For the past two weeks, I’ve shared stories from Omaha’s Temple Israel Cemetery. Most graves there are marked, even if it’s a small stone, because their loved ones could afford to purchase one.

The story is quite different at Omaha’s Potter’s Field, located at 5000 Young Street near the intersection of Mormon Bridge Road. It’s five and a half acres are surrounded on three sides by Forest Lawn Memorial Park, where some of Omaha’s wealthiest residents are buried. The contrast between the two is what drew me there.

Near the end of my September 2017 trip, we went over to see it. There is no parking lot but you can easily pull off the side of the road.

What is a Potter’s Field?

The first mention of a potter’s field is thought to have come from the Bible in Matthew 27. The chief priests received 30 silver pieces from a repentant Judas, who was paid that amount by the priests to betray Jesus. In anguish over what he had done, he returned the money to them then killed himself. Stating they could not keep “blood money” (even though they were the very ones who paid him), the priests used the money to buy the potter’s field as a place to bury foreigners. In other words, the “undesirables” who died in their town.

It was called “potter’s field” then because the land wasn’t good enough to grow crops and was only worth using to dig up clay for pottery. In later years, such places were often referred to as a county-owned graveyard or the “poor farm” cemetery. Atlanta’s Oakland Cemetery has a potter’s field.

The thing you’ll notice right off the bat is that there are very few markers at Omaha’s Potter’s Field and that’s true for most of them. The people buried there had family would could not easily afford a funeral, much less a gravestone. Or the deceased had no family or friends to even ask.

3,912 Souls

Circumstances also did not encourage those connected to the deceased to do so. According to a 1988 newspaper article, Douglas County discouraged families from putting up grave markers because, as they put it, “If you can pay for the stone, you can pay for the funeral.” In some cases, families were asked for reimbursement of funeral costs if they tried to improve the plot. In recent years, some surviving family members have purchased and placed gravestones for their loved ones.

The stone pictured above is the first thing you see after you enter the cemetery gate. It briefly explains that Potter’s Field was used from 1887-1957. Nearly 4,000 people are buried there. During the 1950s, society began to frown upon the idea of poor farms and potter’s fields. Douglas County started paying for indigent and unknown persons to be buried in cemeteries throughout town. They were still kept in separate sections, however, supposedly to avoid offending those who’d paid to be buried there. Other cities across the country follow a similar practice.

Burying the Unknown

I learned that nearly half the burials at Omaha’s Potter’s Field were for infants and toddlers under the age of two. Almost all of them were unknown and abandoned. Many entries on the interment list say “unknown baby.” Brutal information such as “found in garbage,” “found on riverbank,” “murdered,” or “strangled,” jump out painfully.

For the adults buried at Potter’s Field, they were often the destitute, the homeless, abused women and children, the mentally ill, the disabled or sometimes those who drifted from town to town without roots who had met an unfortunate end.

You can find the names listed on stones that encircle a sundial.

After Omaha’s Potter’s Field closed, despite being owned by Douglas County, the grounds fell into disrepair. During summers, weeds grew waist high. Teens hung out there to drink and party, leading to the desecration of what few gravestones were there. The cemetery was often littered with trash after such gatherings.

In the 1970s, local Boy Scout troops cleared the grounds to make the cemetery look better. They worked hard for a while to keep it up but over time the cemetery fell into disrepair yet again. This is not uncommon with such cemetery revitalization projects when many in a volunteer group (not just the Scouts) who took care of a abandoned cemetery moved, grew too old to do it, or simply lost interest.

Restoring Potter’s Field

In 1985, former Douglas County Sheriff Richard Collins headed a volunteer effort to again restore the old cemetery. With help from others, Collins raised the $22,000 needed to properly restore the grounds. In September 1986, Potter’s Field was re-consecrated and the memorial erected. This included the tablets of the names they could find from government and neighboring Forest Lawn Cemetery records.

