Eva Brooks

EVA BROOKS
BORN          DIED
APR.12       DEC.24
1891.           1903.

12-year-old Eva Brooks died on Christmas Eve 1903. Very little of her and her family are mentioned in the Baldwin City newspapers. Her father, Lewis Brooks, was born a slave in Kentucky and came to Kansas in 1883, settling in Baldwin City--specifically Media (West Baldwin). There is no mention of a wife/mother or siblings and even the one mention of Eva isn't clear if they are the same person.

In October 1903, it was reported that the little child of Lewis Brooks was severely scalded. In January 1904, Lewis Brooks buried his infant daughter. I am just assuming they are the same child and lax reporting contributed to the confusion.

Eva is buried in Oakwood Cemetery. On August 29, 1920, Lewis died. His obituary doesn't mention where he was buried.

That Poor Remote

"Listen Thornapple, if you HAVE to whistle-up your courage, try something a little breezier than the 'Dead March', huh?"
"I'M not whistling--Wasn't YOU whistling?"

(September 30, 1966)

The "Dead March" referred to here is the one from Handel. I am not familiar with it, but maybe others are. Most of us probably more familiar with Chopin's "Funeral March" and possibly Beethoven's funeral marches and Mendelsohn's. Typically, the music I hear when walking through the cemetery at night is either something from The Bloodhound Gang or the Felix the Cat theme song.

"Whistle-up your courage"? Ok.

You are going berserk. Who are you talking to? The readers are not in the room with you.

The Grote Children

Edwyn and Merwyn Grote were the twin sons of Edward F. and Lotta Mae Grote. E.F. was a grocer with a store at 17th & Kansas. Lotta passed away shortly after the birth of her sons in February 1897. E.F. would remarry to Elizabeth Munn. Both are buried in Mount Hope Cemetery. Lotta and the twins are in Topeka Cemetery.

Edwyn Grote, aged 9 months, son of Mr & Mrs. F.E [sic] Grote of 1328 Tyler Street, died this morning. The child was one of twins, the other still survives. The funeral will be held at the family residence tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock." -The Topeka State Journal, July 7, 1897. According to the Topeka Daily Capital, Edwyn died of "dropsy of the brain."

Merwyn, who passed away in January 1898, did not receive an obituary that I could find.

Anna Faidley

Anna M. Faidley was born in Evansville, Indiana in March of 1846. She married John Peter Faidley on August 21, 1895 in Topeka, Kansas and moved with him to Wakefield, Kansas, where he worked on the railroad. John would die in 1918 after being hit by a train while sitting down to rest on the tracks.

Anna practiced as a "mental scientist and magnetic healer" while in Wakefield. She promised to cure any disease without drugs and her ads were prominent fixtures in the local newspaper.

From the Hutchinson News, February 5, 1923: "Declaring in a long note that she had read her Bible through carefully and found nothing advising against suicide, Mrs. Anna M. Faidley, 77, ended her life early today by gas asphyxiation. 'It seems there is no place in the world for old persons,' she wrote." Outliving most of her close family and faced with the possibility of homelessness due to who she was living with planning to move, Mrs. Faidley decided to "end it all."

If you or someone you know is having emotional distress or suicidal thoughts, contact the National Suicide Hotline at 988.

Charles Junod

Charles F. Junod was a confectioner in Topeka, Kansas, known for ice cream, cakes, and candies, with his brother Frank. The Junods came to Topeka in 1878 and opened a confectionary and catering business at 606 Kansas Avenue. Charles married Margaret "Madge" Reese in 1881.

Charles and Madge went to Colorado and then California for his health. It's assumed he had tuberculosis, but it didn't help and he quietly passed away on February 7, 1887 and was interred in Topeka Cemetery. Frank sold the business a few months later.

Charles and Madge were only married six years. Madge returned to Topeka and ended up remarrying to Henry Dowding, an old school mate of hers, in 1889. Mr. Dowding would pass away in 1894 after only five years of marriage. Madge returned to her home in New York, never marrying again.

Rest. Sweet Rest.

Agnes Lawrence

"Miss Agnes Lawrence, an unusually attractive and pretty girl, who was employed as a nurse in Stormont hospital, committed suicide between 5:30 and 6:30 p.m. last evening, by drinking two ounces of carbolic acid. The only explanation of the suicide was an unsigned note left by the girl which read: '𝑭𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒂 𝒎𝒂𝒏.'" -Topeka State Journal, July 30, 1909.

Agnes Lawrence was only 16 and had worked at Stormont only six months. She was discovered on the floor of her room on the third floor after her shift with the note and bottle of acid lying next to her.

