When Grandpa went to war, two families supported his service.
ALDERSON-FILER
Grandpa’s family: sister Ethel, Grandpa, and brother Marshall. Front row, his mother and father.
Father: William Alderson (1847-1930)
Mother: Viola Filer Alderson (later Bean) (1869-1958)
Sister: Ethel (1889-1982)
- GRANDPA: Thomas William Alderson (1891-1967)
Brother: Marshall (1893-1989)
DYKES-MARTIN
Grandma’s extended family. Her father, far left. Grandma (Inis) stands next to him with her mother directly behind her. To the right of the first post, forming an upward diagonal, stand Grandma’s three sibling: Mary, in a checkered dress, behind her Charley, and behind him, with her arm on her hip, is Mattie. The other people are members of the Martin family.
Father: Albert Sidney Johnston “S.J.” Dykes (1862-1957)
Mother: Estella Ann Martin Dykes (1868-1950)
Sister: Mattie (1887-1982)
Brother: Charles (1889-1946)
- GRANDMA: Marcia Inis Dykes (1892-1988)
Sister: Mary (1896-1979)
After the war . . .
ALDERSON-DYKES
Grandma holds my father, Donald, in 1923. Virgil stands by Grandpa on a farm near King City, Missouri.
My grandparents married in January, 1920.
Son: Virgil Wayne (1921-1923)
Son: Donald Keith (1923-1981)
ALDERSON-WHITNEY
Donald married my mother, Betty Jeanne Whitney, in 1946.
Children: Marcia, Tom, and Susan
DEDICATION
I dedicate the project to my mother, Betty Whitney Alderson. She has devoted her long life to her family, her career as a pharmacist, and to the many communities she has enriched with her passions for responsible local government, good public schools, a vibrant church, social justice, historic preservation, and a variety of student and alumni programs at the University of Kansas. She rarely misses a meeting of her bridge club. I admire the way she has conducted her life. And I am so grateful that when people said, Betty! Get rid of those boxes! she stubbornly refused.
Between the Lines 