User:Ben H. Alkire

One of the many Indiana Alkires. It seems that my great grandparents (born in Ohio) moved from Indiana to the Hoopeston Illinois area. There are still missing pieces in the puzzle, for instance who was 'Molly' (Mollie) Hart. My grandmother Hazel D. Sheets [Alkire-Hayes] once said that Molly Hart was somehow related to President Grant. Also there is a missing great Uncle, Leonard Alkire who was my grandfather Landis Alkire's brother. He (Leonard) seems to have been a black sheep among his family. Leonard was married to Pearl, and died somewhere in California I believe. Landis and Leonard's sister was Elizabeth Alkire 'Aunt Lizzie" who married Harold Gist of El Monte, California. Apparently she did very well, as I have been told that Harry was once Mayor of El Monte.

My great grandparent Alkires, Charles Alklire and Molly Hart Alkire (with daughter Elizabeth) left their Indiana farm (somewhere near the Tippecanoe, Clinton and Carroll County lines) because of the depression. They lost the farm to the bank, and had to move.

Landis E. Alkire died of pneumonia in 1932. This is a sad tragic story here because his only child (my father) Jack Merrill Alkire, was just a lad of five years at this time. Jack's Alkire family had already left Indiana for California, so he was pretty much raised without any contact to his Alkire grandparents and auntie. It was a hardship for everyone, and this is how I describe myself as "being from a branch of Alkires that fell off the family tree."