Dad was the Mayor of La Habra, California for many years. He just celebrated his 87th birthday this April. Mom is an avid genealogist. She is still 39 years old. I guess Dad robbed the cradle too!
Leonidas Holbrook Crapo, my grandfather, was born in Paradise, Utah, in 1876. As a young man, Leonidas worked for the Emma mine in Dunton, Colorado. His job was running the mule train which packed supplies into the small mining settlement located at over 9,000 feet elevation in southwestern Colorado and which carried the gold from the mine to the railroad town of Rico. He married Nina Grace Rhinehart in Norwood, Colorado in 1908. Together they had five children. He died at age 78 in California.
Judge Leonidas Leonard Crapo and Alice Matilda Katherine Hollbrook
Leonidas Leonard Crapo, my great-grandfather, was born in 1838 in Fall River, Massachussetts. He migrated to Utah with his father, Joseph George Crapo who was one of the original settlers of Paradise and the ancestor of all the Utah, Idaho, and California Crapos. Leonidas Leonard married Alice Matilda Katherine Holbrook whose family immigrated to Utah from England. Leonidas moved his family to southeastern Utah where he was one of the original settlers of Moab, where he served as a judge for many years. He also worked as a lineman, checking the integrity of the telegraph lines. Since he disliked riding horseback and loved to walk, he was actually able to do this work faster than other linesmen who would have to leave their horses to climb the steeper right of ways and then return for their horses. Once, after visiting his brother who had moved to Dove Creek, Colorado, about 85 miles east of Moab, his brother, feeling sorry for him, insisted that Leonidas take one of his horses with him. Leonidas demured, but his brother insisted and loaned him his best riding horse. Leonidas walked and led the horse the whole way home. He died in Moab at the age of 91.
Joseph George Crapo and His Wife Mary Hicks Collins
My great-great-grandfather Joseph George Crapo was born 7 November 1806 in the fishing town of New Bedford, Bristol, Massachusetts. Joseph, was lost at sea when his boat capsized while he was working his oyster beds. He was picked up by a passing ship, bound for France, but his family believed him to have drowned. It took him over a year to earn his passage back to the United States, where he was reunited with his family. Converts to the Mormon faith in Massachusetts, Joseph George Crapo and his wife, Mary Hicks Collins Crapo, of Fall River, Bristol, Massachusetts, immigrated to Utah in 1853 with the Miller and Cooley Company. He and Mary were in the first group of settlers at Avon, Utah in 1860. Joseph George died just two months shy of 82 in Paradise, Cache, Utah.
Links:
Anyone interested in genealogy should check out Cyndi Howell's List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet. It has over 1900 links to other sources of genealogical information and tools.