The Bennett Line
Seven generations across two continents. Every person on this tree is documented in the primary record. Click any card to see the sources.
Doug Waidelich descends from Edward Bennett and his first wife Elizabeth Ellison, through their only child Elizabeth (Lizzie) Bennett Shadbolt. Janet Hume — the "My Dear Wife" of the 1864 letters — was Edward’s second wife and stepmother to Lizzie. Her Hume family appears here because they are part of the book, but they are not in Doug’s blood line.
Born: 1791, Lancashire, England
Died: 1870, Lancashire, England
Home: Foxhill Bank, Lancashire
Children: Twelve, of whom Edward was one
Edward's father, remembered in his son's obituary as head of a family of twelve children in Lancashire. James and Sarah did not follow their son to America.
Source: Edward Bennett obituary (Find a Grave Memorial #97544882). Confidence: medium — based on obituary text, no baptism record reviewed.
Born: 1790, Lancashire, England
Died: 1860, Lancashire, England
Maiden name: Higgenbottom
Sarah is named in Edward's obituary as one of the parents of the twelve Bennett children. She had been dead for twelve years by the time Edward marched south with the 23rd Wisconsin.
Source: Edward Bennett obituary (Find a Grave Memorial #97544882). Confidence: medium.
Born: 1835, Whalley, Lancashire, England
Married Edward: May 2, 1856, Moundville, Wisconsin
Died: April 1857, Moundville, Wisconsin (age 21)
Buried: Moundville Cemetery, Endeavor, Marquette County, WI
Parents: Martin G. Ellison Sr. (1808–1878) · Alice Houlker Ellison (1806–1882)
Both English-born, both from Lancashire. Elizabeth died within days of the birth of her only child. Her parents outlived her by more than twenty years but never met their granddaughter as an adult.
Book: Ch 2, Ch 12 closingSource: Find a Grave Memorial #102632746. Confidence: high.
Born: July 6, 1831, Foxhill Bank, Lancashire, England
Emigrated: ca. 1848, age 17
Baptized: May 1852, Fox River, Wisconsin (Rev. Thurston)
Enlisted: February 20, 1864, Portage, Wisconsin
Unit: Co. C, 23rd Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry
Discharged: January 1866
Died: February 13, 1922 (age 90), Charles City, Iowa
Buried: Lynwood Cemetery, Clarksville, Iowa
Farmer, husband twice over, Baptist churchman, Sunday school superintendent, town assessor. Marched through the Red River campaign, helped build Bailey's Dam at Alexandria, fought at Fort Blakely on the day of Lee's surrender, walked into Mobile in the last week of the war. Rewrote his war diary in a clean hand at seventy so that the record would remain legible. He is the man UNSILENCED brings back to speech.
Book: All chaptersSource: Find a Grave Memorial #97544882; regimental records; April 25 1864 letter (family collection). Confidence: high.
Born: November 8, 1839, Hamilton, Scotland
Immigrated: 1850 (age 10), 8-week voyage to Portage, WI
Baptized: May 1857, Portage Baptist Church (Rev. Thurston)
Married Edward: November 19, 1858
Children: Eleven named, plus one uncertain
Died: 1929 (age 89), Charles City, Iowa
Buried: Lynwood Cemetery, Clarksville, Iowa (beside Edward)
Janet raised her stepdaughter Lizzie as her own and bore eleven more children by Edward. Her obituary says she "cared for five children while Mr. Bennett served his country." She is the wartime wife of the surviving letters, the "My Dear Wife" of the April 25, 1864 letter written on the eve of the Red River march. She outlived Edward by seven years.
Book: Chapters 3–12; letters throughoutSource: Find a Grave Memorial #97544965; April 25 1864 letter. Confidence: high.
Born: 1811, Scotland
Emigrated: 1850, with family to Portage, WI
Died: 1887
Present in Portage during the war years. Edward sends greetings to "your Father & Mother" in the April 25, 1864 letter — that is James and Ann Margaret.
Book: Ch 4, "your Father & Mother"Source: Find a Grave Memorial #97544965 (Janet's memorial notes). Confidence: high.
Born: 1803, Scotland
Died: 1876, before the family's Iowa move
Age 60 during the war years, alive in Portage while her daughter kept the household through Edward's service.
Source: Find a Grave Memorial #97544965. Confidence: high.
Relation: Janet Hume's brother
Service: Wisconsin unit, Red River Campaign 1864
Named in Edward's April 25, 1864 letter as "your Robert." Serving in the same theater and campaign as Edward. Confirming his specific regiment (23rd Wisconsin or a sister unit) is one of the open research questions the book identifies.
