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This page in no way indicates endorsement of any baby carriage/stroller manufacturer's products.

I became seriously involved with doing family history research in about 2000. It was a surprise that this happened, because if someone had told me I would have become so involved with it, say, five years earlier, I would have told them they were on an awfully strange drug. (I also had no idea this would happen at the time the background photo on the left was taken, when I was at most three months old.)

Never one not to throw a lot of effort into my interests, I have spent innumerable hours researching, categorizing, checking, and linking myself to a very large group of family and connected individuals. To fully appreciate this, go check out my genealogy site which is hosted at brumm.com. (that link will open in a new window. You can access it directly on this frame with the link on the top of the page.)

Below is some information I have of my immediate direct lines of ancestors (parents, grandparents, etc.). I have included photographs, if I have them. Clicking on the thumbnails of these family members' photos will expand them to the actual full-sized images. The information below is only a short outline of what is available on the full site, and information on all the individuals who are deceased in my database is available for anyone to see.

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The earliest records I have for my own Brumm family begins with them known to be living in Sternenfels, Württemberg, which is near the Black Forest in today's Germany. The family were Evangelisch (Lutheran).

I have found a marriage record for Filipp Brumm and Kristiana Kolbin, who are my 4th great-grandparents. I do not know anything else about them but can theorize they were born sometime around 1765, possibly a bit earlier. Their son was Philipp Brumm, who was born in Sternenfels; they resided there at least by the time of his birth in 1785.

Philipp Brumm was born April 29, 1785, in Sternenfels. He died in Sternenfels, as well, on Christmas day, 1856. The French spelling of his name may give a clue to earlier roots of the family, as a number of other Brumms come from the Alsace and Lorraine regions, and I've found one there who was a well-respected glass blower. Philipp's wife was Sabina Barbara Staiber, born October 20, 1789 in Sternenfels (christened October 22). I don't know when she died. I do have know who her parents and three of her four grandparents were.

Carl "Charles" Brumm, my 2nd great-grandfather, was one of their eleven known children. Born July 13, 1816 in Sternenfels, he emigrated to the U.S. and settled in Iowa in 1853, and died in 1870. He married Eva Juliana Osswald in 1842 while still in Württemberg. I am able to trace some of her ancestors back to a 5th great-grandfather (Johannes Zeither). Juliana was born May 23, 1823 in Sternenfels, and died March 6, 1902 in Iowa.

Their third son was my great-grandfather, William Brumm. He was born in Sternenfels before the family left Württemberg, on February 12, 1850. He died September 7, 1919, near Mediapolis, Iowa.

William married Helena Vandalia Thomas, who was the daughter of Isham Thomas Sr. (1798-?) and Mary (née Flesher) (Walker) Thomas (1810-1889). Mary's first husband, Joseph Walker (no connection to my maternal Walker family), died in 1852 of cholera. She had probably 8, possibly 9, children during her first marriage. Helena was the only child born from Mary's second marriage to Isham

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Helena was born May 29, 1854 in Benton Township, Des Moines County, Iowa, and died in Mediapolis on June 8, 1922. She and William were the parents of seven children. Their fifth child, Oliver "Clayton" Brumm, was my grandfather.

Clayton Brumm (he did not use his given name of "Oliver") was born February 7, 1892, near Kingston, and died of a stroke April 3, 1965 in Burlington, both in Iowa. He inherited the farm that had been in the family since his grandfather, Charles, purchased it. The family lost it during The Depression (of the 1930s), and after losing his farming gig, he worked on a seed corn farm, and I believe sold insurance for awhile. He married Bertha Leota Lett February 4, 1915 in Mediapolis (Iowa), and they were the parents of seven children: my father, William Lett Brumm, and aunts and uncles Helen, Dorothy, Boyd, Dale, Lorma, and Kathleen. All are dead now except my Uncle Dale, who has generously provided a lot of information and photographs of the family that I otherwise would not have had. My Aunt Lorma, who died in 2010, was also very helpful, sharing research she had. After Bertha died in 1953, Clayton was remarried to Margaret "Pearl" (née Burgess) Bailey.

My grandmother, Bertha (Lett) Brumm, was born June 19, 1893, in Mediapolis. She had a brother, Charles William, known as "Charlie," who died during the flu epidemic of 1918-1920. She and Clayton were Presbyterian. Bertha was known for being an excellent pianist. Additionally, she was involved heavily with the Amvets organization. She died when I was not quite a year old, on August 3, 1953 in Burlington, Iowa. I was told once when she held me as a baby, she said, "He's going to be a piano player." Chalk that up to family prescience.

