Family history, Phippen

Tamson Quick Channon and William Channon’s biography

as told by Evelyn Olga Phippen May

1990

            Tamson Quick was born in 1819 in Sidmouth, a coastal city in the southern part of England, and died in 1919 in Exira, Iowa.

            She married William Channon, who also was born in England.

            The only children that I know they begat were: Anna (b. April 23, 1837), Jack and James, all born in England.

            Father William and son Jack came to America to look around with the idea of bringing the family here. But meantime, the Civil War was going on and, somehow, William and Jack ended up in the Union Army. Jack survived, but his father, William, was killed at the Battle of Shiloh (Shiloh, Ohio) in June 1861.

            Tamson didn’t come to the United States, since her husband was killed, and Jack returned to England. However, Anna, her husband George Phippen, and Anna’s brother James did come to the United States to live.

            Not a lot is known of George Phippen, but the genealogy books list the Phippen clan (originally, “Fitz-Pen”) as residing in Cornwall, a county in southwestern England.

            Ann and George first settled in Madrid, Iowa, later moving to Exira. They begat eight children, four of whom survived childhood: George (b. 1870, d. 1871), Bessie (b. c. 1871, d. 1872), Henry (b. 1872, d. 1934), Robert (b. 1873, d. 1942), Thomas (b. August 27, 1874, d. June 1940), Lillian (b. July 26, 1877, d. 1954), John (b. January 18, 1879, d. November 30, 1880), and Willie (b. January 28, 1883, d. 1885).

            Some of their children were born in Madrid, and some are buried there. Willie and Lillian are buried with Anna and George in Exira, Iowa.

            Lillian never married and she was a typical spinster. Eventually, she became very crippled with arthritis, but she still took care of Anna until Anna’s death in 1919 in Exira.

            Thomas married Dagmar Jensen-Aaen March 22, 1911, in Exira. Dagmar was born in Aalborg, Jutland, Denmark, and came to the United States with her family at the age of 1.

            Thomas and Dagmar begat five children: Florence (b. 1912), George (b. 1914), Leonard (b. 1915), myself (b. 1917) and Thomas (b. 1922).

            My father had a farm east of Exira in Greeley Township. When I was about three years old, the house burned down. They then built a new home, which still stands.

            The Depression set in in the late 1920s, and they lost their farm alongside other farmers. So they moved into town with Gram Phippen’s mother and father, Christen and Karen Jensen-Aaen.

            Something that was a tradition at Christmas was eating English plum pudding that my mother made. My grandmother Phippen gave her the recipe, which she had brought from England. Quite interestingly, it used to be boiled in a bag in a large black kettle. We always looked forward to it and, of course, it was the highlight of Christmas to my grandfather Phippen.

            In addition to plum pudding, my brother George really liked custard pudding. He kept saying that it was something we “never had,” so we always called it “Never Had.”

            Gram Phippen was very diabetic, which was very hard to control. She died March 4, 1967, of a heart attack brought on by her disease.

            Numerous relatives of both the Phippen family and the Jensen-Aaen family still reside in England and Denmark, respectively.