"My grandfather Morris Lepter left Russia in 1901, leaving behind a wife pregnant with their first child...He apparently lived and worked in the east until his child was around 18 months old, then brought his family here. The girls were all born in Passaic, New Jersey. They lived there several years, then decided to try homesteading in or near Wheatland, Wyoming. According to Aunt Bess, he was a poor businessman and his wife frequently had to figure a way to make things work out so they had food on the table... Eventually they gave up homesteading and went to Des Moines. I don't quite know how they landed there, or what he did there. At some time he became a window washer."
From granddaughter Sandra Rendall's notes on the family