Side Trip to the Kested Farm

On our trip home from Rochester, Mn., we decided to take a side trip to Dixon, Illinois, where James Bont Kested settled after he left Broadalbin, NY.

We went to Dixon, Ill. but I didn't take any info with me because Larry thought it was just too far out of our way to visit that area...then on Friday while in Mn he said, "well, maybe we can swing around there" All I knew was the name of the town/city.....and recollection of what the Kested farm looked like from a picture. It wasn't a very good picture at that.

When we arrived in Dixon, we stopped at a MacDonald's, for a potty break . When I was about to leave McD, I saw an older couple sitting at a table. I went up to them and asked them if they'd ever heard of a Kested Farm. The husband, Mr. Ritter, told me that he knew about a Kested farm, but knew personally a Everett Kested , that he had worked with him for many years, a very nice man, and that he was still living at age 93. Mr Ritter told us that Everett lived in the small town of Mt. Morris, about 6 miles north of Dixon. He gave us direction right to the house. We found the house, but Mr. Kested wasn’t there. We saw a neighbor raking leaves, so asked her if she knew the Kested’s and if she had seen them lately. The neighbor told us that Mrs. Kested (Margaret) was in a Lutheran Nursing home in Mt. Morris. We found the nursing home and visited Margaret. She wasn’t able to help us with any information due to her advanced stage of Alzheimer's. We decided to go back to Everett’s house with hopes that maybe he had returned. He was home, as was his daughter, Judy. They invited us in, where we saw pictures, handwritten information from his father AND a letter from a Kested in Holland that he'd never answered. Both Everett and Judy were very friendly and were excited to learn of the genealogy of James Bont Kested, Everett’s grandfather. They knew nothing of the family before they arrived in the Dixon area. They had often wondered if they were Pennsylvania Dutch. Everett is going to copy the information that his father wrote down and also the letter from the lady in Holland and send it to me

Larry took some pictures of some pictures that were on the living room wall. Everett is a very young 93, walks like he's in his 60's, and sharp as a tack. His sister died two weeks ago at 101. His daughter Judy (his only child) is a nurse. She lives in another town and that day she was visiting him for a few days. She was telling us that because there weren’t any boys in his family the Kested name was not being carried on, so she had named her only daughter with the middle name of Kested. Apparently this daughter is very interested in researching the Kested genealogy but didn’t quite know where to begin. I asked Mr. Kested if he knew where the old Kested farm was. He said it’d been a long time since he was there, but he knew it was between two towns, off on a dirt road and that it was the only farm on that road. He couldn’t remember the name of the road.

the story doesn't end here...............

We started out to find it....nearly gave up, but stopped at a little gas station/grocery store. There was an elderly gentleman buying some bread. I asked him, "Sir, have you ever heard of a Kested Farm?" He said....well I guess so, I've lived around here all my life. I knew the Kested boys real well...they died you know. " This man was 95 yrs old...he told us right where the farm was...we found it and took pictures. We met the people that have bought the farm, exchanged email addresses so that if they find any Kested information, pictures or whatever in the attic, barns etc they said they’d let us know. Now how's that for a new Kested story?I thought is was something that the two people we talked to were able to give us just the right information. In another couple of minutes both of those people would not have been in those two places.
Mr. Kested and his daughter didn't know any Kested history/genealogy beyond his grandfather. They didn't know where they'd come from other than from the East They thought maybe they were Pennsylvania Dutch.