Some historians have tried to find ancestors of the interred with little success. Many have no traceable connection to families of present-day Omaha.Unlike today, with the Internet collecting information about everyone, it was quite easy to make little of a footprint back then. If you didn’t have any true home and were going where circumstances placed you, encountering a census worker would be unusual.

Victims of a Flu Epidemic

This stone for the Clark sisters does leave a few clues. Iva and Sadie Clark were 13 and 11, respectively, when they died in 1890 within a few days of each other. One of the articles I found said a world-wide influenza epidemic (not the Spanish Flu) that raged from 1889-1891 may have been the cause.

Their parents were Frank and A.M. Clark. That’s all that’s known about them.

The Chapman children likely suffered a similar fate. Nothing is known about their parents, J.L. and E. Chapman. Stella and John, ages three years and ten months, died within days of each other in 1891. They’re among the few whose parents were able to provide them with a marker.

The marker for Henning O. Koll (1857-1898) looks like it may have come in recent years. I found him in the 1895 Omaha City Directory listed as a fireman.

The newer look of David A. Jones’ marker also leads me to believe it was more recently placed.

There is one person buried at Omaha’s Potter’s Field who didn’t have a marker until recently. But he was at the center of an event in Omaha history that changed it forever. That man was William “Will” Brown.

The Lynching of Will Brown

The story of how 40-year-old African-American Will Brown was lynched on Sept. 28, 1919 and the riot that surrounded it has many layers. There’s a long back story that led up to what created the atmosphere in which it culminated. This article does a great job at explaining the events of that day far better than I can in this post.

You probably know I live in Georgia, a state with a dark history of lynchings. When I was growing up, this history was rarely mentioned in schools. According to the Tuskegee Institute, more than 73 percent of lynchings in the post-Civil War period occurred in Southern states. That’s a damning statistic. But that leaves 27 percent that occurred in other parts of the U.S. The sad fact is racism exists everywhere.

California resident Chris Hebert learned about the 1919 Omaha Race Riot and Brown’s lynching from a TV program he saw about Henry Fonda. The actor was 14 at the time and witnessed the riot from his father’s office in Omaha. As a result, Hebert paid to have a marker made to honor Will Brown.

Lest We Forget

Hebert has no ties to Omaha and simply asked that “Lest we forget” be engraved on the stone. He said, “It’s too bad it took deaths like these to pave the way for the freedoms we have today. I got the headstone thinking that if I could reach just one person, it was well worth the money spent.”

I am thankful to Chris Hebert for doing this to keep Will Brown’s memory alive. In turn, none of those buried at Omaha’s Potter’s Field should be forgotten. While we don’t know much about their histories, their lives mattered. Be it a newborn baby or an impoverished drifter making his way west, they were here among us. If just for a short time.

Lest we forget…

Last week, I introduced you to Temple Israel Cemetery and the story of Emil Brandeis’ tragic death on the Titanic. He was one of three brothers who made the J.L. Brandeis & Sons Department a household name in Omaha.

There are more buried at Temple Israel that knew tragedy. Two families, the Rosewaters and the Heyns, are the subjects of my post today.

I photographed this simple yet handsome monument having never heard of the surname “Rosewater”. But they were once as well known in Omaha as the Brandeis family.

Originally the Rosenwassers, Herman Rosenwasser (1807-1878) and his wife, Rosemary Kohn Rosenwasser, emigrated from the Austria/Czechoslovakia (known as Bohemia) area in the 1850s with their large family. They settled in Cleveland, Ohio before they had two more children.

The Oldest and the Youngest

The first and last Rosewater children, Edward and Charles, both made a splash in Omaha. One of Edward’s claims to fame before moving west was being the telegraph operator who transmitted President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation for the first time.

Already active in Republican politics, Edward Rosewater arrived in Omaha in 1863. In 1870, he was elected to the Nebraska House of Representatives and the following year, he started the newspaper The Omaha Bee. His aggressive style won him both a number of friends and enemies. In 1876, he was nearly clubbed to death by an irate reader but survived. Omaha’s Rosewater School, built in 1910, was named after him and was converted to apartments in 1985.

