As I slowly continue looking through files of long forgotten branches of my family tree, I discovered news clippings and pictures of the murder of my great-grandmother’s brother’s wife, while living in Deadwood, South Dakota in 1900. This information was sent to me from a cousin of my mother, who lived in California, over a period of time in the late 1990’s.
Of course, my curiosity required a little more digging, as these people were from the Boone and Woodward area. With the free access to the papers through the local libraries, I was able to find the news articles of the communication between the Boone County sheriff, trying to notify the local relatives and the follow up articles.
The father, working the night shift at the mine, discovered this when he arrived home in the morning. The three children under the age of four witnessed this, and were still “huddled under the blanket.” The little boy said he did get up to put the eight month old back in his crib when he fell out.
The articles continued over the course of three months or so, and it turned out she was murdered by her brother.
Of course I wondered what happened to this family. Another sister in Madrid quit her teaching job to care for the children for a time. The father ended up in California, and the children were living in the home of another sister in the 1910 census. Ironically, this family had lived in Angus and has a two-year old daughter buried there.
I did find the death information and obituary of the father, who, along with his second wife, is buried in AZ. His two sons had died before him, as the daughter was listed as a survivor.
The pictures of the mother and her two older children, as well as a picture taken of the three children a few years later, makes the story more touching. I vaguely remember my grandmother and her sister-in-law reminiscing during that branch of cousins staying in our home during their visits to Woodward. Of course, as kids, we four kids had four more cousins to play with, so we had no interest in how we were connected!
There are only six of us left who remember our grandparents, so I will share the pictures and other information with them, and put that file away.
There are many more branches and stories to discover. A goal for this winter!