Carrie Cunningham Price

In October 1923, Mrs. Fremont B. Price died in her farm home on the southeast corner of Colorado and 69th. It took this sad event to teach me that she was the daughter of Henry "Harry" and Elizabeth Cunningham, whose name clung so tenaciously to their farm south of Ainsworth.


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Hobart Gazette, Oct. 26, 1923.

I was a bit surprised to find her marrying Fremont Price at Devil's Lake, Ramsey County, North Dakota, of all places. The Cunningham family must have moved there after the 1880 Census, when they were in Chicago. The 1900 Census shows her widowed father farming with one son in Ramsey County. When Henry Sr. died in 1902, his body was brought back to Indiana to be laid to rest beside his wife.

Carrie was somewhat unusual in that all of her nine children survived childhood. But, as we know, there was heartbreak enough in store for her. We have previously discussed the death of her son, James, and his belated funeral.


Carrie Cunningham Price circa 1914. Image from Ancestry.com

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The other obituary on the page above — of Mrs. Miles Allen McNiece, née Caroline Lembke — clears up the mystery of why I found her sister, Mary, involved with the Hobart Union Sunday School in 1876. The Lembke family did indeed live in Hobart "in the early days of the village," whatever that may mean, and M.A. McNiece ran a bakery there in the 1870s.

Caroline Lembke McNiece is buried in Blachly Cemetery.

Spring Piglets

Early in June of 1922 we find the Nolte brothers selling piglets born on April Fool's Day (or thereabouts); Mrs. Gilbert Robinson (whoever she was) selling her spring chickens; and Fremont B. Price selling a tractor and plows … maybe his insurance business was doing so well that he wasn't going to pretend to be a farmer anymore.


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Hobart News 8 June 1922.


On June 4 James and Effie (Spencer) Chester attended a Spencer family reunion.


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The guest of honor was the owner of the famous sidesaddle, and the label on that sidesaddle just saved me a lot of snooping around on Ancestry.com.

The late Eleazar Spencer owned a lot of land. On this image from the 1926 Plat Book, I have marked in red his land as it appeared in the 1891 Plat Book (the parcel marked in green belonged to his brother cousin(?), Orsemus):


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I believe the house at 3194 County Line Road (built in 1882 according to the county records) is the Eleazar Spencer residence.

Mrs. Robert Roper had been born Jessie Spencer circa 1879 (1880 Census) and married Robert Roper in 1899 (Indiana Marriage Collection). Mrs. Duffy DeFrance had been Myrtle Belle Swanson, daughter of Helena (Spencer) Swanson, and mother of Verva (DeFrance) Johnson.

Mrs. and Mrs. Maicke of Ainsworth

Having been properly showered, Lesta Raschka soon became Mrs. Otto Maicke.


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From the Hobart Gazette of 18 Mar. 1921.

Moving to Ainsworth would be something of a homecoming for Lesta, as she had spent 13 years of her childhood there, in the living quarters over the Ainsworth general store. The store, of course, had been sold to the Goldmans, but William Raschka still owned a grain warehouse — a reliable source of employment for sons-in-laws and nephews.

Before the homecoming, however, a honeymoon:


From the Hobart News of 31 Mar. 1921.

… And the address of Fremont B. Price's insurance office in Gary.


Sources:
♦ "Hobart Girl Married." Hobart Gazette 18 Mar. 1921.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 31 Mar. 1921.

What He Was Really Doing on That Farm of His

I thought he was a farmer. He told the 1920 Census enumerator that he was a farmer! Turns out Fremont "Frank" Price was up to something else on that farm of his.


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From the Hobart News, 3 Feb. 1921.

But amidst this success, he was dealing with the serious illness of his wife, Carrie.


From "Local Drifts," Hobart Gazette, 18 Feb. 1921.

(I'm not sure, but I think the Charles Wilkening who's announcing a public sale might be the brother of Ross Township's William Wilkening.)

