Ide family donates book

August 17
Ide family donates book

Members of the Ide family recently donated a book about their family genealogy to the Back Mountain Memorial Library.

Shirley Smith, seated left, and Willis Ide, seated right, both treasurers of the Ide Family Reunion, make a presentation to Martha Butler, left, director, and Ron Moran, president, of the Back Mountain Memorial Library Board of Directors, of the compilation of their family history. The Ide family history began in 1799 when the Ides came to the Back Mountain and built a cabin on Idetown-Huntsville Road, opposite the Idetown Cemetery.

Charlotte Bartizek/For The Dallas Post

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Copies of the book also have been or will be donated to Dallas High School, Lake-Lehman High School, Misericordia University, the Osterhout Library and the Library of Congress.

“The Ide Book will be a wonderful addition to our local history collection,” said Martha Butler, director of the Back Mountain Memorial Library. “It is really great that families are willing to share their history with the community. Having local history in the library adds a dimension to the library and helps support the history of the community. We have a small but often used local history collection.”

A book on the Ide family history was originally published in 1940 and an updated version was printed in 1956. The new book is compiled by Ide family members Judith Smith Korfonta, of Virginia, and Sandra May Johnson, of Harveys Lake and Florida, a project that took them five years to compile. The book was published by Gary and Richard Ide, owners of a Dallas printing business called Green Button, Inc.

Highlights of the book include the Ide Code of Arms, Ide ancestry in England and Ide ancestry and homesteads in Massachusetts. Local Ide family lineage begins with brothers Nehemiah and Ezra Ide.

During the Revolutionary War, Nehemiah Ide fought in the Battle of Trenton where, it is believed, he promised his dying friend he would marry his fianc�e, Mary. The young Ide supposedly kept his promise.

Nehemiah Ide came to the area from Attleboro, Mass. in 1799 with his eldest son, Elijah, and built a log cabin across from the present Idetown Cemetery. They went back to Massachusetts for the winter. The following year, Nehemiah returned with his wife, Mary, their six sons, the three children of his brother Ezra and his nephew, Nathan Ide. They settled and built a Presbyterian church where the cemetery now stands. The church was eventually torn down and its materials were used to construct the Idetown United Methodist Church, which is closed but still standing.

Willis Ide, 83, of Idetown, was one of the family members present at the book’s donation to the Back Mountain Memorial Library. He grew up in Dallas, married in the Dallas United Methodist Church in 1946 and built his Idetown home in 1952. Willis and his wife joined the Idetown United Methodist Church and attended services there until it closed and merged with the Lehman United Methodist Church. Willis claims it was his great-great grandfather who signed the papers for former Bedford Township to be sold to Lehman Township.

The book, purchased mostly by Ide relatives, sells for $65, weighs nine pounds and contains over 1,700 loose leaf pages.

“It’s really a great book,” Willis Ide said. “I’ve heard different people say after reading the book and (considering) the price of the book, they’ve spent much more for college books with less historical value than it has.”

In 2000, Ide descendants erected a statue of Nehemiah in the Idetown Cemetery where both Nehemiah and Mary Ide are buried.

“There are an awful lot of us in the cemetery down here,” Willis Ide said.

Recent Dallas High School graduate Rosemary Shaver used the book to complete research for her graduation project about her family, the Shavers, a founding family of the Back Mountain.

One hundred members of the Ide family attended the 106th Annual Ide Family Reunion at Frances Slocum State Park on June 28, 2008.