On Monday, November 7, at 7 pm at the Ponca City Library, Pioneer Genealogical Society will continue showcasing family histories with a program by Elizabeth Pruett. The public is invited to attend.

As Elizabeth describes it, she first saw the name of her 4th great-grandmother “Cyrena Wood” on a photocopy of a family tree that originated from her great-grandmother’s Bible. It was just a name with no other details provided, but it began a search into discovering more about the life of Cyrena Abigail Tuttle Woods. Born in 1817 and living 91 years, Cyrena’s story spanned much of American history.

Cyrena was the daughter of a Revolutionary War soldier and his wife. Both of her parents were widowed before marrying each other and Cyrena was one of about 12 siblings. Her father Solomon Tuttle was a pioneer who lived in Connecticut and Vermont before moving to Ohio. Before Cyrena’s birth, Solomon Tuttle and other family members were the first settlers of Trimble Township, Athens County, Ohio, and they started the first school just in time for Cyrena to be old enough to attend.

No stranger to the frontier as a child, Cyrena grew up to marry James J. Woods and became a pioneer woman in her own right as she moved to Illinois and then Iowa during her marriage. As the mother of nine, she dealt with infant loss, a special needs child, sending her son off to the Civil War, the absences of her husband, his ultimate death, and much more. Widowed at the age of 59, she continued to farm with the help of her surviving children.

Cyrena Woods was truly a survivor as she outlived all but two of her children and would live in Nebraska, Colorado, and Oklahoma before her death in Altus, OK at the age of 91 in 1909.

Using the census along with records of birth, marriage, and death, newspaper articles and county and family histories, Elizabeth Pruett will show you how you can start with papers saved by your family to learn more about the people who came before you. Spanning more than 200 years of records, this search to discover more about Cyrena and other members of the Tuttle, Woods, Muckey, Hollister, and Epperson families enabled Elizabeth to become a kind of detective to know more about the origins of a grandmother she never had the privilege of meeting in person. Please join us.