A Soldier's Belated Funeral

On November 6, 1920, a telegram from New York reached F.B. and Carrie Price on their Ainsworth farm: the body of their fallen soldier, their son James, was again on American soil. That day the ship bearing his coffin had docked. A U.S. soldier would accompany his remains to Crown Point.

The News now suggested that it was influenza that had killed him, not the wound he received in action, or nephritis, or exposure. (The Gazette merely said that he had recovered from his wound sufficiently to return to service, but then was "taken ill" and died at Base Hospital No. 22.)

The journey from New York home took nearly two weeks. On Friday, November 19, James' coffin arrived at his parents' home.

So many people came to the funeral on the afternoon of Sunday, November 28, that the Merrillville Methodist Church could not hold them all, and some were left outside. Seventy-five American Legion members were there, from the Hobart and Crown Point posts. Among the pallbearers were George Tabbert and Otto Sizelove of Hobart, both of them veterans; George said that James' company had relieved his detachment during fighting in the Argonne forest, where James was wounded.

James Price was finally laid to rest in the Merrillville cemetery.


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Sources:
♦ "Card of Thanks." Hobart News 2 Dec. 1920.
♦ "Funeral of James I. Price Will Be Held at Merrillville, Sunday Afternoon." Hobart News 25 Nov. 1920.
♦ "Funeral of Jas. Price Next Sunday." Hobart Gazette 26 Nov. 1920.
♦ "James I. Price, Who Died in France, to Be Buried at Merrillville." Hobart News 11 Nov. 1920.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 2 Dec. 1920.
♦ "Merrillville Items." Lake County Star 3 Dec. 1920.
♦ "Remains of Jas. Price Brought Home." Hobart Gazette 12 Nov. 1920.

Hello, I Must Be Going

I didn't even know these guys existed until they announced, in September 1920, that they were leaving.


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The Bayor farm lay in Ross Township, on the northeast corner of 69th and Colorado, with the Grand Trunk Railroad crossing its southern acres. I can't even find Charles Szikora in any census earlier than 1930 (and that may not be the same Charles), and I do not know if he was related to John Szikora.

The only Deppe farm I can find is on the southern border of Hobart Township and is ascribed to Catherine, not Frank, Deppe. The 1920 census enumerator who recorded Michael Malz and his neighbors noted that they lived on the "South West Road out of Hobart Past Green House." The Malz household consisted of Michael, 55 years old, his 54-year-old wife Magdalen, and a five-year-old grandson — only those, to take care of 400 chickens and all those cattle!

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Across Colorado Street from the Bayor farm lay the Price farm. I mention that only because I just recently came across pictures of Fremont and Carrie Price (while babysitting the Merrillville museum). They are undated, and while to me they look earlier than 1920, I'm not going to try to guess at a date.

Fremont Benjamin Price

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Images courtesy of the Merrillville/Ross Township Historical Society.

Carrie Belle Cunningham Price


And here's a totally random fact I just learned about F.B. Price — he had a grocery-store-running brother in Ludington, Michigan.


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Sources:
♦ 1908 Plat Map.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ 1926 Plat Book.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 23 Sept. 1920.
♦ "Public Sale." Hobart News 23 Sept. 1920.

Goodbye Horses, Hello Tractor

The Price farm gets mechanized, August 1920.


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From the Hobart News of August 26, 1920.

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The "South of Deepriver" column from the same paper includes an interesting item about a schoolteacher off to teach in the wilds of South Dakota (or maybe the biggest city there, for all I know). While there were loads of Pecks in the area, I hadn't encountered the name "Myrl" before. I do wonder if it mightn't be Margaret Peck, a 21-year-old woman who had been working as a clerk in the Deep River store of William and Sadie Baker … and perhaps dying of boredom … but that's just my wild speculation.