Immediately before his death, Edward helped found the American Jewish Committee (AJC). He died of a heart attack in 1906 at the age of 65 and is buried in Omaha’s Forest Lawn Cemetery. His son, Victor, carried on his father’s pursuits in the years to follow, including joining the AJC.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1859, Charles Rosewater traveled to Europe to get his medical degree. Dr. Rosewater came to Omaha in the 1880s and began practicing medicine. For 15 years, he occupied the chair of obstetrics in the Creighton Medical College and later focused on general medicine. In 1893, he married Clara Schlesinger.

Death from a Broken Heart

Dr. Rosewater and Clara had only one child, Irene, in 1895. But she was the apple of her father’s eye and they were quite proud of her. After graduating from Omaha’s Central High School in 1914, Irene went to Northhampton, Mass. to attend Smith College. She graduated in 1918 and worked as a chemist for Armour (the meat packing company) in Omaha until her health took a turn. After taking a prescribed vacation, she returned to her parents’ home, supposedly much improved.

Her obituary notes that as a chemist she “diagnosed her own case”. After feeling pains, she reportedly said, “I’m going to have an abscess on the brain, Father.” Soon after, Irene was admitted to the hospital and died on May 25, 1920 of “brain fever”, which may have been meningoencephalitis.

Dr. Rosewater never got over Irene’s death and his own health faltered. He died on Nov. 23, 1921 at the age of 62 and was buried beside Irene. His wife, Clara, did not remarry and died in 1945 in Los Angeles, Calif. Her body was brought back to Omaha for burial with Charles and Irene.

Tragedy and The Photographers Heyn

Two generations of three brothers would make their mark in the photography world. But if there was a family that knew tragedy, it was the Heyns.

A native of Germany, George Heyn emigrated to Detroit in his teens and moved to Omaha to open a photography studio in the early 1880s. He returned to Detroit to marry Sabina Hirschman in 1883 and they settled into married life in Omaha. Son Lester Heyn was born in 1884, Jerome in 1886, and Frederick (Fred) in 1890.

George’s younger brother, Herman, also a photographer, came to Omaha shortly after George and Sabina’s marriage. Many photographs of Native Americans attributed to George are now thought to have been done by Herman. Herman also created portraits of President William Howard Taft and presidential candidate/orator William Jennings Bryan (the latter was involved in a court case). He moved to Chicago in the late 1920s and died there in 1949. Herman is buried in Rosehill Cemetery.

Louis Heyn, George and Herman’s brother, was also a photographer. He may have briefly worked in Omaha with George before heading to Great Falls, Mont. where he married and had a family. They moved to California in the 1930s where Louis died in 1940.

Sabina and George were were often reported about in newspapers attending parties and events around Omaha. One costume party they hosted in late January 1889 was written up in which George was dressed as Adonis, Sarah Brandeis came gowned as a Grecian lady, and the future Clara Rosewater attended costumed as a school girl.

Unfortunately, their happiness did not last. On May 26, 1892, while on a ferry going from Detroit to Canada, George Heyn committed suicide by jumping into the Detroit River. His obituary says he suffered from two incidents of “la grippe” (the flu) over the winter that affected his mind. After his remains were recovered, George was buried at Woodmere Cemetery in Detroit, Mich.

Sabina remarried in 1899 to photographer Henry Unverzagt. All three Heyn sons tried their hand at photography and were well known in Omaha’s Jewish social circles and civic organizations.

Was it Suicide?

Youngest brother Fred served in World War I, reaching the rank of captain. After the war, he gave real estate a try. In August 1926, he went to Lake Marion near Fergus Falls, Minn. with Sabina and one of his brothers (which one was not specified). His obituary states he’d recently suffered a breakdown but was doing better. He went out bass fishing by himself and the boat was later found empty.

