Old photos reunite New York and Wyoming branches of Whaley family after 125 years

While growing up in Niagara Falls, New York, Ernie Whaley’s prized possession was a brown bear rug. It was his only tangible connection to his family in Shell, Wyoming, that he had visited decades ago as a young boy. “I remember a woman they called Aunt Franny,” said Whaley, 68. “When I left, she gave me a bear rug that had the head and claws.”

Ernie had kept the rug in his room for years and wasn’t even sure who “Aunt Franny” was until his nephew, Will Whaley, started posting family pictures on a Greybull, Wyoming, Facebook page. Will, 36, had inherited a 1925 family album of a road trip to Yellowstone and Wyoming. He wanted to know who the people were and almost immediately, two of his Whaley first cousins, twice removed, contacted him.

The Wyoming branch knew right away who had shot the bear that had become his Uncle Ernie’s rug. “It was Grandpa Tom who shot the bear,” Cynthia Whaley Lanahan, 63, told Cowboy State Daily. “I have a picture of him holding the bear.” Her Grandma Franie would have been a widow when Ernie visited. Their grandfathers were brothers, making them first cousins, once removed.

The Whaley family first arrived in Shell in 1890. William and Alice Whaley had married in 1874, had six children and seven crop failures when William got Oregon fever. They loaded their children and belongings into wagons and headed west. At South Pass, William chose the path leading to the right and left the Oregon Trail. They wintered in Lander and decided that Wyoming would be their new home rather than Oregon. William chose Shell Creek for his new homestead.

According to family history, Clifford and his younger brother Thomas Whaley were sent from their ranch in Wyoming to Niagara Falls, New York, to go to school. Both young men were employed at the Shredded Wheat Company, later known as Nabisco. Tom ultimately returned to Wyoming with his New York bride, Franie, but Cliff stayed and raised his family back East. He kept in touch with his family, but the ties grew weaker with each succeeding generation.

“Our branch of the family pretty much has stayed in Western New York since,” Will said. “Our family history has always been important — my dad, my aunt — they always shared stories growing up about Wyoming.” Each generation thereafter would return briefly to visit relatives in Wyoming until the families completely lost touch. Before the connections were lost, Cliff took his family to Wyoming for a long vacation — this is the 1925 photo album that prompted Will to post pictures on Facebook.

Will made his own trip to Wyoming as a young teenager in 2007, but by then the family had lost touch with all their relatives and only visited the landmarks. “My dad was always very interested in Wyoming and just the West in general,” Will said. “He had a real fascination with it.”

When Will was left with the photo album, he was eager to learn all he could about his Wyoming family. “I just googled ‘Whaley Wyoming’ and found a post about a Jim Whaley,” he said. “I had a picture in the album that says ‘Jim’s Cabin,’ so I posted that, and I thought maybe there are still people out there that would care about these.” Family members he didn’t know existed reached out.

Lanahan is just as excited to meet her New York family members. She had grown up in Greybull, unaware she still had relatives back in New York. Now she is working with Will to add the new branch to the Whaley family tree on ancestry.com. She said they had just held a Whaley family reunion in Shell and would love to plan another get-together. “It’s just really cool to discover connections you didn’t know existed,” Will said. “Wyoming just always was important to us. It’s been cool to discover our family stories.”