Military

           I have lots of veterans in my family.  I’ve written about some of them.  Last year we had a prompt entitled “War”.  Within that blog entry are links to the American Revolution and Civil War.  I have another blog entry entitled “Family Veterans” which has a link to an earlier post on the same topic.

I recently joined Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War using my ancestor Thomas Stead.  I referenced him briefly in the post on Veteran Ancestors in 2016.  He enlisted as a private on 16^th of August 1862 and served in the company of Capt J W Jewhursts, Regiment #9 from New York as heavy artillery.  His service ended (via telegram) on 6 July 1865 (160 years ago!) as a corporal.

Thomas was born 7 January 1847 in England to James Stead and Mary Ann Tolson.  The family immigrated to the United States when he was very young (age 0-3). They initially settled in Seneca Falls, Seneca County, New York.  Sometime between 1860 and 1870 the family moved to Dundee, Kane County, Illinois.  Thomas married Arabella Brown, daughter of Daniel Brown and Ann Barge,  on 1^st July 1873 in Kane County, Illinois.  He died 5^th of October 1910 in Dundee, Kane Co, Illinois.  Thomas and Arabella had five children.

         I could submit a supplemental on Arabella’s father, Daniel.  He was a private in the 124^th Illinois Infantry as of July 1863.  Another record indicates that he was in Company D of the 52^nd Illinois infantry.  Daniel was born in England circa 1819 and died 18^th of September 1863.  He married Ann Barge on the 14^th of August 1852 in Red Bank, Monmouth Co, New Jersey and they had a total of five children.

2024 Week 17 - War

         There are lots of wars in our history – some family members fought in, others they lived through, and others I really don’t know anything about.

       I’ve written previous blog posts about family veterans.  One looked at ancestors serving or providing service during the American Revolution.  Another looked at those who served during the Civil War.

       The Belles family knew how to serve their country.  Let’s start with the current generation.  My son, Nathan, served in
the US Navy from May 2010 to December 2017.  This would include Operation New Dawn in Iraq, Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Freedom’s Sentinal in Afghanistan.  He was in the Persian Gulf in 2016 serving aboard the USS Ramage that was part of an escort for an aircraft carrier. 

My husband, David, served in Vietnam in 1970 in the US Army.  I’ll have to ask him to write about his time.  He’s talked about it some but I don’t have all the details.

        My father-in-law, Jack, served in the US Navy during WWII.  He enlisted in September 1942 and was discharged in December 1945.  In May 1943 he started serving aboard the USS SC746 (a sub-chaser) as an F1c on temporary duty to the 7^th Fleet.  He advanced to MoMM2c in December 1943.  In 1945 he had training at the Atlantic Fleet Amphibious Training Base.  In December 1945, he was transferred from LSM500 (a medium landing ship) to San Diego Staging Center for discharge.  Interesting thing, two of his brothers also served during WWII.  Frank was also in the Navy (S2) and was on the USS Amesbury (APD46) in June 1945.  The ship was also in the Pacific.  Fred served in the Army Air Corp as a mechanic.