On August 7, his body was recovered. Suicide was suspected as the cause of death. Fred’s remains were brought back to Omaha and he was buried at Temple Israel Cemetery. He had no wife or children. Sabina died in 1938 and was buried beside him.

Older brothers Jerome and Lester continued with their successful photography business. Their names appear often in the society pages attending parties and traveling. Like his brother Fred, Jerome never married. The Heyn brothers were especially talented at photographing children.

A Gunshot at Union Station

In December 1939, Jerome suffered a 25-foot fall over a stairway railing in a downtown building that fractured his skull. On Jan. 23, 1940, Jerome locked himself in the men’s restroom of Union Station in Omaha and shot himself with a .38 Colt pistol. His obituary claims he had been in a “nervous condition” in the days leading up to his death. He was 54 at the time, and was buried beside his mother and brother at Temple Israel Cemetery.

Death in the Doctor’s Office

The last Heyn brother, Lester, married Beatrice “Bebe” Nies Morris in 1918 in Chicago when he was 34. She had one child, Eugene, from a previous marriage. Lester and Beatrice had a daughter, Adelaide. But the marriage soured a few years later. In 1922, Beatrice filed for divorce and requested a restraining order against him. Their divorce proceedings played out in the newspapers. Beatrice remarried to James Pray and moved to California with the children.

UPDATE: I was recently contacted by Adelaide’s daughter, who knew little of her grandfather’s past and was delighted to learn more. She told me Bebe married a few more times before her death in California.

The tragedies took their toll. Not long after Jerome’s death, he retired and closed the studio. Lester died on Sept. 11, 1941 in his doctor’s office of a heart attack. He was buried at Temple Israel beside his mother and brothers. I didn’t get a picture of his grave, unfortunately. But I did find a photo of him in a newspaper ad. I could not trace his children after 1930.

There are probably thousands of people in Nebraska who own old photographs with the Heyn name on them. Few know the story behind that name and the heartache attached to it over the years.

I did encounter a guest while I was at Temple Israel Cemetery that I wasn’t expecting. But I’m sure he was hoping I’d just pretend he wasn’t there. It’s not often I encounter a groundhog during my cemetery hopping.

Stopping by Temple Israel Cemetery was definitely worth it, despite the sad stories I found there. You never known until you start looking behind the name and date on a stone what you might turn up.

 

Today I’m starting a series on Omaha, Nebraska’s Temple Israel Cemetery. When I was visiting Christi in fall 2017, I was hopeful I could visit because it’s there that the ashes of Emil Brandies, Omaha’s only Titanic disaster victim, are buried.

What Younker’s was to Des Moines, Brandeis was to Omaha. Emil was part of the Brandeis family who established a much-beloved chain of department stores in Nebraska in the 1880s. Ask anybody over 50 who grew up in Omaha what they remember about J.L. Brandeis & Sons Department Stores and the stories will start pouring out. Purchasing a first party gown, working at the jewelry counter, marveling at the window displays, and meeting friends in the Tea Room are just a few glimpses of its history.

Located in North Omaha, Temple Israel Cemetery is also known as Pleasant Hill Cemetery but there’s another Pleasant Hill Cemetery in Omaha. I’m going to stick to Temple Israel Cemetery, as that’s the name on the entrance sign I photographed below.

Established in 1871, Temple Israel Cemetery (a Reform congregation) is the oldest Jewish cemetery in Omaha but not the only one. There are several others that came later.

According to Temple Israel’s website, Max Meyer, Emmanuel Simon, and Meyer Hellman formed the B’nail Israel Society in March 1871 when they recognized the need for a sanctified Jewish burial ground. In August 1871, they bought five acres for a cemetery at 42nd Street and Redick Ave. The B’nai Israel Society deeded the cemetery property to the Congregation of Israel, which later became Temple Israel.

Within the Temple Israel Cemetery are separate sections for B’nai Jacob and B’nai Shalom Cemeteries. Find a Grave notes there are about 800 graves recorded for Temple Israel but I think there are many more that just haven’t been photographed or had memorials made for them yet.

