Almira Reese Burgess

Almira, or Almina, I’ve seen this spelled several ways.  But family called her ‘Polly’.  Almira was born in Warren, New York in 1821.  About 1846, as a young lady, she accompanies her parents and other Reese family pioneers from New York to the Wisconsin wilderness where her father and older brother Adam carve out homesteads.  Polly likely helps to care for her younger brother William and her 2 younger sisters Lucretia and Matilda.   She is Adam Reese’s oldest sister, but will be the last of the 3 girls to get married.   In 1851, in Reeseville, Wisconsin, Almira marries a neighboring widower, Jeremiah J. Burgess,  who has a 4 year old son.  Almira has four children with Jeremiah.  Her first child is George W. born in 1851, then Maltisa in 1852, followed by Samuel Reese Burgess in 1852, named after her father, and Mary Ann in 1854, named after her sister-in-law (Adam’s wife).

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Jeremiah Burgess enlists in the Union Army , Company K, 11^th Wisconsin Infantry in Nov 1862.  He is gone for 3 years as the regiment marches through Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Alabama.  After the end of the war, Jeremiah is mustered out of the army in Alabama in Sep 1865 and he returns home to his family.

 In 1870, Almira’s elderly parents Samuel Reese, 74 and Elizabeth Bell Reese, 75, are staying in Almira’s and Jeremiah’s home in Reeseville, Wisconsin with Almira’s four children.  In the late 1870s, their children are on their own, her father Samuel is buried, and her widowed mother Elizabeth is staying in the home of Almira’s sister, Lucretia Reese Hilliker.

  About 1879, Jeremiah and Almira leave Wisconsin for California.  Accompanied by their son George W, the Burgess family sets up their new residence on a farm in rural Shasta county, California. The record does not say what becomes of Almira after the 1880 U.S. Census, but Jeremiah regularly continues to register to vote in Shasta and Yolo counties (women could not vote in those days).  In 1886, 65 year old Jeremiah registers to vote in Sacramento, California where his now married son George W. is living and raising a family.

Ima Lee Pedro

Snug in the pages of the Reese Bible is a funeral card for a Ima Lee Pedro, died June 1, 1976 in Kelseyville, California.  Presumably this is a relative or family friend of a Reese family descendant who possessed the bible in the 1970s.

See my November 5th post 'A New Clue'.  Because Kelseyville is not extremely far from Shasta, California,  I want to connect (her?) to Jeremiah J Burgess and his wife Almira Reese, but I'm not having the quick results that I expected.  Something doesn't add up.

Ima was not very old, having been born 6 June 1935.  Because she misses the 1930 U.S. Census, the last Census to be publicly released, it makes it somewhat more difficult to connect her with parents, husband, children.  Her tombstone in Kelseyville cemetery doesn't give any helpful family information either (other than her birthdate that I just mentioned).