from The Pettit Correspondent, Vol. 1, No. 3, page 29 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A copy of this article was first sent to me by Loretta Taylor (6411 Seven Oaks Drive, Falls Church, VA 22042) as it appears in the Woodbury County Iowa History. The writer, Lani Pettit (3412 So. Lakeport, Sioux City, IA 51106), has since become a subscriber. As well, she sent the accompanying photograph. The Samuel and Sarah Pettit mentioned below, grandparents of the subject, are the same mentioned in the Miscellany column of the July 1988 issue as having owned land in Warren County, Illinois. Thomas J. Allen Pettit By Lani Pettit Thomas Pettit lived in Sioux City as early as 1892, mostly in the Morningside area. Their home on what was then Grace Street, still stands at 4113 Davis. Tom and his wife, Rosetta, raised seven children, plus her two sons by a previous marriage. Their descendants still live in Morningside. The earliest known ancestors of Thomas Pettit, who were of French origin, appeared in Kentucky in the 1790's. Samuel and Sarah Pettit were the parents of Samuel G., Allen G., Mahala, Cyrus, and William G. Pettit. Allen G., Thomas' father, was born around 1825 in Green County, Kentucky. He and his parents also lived in Greenup County. By 1850 they migrated to Adams County, Illinois. Allen G. first married Martha C., and they had one son, Samuel Jacob. In 1857, he remarried to Martha Jane Bayles, in Adams County. On Dec. 14, 1858, their only child was born, Thomas J. Allen Pettit. Tom's father, standing over six feet tall, a large man for Civil War days, enrolled with the Kansas Volunteers, Sixth Cavalry, Company B, at Fort Leavenworth. He served the Union from 1861 to 1864. Soon afterward, on May 7, 1865, Allen's second wife died. Little Tom was only six years old. By 1866, Allen had found a new mother for his boys, and married Rachel G. Parsons JACKSON, in Wyandotte County, Kansas. In the following years there were four more children: Sarah, Charles Lewis, George W., and Allison James. The family left Kansas to homestead in Todd County, Minnesota, in 1878. Descendants of these Pettits still live in this area, and Wright County, Minnesota (where the patriarch, Samuel, died around 1870). Some of the sons, and the parents eventually moved to Oregon and Washington following a group of Seventh-Day Adventists. Allen G. died in Yamhill County, Oregon, July 27, 1893. Meanwhile, in Minnesota, Thomas married Mary A. Brakefield in 1883. He started a general store in Clarissa. But the tragic death of his young bride must have ended this venture. Before long, Thomas married Rosetta A. Mowers, daughter of Charles Morticar and Susan Jane Bicknell Mowers. A son, Frank Allen, was born on Sept. 26, 1886, at Burlington, Iowa. In the years that followed, the family lived in South Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska. Their children were: Mary Jane Clopper Brockopp, Bertha Birdie Raynor Wehrli, Martha Mabel "Mattie" Carlson, Thomas W., George (who died of diphtheria at age three), and Daisie Florence Culver. Rosetta's sons were W. Dan and John Beard. Like the Pettits before him, Tom was a big man, quite strong, and a good worker. He enjoyed baseball and was a talented organist. In addition to the general store, he later worked in market gardening, carpentry, and meat packing. It was at Cudahy's Packing Plant that an elevator fell, leaving him an invalid for the rest of his life. Unable to admit that he was handicapped, Tom continued working. He spent his last few years in Omaha, where he sold newspapers from a wheelchair on a street corner near the World Herald. At the time of his death, on December 24, 1916, a front page story related that he would be greatly missed by many. He was a likeable man whose "sunny disposition imparted the knowledge that happiness may be had for the asking".