Genealogical research becomes more than a hobby for Peggy Hake ​

​(Printed in THE MILLER COUNTY AUTOGRAM-SENTINEL, Sept. 12, 1987) 

Even before one gets to Peggy Smith Hake's home near St. Anthony, they have some insight into what her hobby is like. Traveling Route A and the gravel roads to her farm home, one sees only part of what was once there - an old farm house either lovingly restored or left to crumble; weathered old barns; surnames on mailboxes that are forever linked with Miller County history.

Mrs. Hake's hobby​​, which is slowly turning into a career, is genealogy and historical research. A bedroom in her home has been turned into a library and writing area. The walls are hung with pictures of her ancestors and those of her husband, Ambrose Hake.

It was not until her grandfather died in April 1975 that she really began researching her roots. After his obituary appeared in the Jefferson City newspaper a woman living in the capital city, who turned out to be a distant relative, wrote Mrs. Hake's father asking for information on the Gardner side of the family. Mrs. Hake's grandmother had been a Gardner.

The letter was forwarded onto Mrs. Hake, who was living and working in Kansas City. She and the Jefferson City woman began regular correspondence and Mrs. Hake learned much about the Gardner side of her family which she had never known.

"She's the one that really got me started in t​​​​his," Mrs. Hake said.

Like most young people she had listened to all sort​​s of family stories told by her elders but never made an effort to remember them. "As a child I'd sit around and listen to their stories," she remembers.

Now she realizes many of those stories died with her relatives, including who was t​​he member of her family who carried Cherokee Indian blood. Mrs. Hake said her grandfather Smith spoke some Cherokee and taught her some of the language but as far as she can remember, he never told her who her Indian ancestor was when he told her she had Cherokee blood in her veins.
​
After being "turned on" to genealogy by her Jefferson City relative, Mrs. Hake decided she wanted to know more about all of her family members. In June 1975 she decided to go to Barren County, Ky. where her Gardner relatives lived before immigrating to Missouri in the 1840s. "I decided I'd go down there," she said.

"I took out on my own," Mrs. Hake said. At that time she did not know how to glean information from county courthouse ​​records but she found courthouse employees and others willing to show her. And as an added bit of luck, she ran into the county surveyor, who happened to be a Gardner relative. "He was interested in the family history too. He was the one that first showed me how to read land descriptions," Mrs. Hake said. He showed her how to read land records and find the property being researched on a map.

Using her new found knowledge, Mrs. Hake went out and found the Gardner family homesteaded in an area still known as Gardner Sinking Creek. A Gardner relative who had served in the Revolutionary War had been given the land in the 1890s as payment for his war-time service. It was some of his children who later moved to Miller County.

Courthouse records contain a wealth of information in old land and marriage records and in wills that may have been filed. But some records have been destroyed and researchers have to look elsewhere for family information.

So far Mrs. Hake's genealogical research has been mostl​​y a private hobby but a recent letter from some of her husband's relatives in Rolla have him excited. "They had a lot of information about his mother's family, the Volmerts, which he did not know," Mrs. Hake said.

An outgrowth of her research has been the publication of a genealogy newsletter and last month she forgot to ​​send her oldest son a copy and he complained. "I really believe they (her children) are going to get interested," Mrs. Hake said.

Mrs. Hake will soon publish a history of the old Iberia Academy​​. Some of her relatives helped lay the stone in the old buildings, which still stand in Iberia. She first published a history of the old junior college in an area newspaper and subsequently heard from a number of graduates. The information they have given her led her to decide to publish a book on the college.
 
She also visits schools in the county, giving programs on the history of the schools and genealogy. The Missouri Archives provides her with booklets and charts​​ to give the students so they can get started on their research.

And as this is the 150th anniversary of the founding of Miller County, Mrs. Hake will be writing a column for the Eldon Advertiser and Miller County Autogram-Sentinel on the history of the area, including some of the pioneer families who still have descendants living in Miller County.
 
Who knows, many of her reader may​​ find out they have relatives they did not know about.