What does it mean to be an American? Westward attempts an answer to that question by exploring the lives of common Americans from the founding of Jamestown to the Vanport, Oregon, flood of 1948. Based on the ancestry of the author's grandmother, Wilda Alverda Bowman Ballard, Westward follows one thread of the American tapestry back to the earliest English and German-speaking immigrants who braved the uncertain Atlantic Ocean in hopes of beginning new lives in North America. Moving forward to the time of the French and Indian War and the struggle for independence, Wilda's ancestors found themselves in the middle of bloody conflicts. They pushed westward into western Pennsylvania, the Shenandoah Valley, and the Old Northwest in the early nineteenth century. By the coming of the Civil War, they had begun to put down deep roots in the fertile soil of eastern Iowa. Finally, during the uncertain days of World War II, Wilda and her family made that fateful choice, as her ancestors before her, and moved further west to Portland, Oregon, where she built ships for the war and began putting down roots once again. This book contains the history and genealogy of the Bowmans, Heils, Goodwins, Snoebergers, Pooles, and Keisters who settled eastern Iowa in the mid-nineteenth century, and the Zooks and Gilliams who settle Ohio and Indiana in the years following the War of 1812. Includes Wilda's complete memoirs.

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Includes biographies of the following people:

Abraham Piercey (1585-1628) & Elizabeth Draper (1587-1624)

James Goodwin (c. 1620-1678) & Rachel Porter (1630-1666)

Thomas Hill (c. 1612- c.1657) & Mary Piercey (c.1612-1661)

Thomas Hollowell (1625-1687) & Alice (1626-1700)

William Bush (1645-1716) & Martha Hill (1645-1717)

Lewis Williams (1655-1717) & Mary Walburton (c. 1660-1717)

John Small (1668-c. 1705) & Alice Hollowell (1664-?)

The Bunch/Punch Clan, including John Punch (1610-?), Paul Bunch (1669-1726) & Amy Winigum (1673-1726), and Shadrack Bunch (1718-1786)

Wendel Bauman (1681-1735)

Johannes Schneeberger (1704-1780)

Christian Schäublin (1683-1752) & Barbara Spitteler (1689-1759)

Ulrich Zug (1690-1747) & Barbara Bachman (1700-1758)

Johannes Stauffer (1715- 1767) & Katrina Schenk (1720-1760)

Heinrich Eschelman (1707-1778) & Barbara Kendig (1725-1755)

Mattias Hütwohl (1711-1776)

Ulrich Shively (1722-1776) & Elizabeth Thommen (1722-1777)

Theodoris Snowberger (1764-1859) & Elizabeth Eschelman (1777-1825)

Roger Dyer (1699-1758)

Frederick Keister (1730-1815) & Hannah Dyer (1734-1820)

Ulrich Snowberger (1736-1811) & Barbara Ingold (1743-1829)

William Goodwin (1746-1826) & Rachel Bunch (1752-1843)

Jonathan Gillam (1753-1835) and Sarah Vardaman (1755-1799)

Peter Bowman (1763-1823) & Mary Heatwohl (1766-1833)

George William Keister (1776-1854) & Susanna Peck (1780-1843)

Johannas Zook (1763-1803) & Catherine Shively (1764-1844)

Miles Goodwin (1790-1865) & Jane Vandever (1797-1862)

Robert Gillam (1795-1838) & Mary Smith (1797-?)

Jacob Eschelman Snoeberger (1804-1851) & Mary Schively Zook (1808-1844)

Jacob Bowman (1797-1881) & Elizabeth Keister (1806-1885)

James Wesley Gillam (1829-1863) & Elizabeth Snoeberger (1835-1901)

Philip Heil (1818-1891) & Rachel Goodwin (1820-1863)

Benjamin Franklin Bowman (1847-1938) & Catherine Poole (1860-1926)

Willis Heil (1849-1922) & Mary Catherine Gillam (1855-1903)

Walter Joseph Bowman (1878-1969) & Clara Ellen Heil (1877-1960)

Wilda Alverda Bowman (1917-2013) & Lloyd James Ballard (1917-1997)