Coming Home, Leaving Home

While Fremont and Carrie Price had hopes that their fallen soldier would soon be laid to rest in his native land, Melvin Guernsey had hopes of getting away from his native land — specifically, from the cold winters of Lake County, Indiana.


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Melvin Guernsey had been born in 1891 and raised on the farm of his parents, David and Stella Guernsey, in southern Ross Township near the county line. On August 17, 1910, he married Verna* Strong. By the time they were planning their Florida stay, they had two young sons, and would leave behind the grave of an infant daughter who died in 1911.



But they hadn't left yet, so they probably attended the Guernsey family reunion:


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The "home of C.S. Guernsey" would be (I believe) the farm of Chester and Nancy Guernsey, on the southern border of Ross Township, close to the county line.

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[6/19/2013 update] Below is a photograph that, according to handwritten notes on the original, shows a "Guernsey reunion taken about 1920." No one in the photo is identified.


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Image courtesy of the Merrillville/Ross Township Historical Society.

________________________
*The 1930 census-taker calls her "Thelma," but all other references I can find agree on "Verna." I cannot find Melvin and Verna Guernsey in the 1920 Census.


Sources:
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1930 Census.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ Lake County, Indiana, Birth Records Index, 1882-1920.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 26 Aug. 1920.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 19 Aug. 1910; 30 June 1911; 27 Aug. 1920.
♦ "Public Sale." Hobart News 26 Aug. 1920.

Fun and Farm-Moving

From the cold and wet (one presumes) late winter of 1920, some do-it-yourself entertainment news, including the fact that the mysterious Jolly Four was now hosting dances in Hobart as well as Ainsworth.


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The "Ainsworth social" had been held the evening of Friday, February 20, at Gust Lindborg's hall, to raise money for the Ainsworth school.

… And some manufactured-entertainment news.



"Hearts of the World" was a war film released in 1918. Both Lillian and Dorothy Gish had roles in it.



I can't find any images relating to "Desert Gold" or its star, Edward Kline Lincoln.

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Some people had no time for entertainment, manufactured or otherwise. Some people were too busy moving farms:

Ray Halstead [or Halsted] and family will move Friday [March 5, 1920] to the farm owned by his father, A.E. Halstead, located near Merrillville, which has been occupied by F.B. Price and family. Mr. Price moves to his own farm recently purchased, on which he is erecting a complete set of buildings. Bert Bartholomew will occupy the residence vacated by Mr. Halstead and family.

As you can see on the map in this post, Ray's father farm was just west of the Price's farm. I do not know where Ray's previous residence was, so I don't know where dear Bert Bartholomew (whoever he was) would soon be living.


Sources:
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 5 Feb. 1920; 4 Mar. 1920.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 27 Feb. 1920.

Farm Moving Time Again

John Kilmer had finally come home from overseas, from the army, to see again his wife — the former Hazel Price — and to see for the first time his one-year-old daughter, Juanita. By early January, the little family was together again on a farm in Iowa.

F.B. and Carrie Price, John's in-laws in Ainsworth, were making arrangements for him to earn his living much nearer their home. They rented "the George Hayward farm, on the Lincoln Highway," which, if it retained in 1920 its 1908 dimensions, was quite a spread. The plan was for John and Hazel Kilmer to begin farming that land in the spring.


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The Hayward farm in 1908; just a stone's throw to the northeast, the land the Prices bought in 1918.

And so it was time for Charles Shults, the Hayward farm's current tenant, to move on. Which he did, eastward to what was still known as the "Springman farm," though by 1920 it may have been already owned by William Springman's son-in-law William Mankey.


The 113-acre Mankey farm as it appeared in 1926; outlined in red, the original Springman 40 acres (per the 1908 map).

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In other moving news, "Mrs. Gib Bullock" (the widowed Alice Estelle Markham Bullock was offering for sale her "frame barn on Center street." She didn't mention the land it stood on, so perhaps she expected the seller to pick it up and move it.


