Mordie Lee Woods was born in 1883 in Weston, Missouri, and Minnie Maude Pettegrew was born 1884 in Olathe, Kansas. Their ancestral and related surnames include Cave, Demarest, Gearhart, Graves, Gustin, Hardy, Howe, Lipscomb, Lower, Pettigrew/Pettegrew, Simpson, Soward, Springle/Sprenkle, Stevenson, Westerfield, Woods and Wright, among others. This is an informal narrative accompanied by family tables, and the lives of principal individuals and many related lines. It is one of the stories of the expansion of America.