I am working my way through some more genealogical writings from Zella Brockway. Her handwriting is a bit difficult, and some of my photocopies have chopped off edges. I am keeping this material on google docs. Here is a link: Zella's telling of her life with James. This is a genealogy she wrote after her husband JBB died. It is wonderful reading.


I am struck by the deep pride she had for him and of the life they lived together. He must have been a fine man. Impressive too, is the respect she and he had for learning, a respect that he attributes to his early mentor, Warner Hopkins, my grandfather's namesake. It is remarkable how respect for learning and hard work, implanted by a kind mentor in a young man's mind so long ago, may be a part of how we are today.

You will also find on google docs an extensive genealogy of the Marshalls by Maribelle Cormack. She writes with some flair about Michael Marshall, a first settler of South Shenango PA, who is said to have fought off hostile Indians with little more than raw courage. Cormack speculates about banditry by certain ancestors in the border areas of Scotland. Apparently, if I recall the story correctly, my grandmother was chagrined when she learned from her bridge group that my dad had told everybody at his elementary school that our family descended from robbers in the old country.