Big Pigeon in Southwest Iowa
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Picture
Picture
The Big Pigeon Area
The Big Pigeon Area - 1900
Project Mgt - Public
bigpigeon.us webpage Home > Project Info - Public > Website Overview, updated by RAC 22 Dec 2023.
Hello there,

bigpigeon.us is my personal website. After retiring, I returned to my childhood passion for history and in 2017, I began this website, wherein you will find my research results for the past twenty years, including:​
  • My extended family history.
  • Brief biographical sketches of the early families of my childhood church, St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, in rural Pottawattamie County, Iowa.
  • Some local history for the Pottawattamie County neighborhoods where I lived, as a child in the Big Pigeon area around St. Paul’s Lutheran Church and as a teenager in the Avoca, Iowa area twenty miles to the east.
  • Aspects of Mormon history. The Big Pigeon area played a significant role in the early westward movement of Mormons to Utah and in the later history of the Reorganized Latter Day Saints church.
  • A summary of American involvement in World War II, as yet incomplete. Within this summary, I integrate those from the Pottawattamie County area who died during their World War II service.​​

The bigpigeon.us main menu contains nine entries. Each of these modules include several submodules. You can visit webpages either via the main menu's pulldown feature or by clicking on the hotspots I provide.
Home  Among the Home webpages are three with a large number of subordinate webpages:
  • Resources contains links to websites used in my research. However, I don't include the large number of Danish and Danish American links  in the Danish Links page of my earlier website, danishheritage.org, the website of the Danish American Heritage Society.
  •  Project Management - Public - contains my Big Pigeon project management webpages, such as this page, that I have made available for public viewing.
  • Project Management - Private - contains my Big Pigeon project management webpages that are meant for only the Big Pigeon project manager.
Family 
  • ​My great-grandparents all left Denmark in the late 19th century and settled with other Danish immigrants east of the Missouri River in the Big Pigeon area of northwest Pottawttamie County, Iowa.
  • Family contains my four-volume extended family history, entitled Robert Christiansen’s Family History. The four volumes (Christiansen, Rasmussen, Larsen/Larson and Hansen) include many collateral relatives. For confidentiality reasons, I omit most family material for my numerous cousins and second cousins.
  • Family also contains my reports on families allied to my immediate family, such as families related to my in-laws or to to my children's in-laws.
St. Paul's 
  • St. Paul’s Danish Lutheran Church in Boomer Township, west of Neola, Iowa, was founded in 1881. All of my great-grandparents and grandparents lie in the St. Paul's Cemetery.
  • Among other content, the St. Paul’s webarea contains brief biographical sketches of the early St. Paul's families, organized into 43 extended families. This collection is entitled St. Paul’s Boomer-Neola Early Families.  
History Among the webpages in the History module are three with a large number of subordinate pages:
  • Big Pigeon Area, my writing about the Big Pigeon area.
  • Avoca, about the  Avoca, Iowa vicinity east of the Big Pigeon area.
  • LDS History, which includes material based on my report Kirsten Pedersen's Relatives, written after I discovered the link between the Bondo family of St. Paul's Lutheran Church and John Erik Forsgren, who brought the first company of Scandinavian Mormon immigrants to Utah in September 1853.  
WWII Dead
  • contains information about the Pottawattamie area WWII war dead.
WWII Hub​
  • interface between WWII Dead and the following three modules.
WWII US 
  • mostly background information to help understand WWII combat.
WWII Japan
  • This summary of the War with Japan is not complete but contains much content.
WWII Germany
  • This summary of the War with Germany is not complete but contains much content.

Some Big Pigeon Miscellany:
  • The website name Big Pigeon refers to Pigeon Creek, once named Big Pigeon Creek, the largest stream in my childhood neighborhood. I refer to all of rural northwestern Pottawattamie county north of Council Bluffs as the Big Pigeon area, although I view Boomer and Hazel Dell Townships as the area core. 
  • Click on the thumbnail in the page heading to see a low-resolution map of the Big Pigeon area in 1900. Find better individual township maps of the Big Pigeon area in 1900 by going to http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/atlases/id/7087/rec/50 and clicking on the township of interest.
  • I use Weebly for development and hosting.
  • Many of my reports in Big Pigeon are incomplete.  I hope to continue working on them in my remaining years.
  •  I hope my survivors will ensure continuance of the Big Pigeon website.
  • I would appreciate feedback. You can contact me using the Contact Form in Home > Usage Hints.

-- Robert A. “Bob” Christiansen, Scottsdale, Arizona, December 2023.

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