Leander Dennison Morrow's early life and first cousins marrying (yes, first cousins)

Leander Dennison Morrow’s early life was spent growing up on a farm in White Oak Township in Mahaska County.  This is located a few miles east of Oskaloosa, Iowa.  Leander was born in 1865, but by that time the Morrow’s had been in Iowa for 21 years.  They had come to Iowa via covered wagon in 1844, when Iowa was still a frontier territory, and two years before Iowa became a state.

Leander was the eldest, and had 9 other siblings born before he was married, and had one sister die in 1882 at the age of two.

Leander married a local girl, Mary Florence Douglas in Mahaska County on September 1^st, 1887.  Leander was 22 and Mary was 18. 

Shortly after their marriage they apparently moved to the small town of Diagonal, Iowa which is south of Des Moines, in southern Iowa, actually not far from where Heidi Lindsay is from.

Why Diagonal, Iowa?  I’m not sure, but families will sometimes move to where there are other family members or neighbors have moved.  I’m hoping that further research will lead me to the reason.  But, a few years in August of 1904, after Leander and Mary had moved there, Leander’s youngest sister Margaret Jane married their first cousin T. Jackson Graham (T. Jackson’s father was the brother of  Leander’s and Margaret’s mother).  Not surprisingly I guess, right after their marriage they moved away from home, also to Diagonal.  By this time Leander and Mary had moved away though, thus the reason that there must be other connections in this area.