These missing pieces may be lost forever. The same can be said for information and stories from my Mom and Dad over the years.Īs I got deep into my research, I found that some information which I really wanted for our book just couldn’t be found. I remember a few, but for many, I do not have the complete details. How I wish I would have had the foresight to have recorded her stories. I remember listening to Grandma Emma when she told stories of her childhood and how she taught school at the young age of 16. This is why this book is so important to me. None of us could be what we are today without each and every one of them. They were all so very special to me, and I owe it to them to tell their story. I couldn’t help but become very emotional learning things about my ancestors, seeing their pictures, if I was fortunate to have of some of them, and most of all, writing about my own family, many of whom are no longer with us. Many came for circumstances that we may never know.

Many came to America to seek freedom some came to obtain land others came to escape problems or government issues they faced in the countries from which they came some from religious persecution. How lucky we are to have the lives that we enjoy today. I think some were very determined to have a better life. I think, for the most part, they were good, hard-working people. Questions which we may never have answers to. We had many farmers and teachers laying the groundwork of our background.Īs I walk through the journey of our family history, gathering information on our ancestors, I realize how much I would have liked to have met some of them and how interesting it would have been to sit down and talk about their lives and get answers to the many questions that are still left lingering in my mind. We had a lot of freedom fighters in our family starting back in Ireland, then the Revolutionary War, followed by the Civil War (Union side), World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam, and the current conflicts. We didn’t have a lot of famous people in our family, but there are a few notable people that I will mention in the body of the book. No wonder I’ve enjoyed German food for years. It wasn’t until I started doing my research that I found that on my Dad’s side, we came from Scotland and Ireland with a touch of English, and on my Mom’s side, German. In my adult years, I developed an affinity to Celtic music but didn’t know why. As far as the Gibson Family, she thought they came from England. She didn’t really want to admit that the Lentz Family was German but alluded to it. I always asked my Mom about where the Gibson and Lentz Families came from. I will take this opportunity to thank my Mother, Violet Lentz Gibson, for saving every poem, card, announcement (graduation, birth & wedding), and letter, from which I garnered so much valuable information to complete this book. I have used several of their poems throughout the body of the book where appropriate. One includes all the Coats of Arms from the families in our family tree the other section is a poem collection, written by my Grandma Grace Kaufman Lentz Smith and her sister Minnie Bell Kaufman Skinner. I have included two other sections in the book. These memories are vital to the understanding of our family and a testament to the wonderful people they were and the big part they played in our lives. The “Memory” section of our book includes contributions from many family members about growing up around my Mom and Dad, Hugh and Violet Gibson, and memories of their great grandparents. Please see the acknowledgement page in this book listing all of those who contributed. The information they shared was invaluable and crucial to the writing of our family history book. I obtained much of my information from many generous family members who were also doing family history for the Gibson’s, McKinney’s Lentz’s, Kaufman’s, Brenneman’s and others in our family tree. I used all the census information available to me to do my research and information I found from Ancestry or Family Search, through the LDS. I will focus mostly on listing family tree members and use statistics or events and timeline information from the census.

I am not going to write a lot of detail on each individual family member but rather focus on events or stories through the generations that may be of interest. For some of our family members, we have no idea about their lives or why they stayed behind when some of our ancestors came to America. I am including obituaries and newspaper articles for many of our ancestors, because in many cases, these are the only sources of information I have on them. When I say Dad, that means my Dad, or when I say my third Great Grandfather, it refers to his relationship to me. I have written this book from my perspective.

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