Sources:
♦ 1908 Plat Map.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ 1926 Plat Book.
♦ "Additional Local News." Hobart Gazette 2 Jan. 1920.
♦ "All kinds of Wants." Hobart Gazette 9 Jan. 1920.

Farm Buildings and Buyings

The Price family set about improving the farm they had recently bought. By early August 1919, they had hired numerous local contractors to do work for them:

F.B. Price of Ross township has given the contract to Wall & Fleming for the building of a new house and barn, including half a dozen outbuildings on his farm which he recently purchased from W.O. Halsted. The cement contract goes to Vincent Boyd and the electrical wiring to Henry Kegebein. He will install a private electric generating outfit, making his farm one of the most up-to-date in the vicinity.

I'm not sure if any of that glorious work has survived. I've gone out there and tried to spot anything that suggested 1919, but then I have trouble applying those boundaries, so clear in the plat maps, to the real land outside the window of my car.

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A little distance northeast of the Price farm lay some 200 acres that had been known as the Clinton farm for decades — as early as 1874 we find most of that land under Eli Clinton's name, and by 1919 it all belonged to Steve Clinton. Now it passed into the hands of David and Agnes Frank. Those 200 acres touched on the 167 acres that the Franks had farmed since at least 1908 (I can't find any earlier records of them).


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From the 1908 Plat Map: outlined in red, the Frank farm in Hobart Township; outlined in green, the Clinton 200 acres in Ross Township.

David Frank intended to continue farming all his land, with the help of his 20-year-old son, John. His other son, Robert, was 17 years old and probably still in school.

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If we look again at that 1908 map, we will notice the Bullock land due north of Ainsworth, 160 acres bordering State Road 51 and divided by the Deep River.



In 1919 this land changed ownership on paper only. Since 1912, Claude and Mary Ann (Chandler) Bullock had lived and farmed there. Now they bought out the shares in that land belonging to Claude's brother, Hubert, and sister, Ruth Mackey.

Claude was then about 39 years old, Mary Ann 34. They had two sons: three-year-old Kenneth, and little Gilbert, just past his first birthday.


Sources:
♦ 1908 Plat Map.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 7 Aug. 1919; 14 Aug. 1919.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 8 Aug. 1919.

Ross Township Commencement

Ross Township's graduating class of 1919 including two young people from Ainsworth — Robert Chester and Raymond Triebess, as well as three from Deep River.

The page from the Gazette of May 16, 1919, carrying that announcement also gives us an update to our continuing saga, Plumbing Hobart's Secrets. In this episode, George and Helen Rhodes have just returned from Philadelphia, where George had finally concluded his wartime plumbing mission. George was ready to hit the ground running in the service of Hobart's plumbing needs. Meanwhile, George Bruce — perhaps seeing the Lee & Rhodes juggernaut bearing down on him — had started rethinking his career in plumbing.


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More on Rhodes and Bruce, from the Hobart News of May 15, 1919.


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A Much-Needed Bundle of Joy

Into the home of the Price family, who were grieving the loss of their son and brother, James, came solace in the form of a baby girl.

The mother was Hazel Price Kilmer, Fremont and Carrie's eldest daughter. Hazel had married John Kilmer, probably sometime in the latter half of 1917 or early 1918. She was 20 years old, he 25. Apparently they were living in Montana — that was where he entered the army in the summer of 1918. Hazel went at first to stay with her in-laws in Iowa, and later came home to her own family. On December 30 she gave birth to this little girl who would be known as Juanita.

John was not there to celebrate the happy event, being still in France, but he would survive to see his daughter, and to father more children.


Sources:
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ 1930 Census.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 3 Jan. 1919.
♦ WWI Draft Cards.

James Price

As December wore on, mixing with the dreary recitations of the names of sick people in the local social columns, happier news began to trickle in: the names of men discharged from military service. The Gazette of December 20 reported that in the past week Charles Kisela, Roy Cook, Ed Severance, Evan Roper, Charles Frame, Otto Larson, Ernest Sonntag, Walter Bender, Emil Kossow, Elmer Hideen and Harry Carlson, among others, had all come home to stay.

