Benjamin Oscar WILSON

                      Some evidence suggests that LaVerne was adopted form the Iowa Childrens Home in Des Moines. Cousin Ben Crips in Cheyenne, WY has done some research and has identified that his father Kenneth Leroy was adopted by a Dan and Sadie Roland who moved to Eagle Butte, SD where they farmed during his ten age years.
                  

                   Record of Deaths, Benton County, IA records she died of Diphtheria, her attending physician was C.C. Griffin Jr., the undertaker was R.F. young and her burial place was Vinton, IA
                  

                      Family records indicate Irene, my mother, was born in Independence, Ai, I had always figured that she would have been born in Brandon as a trip of 20 miles of so was a long way in her day and Ill have to check it out.
She went through the 10th grade as that is as far as public school went in the early 1900s. She went to Cedar Rapids for a time when Dad worked at the old Rock Island freight depot and Kings Crow n Plaster Co. They moved to Vinton and run a truck garden for a time then to Waterloo when dad worked for the Morris Motor Co. They then moved to Brandon in about 1931 when Dad bought the general store from my Grandfather Wilson and his children. When they sold the store in 1951, Irene, my mother moved to Iowa City first (until dad finished up in Brandon) where she worked at S.S. Kresge Co. for nearly 20 years.
Dad joined her in a few months after he had completed the sale of the store in Brandon. They lived in an apartment near downtown on Dubuque St. and afters Dads death in 1960 she brought a home at 1218 East College St. where she lived until her death in 1973. She had suffered from heart disease since in the early 50s and that was the ultimate cause of her death.
My mother was a hard working, dedicated person that really held our family together. Dad was a hard working person also but never seemed to show much affection to either my brother or me, In all fairness he grew up in difficult times and did his best to put food on the table even during depression times when the store was our main source of income.
                  

                      Funeral Service were held at the Episcopal Church for Kenneth LeRoy Crips, who was fatally injured in a sawmill accident on Carter mountain. Crips was married to Miss Bessie Billings; he had a daughter, Elaine, 15 and a son Bennie, 12. 
Crips had just sold the sawmill and was cleaning up the rough lumber at the site of the mill when the accident occurred. He had planned to retire from the lumber business and give more time to his transportation business.
   According to the story from the Wilson family, Leroy, as he has called, was adopted out of the family at an early age to a Benjamin William Crips family. This Ben Crips first wife ran off with the ice cream man according to personal conversation. I have had with his son, my cousin, Ben Crips a few years ago. The older Ben Crips married bertha Crow and they lived in Ottumwa, IA at the time, Cousin Ben believes the older Ben Crips died in Billings, MT, 25 Dec 1937 and is buried in Cody, WY. Cousin Ben also indicated that his father Leroy has an illegitimate child born in 1936 named Kenneth Leroy Dowdy and the mother was a babysitter for Cousin Ben. The baby was born in Denver and is/was a Lutheran in minister in Alto, IL.
Leroy Crips was killed near Cody, WY when a log flew out of a saw mill and struck him in the chest.
His obituary, dated 25 Aug 1943 (probably form the Cody paper) states Kenneth Leroy Crips was born May 17, 1903 at Ottumwa, Iowa, moving to Wyoming tin 1913. He married Bessie Billings, September, 19, 1925 and two children Elaine and Bennie were born to the union. The family homesteaded on Southfork (Shoshone River in 1926 until 1930 when they removed to Cody where Mr. Crips engaged in the transfer and trucking business.
Sometime later he acquired a sawmill on the upper Southfork and it was there the accident occurred that resulted in his death.
                  

                      Lloyd was retarded and was placed in the Glenwood Home but they couldnt handle him, it was believed that he died of convulsions.
                  

                      died of a self inflicted gunshot, LaPorte City, IA
                  

                      Della related to me in a letter dated May 16, 1994 that she graduated from Brandon High School in 1933. She married Les Beck in the family home in Brandon on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 1933. She met Les at a dance in Brandon. They lived at the family home for a few months then she and Les fixed up rooms above the store (presumed to be her fathers former grocery and hardware store) and lived there about three months. They then moved to Waterloo where Les got a job as a barber. She received $100 from the sale of the store and house to my father (Jesse George) and used the money to take a beautician course. She remembered her mother Amelia as a very gentle and good person, hard working and religious. She said that Don had died of pneumonia. 

Della died on the 17th of May 2006 and is buried at Cedar Valley Memorial Garden, Cedar Falls, IA. This was a very unusual funeral as only Charlene and I, Mark Wilson and his mother, Dorothy, from Iowa City, Jim Beck, Dellas son, Marlene and Patty and their husbands form Cedar Falls were there. There was only one bouquet of flowers, (which Marlene, Pat and I provided) no guest book, no brochures and except for a minister for about five minutes at the grave site, there was no religious service. It was unusual to say the least.

Their son Jimmy told m that his dad, Les Beck, was born as Les Bak but changed his name after he left the family farm.
                  

                      I was as close to Don as to any of mothers brothers and sisters and knew him better as he was closer to my age. He joined the Air Force and was stationed at Deming, New Mexico for a while then in the Hawaiian Islands. He left the service after four (from about 1936-1940) years but was recalled in 1941 and served during WWII. He visited us in Brandon at times when he was home on leave. He spent time in the Army Air Force during this time and spent time in the Galapagos Islands flying submarine patrol duty. He gave me a set of silver wings and an alligator hide billfold during this time. He gave me these wings on July 4, 1943, when he was a Corporal in the USAAF, assigned to Squadron 388, as a photographer. 
After the war he became a barber in Iowa City and later served as a deputy sheriff in Iowa City as well as a detective for the University of Iowa.

He and Dorothy provided a room for me when I attended the University of Iowa in 1946-1957 at 1218 East College St. One of my happy memories during this time (1947-1848) was when he let me borrow his car which was a 1936 Chrysler. This was a very unique automobile that has become a collectors item today. Another happy memory was later on going down to Swan Lake near Sumner, MO., goose hunting using his motor home for accommodations. He was very much like an older brother to me and I very much enjoyed being with him.