According to a detailed two-part article by journalist/blogger Leo Adam Biga, the Brandeis family has roots in Prague in what is now the Czech Republic. Born in 1837, Jonas Leopold (J.L.) Brandeis was an Austrian-Jewish immigrant who arrived in America in his late teens. He started as a merchant in Wisconsin, where he did business with Indians. Francesca “Fannie” Teweles of Milwaukee married him in 1862 and the couple started their family in Manitowoc, Wisc. They had four children that lived to adulthood, three boys (Arthur, Hugo, and Emil) and one girl (Sarah).

After moving the family to Omaha in the 1880s, J.L. started building his first venture, The Fair, on South 13th Street. By 1888, he and his sons were full partners when they rented a new site at 114 South 16th Street, calling it The Boston Store. The J.L. Brandeis & Sons name first appeared over the door there and would appear on building plates on all future Brandeis stores. An 1894 fire that destroyed a second store didn’t keep J.L. down and he built a bigger, better store on the same site at the northwest corner of 16th and Douglas.

J.L. and Fanny got active in local organizations right away, with J.L. helping establish one of Nebraska’s first synagogues. He and relative Carl Brandeis (who is also buried at Temple Israel) worked together to create a chapter of the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith. An Omaha chapter was founded by Carl.

Emil became a member of the firm in 1885 at the age 21, where he eventually directed the planning, building, and maintenance of the Brandeis buildings. He was also responsible for the general oversight of the men’s goods department.

After J.L.’s death in 1903, Arthur became president. Emil continued to supervise construction and maintenance of the company’s building projects. Hugo sent buyers to foreign markets and managed the store’s sales policies. Cousin George Brandeis was brought in and his skills would prove timely later.

A bachelor, Emil enjoyed working with his brothers and traveled a great deal. In late January 1912, he went to Europe to visit his niece, Mrs. Irving Stern (Ruth, the daughter of his brother Arthur) and her husband in Italy. The trio traveled through Spain, Egypt, and Rome to Vevey, Switzerland, where they visited his sister, Sarah Brandeis Cohn. Sarah had been widowed less than a year.

Emil arranged to return home on the Titanic, which had received much press for its elegance and speed. Much of his time on the ship was spent with old friends, Mr. and Mrs. Henry B. Harris. After the ship hit the iceberg and and evacuation started, Mrs. Harris was placed in a full lifeboat. She later said and as it pulled away that she saw Emil and her husband standing among the men on deck, awaiting their fate, she reported, “without fear.”

One rumor spread at the time was that Emil put on women’s clothing in order to try to get a place in a lifeboat but that was quashed by other survivors who saw him as Mrs. Harris did among the men on deck that night.

Emil’s body was recovered by the crew of the cable repair ship, the CS MacKay Bennett. Among his effects were diamond cuff links, a gold knife, a gold pocket watch, a platinum and diamond watch chain, a gold pencil case, a gold ring, a gold cigarette case and match box, a pearl tie-pin and a 500 franc note. His pocket watch was part of an exhibit a few years ago at Omaha’s Durham Museum.

Many books and articles claim that Emil’s body was brought back from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Omaha for burial at Temple Israel Cemetery. But according to a May 4 article in the Omaha Bee, his body was sent from Canada to Chicago first. An Omaha funeral director hired by the Brandeis family traveled to Chicago to receive Emil’s body, oversee his cremation, then bring his ashes home. The Chicago crematory is not named in the article, but I suspect it was the one at Graceland Cemetery. Many well-known wealthy Chicagoans are buried there and it was one of three cemeteries in the city that had a crematory at that time.

At first, I wondered why a Jewish family would have a family member cremated because in the Jewish faith, a body is traditionally buried within 48 hours of death. Then it occurred to me that the tragic circumstances surrounding Emil’s death prevented that. By the time his remains were brought to Chicago several days after the tragedy, they were in poor condition. The Brandeis family were also Reform Jews, whose congregations tend to have less conservative religious beliefs. So cremation made a lot of sense.

