Biography

Sarah Jane Beall married the Methodist minister John H. Swope, in 1864, in Maryland before coming to Des Moines, in 1872. When he died in 1876, his wife and five children supported themselves by delivering milk within the community. One son, Howard Swope, married his orphaned neighbor Jessie West and together they became small town merchants in Storm Lake and real estate developers in Minneapolis during the Depression. They sent their daughter, Mary Lurene Swope (1896 -1978), to Western Female College in Oxford, Ohio. She subsequently worked in Washington, D.C. at the Office of Procurement during World War One. In 1921, Mary Lurene Swope married her Storm Lake neighbor James Lael DeLand (1894-1986), called Lael. The father of James Lael DeLand was James DeLand, a state district judge in Storm Lake, and his mother, Ida Sherman, was the daughter of a local dentist. DeLand and Sherman had married in 1882 and afterwards were active in the growth of Storm Lake, socializing with other prosperous families and engaging in various benevolent activities. The marriage of Mary Lurene and James Lael DeLand ended in divorce in 1938. Afterward, Mary Lurene Swope DeLand worked in the Buena Vista County Treasurer´s Office for fifty dollars a month and raised her two daughters Barbara Jean and Janet DeLand. She became increasingly incapacitated with Muscular Dystrophy. Barbara DeLand spent her first year of college at the University of South Dakota. She also attended Buena Vista College and the University of Minnesota, where she graduated in 1945 in Social Work. She married Dick Kearney, her childhood friend, and they lived in Storm Lake where they raised two daughters and two sons. Barbara Kearney was active as a photographer and writer. She became a peace activist during the 1980s.

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