On June 1, 1908, she enrolled in Christ's Hospital. She was dismissed after four months, returned home to Perry, then entered Stormont's program. Both programs require girls to be at least 20, which Agnes claimed to be despite only being 15.

Agnes was born to Louis and Eva Lawrence in Lees Summit, Missouri on March 6, 1893. According to the 1900 Census, the family lived in St. Louis, Missouri, and Agnes had a brother, Louis, and sister, Essie. Neither doctors and nurses at Christ's Hospital or Stormont nor Agnes' mother could fully explain why Agnes committed suicide and the identity of the man is unknown.

If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide or emotional distress, please contact the National Suicide Lifeline at 988.

Uniontown

Uniontown was originally established in 1848 as a stop on the Oregon Trail on the south bank of the Kansas River in what is now Shawnee County by Richard Cummins and Alfred Vaughan. The small trading post became a decent sized trail town thanks to the Oregon Trail traffic and the Potawatomis who lived just north of the river. The Potawatomi would come into Uniontown to receive and cash their government payments and it was soon recorded that Uniontown had a population of over 300 people and over 60 buildings.

However, after a cholera outbreak in 1849 and 1850, the town was swiftly abandoned but not before hundred of people died, including some Potawatomi. 22 were buried in a mass grave and the town was burned to make sure that a cholera outbreak would never happen again. Uniontown was reestablished in 1851 and quickly regained its status as a major stop on the Oregon Trail. When Kansas Territory was opened for settlement in 1854, it was the beginning of the end for Uniontown. New towns along the Kansas River sprang up like Lawrence, Lecompton, Tecumseh, and Topeka. Competition was stiff and Uniontown just couldn't compete. When Topeka became the major city in the area, traders and settlers moved there, or elsewhere, and by 1858, Uniontown was again abandoned.

John Green and his family acquired the land that Uniontown sat on in the 1870s and farmed the land well into the 1960s. Most of the land was then given to the Kansas Department of Wildlife to use as a nature preserve. The Uniontown Cemetery, with the mass Potawatomi burial, has been well-preserved and is commonly known as Green Cemetery since the Green family began using it as a family cemetery.

Uniontown Cemetery is currently privately owned and maintained by the Citizen Band Potawatomi out of Oklahoma and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Recently, ground-penetrating radar was used to search for the mass grave and it's believed the location has been found. The Citizen Band Potawatomi and relatives of those in the cemetery are hoping to place interpretive signs in the cemetery in the near future.

John Green, born in Gloucestershire, England.
September 11, 1827 - September 6, 1902

The golden gates were opened wide
A gentle voice said come
And angels from the other side
Welcomed our loved one home

John "Jake" Green came to America when he was 21, originally settling in Indiana. Green married four times and had 10 children. The Green Nature Preserve across from the cemetery is named for his son, Herbert Reinhard Green.

from FindAGrave

Hannah Virginia "Vergie" Jones, nee Miller. She died during childbirth on her in-law's farm south of nearby Willard. Her husband, Leander Emory Jones, remarried and is buried with his second wife, Suzanne, in Maple Hill.

Vergie, born on the Potawatomi Reservation in Jackson County, was buried beside her son, Louis, who died of whooping cough.

from Kansas Historical Society

Joseph Napoleon Bourassa was a half-Potawatomi, half-French interpreter and doctor who lived in the area. His family accounts for many of the early graves in Uniontown Cemetery aside from the mass burial. The Bourassas are in a family plot surrounded by rock wall. J.N. Bourassa was born in 1810 and passed away October 24, 1877. He is buried in Mound City, Kansas.

Mary E. Bourassa

March 13, 1833 - January 30, 1872

Adamantinus Bourassa

January 30, 1872 - April 21, 1872

Joseph D. Bourassa

October 21, 1860 - October 20, 1869

The entrance to the Herbert Reinhard Green Wildlife Area

The bulletin board near the entrance and the grave of an Oregon Trail
traveler.

[Unknown]er
[Born?]
[Fauqui]er Co. VA.
Sept. 24, 1824
Died
June 9, 1851
Aged 26 Years
8 Months.
& 15Days.

The grave of an unknown traveler along the Oregon Trail. I have hunted for the name of this unknown pioneer since learning about the grave. The grave is located in a fenced area of the Green Wildlife Area.

Old farming equipment

Restoration of tall prairie grasses.

