LIVES: A Story of the O'Neels in America - Volume One
LIVES is a sweeping American family history and personal memoir tracing generations of the O'Neel family across centuries of change, migration, faith, hardship, and opportunity.
Beginning with the family's Irish and Scotch-Irish roots and their journey to colonial America, Ronald C. O'Neel follows his ancestors through Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, lowa, Nebraska, and eventually the Pacific Northwest. Drawing on genealogy, family memories, historical records, and personal recollections, he explores the experiences of immigrants, farmers, pioneers, soldiers, ministers, and ordinary families whose lives became part of the larger American story.
The narrative moves through westward migration, homesteading, rural Midwestern life, changing communities, family struggles, religious traditions, and the experiences of multiple generations before becoming an intimate memoir of O'Neel's own life. Growing up in Spokane, Washington, he recounts childhood and family life, education, marriage, Christian faith, pastoral ministry, service as a U.S. Army Reserve chaplain, international travels, and a career that eventually included work with the Free Methodist Foundation and the American Red Cross.
Rich with family stories, genealogy, American history, Christian heritage, and reflections on the passage of time, LIVES is more than the history of one surname. It is a story about preserving memories, understanding where we came from, and recognizing how individual lives become links in a chain connecting one generation to the next.