A large memorial service held on April 21 at the Brandeis Theater was attended by many Omahans. Emil’s graveside funeral at Temple Israel Cemetery was private. His ashes were buried beside his parents’ graves (Fanny died in 1905) on a Sunday in early May.

Sadly, brother Hugo died in July of that same year after an operation. He is also buried at Temple Israel. That left Arthur to run the business and cousin George Brandeis proved invaluable with his leadership. In 1914, Arthur handed the store’s leadership to George and become vice president of Stern Brothers dry goods store in New York.

When Arthur died in 1916, his will left in excess of $1 million in personal property and real estate in a trust to his young son, E. John Brandeis. George would mentor E. John and eventually Arthur’s son would take over the reins from George.

At its zenith in the early 1970s, the family-owned retail chain grew to 15 stores, 3,000 employees, and $100 million in sales. But as more shoppers headed to suburban malls, the flagship store became an albatross. When it closed in 1980 as part of a general downsizing, it marked the end of an era. Younker’s bought Brandeis’ remaining stores in 1987.

A few days before I started writing this post, I saw an article in the Omaha World-Herald that the Brandeis Mansion, built in 1904 for Arthur Brandeis and his wife, Zerlina, has been fully restored and is enjoying a comeback with new owners. Christi has attended parties there in recent years. Omahans are pleased to see a happy piece of their past is still alive and well.

I’ll be back next week with more stories from Temple Israel Cemetery.

To wrap up my series on Nebraska City’s Wyuka Cemetery, I’m featuring some of the lovely ladies standing atop the monuments I saw. There were too many for me to cram into the first two parts so I waited until the end to give them their due.

The Black family monument is one of the tallest in the cemetery and features one of the most beautiful figures I’ve seen, holding a bouquet of flowers. She’s missing half of the other arm but it doesn’t detract from her beauty.

The Black family story was missing a number of pieces until I found an obituary for Robert A. Black in the Nebraska City News.

Irish immigrant Robert Andrew Black arrived in America as a young man, coming to Nebraska City around 1867 as a carpenter. He hired on with the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad Company (known as the B & M). He married Indiana native Sarah Catherine Brenton on March 5, 1871 in Montgomery, Iowa. By 1880, they were living in Nebraska City and had a son, James, born in 1874.

The monument tells us about the three children the Blacks lost. Emma Luvida Black was born in 1871 and died in 1872. William Emmet Black was born in 1872 and died in 1877. Robert Andrew Black, Jr. was born in 1881 and died in 1882. James died on May 13, 1895. His obituary mentions that he became ill a few days after injuring himself while jumping onto a horse.

By 1900, Robert was working as a foreman for the B & M. In late August 1904, he went to Rulo, Neb. to check on some work his men were doing. Sarah took the opportunity to visit her younger sister, Elvina Brenton Kulp, in Iowa. Elvina’s husband, Frank Kulp, was a bridge superintendent with the B & M. On the evening of Thursday, August 26, after the day’s work, Robert was giving instructions to a few of his men when he was struck and killed by an engine.

Robert’s remains were brought back to Nebraska and he was buried at Wyuka Cemetery. According to his obituary, his Masonic lodge, Western Star Lodge #2 A.F. and A.M. took care of the funeral.

The Black monument was erected in 1900, purchased by Robert A. Black to honor his children. It was carved by the Nebraska City firm of Neidhart & Forbes at his direction. By 1908, the gentleman had split up the business with Neidhart moving to Beatrice and Forbes staying in Nebraska City.

Sarah’s sister, Elvina, died in 1907 at the age of 42, leaving Frank Kulp a widower with three grown children. They were living in Gage County, Neb. according to the 1910 U.S. Census.