Book: Ch 2, "your Robert"Source: April 25 1864 letter (family collection); regiment identification pending. Confidence: high for relationship; unresolved for full biography.
Born: 1831 (same year as Edward)
Died: 1911
Janet's older brother, in Wisconsin during the war years. Possibly the "James" of "James & Jane" in the letter, though that identification is not confirmed.
Source: Find a Grave Memorial #97544965. Confidence: medium.
Born: April 12, 1857, Moundville, Wisconsin
Married: March 4, 1880, Shell Rock, Iowa
Died: January 12, 1930, Horton, Bremer County, IA
Lizzie was six years old when Edward enlisted. Her biological mother had died within days of her birth; Janet Hume was the only mother she remembered. She was the daughter who had her father's Civil War diary professionally bound circa 1901, so it would survive. It was through her that the diary and the letters descended to the Iowa branch of the family that eventually reached Doug.
Book: Ch 12 closing (the descent chain)Source: Find a Grave Memorial #67666216. Confidence: high.
Born: 1858, Iowa
Married Lizzie: March 4, 1880, Shell Rock, IA
Died: 1940
Iowa farmer. He and Lizzie had three children who lived to adulthood, including Jessie Elizabeth — the grandmother Doug knew before her death in 1972.
Source: Find a Grave Memorial #67666216. Confidence: high.
Born: September 8, 1894, Clarksville, Butler County, IA
Married: April 2, 1912, to George Harrison Richards
Children: Ten, including Marian (Doug's grandmother)
Died: August 19, 1972, Nashua, Chickasaw County, IA
Buried: Riverside Cemetery, Shell Rock, IA
Farm life through the middle of the twentieth century. Doug remembered her only faintly — a quiet elderly woman in a nursing home in Shell Rock. She was one of the women who kept the boxes of Edward's letters through the decades when no one else was asking after them.
Book: Ch 1, "the Jessie I knew"Source: Find a Grave Memorial #55583075. Confidence: high.
Born: 1888
Married Jessie: April 2, 1912
Died: 1979 (age 91)
George's Richards family origins are still being researched; his family predates the Bennett line's connection to the Richards surname. His marriage to Jessie is where the Richards name entered Doug's ancestry.
Source: Find a Grave Memorial #55583075. Confidence: high for the marriage; medium for pre-1912 family origins.
Note: The research file records that Jessie had ten children in total. Only eight appear on her Find a Grave memorial — two are undocumented and may have died in infancy. Sources: Find a Grave Memorial #55583075 (Jessie's memorial, Family Members section).
Born: November 2, 1920, Bremer County, IA
Married: March 20, 1941, to Donald Kay Zwanziger
Career: Rural schoolteacher; Nashua Public School lunch program
Businesses: Don's Ranch House · the Dairy Sweet, Nashua
Died: July 24, 2003, New Hampton, IA
The grandmother of Chapter 1. It was Marian who came back to the farm from Jessie's attic in Shell Rock with two boxes of letters and a Civil War uniform in December 1975, and it was Marian who held the uniform up against ten-year-old Doug's body. She was Doug's introduction to Edward.
Book: Ch 1, the hay-mound sceneSource: Find a Grave Memorial #14518265. Confidence: high.
Born: 1921
Married Marian: March 20, 1941
Died: 2008 (age 87)
Farmer and businessman. Owner of the farm two miles north of the Nashua fairgrounds where Doug spent the better part of his boyhood. The hay mound of Chapter 1 was his barn.
Book: Ch 1, the farmSource: Find a Grave Memorial #14518265 (Marian's memorial). Confidence: high.
Born: July 9, 1943
Died: October 1986 (age 43), Bettendorf, Scott County, IA
Buried: Sunnyside Memory Gardens, Charles City, IA
The daughter who brought Edward's letters — and the story with them — into the household where Doug grew up. She predeceased her mother Marian by seventeen years.
Book: Ch 1, "my mother Donna"Source: Find a Grave Memorial #132446173. Confidence: high.
Born: 1942
Died: 2018 (age 76)
Doug's father, husband of Donna Zwanziger.
Source: Family record (Find a Grave Memorial #132446173, Donna's memorial). Confidence: high for relationship; other biographical detail pending.
Born: December 16, 1964, Nashua, Iowa
First held the uniform: Christmas vacation 1975 (age 10)
First read the letter aloud: 2026
Current custodian: April 25, 1864 letter · the surviving originals
Six generations removed from Edward Bennett. The boy who stood in a Nashua farmhouse kitchen in 1975 with a Union uniform held up against his ten-year-old body, and the man who, fifty years later, finally read what the letters said.
Book: Author · Ch 1 · Acknowledgments · Ch 12 closingKnow something we don't?
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