". Later he met a "Merry Widow" and married her. She was home a lot of the time when he was in the woods and left the children to fend for themselves. When the children started a fire in the barn while Isabelle was in school in order that they might get warm, the men working on the oil wells just a short distance away came running to put the fire out and start a fire in the stove. The boss of the oil well must have given Ira a tongue lashing for they (Ira's children) were sent to Grandmother Amerilus the following February. Soon after that Ira packed his tools, furniture and went with his wife and team to South Dakota. The children were three, five, seven and eight when left in the grandmother's care.(1883) My mother, Isabelle went out as a mother's helper at age eight. Grandmother Amerilous's discipline was for them to memorize Bible verses. Mother learned quite a few I am sure. Being the oldest girl she was expected to help care for Birdenia who was the youngest. She found It very Irksome to sit in the out-house while Birdenia would go to sleep on the "throne". When Belle was thirteen(1888) and Grace twelve, Ira took the proceeds of his entire wheat crop which was fifty dollars and bought tickets for the girls to come west. The wife who went west with him took one look at the bare prairies and wanted to go back to Pennsylvania. Ira gave her all the money he had and told her to go. The marriage had lasted two years. The first years In South Dakota were hard but if you have fewer possessions you have less to care for. Everything taken to town was traded for things that were needed such as groceries and clothing. Wheat was cash. All had to learn what to plant and how. Drought made poor crops or none. Seed was partly to blame. There was little money for coal so they burned buffalo chips and flax at least in mild weather. The flax straw was packed into a two-handled upside down welded metal can shaped like a wash boiler about three feet deep. If well packed one can would last twelve hours. Ira finally accumulated a thousand acres and a large flock of sheep and cattle. Homesteaders sold their claims with sod shanties for as little as two hundred dollars. Claims were 160 acres. Ira's boyhood was rugged. There was no work so he was apprenticed to a carpenter. After a time he fled west to Wisconsin and helped In the lumbering. With his first money he sent grandmother the antique chest that is now at "Royal Oak" MI. Grandfather then made the bed to go with it. (quote from Belle's memoirs) When Isabelle was sixteen (1891) Ira married Martha's half sister, Sarah. At fifteen my mother went to a school about ten or twelve miles away and worked for her room and board. She was never home much after that. Mother always had a strong sense of responsibility. When she was offered a chance to go to Brookings on a scholarship to prepare for teaching home economics, She was unsure of the care of Grace and Clementine and had no clothes so she taught school at $25.00 a month and helped her sisters. Mother taught for four years at such pay and then married my father. She continued to teach but soon became pregnant and started raising a family. Father was very dependent on Mother for many things. It was her ambition that saw us through high school and as much college as we wanted. She learned after a number of years that if she managed the finances we had more of the things we needed. Elbert died rather young as a result of an injury he received while working on the railroad. Both Ira and Elbert are buried about six miles south of Wessington Springs, S.D. Ira's second family scattered all over the west. Roy went to Texas. Willis to Wyoming. Dexter in South Dakota. Martha Hanks Miller to Washington State. Grace Hanks Ross had two children, Harry; and Frances. Frances lives in Coeur D Alene, Idaho. Birdenia had no children and Clementine never married. Isabelle's children: Roger became a dentist and practiced in Chicago. Alfred Sturgis became an engineer and worked in Chicago. Winifred Stevens taught school for a number of years and then raised a family of two girls and a boy. Ralph worked for a while as a farmer after graduating from an Agriculture school. Maurice worked as an inspector at the Buick until he retired and raised one girl. I taught school 28 years and after retiring finally married for the one and only time, a truly great guy that I met by way of a common interest in our family tree. He is a cousin of mine

Margaret Grace Corrin (1909-2001)