Hi,

Glad to receive your reply. I grew up in the Stuart, Iowa area (Adair Co.),which is where Patrick's son John eventually lived. John's son Martin was my father's Dad. My Dad's name is also Patrick (Patrick Joseph Doud). My brother David lives on the Martin Doud farm site, which is very close to the original place that John and his wife Mary Ellen (Lydon,Lydane?)lived. I think John was born in Iowa shortly after his parents came to Iowa from Ireland. His wife had come from Ireland to the Irish settlement, where the Douds lived. With Dawn being from Winterset, so close to the Irish Settlement near Cummings,you both probably know this history, but I wanted to explain my connection. At the moment I'm still scraping pieces of history together. We have a picture of John and his wife, their marriage certificate, and also of several gravestones from the St. Patrick's cemetary near Cummings and the many Douds in the Stuart Catholic Cemetary including Patrick and Bridget (Noon). I might be able to send scanned images if you are interested.

Hope to hear from you sometime. I would be interested in additional info. on the Douds. Keep on working towards Ireland. Doing the geneology work really inspires me to make it there sooner than later. My spouse and I looked at a trip to IRE called "Birding by Day, Pubs by Night". We are birders and thought this sounded great, except we weren't sure about getting enough sleep in between. : )

Mary F. Doud
Boone, Iowa (which is not far from Des Moines)