"The Children Will Stay Together"

It took some seven or eight years, but the Gazette's 1903 mistake about Henry Nolte's "lung trouble" finally came true. The family curse caught up with him. His tuberculosis developed over several years; throughout 1912 he had been increasingly debilitated; but when the end came, it came suddenly, from a hemorrhage of the lungs. He died on the afternoon of March 7, 1913. He was 59 years old.

His wife, Mary, had died in July 1908, at the age of 42, also of tuberculosis. So the four surviving children were now orphans, and only the eldest, 22-year-old Henry junior, had reached the age of majority. Bertha, recently married to Claude Campbell, was 20. Louis and Edward were schoolboys of 15 and 13, respectively.

I find it touching that the Noltes, who (aside from Bertha) almost never publicized their private business, apparently got the message out loud and clear that the family was not to be broken up. The Gazette reported: "Mr. Nolte left a will designating his son Henry T. as executor of his estate and with request that he operate the farm and maintain a home for the two minor boys." And the News: "The children will stay together and remain on the farm."

Bertha had remained on the farm, it seems, even after her marriage in 1912, probably running the household and acting as a second mother to the younger boys. No doubt her help was much needed during her father's illness and after his death. Her husband, Claude, likely helped with the farm work. Had they left, Henry junior would have been solely responsible for managing the farm and the household and two teenage boys, a heavy burden for any 22-year-old. I don't know yet how long Bertha and Claude stayed. By 1920 they were living with his family. But by then, of course, the Louis and Edward were grown.

Every parent of minor children who makes a will includes some provision for their care. That's the wise thing to do, because you never know what might happen to you. But I can't help feeling that when Henry senior made that provision in his will, he knew exactly what was going to happen to him. As for Henry junior, he carried out his father's last request with the utmost fidelity, providing a home for his brothers until neither had any need of a home, and running the farm, and running it well, to the end of his days.


Henry senior was buried beside his wife in Chester Cemetery.


(Click on image to enlarge)


Sources:
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Death of Mrs. Nolte." Hobart Gazette 17 July 1908.
♦ "Henry R. Nolte Succumbs to the White Plague." Hobart News 13 March 1913.
♦ "Obituary." Hobart Gazette 14 March 1913.