Amidst those happy homecomings, Fremont and Carrie Price learned that their son, James, would never come home. On December 18 they finally received official confirmation of the earlier report. James had died in France on November 16, at the age of 23. Nephritis was given as the cause of death, but later reports added, "[w]hether death resulted from wounds or exposure has not yet been learned," and according to information at the Merrillville-Ross Township Historical Society museum, the exact cause was never determined.


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(Image from Gold Star Honor Roll)


Sources:
♦ "Another Lake County Hero." Hobart Gazette 27 Dec. 1918.
♦ Indiana Historical Commission. Gold Star Honor Roll. A Record of Indiana Men and Women Who Died in the Service of the United States and the Allied Nations in the World War. 1914 – 1918. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Commission, 1921.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 26 Dec. 1918.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 20 Dec. 1918.
♦ "Tribute to a Ross Township Soldier Boy." Hobart News 2 Jan. 1919.

Peacetime Casualties

The war was over, but soldiers were still dying.

The News of December 12 carried this brief story:

Word was received Monday that Clarence McDonald, son of Mrs. Otis Guernsey,* residing south of Deep River, had died of wounds received in action in France. Last week they received a message stating he had been seriously wounded. He went to France in June of this year.

Just above that story appeared a fuller report on the death of Edward Abel, 26 years old, who had died in France on November 24 of bronchial pneumonia. The next day's Gazette described Edward's military service:

When Co. F was organized at Gary, he became a member, and in June, 1916, he went with the company to the Mexican border. There he had charge of the construction of army shacks, and after the company was mustered out of the U.S. service, in March, 1917, and again became a state organization, he returned home, but soon war broke out, and again he joined the company that was sent to Camp Shelby. Here he remained until about last October, when most of the remaining members of Co. F were sent overseas. From a letter received later, he arrived in France Nov. 5, or six days before peace was signed.

On December 18 Fremont and Carrie Price received a report that their son James had died — a sketchy, unofficial report, if we are to go by what appeared in the newspaper about it. The Prices were surely stunned and confused; James himself had recently written to them that he was fully recovered from his wound.

___________________________
*Minnie Jones Guernsey, and I can't account for the difference in surnames.


Sources:
♦ "Another Hobart Boy Dies in France." Hobart Gazette 13 Dec. 1918.
♦ "Clarence McDonald of Ross Twp. Dies of Wounds Received in Action." Hobart News 12 Dec. 1918.
♦ "Edward Abel Dies of Pneumonia November 24 in France." Hobart News 12 Dec. 1918.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 19 Dec. 1918.

The Price of Farmland

Returning to the topic of land purchases remotely related to Ainsworth (yes, I still do sometimes pretend to be writing this blog about Ainsworth), I'm a bit surprised to notice how little noise has been made by the family of Fremont and Carrie Price — surprised, because they had nine children, and look what an impact Henry Chester and his three wives made with the same number. Apparently the Price children were better behaved. I've found occasion to mention the Prices only when their chicken coop got raided in 1916 and when Fremont served as treasurer for the Ross Township Red Cross drive in the spring of 1918.

Now the Prices get into the papers for the respectable activity of buying the Ross Township land they had farmed as renters for the past 12 years or so; namely, 80 acres at the northwest corner of (present-day) Colorado St. and 69th Ave., belonging to Willard O. Halsted.

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The Price farm as it appeared (all 77 acres of it) in the 1926 Plat Book.

The Prices paid $150 an acre for that land. That may have been high, but they were buying "one of the best pieces of farming land in Lake county." ("At least," added the Crown Point Star, "Mr. Price is of that opinion as this year the tract produced wheat that averaged 50 bushels to the acre.") Fremont intended to build a bungalow on the southeast corner of the land, and, according to the Gazette, "become a full-fledged citizen of that community" — whatever community that might be, between Merrillville and Ainsworth.

