The Family
The Bennett Line
Six generations of direct descent from Edward Bennett to the present day. Every card is a blood ancestor. Tap the badges below each card to expand the spouse or the siblings who share that parent.
How this works. The center column is the direct line from Edward Bennett down to the present day. Every card that had a spouse shows a small ❤ Spouse button. Every card with siblings shows a + N Siblings button that opens a horizontal row you can scroll through. Tap any card or tile to open its full details.
Generation I
JB
James Bennett
1791 – 1870
Edward's father · Lancashire, England
1791, Lancashire, England
1870, Lancashire, England
Foxhill Bank, Lancashire
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.
Edward Bennett obituary (Find a Grave Memorial #97544882). Confidence: medium.
SB
Sarah "Sally" Higgenbottom Bennett
1790 – 1860
Edward's mother · wife of James
1790, Lancashire, England
1860, Lancashire, England
Higgenbottom
Named in Edward's obituary as parent of the twelve Bennett children. Dead twelve years before Edward marched south.
Edward Bennett obituary (Find a Grave Memorial #97544882). Confidence: medium.
Generation II
EB
Edward Bennett
1831 – 1922
The soldier · the book's subject
July 6, 1831, Foxhill Bank, Lancashire
ca. 1848, age 17
May 1852, Fox River, Wisconsin
February 20, 1864, Portage, WI
Co. C, 23rd Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry
January 1866
February 13, 1922 (age 90), Charles City, IA
Lynwood Cemetery, Clarksville, IA
Elizabeth Ellison (1856–1857) · Janet Hume (1858–1922)
Farmer, husband twice over, Baptist churchman, Sunday school superintendent, town assessor. Married Elizabeth Ellison in Moundville, Wisconsin in 1856; she died within days of their daughter Lizzie's birth. Married Janet Hume in 1858. Marched through the Red River campaign, helped build Bailey's Dam, fought at Fort Blakely on the day of Lee's surrender. Rewrote his war diary in a clean hand at seventy so the record would remain legible. He is the man UNSILENCED brings back to speech.
Book: All chapters
Find a Grave Memorial #97544882; regimental records; April 25 1864 letter. Confidence: high.
EE
Elizabeth Ellison Bennett
1835 – 1857
Edward's first wife · direct ancestor · ★
1835, Whalley, Lancashire, England
May 2, 1856, Moundville, Wisconsin
April 1857, Moundville (age 21)
Moundville Cemetery, Endeavor, Marquette County, WI
Martin G. Ellison Sr. · Alice Houlker Ellison
Both English-born, both from Lancashire. Elizabeth died within days of the birth of her only child, Lizzie — who carried the bloodline forward. Her parents outlived her by more than twenty years but never met their granddaughter as an adult.
Book: Ch 2, Ch 12 closing
Find a Grave Memorial #102632746. Confidence: high.
Janet Hume Bennett (Edward's second wife)
JH
Janet Hume Bennett
1839 – 1929
Edward's second wife · "My Dear Wife" of the letters
November 8, 1839, Hamilton, Scotland
1850 (age 10), 8-week voyage to Portage, WI
May 1857, Portage Baptist Church
November 19, 1858
Eleven named, plus one uncertain
1929 (age 89), Charles City, IA
Lynwood Cemetery, Clarksville, IA (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. She outlived Edward by seven years. Janet is not in the direct bloodline; she appears in the book because she was Edward's wife during the war years and the addressee of the surviving letters.
Book: Chapters 3–12; letters throughout
Find a Grave Memorial #97544965. Confidence: high.
Elizabeth Ellison Bennett (Edward's first wife)
Generation III
EB
Elizabeth "Lizzie" Bennett Shadbolt
1857 – 1930
Edward's only child by Elizabeth Ellison
April 12, 1857, Moundville, Wisconsin
March 4, 1880, Shell Rock, Iowa
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.
Book: Ch 12 closing (the descent chain)
Find a Grave Memorial #67666216. Confidence: high.
AS
Albon Briggs Shadbolt
1858 – 1940
Lizzie's husband
1858, Iowa
March 4, 1880, Shell Rock, IA
1940
Iowa farmer. He and Lizzie had three children who lived to adulthood, including Jessie Elizabeth — a grandmother still living into the 1970s.
Find a Grave Memorial #67666216. Confidence: high.
