This page will give credit to those who have researched and shared information relating to the family. Currently active researchers can also be included by contacting us for inclusion on the list. The goal is share and give credit to those who have worked so diligently in the past and today to provide context and information on our family members.
Dorothea Irene Keck Snyder was born on March 3, 1910 in Georgia City, Jasper County, Missouri to Walter Cheston Keck and Mary Saphrona Jane Harmon. She was Walter's fifth child and Mary's eight child. Irene married Thad Allen Snyder on February 9, 1939. Their first daughter was Janna Margarette Snyder on June 9, 1941 and second, Eufrona Ann Snyder on November 1, 1948. Both daughters were born in Miami, Oklahoma. After living in Quapaw, Ottawa County, Oklahoma and Duneweg, Jasper County, Missouri, the family moved to Los Angeles County, California in 1953. Irene re-commenced the teaching career that she had started as a single woman in Oklahoma until her marriage required her to stop. While she started some communications with others about genealogy prior to retirement from teaching and attempted to interest her teenage daughters in the family stories, it was not until her retirement that her research began in earnest. Her letters to relatives, former neighbors, and various local officials show a slow but steady progress in uncovering her family's stories. In those same letters she expressed her desire to find the answers that had evaded her and others for the purpose of helping her family members. She readily shared her findings with them and they, with her. Some of those are described below. Interwoven in the correspondence were messages of health, sickness, death, graduations, weather and other daily events. After all, this was family connecting with the present and the past.
Wyoming Rosebud Keck was born on October 26, 1899 in Orango, Jasper County, Missouri to Walter Cheston Keck and Mary Saphronia Jane Harmon. She was Walter's first child and Mary's fourth child. Wyoming married James Oscar (Orville) Casteel on July 24, 1918 in Miami, Ottawa, Oklahoma. Together they had nine children. One of her children, Artie Namoi, Irene and Bud exchanged information, photos, for many years. Bud had an incredible recall of details of her childhood in Georgia City, providing drawings of the house in which the family lived and names of individuals living in the community. Her letters reflected her humor, courage and dedication to her family and God.
Artie Naomi Casteel Burtke was born on February 27, 1922 in Red Top, Dallas County, Missouri. She was the third child and second daughter of Wyoming Rosebud Keck Casteel and James Oscar Casteel. Soon after the Casteel family moved to Oregon, Naomi married Robert Albert Burtke on August 3, 1938 in Vancouver, Washington. Naomi, her mother and aunt, Irene, kept up a lively exchange of opinions, findings and information relating to the families' current events and the family history.
Lawanna (Leuwanna) Gernell Pruitt Williams was born in Baxter Springs, Kansas. She was the third child and first daughter of Elijah Ray Pruitt and Clara Edna Griffith. She passed in August 2018. Her dedication to researching and contribution to reporting the results is set forth in her obituary in the Appeal Democrat dated August 14, 2018: "After the birth of her oldest daughter Deborah, she started asking about her family history and was surprised by how many of her questions had no answers. Her pursuit of these answers developed into a passion for Genealogy and Native American history and culture. For the past 30 years, she was an Indian Research specialist, at the local Family History Center (FHC-LDS Library). Although she wasn't a member, she also taught Indian Research classes at several other FHCs, at the local Indian Ed Center. The many years of her family genealogy research culminated in co-authoring "Our Puzzling Ancestors", a four volume set of books compiling genealogical information accumulated over decades."