52 Ancestors In 52 Weeks: Overlooked

I had overlooked many of the children of my 2nd great grandparents, Amos H. Boultinghouse and Mary Magdalina Kraemer. I had not taken a deep dive to find little details of their lives. Then, my Aunt Charlotte, my Aunt Lottie came to my attention. Who was she and what made her come alive to me? Searching…

Aunt Lottie was born before the Civil War in Illinois. At the age of five, her dad went off to war with the 55th Illinois Infantry. How did she bear his absence from her life and the farm? How did her mother keep him alive in her memory while he was gone? An untold story…

When she was 15, she walked across Illinois into Kansas. They went by wagon train. Some of her married brothers and sisters went with her and her parents. Her mother Mary was pregnant. What were some of her experiences walking day after day? How did she assist her mother? Why a move to Kansas when the family was already established in their home state? Unanswered questions…

When they settled in Osborne County, Kansas, her mother gave birth to a son with a tent as shelter. Perhaps listening and waiting, was Mary present outside the tent ? Did she help care for the baby? Time forgotten details…

Items in the weekly newspaper, The Osborne County Farmer, related that Lottie attended school being held in the local hotel. It was 1872, and she was 16. Some of her classmates became lifelong best friends to her. Was it unusual for a girl that age to attend school when her help would be needed on the farm? How did her parents value her education? What was she studying and learning? A mystery…

At the age of 23, she married Henry Louis Korb, another early settler in the county. Through time, Lottie gave birth to six children. Together, they created a livestock business. They moved with their family to the new state of Oklahoma where Louis continued his business and also was a Deputy U. S. Marshall. Later, they would return to Kansas. How would Aunt Lottie describe her life as a wife, mother, and neighbor? Did she fear for Louis and his job as a deputy? Memories lost…

In the final chapter of her life, Aunt Lottie lived without her beloved Louis as he passed away 12 years before her. She relocated in Riverside County, California, to be near her daughters. Three of her children preceded her in death. Throughout her life, she had gone from Illinois to Kansas to Oklahoma to Kansas to California. The details of her life had been overlooked by me, but I took up the search to sort them out. Once overlooked but revived…