Generation IV
JR
Jessie Elizabeth Shadbolt Richards
1894 – 1972
Great-grandmother
September 8, 1894, Clarksville, IA
April 2, 1912, to George Harrison Richards
Ten (eight documented on Find a Grave)
August 19, 1972, Nashua, IA
Riverside Cemetery, Shell Rock, IA
Farm life through the middle of the twentieth century. She is remembered by later generations as 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"
Find a Grave Memorial #55583075. Confidence: high.
GR
George Harrison Richards
1888 – 1979
Jessie's husband
1888
April 2, 1912
1979 (age 91)
George's Richards family origins are still being researched. His marriage to Jessie is where the Richards name entered the line.
Find a Grave Memorial #55583075. Confidence: high for the marriage.
Jessie's children · the eight documented Richards children. Tap Marian’s tile to follow the direct line forward.
CR
Clyde Willard Richards
1912 – 1916
1912
1916 (age 4)
The first child of Jessie and George Richards, died at age four.
Find a Grave Memorial #55583075. Confidence: high.
RR
Rual George Richards
1913 – 2001
1913
2001 (age 88)
Second child of Jessie and George.
Find a Grave Memorial #55583075. Confidence: high.
MM
Margaret Alene Richards Moine
1915 – 2006
1915
2006 (age 91)
Third child of Jessie and George.
Find a Grave Memorial #55583075. Confidence: high.
BR
Beryl Duane Richards
1916 – 1935
1916
1935 (age 19)
Fourth child of Jessie and George. Died at age nineteen.
Find a Grave Memorial #55583075. Confidence: high.
RR
Roger Harold Richards
1917 – 1992
1917
1992 (age 75)
Fifth child of Jessie and George.
Find a Grave Memorial #55583075. Confidence: high.
JS
Joyce Maxine Richards Swinton
1919 – 1999
1919
1999 (age 80)
Marian's sister who came with her to Jessie's attic in December 1975 — the "her sister Joyce" of Chapter 1. Together they returned to the Nashua farm that evening with two boxes of letters and a Civil War uniform.
Book: Ch 1, "her sister Joyce"
Find a Grave Memorial #55583075. Confidence: high.
MZ
Marian Mae Richards Zwanziger
1920 – 2003
November 2, 1920, Bremer County, IA
March 20, 1941, to Donald Kay Zwanziger
Rural schoolteacher; Nashua Public School lunch program
Don's Ranch House · the Dairy Sweet, Nashua
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 a ten-year-old descendant's body. She was the household's introduction to Edward.
Book: Ch 1, the hay-mound scene
Find a Grave Memorial #14518265. Confidence: high.
DZ
Donald "Don" Kay Zwanziger
1921 – 2008
Grandfather · husband of Marian
1921
March 20, 1941
2008 (age 87)
Farmer and businessman. Owner of the farm two miles north of the Nashua fairgrounds — the setting of Chapter 1. The hay mound of Chapter 1 was his barn.
Book: Ch 1, the farm
Find a Grave Memorial #14518265 (Marian's memorial). Confidence: high.
Marian's daughters
JZ
Janet Kay Zwanziger
1942 – 1961
Marian's elder daughter · died at 19
1942
1961 (age 19)
Marian's elder daughter, the first child of Marian and Don. Died at nineteen, twenty-five years before her sister Donna. She preceded both her mother and her sister in death.
Marian's memorial (Find a Grave #14518265) records both daughters preceded Marian in death. Confidence: high for relationship.
DW
Donna Kathleen Zwanziger Waidelich
1943 – 1986
Mother of the descendant · carries the line
July 9, 1943
October 1986 (age 43), Bettendorf, IA
Sunnyside Memory Gardens, Charles City, IA
The daughter who brought Edward's letters — and the story with them — into the household of the next generation. She predeceased her mother Marian by seventeen years.
Book: Ch 1, "my mother Donna"
Find a Grave Memorial #132446173. Confidence: high.
BW
Robert "Bob" Waidelich
1942 – 2018
Father of the descendant · husband of Donna
1942
2018 (age 76)
Husband of Donna Zwanziger.
Family record (Find a Grave Memorial #132446173). Confidence: high for relationship.
Donna's son
DW
Doug Waidelich
1964 –
The great-great-great-grandson · author of UNSILENCED
December 16, 1964, Nashua, Iowa
Christmas vacation 1975 (age 10)
2026
April 25, 1864 letter
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 closing
BR
Elizabeth Jeanette "Betty" Richards
1923 – 2013
1923
2013 (age 89)
Youngest of the eight Richards children documented on Find a Grave.
Find a Grave Memorial #55583075. Confidence: high.