My father, William Lett Brumm, always known as "Bill," was the oldest son of Clayton and Bertha. He was born March 5, 1921 in rural Des Moines County, Iowa. Dad graduated from Mediapolis High School in 1938 in a class of 31. He was in the U.S. Navy from August 9, 1942 until December 14, 1945, serving in the Pacific Theater during World War II. His occupation for a short while before his induction into the service, and after the war's end, was as an operating engineer working at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant (which until 1963 was known as the Iowa Ordnance Plant).

Dad married my mom, Hattie "Leota" (née Walker) Krekel on January 18, 1952 in Burlington. After her death in 1967, he remarried to Pauline R. (née Swanson) Davis July 15, 1972 in Stronghurst, Illinois (I was their best man). Near the time of my birth, my parents bought a house on 3+ acres of land in the small town of New London, Iowa, which is where I was raised. After I left for college, Dad moved in 1971 from New London to West Burlington, Iowa. He became ill in December 1985, and died of lung cancer May 12, 1986.

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Charles Walker was born in Ireland (probably Northern Ireland), likely in the mid 1740s. He married Elenor, who also was likely to have been born in Northern Ireland. Charles and Elenor were maternal 4th great-grandparents. In about 1767 they left Ireland and emigrated to Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. Their six children, in chronological order, were Prudence, James, Jane, Francis, George, and Charles Walker. The first three were born in Ireland, the final three after the move to America. Their son, George, was my 3rd great-grandfather.

George Walker was born in about 1770 near Carlisle, Cumberland County. He was married in 1791 at the Centre Presbyterian Church in Cumberland County to Julian Jean (or "Julia Ann") Welsh. She was born between 1771 and 1772 in Pennsylvania.

George, some or all of his siblings, and presumably both their parents, moved again in about 1799 to Knox County, Tennessee (which was still a part of North Carolina). It is likely George's parents, Charles and Elenor, died in Tennessee, although it is not known for certain. By 1812 George and his wife, Julian Jean, moved again, this time to Indiana, which white settlers were in the process of overrunning and populating. George died there sometime between 1830 and 1840, his wife between 1850 and 1860. They had ten known children. (I have a lot of information on a number of these uncles' and aunts' descendants.)

My 2nd great-grandfather was the 8th child in this family. He was Francis Samuel "Sam" Walker.

Francis Samuel was born May 6, 1809, in Knox County. He married Catherine B. Pearsey on September 15, 1831, in Wayne County, Indiana. She was born February 3, 1805 near the Natural Bridge in Rockingham County, Virginia. Francis worked as a blacksmith in the small town of Milton (Wayne County), owning a shop along with his brother, John Walker. Sam and Catherine had eight children, who were born between 1835 and 1848, all in Indiana. After Catherine's father, Charles Pearsey, died in 1850, the F. S. Walker family moved en masse to Des Moines County, Iowa. They only stayed there for several years, and then bought and relocated again to a farm in Henry County, Iowa (just a few miles south of my own hometown of New London). This final relocation undertaking between Des Moines and Henry Counties was actually very short distance—only a few miles. Their earlier move from Indiana to Iowa occurred as they were following several of Francis's siblings, who had already settled in or near New London. Catherine Walker died September 7, 1882, and Francis on March 27, 1888. Their sixth child, Charles Pearsey Walker, was my great-grandfather.

Charles P. Walker was born in Milton, Indiana on April 13, 1843. He moved with his parents to Iowa as a young teenager, and fought in the army during the Civil War. Some letters he sent back home then have survived until now and copies are in the main genealogy site here at brumm.com. A particularly poignant one was written during the battle of Vicksburg (unfortunately only partially intact), in which it is pretty obvious Charles was facing his mortality. But he survived, and after the war, he married Ruth Ellen Fox on the Fourth of July, 1868, in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. She was born April 16, 1851 in Henry County, the daughter of Nathaniel Fox and Kitturah (McFarland) Fox, who were some of the earliest white settlers in the county.

Charles and Ruth Ellen (Fox) Walker had eight children (who, if you are quite lost now by the generations of this narrative, were my great uncles and aunts). They settled on a farm north of New London, and stayed there for about fifteen years. Ruth contracted tuberculosis, and the family decided she might fare better in Texas, so they trekked there in 1883. But they didn't apparently fare better, and decided they didn't like it enough to remain. They returned to Iowa by 1885, moving to Louisa County, near a small town called Newport (one of Charles Pearsey Walker's older brothers, William Pearsey Walker, already resided there).

