Living Family Archive

J. C. Penney’s basement

Stories set here

Gramps’s Helping Hands and Generous HeartCarol recounts Edward Williams’s birth, marriage to Agnes Tomitum, and family losses. After Agnes died of tuberculosis, he raised Mom and Lloyd alone and moved with them to Moline in 1925. Despite arguments with Daddy over drinking, Gramps was a valued family helper. He contributed two thousand dollars for a house addition, worked in the garden, helped with canning and childcare, and paid for Mom’s false teeth and occasional dresses. Mom’s “good” dresses for 500 Club meetings were cotton housedresses costing two dollars and seventy-nine cents in J. C. Penney’s basement.

Family corrections

Notes sent in by the family and approved on review. They sit alongside the original record — the book's wording is never changed.

No corrections on file for this record yet.

Suggest a correction