George W. Conner was born in Union Township, Lucas County, Iowa, on the 11th of October, 1869. His father was Alfred Conner, and his mother was Harriet Wade. The family lived in Derby, a small hamlet which at its peak numbered nearly 350 people; by the time of the 2000 census there were only 131.
George was the 6th of 10 children. In March of 1887, at the age of 17, George went west, looking for work. He found a job in Aurora, Nebraska, and wrote home to his parents that the wages were much better in Nebraska. He didn’t stay in Nebraska permanently, though. In 1890, he was living in Derby, where on the 28th of May he married Jessie Troutman, the daughter of Andrew M. Troutman and Martha Westfall.
George and Jessie had 4 daughters, Alma Floy (b. 18 September 1891), Lulu May (b. 30 July 1893), Gladys Fern (b. 13 July 1896), and Jessie Maud (b. 27 March 1899), who died as an infant. Jessie Troutman Conner died of tuberculosis on the 8th of June, 1901.
After Jessie’s death, George went to work in Missouri, leaving his 3 daughters in Iowa, where I believe they lived mostly with their Troutman grandparents. He eventually went to work in Humansville, in Polk County, Missouri, where he met and married his second wife, Jennie Parker Larew, on the 7th of September, 1902. He and Jennie had moved from Missouri to Derby, Iowa by the time of the birth of their first child, Lois Belle, on 10 June 1903. They didn’t stay long in Iowa, and had relocated to Victor, Colorado by the time their second daughter, Grace, was born on 4 November 1905. Aunt Harriet said that George was worried about Jennie’s health, and that they had gone to live in the mountains in Colorado for that reason. On the 23rd of July, 1908, their third child, George W. Conner, was born in Humansville, Missouri. I don’t think the family relocated at that time; perhaps Jennie had gone home to Missouri when it was time for George to be born. In 1910, the family, including George’s 3 daughters from his first marriage, was living in Farmington, New Mexico.
Alfred William Conner, the second son and 4th child of George and Jennie, was born in Farmington on 19 February 1910. The family stayed in Farmington for several years, and three more children were born: James Charles, on 18 January 1912, John Franklin, on 14 June 1916, and Harriet Maxine, on the 21st of June, 1921.
George died on the 6th of June, 1944 in Willow Creek, Gallatin County, Montana.