A Little History of Lyndal’s Family

By Margy Risner

Lyndal’s Mother’s Side – The Moomaw Family

The family came from England (later Huguenots) and Dutch, coming from Holland to America before it was a country. They entered through the Port of Philadelphia eventually settling in Gettysburg, PA. Today there is a Township of Mummuberg and a road of the same name that connects to Gettysburg. Lyndal‘s cousins have records of land and farms that they paid taxes on not long after Pennsylvania became a colony.

Grandma Moomaw was Scottish. Susie Ross Moomaw and Rev Otho C Moomaw went to college in Kansas before he became a Protestant Pastor. His last church, which he started, was right across the street from Arizona State University. He often lectured in the School of Religion there and had a large personal library in the church, including Latin, Greek and Hebrew books, which he willed to the ASU Library upon his death.

Lyndal‘s mother Evelyn attended UCLA and the University of Arizona. Her parents started three churches in Kansas, two in California (Paso Robles and Alhambra) and three in Arizona (Florence, Tucson and Tempe).

Lyndal’s Father’s Side – The Dye Family

The Dye’s also came as settlers to Pennsylvania before the Revolutionary war. Lyndal’s great great grandfather was Chadwaller Jones; Military Aide to George Washington and a member of the Pennsylvania Regiment. He was also a surveyor friend of the President. His grave is south of Pittsburgh near a small town called Sandy Lake, PA.

After the war was over many soldiers were given land, which was how they were paid for their service to the country, and they were deeded quite a number of acres. These were passed on to grandma Dye’s father (Jones). Each one of the girls were then given a farm when they married. Our grandmother Florence received a farm, but she married a man from Wales and was cut off from the rest of the family money. Lyndal’s father Raymond said they lived on the farm until he was five years old. His dad Peter Dye was a businessman, not a farmer, so they sold the farm to a big mining company and moved into Sandy Lake, PA. They purchased part of this downtown to set up a blacksmiths business, known as Dye Corner. This existed for quite a long time and our cousins located it in the 1970s.

Grandma Florence Jones Dye received a check from the mining company until she died, because they had kept the mineral rights and just sold the farm.

Lyndal’s father Raymond Dye had the 1918 flu when he was 14 years old. He still managed to be a pitcher on the baseball team in school. A young doctor visited his facility and urged him to move to Arizona. So his sister Esther and he made the journey by train, on a gurney. “Papa” Dye said he felt better almost immediately. He decided to attend Tuscon high school at 18 years of age, graduated in four years at a time when many people dropped out of school. Then came the Depression.

He took night classes at the University of Arizona, but had to drop out. That is where he met Lyndal‘s mother Evelyn. His whole family followed him to Tuscon, sold everything and moved to a house they bought on 10th Street, not far from U of A. After a few jobs he saved money to buy a dump truck, then he bought more. He got a contract with a big mining company hauling ore for the Phelps Dodge Corporation. His brother Byde drove one truck, and another friend or two joined as they formed a small trucking company.

He met Jack Bathrick at a mine in Ray, AZ. He, his father, and Jack started Dye and Bathrick. The family lived in the small mining town of Hayden, although Lyndal and her sister Penny were born in Phoenix. Older sister Margy was born in Tucson. After living in Casa Grande for a short period of time the family moved to Kingman when Lyndal was four years old.

They opened an open pit type of gold mine they called “The Golden Door” and later opened several copper mines including “Boriana”. Barry Goldwater appointed Raymond Dye to the Mineral Resources Board for the state of Arizona. He represented small mining companies for many years.