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Good After­noon,

My name is Karen Strong Rai­ley and I am look­ing for infor­ma­tion con­cern­ing my gr grand­fa­ther who was known as Edward Henry Strong. I haven’t been able to find any­thing con­cern­ing him before I find him in IA when he mar­ried Susan Beedle/Beadle. I do not know if he was mar­ried before he went to IA or if he had chil­dren before this.I don’t have parent’s or sibling’s names. That infor­ma­tion was never passed down.

Edward’s fam­ily before his mar­riage to Susan has been a brick wall for my cousins and I. We are hop­ing if we put out info and ques­tions to as many Strong’s as we can we’ll even­tu­ally come across some­one who knows about him or rec­og­nizes some cir­cum­stances that hap­pened in their branch of Strong’s that may be sim­i­lar to some of our fam­ily sto­ries or that some of Edward’s children’s names will be the same as some of Edward’s ances­tors or sib­lings in someone’s Strong fam­ily and we’ll be able to fig­ure this out that way.

Below is pretty much what I know about Edward.

In most of the Fed­eral Cen­sus, Edward has the birth year of about 1845–46. In the 1910 Cen­sus it gives 1860 as his birth year. His grave marker states his birth year as 1852. On his death cer­tifi­cate the birth date given is Dec 4, 1851. His head­stone says 1852.

All census’s where Edward is found (IA & NE) state Ken­tucky as the birth­place. Edward’s death cer­tifi­cate states the birth­place as Louisville, Kentucky.

Edward’s granddaughter’s believe that the par­ents came from Eng­land, were in VA then KY. The 1880, 1900, and 1910 all state the par­ents came from Eng­land. One, the 1885 NE state cen­sus, states that the par­ents were born in or came from Guernsey a small island in the Eng­lish Chan­nel, Chan­nel Islands between the coasts of UK and France.

Fam­ily sto­ries have the fam­ily being involved in some way with sulky rac­ing horses in KY.

Edward was said to have been sent away by his fam­ily for some rea­son. One story: He was a bit of a rebel and some­how dis­graced the fam­ily and was sent away. Another: He was kid­napped by the Union Army dur­ing the Civil War and made a drum­mer boy. After that the fam­ily sent him away. Due to some of the sto­ries we think Edward could have been using and alias and his name was not really Edward or Strong. This in an unknown.

Another fam­ily story: Edward was in IA on busi­ness, met Susan, he was smit­ten with her so they mar­ried. No real details avail­able. It is pos­si­ble that if he was mar­ried he just never went back. These things did happen.

In 1880 the Fed­eral Cen­sus lists Edward and Susan as Henry and Susey Strong, liv­ing in Ham­burg, Fre­mont, IA. No chil­dren at this time.

1885 Nebraska State Cen­sus has the fam­ily mem­bers listed are Edward, Susan, Bessie, Willie, and Harry. Willie was born abt 1882–1883 and a Willie Strong, age 7 yrs 9 mos, is buried at For­est Lawn Memo­r­ial Park, Omaha, Nebraska. He died Jan 24 1890 report­edly from the croup. Fam­ily mem­bers don’t ever remem­ber a Willie being men­tioned and did not know of him. When the fam­ily went to visit graves, Willie’s was not vis­ited. There is a fam­ily story that one of the chil­dren was shot in a park. I’ve won­dered if that could have been Willie as I found it strange that the ceme­tery records stated his last place of res­i­dence as a park near the family’s home.

Edward’s stated pro­fes­sion in the 1885 Nebraska Cen­sus, Omaha, Dou­glas, NE was “dealer in but­ter and poultry.”

An 1889–90 Omaha, Nebraska Direc­tory lists a sec­ondary address loca­tion for Edward as 4320 Tut­tle Avenue. Occu­pa­tion is stated as “Gardener.”

1900 — Edward and fam­ily lived at 5208 N 38th St, Flo­rence, NE. The 1900 Cen­sus lists this as a farm with four farm labor­ers. This was believed by fam­ily to have been a dairy farm and the same cen­sus lists Edward’s son Harry as a dairy laborer. For his father perhaps?

Res­i­dence in 1910 was 37_ _ Spauld­ing. In the 1910 cen­sus the last two dig­its of the address were not readable.

The 1910 cen­sus lists the fam­ily with the last name Strange (Strong).

Accord­ing to Grand­son Ray Strong (my dad), Edward used to receive a check every month from Ken­tucky. He believed the amount to be $500. His father, Arthur, told him this. I think it may have been some­thing like $5.00 a month or at most $50.00.

Ray also said that his dad told him that Edward was sup­posed to have had some prop­erty in Texas. Edward died before he told any­one where that was.

Birth & Deaths:

Edward b: Dec 4 between 1845 and 1852 d: Apr 12 1912 at Omaha Gen­eral Hos­pi­tal in Omaha, Dou­glas, NE
Susan Beedle/Beadle — b: Apr 15 1860 in Peo­ria, Illi­nois d: Feb 28 1930 in Omaha, Dou­glas, NE
Mar­riage: Dec 25 1879 in Sid­ney, Fre­mont, IA

Edward & Susan had 9 children:

Bessie M — b: Nov 17 1881 in IA d: Jan 27 1934 in Omaha, Dou­glas, NE
Bessie was said to have been named after a sulky rac­ing horse. Haven’t found a horse with “Bessie” in the name that I am sure would be the one.

Willie (pos­si­bly William) — b: about 1882 in IA d: Jan 24 1890 in Omaha, Dou­glas, NE

Harry Henry — b: Feb 29 1884 in Omaha, Dou­glas, NE d: Dec 16 1963 in Omaha, Dou­glas, NE

Maud S — b: Jan 19 1887 in Omaha, Dou­glas, NE d: Dec 28 1980 in Omaha, Dou­glas, NE
Maud was named after the sulky rac­ing horse Maud S, a well known cham­pion who set records

Arthur (nick­name Jack) — b: May 11 1892 in Omaha, Dou­glas, NE d: Feb 16 1969

Ray­mond (nick­name Jake) — b: Aug 9 1894 in Omaha, Dou­glas, NE d: Mar 1 1980 in Omaha, Dou­glas, NE

Clyde — b: Nov 1896 in Omaha, Dou­glas, NE d: Sep 2 1902

Eliza Jane — b: Jan 20 1899 in Omaha, Dou­glas, NE d: Jun 7 1930 in Omaha, Dou­glas, NE

There was one more child but I haven’t found the name or sex yet. The 1900 US Cen­sus states that there were 9 chil­dren born and 7 liv­ing in 1900. Willie had passed away and Clyde who died young was still liv­ing then, so there was another child in there somewhere.

Recently we found a DNA match with my dad’s DNA and Stafford and Creamer sur­names. Unfor­tu­nately, this doesn’t nec­es­sar­ily mean that they were related as the Stafford & Creamer DNA tests had only 12 mark­ers tested to com­pare with. This is more inter­est­ing, how­ever, because a land patent was found where a Thomas Stafford and John Creamer appeared with a Robert Strong and George Strong in that same 1673/74 Vir­ginia Land Patent. Per­haps they were related or at least asso­ci­ated in some way.

Karen from the genealog­i­cal research depart­ment at the Omaha Pub­lic Library says it is pos­si­ble that Edward was a “remit­tance man.” These were peo­ple who were paid to stay away from their home­land and/or fam­ily due to dis­grace­ful behav­ior or because they were the youngest son.

Karen Strong Railey