The infamous Mr. Dugger

While growing up, I often heard the story of my father and all his brothers and sisters and how they all ended up in foster homes.  Of the six children, the three youngest, Eleanor, Ralph and William, went to live with the Carpenter family in Bassett, Nebraska while the older boys, Paul, King, and Mark went to farms in Eureka, South Dakota.  Paul lived with the Schrenk family while King and Mark went to two separate Straub families, Adam and Emaual Straub respectively.

As the story was handed down to me, the family breakup had something to do with my grandfather’s involvement with a “Mr. Dugger” and a religious group in Omaha, Nebraska that was consuming a lot of his time.  In continuance, the oral history mentions that all the children were taken in by “Saints” of the church.  For most of my life, this is all I knew about that saga and I never understood who Mr. Dugger was or how the children ended up going to these particular families in these particular towns.  That was all soon to end.

Mr. Andrew N. Dugger

 Recently, I Googled the name Dugger and discovered information that put everything in perspective.  I found out that Mr. Andrew F. Dugger and his son Andrew N. Dugger were early leaders in “The Church of God, Seventh Day,” an offshoot of the Seventh Day Adventists.  The Duggers lived in Bassett, NE, the home of Seely and Clara Carpenter, members of the church (“saints”), and the foster family of the three youngest children.  Furthermore, I discovered that a new church in Eureka, S.D. had recently been accepted into the General Conference and Andrew Dugger had been invited to hold services and council them.  Leaders of that church were none other than John and Peter Schrenk, the family that took in my uncle Paul, and brothers Adam and Emanual Straub, the families who took in my father, King, and my uncle Mark.

I know this will seem like “Ho-Hum” information to many, but in my effort to understand and know grandparents who I never met, it is a milestone discovery.