Mature post oak trees

Scenic Post Creek valley view

Valley view and dead trees

Post Creek

Site of American Elm Tree

Restoration of native grasses

Woodland/grassland ecotone

Reclaimed prairie grasses

Oregon Trail ruts

Sign marking the Oregon and California trails

Oak-hickory woodland

Marvin Would Just Pee on the Couch Anyway

In a lonely corner or Prairie Center Cemetery in Osage County, Kansas, lies the grave of Joseph Dolifka. Born in Hungary, on March 5, 1838, Dolifka married Josephine Groman and they had five children--Agatha, Joseph, Philip, Julius, and Mary. In 1884, the family left Hamburg, Germany for New York City. Their ultimate destination, though, was Kansas. They settled on 80 acres in the Grand Haven neighborhood on the Shawnee-Osage county line where they raised livestock. Grand Haven was just a collection of farms with a post office on the property of W.H. Sears about a mile and a half west of the Dolifkas. Grand Haven was located northwest of Burlingame and southwest of Auburn. The post office, initially established in Osage County, existed from 1875 until 1901.

Dolifka farm in Auburn Township, Shawnee County, Kansas.
From Atlas of Shawnee County, Kansas (1898)

Little is really known about the Dolifkas. On December 15, 1890, Joseph died at the age of 52. No obituaries of Joseph are available if any were printed in local newspapers. A Facebook post mentions that he may have been kicked in the head by a horse or mule but that could just be speculation. His family continued in the Auburn area until about 1895 when they moved to Hanover in Washington County, Kansas. Agatha (1869-1938) married baker Henry Kraushaar but the two divorced and he moved to Kansas City, Missouri and remarried. She is buried in Marysville, Kansas. The younger Joseph (1876-1905) was a photographer in Hanover until moving to Colorado for his health, passing away in Colorado Springs. Philip (1878-1968) was a farmer in the Hanover area. He married Katie Dusch in 1904 and had eight children. He died in Lawrence of bronchial pneumonia and is buried in St. John's Cemetery in Hanover. Julius (1880-1956) originally went to Hanover with his family until about 1904 when he moved to Flagler, Colorado and started a ranch. He married Amy Anna Banner in 1906. He is buried in Akron Cemetery in Akron, Colorado. Mary (1883-1971) married Roy Pangborn in 1906. They also moved to Colorado but after Roy died, Mary moved to California where she was buried.

Josephine Dolifka was born in Vienna in 1843. She had been visiting in Hanover the evening before her death and was feeling fine. The next morning, Philip went to her house to do some work, and upon entering the house, found his mother feeling sick. A doctor was called but she died mere hours later. Services were held at the St. John's Church and she was buried in Pecenka (Bohemian) Cemetery south of Bremen, Kansas.

Joseph Dolifka gravestone in Prairie Center Cemetery.
May his soul rest in peace.

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Ripley's Believe It Or Not

I gotta give some accolades to today's Believe It Or Not of not only opening today's comic with a beautifully detailed illustration of Hitler but also telling us, while we're eating our breakfast cereal before heading to church, that he had rotting gums, bad breath, and fake teeth. This is quite a kneecap for those who love Nazis.

You know who you are.

Marvin

That "couch" doesn't look like it would fit two people anyway.

Blondie

Were Dagwood and Herb out on a date? Are they using Christmas lights as some kind of code? Is this an open marriage scenario or are they on the down-low? Dagwood also looks like they maybe broke up.

Mother Goose & Grimm

Lassie hasn't had a live-action TV show since 1999 and network TV shows haven't had designated sponsors since the early 1980s but sure, go on.

Kitty Korner from Heathcliff

Where the hell is Adelaide and Figaro watching "Heathcliff"? Does she have DVDs? Does she pull them up on YouTube? Is "Heathcliff" on some streaming site I don't know about?

The Born Loser

Going to dinner and a movie isn't special. Although I guess it could be considering Mother Gargle believes they never go out at all. Did Brutus go into the movie thinking it would be good? It's a melodrama, those are never good. The only worse would be if it were a period piece.

If you would like to support my writing and research, you can buy me a cup of coffee over on Ko-fi.

Beloved Parents

 In loving memory

of beloved parents

Elijah Sims was born in 1839 in Clinton County, Indiana. He served during the Civil War, participating in the battles of Murphreesboro, Munfordville, and Shiloh. He remained in Indiana until 1878 when he came to Kansas and started a homestead where he remained until retiring in 1906 to Topeka.

Jeannetta Sims was born to Peter and Elmira DeMoss in 1846 in Clinton County, Indiana. Peter DeMoss also served in the Civil War. Jeannetta passed away in Turlock, California, where she and Elijah had taken up residence. She was survived by her husband and all 10 of their children.

Mount Hope Cemetery, Topeka, Shawnee County, Kansas