Sometime between 1910 and 1920, Sarah married her former brother-in-law, Frank Kulp. Soon after, they moved to Los Angeles, Calif., although they would return to Nebraska City to visit often.

Sarah died in California in 1931 at the age of 79. Her remains were brought back to Nebraska City for burial at Wyuka beside Robert and their children. Her will caused a great legal stir because she had sold a number of properties shortly before her death. One of her bequests was to the Masonic Home in Plattsmouth, Neb. The case wound its way through court even past the death of her second husband, Frank, in 1940. Frank is buried with first wife, Sarah’s sister, Elvina Brenton Kulp, in Wymore Cemetery in Gage, Neb.

The Tipton monument features a woman holding a wreath. It’s located not too far from the Black monument.

Born in Holmes County, Ohio in 1829, Absalom Tipton was the fifth of Luke and Mary Young Tipton’s 11 children. In 1854, he married Martha Ann Norris in Atchison County, Mo. Soon after, the couple arrived in Nebraska Territory and started their family.

Absalom was especially good at cultivating fruit trees, much like his neighbor J. Sterling Morton. His obituary notes that “on his home place, two miles northwest of the city, he had an apple orchard of 500 trees, 700 cherry trees, and raspberry, blackberry and blueberry plants without number.”

Absalom and Martha had seven children together, four of whom lived to adulthood. Martha died in November 1875 at the age of 41 and was buried at Wyuka. Absalom remarried again sometime around 1892 to Loantha Judkins, who was 24 years his junior. They had no children.

When Absalom died from stomach cancer in 1914 at the age of 85, he was buried beside Martha at Wyuka. Second wife Loantha died in 1928 and is also buried with him at Wyuka.

Another towering female caught my attention at Wyuka. The Rottman monument features yet another pensive lady holding a wreath.

Born in Westphalia, Germany in 1834, F.W. “Fritz” Rottman grew up with few advantages. He emigrated to America when he was 21 and spent a few months in St. Louis, Mo. before making his way to Nebraska City. He worked on a farm for several months before becoming a clerk, assisting his employer in his business ventures.

In 1865, Fritz married fellow German immigrant Margaret “Maggie” Arends, who had come to America with her parents as a little girl. Fritz not only owned a grocery store, he also became a builder, putting up many of Nebraska City’s businesses. He was at one point president of the Nebraska City Canning Company.

Fritz and Maggie had six children together, but only eldest son Frederick lived to adulthood. Fritz died in February 1888 at the age of 53 of “brain fever.” Maggie lived with Fred until her death from Bright’s Disease (kidney failure) in November 1906.

Born in 1872, Fred married Elma Petring in 1904 and they had two children. The pair were traveling to Omaha with their daughter (whose name varies in different newspapers) when their train crashed in Fort Crook, Neb. in 1911. Both Elma and the child were killed, and Fred was seriously injured. He remarried in 1913 to Clara Lilydale Koser and they had two children, one living to adulthood. Clara died in 1940 and Fred died in 1945, both buried at Wyuka.

Finally, there are two other females I wanted to include but they never had a chance to become young ladies.

Sisters Ellen and Jennie Mason were born to Oliver Perry (known as “O.P.”) Mason and Mary Turner Mason. The Masons married in New York before moving to Nebraska City in 1856. Oliver served as Chief Justice of the Nebraska State Supreme Court from 1866 to 1873. He also served as a member of the Nebraska Constitutional Convention of 1871. Mason City, Neb. was named after him.

Jennie, born in January 1859, died at the age of four on April 24, 1863. Her sister, Ellen, was born June 1862 and died at the age of 2 on Aug. 24, 1864. While the Masons had a daughter before Jennie and Ellen, and would have several more children, the loss of these two little ones must have been difficult to bear. Their sweet marker with twin lambs is especially bittersweet.

It was time to head to Omaha and put up our feet for a bit. But I was a little sad to leave as I looked back to see the sun setting over the old stones. How many stories had I missed?

It’s a place I won’t soon forget.