I do not remember my grandparents living anywhere but Smilthboro, Illinois in Bond Country, but I know my mother and father met when the family lived in Woodriver, Illinois.
Stories are told in the family about him going west to open a store to provide gold miners with supplies. I don't know when and where that occurred or when he returned to Illinois.
He and Grandma married when she was 19 and he was 38. The age difference showed up quite a bit when I was a child, because his health became quite bad. He had tuberculosis and was in a sanitarium. We all were tested for quite a while during my childhood. It took a toll on his health, though he did arrest it and return home.
Find a Grave #50220693 1910 and 1900 Federal Census
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