My Trails into the Past

My husband’s grandfather, Joseph Norman Gorrell, was a telephone lineman in Kansas City, Missouri; Wichita, Kansas; Des Moines, Iowa; and lastly in Joplin, Missouri, beginning at the start of the twentieth century. The earliest record found was a city directory in St. Joseph, Missouri, where he worked for the Missouri & Kansas Telephone Company. [1] In Wichita, Kansas, he was a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local No. 144. Joe is sitting on the wagon in the second row on the far right (this photo has been colorized). He worked for the Edison Light and Power Company. [2] In 1911, he was listed as foreman for the Kansas Gas and Electric Company, which was either a new name for the same company or two companies merged. [3] The address was the same. [4] In Des Moines around 1915 he worked as a lineman for the D. M. Electric Company. [5] This stood for Des Moines Electric Company. [6] By 1920, he and his family were living in Webb City, Missouri...

The standard records told the life story of Joseph Norman Gorrell.  Census records said he lived in Blackwater, Cooper County, Missouri as a child and Webb City, Jasper County, Missouri as an adult where he raised his four children. A marriage record indicated he lived in Kansas City, Missouri because he married his wife, Matilda Pearl “Tillie” Davey there in 1900. City directories confirmed some other locations in Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa, where he worked in the telephone industry as a lineman. However, an autograph book that I scanned this week, told of another tale of his life before his marriage. I have a couple of these books in my collection, where friends and family signed pages with little poems, scripture, or hopes for their future. What is so precious about these pages is having the actual handwriting of your ancestors and their friends. Joe’s autograph book is missing the first page. I can see where it had been torn our. This might have been a page that ...