Charles and Ruth had eight children The last, John, was born in November 1889 a month before his mother died (and he soon followed her, less than two months later). Ruth died on December 29, 1889 in Morning Sun, Iowa (Louisa County). Charles Pearsey Walker lived for a number of years after her death, dying March 8, 1922. Meanwhile, he had remarried to Sarah Ann "Sally" (née Houseman) Edger (also spelled "Edgar") in 1902. (The Edgar family were old family friends.)

Samuel Nathaniel Walker, Charles and Ruth Walker's oldest child, was my grandfather. He was born in 1869; he was 83 years old when I was born in 1952, and died in 1957 so I really never knew him, though I do have memories of him. Sam was born north of New London, in a "log house." He would have been 14 when the family made the ill-fated move to Texas. A letter to Sam in December 1883 from his grandfather (Francis Samuel Walker, who remained in Iowa), written during the time of the Charles Pearsey Walker family's journey south, is a seminal document doing our Walker family's research. Francis listed a number of our family ancestors, taking the family back to its Irish roots, and included all the names of the children of his grandparents, Charles and Elenor Walker. These names were invaluable in the research my aunt, Marge (Walker) Kimble, began, to discover the roots of our family.

Samuel N. Walker was married in 1893 to my maternal grandmother, Hattie Mae "Harriet" Moyers. She was one of ten children born to the family of George Washington Earl Moyers and his wife, Rebecca Ellen (née Pence). Hattie Mae was born July 18, 1876 in Tama Township, Des Moines County, Iowa. Sam and Hattie had eleven children. She died in 1918 shortly after the birth of the youngest, my uncle, William David Walker. There were still a lot of young children in the household at the time (including my mother), and Sam remarried in 1920 to Jennie "Reil" Hannah, who was 23 years younger than he. Their marriage produced five more children (one who died in infancy), so I have 16 maternal biological aunts and uncles! Reil, who was born in 1892, died in 1958, about a year after her husband.

Hattie "Leota" Walker was my mother. She was born in 1912 in Louisa County, Iowa, the 9th child of Sam and Hattie Mae Walker. Her mother died when she was 6 years old, and her father remarried when she was 8. As a child, she went to Midway School, a one room school house near Newport, Iowa. She graduated from Wapello High School in the class of 1930.

For a number of years after her schooling she resided with other siblings in various towns in Southeast Iowa. She first was married in 1947 to Kenneth Joseph Krekel (1909-1950), and worked in an automobile painting shop in West Burlington, Iowa that he and a brother owned. He contracted leukemia and died January 27, 1950. At that time my mother was working in "The Glove Factory" in New London, and was still working there some for awhile after my birth. She married my dad, Bill Brumm, January 18, 1952.

Mom was a tireless gardener and loved raising flowers, and as we lived on an acreage she had a lot of them. She worked hard keeping our rather large house immaculate. We entertained family a lot. Leota had two heart attacks during a two week period in November 1967, and died after the second one, Thanksgiving week, on November 21, in Burlington, Hospital, where she'd been since the first several weeks before.

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One of the presently living end results of these ancestors above, and the only unique one of all of them inclusive, as I have no siblings, is I, Dennis Brumm The thumbnail on the left links me to a childhood mirror image of myself (click and see). I was born in 1952; this photograph was taken in about 1955, with my father and I in the downstairs bedroom, I believe (things moved around through the years). That room was actually a side room off the living room, which probably was meant to be a dining room for the house... very convoluted. In the photograph I was wearing a sweater that my Aunt Helen sent me either for my birthday or else Christmas (I remember how distressed I was at the time that it wasn't a toy rather than just clothes). Our house in New London, Iowa, was nine rooms, two stories, and very large for three people, but I liked that as an only child. There were plenty of places to find solitude, something I still enjoy a lot today. We had a dog, Mickey, who was prone to having litters of puppies at about this time. She and I were very good buddies. Early childhood was a most enjoyable time.

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I have photographs of a few more direct line ancestors who are not in the direct Brumm or Walker family lines. These are paternal and maternal in nature from the Fox, Lett, and Johnson families. Please visit the next page to view and check out these photographs.

Page 2 Bios: More Direct Line Ancestors