The Prices already owned land in Montana, a wheat ranch of some 480 acres near Big Sandy. In 1916, they proudly reported that their three eldest sons (Harry, Ray and Gordon) were managing that ranch with great success. A year later their next eldest son, James, followed in his brothers' footsteps to the Montana ranch.

In June 1918 James enlisted in the military; within a month he was in France, and soon in action.

Just about the time that they closed on their farmland purchase, the Prices received a letter from James, dated October 18. He told them he had been wounded in action October 2 — a German bullet in the shoulder — but he was already recovered, and "ready again for the trenches."


Sources:
♦ 1926 Plat Book.
♦ "Another Lake County Hero." Hobart Gazette 27 Dec. 1918.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 5 Dec. 1918.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 22 Nov. 1918.
♦ "Price Boys Making Good." Hobart Gazette 14 Jan. 1916..

Drive On

Drives, drives, drives. Just after Hobart went "over the top" in the latest Liberty Loan drive, Ross Township came "to the front" for the impending Red Cross drive. Early in May, Ross Township selected its own officers to organize the drive: Henry Kuehl as township chairman, William G. Woods as secretary, Fremont B. Price as treasurer, and Belle Blachly (J.B.'s wife) as chairman of the women's committee. They organized the usual patriotic rally, held at Merrillville on May 15. Among the speakers was Ensign Asa Bullock. The Campfire Girls presented a flag they had made; it bore 16 stars representing Ross Township "boys" in the service. Lydia Zuvers (widow of Silas) made a plea "on behalf of the mothers of the township … for cheerful bravery in those left behind." Schoolchildren sang. And then pledges were taken. Within a few minutes they amounted to $800. But the Ross Township organization was certainly not going to stop with that sum; it was determined to outdo the $1,700 it had just recently donated to the Knights of Columbus drive.*

Hobart, naturally, had its own organization: R.R. Peddicord as chairman, Deering Melin as secretary and Emil Scharbach as treasurer. They probably expected Hobart to go "over the top" yet again. The Gazette harangued its readers from the front page: "If you wake up in the night and you find your conscience hurting you, possibly you have not given to the Red Cross all that you can afford to give. … Every one should talk Red Cross donations until the drive ends next Monday. Every one should give something. There should be no slackers."

Meanwhile, upstairs in the Stommel building on Third Street, Miss Grace Thompson began a class, meeting thrice weekly, to teach "girls and women" to make surgical dressing for the Red Cross.

_____________________________
*Ross Township made good on its determination, collecting $2,869.93 for the Red Cross.


Sources:
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 24 May 1918.
♦ "Red Cross Drive On." Hobart Gazette 24 May 1918.
♦ "Red Cross War Fund Report for Crown Point District." Hobart News 13 June 1918.
♦ "Ross Township to the Front." Hobart Gazette 24 May 1918.
♦ "Surgical Dressings Class." Hobart Gazette 24 May 1918.

Thieves at Work in Ainsworth

Otto Gruel was mad. When thieves raided his chicken coops the night of Saturday, November 18, 1916, it was their second visit. Between the two raids on his farm east of Ainsworth, he had lost a hundred valuable chickens, valuable enough to prompt this offer of a $50 reward.

Within a couple of days, he had plenty of company in being mad. Late Monday evening, on the Price farm west of Ainsworth, Carrie Price noticed a flashlight moving around the two chicken coops behind the house. She called to the dog, and then to her husband, Fremont, but by the time he came to investigate, the thieves had disappeared along with a couple dozen fine young chickens.

The next morning, on the Mike Foreman farm just west of Ainsworth, the family discovered that nocturnal visitors had made off with two sheep from the barn and a quarter of beef from the granary.

"Farmers are up in arms," said the Gazette. I expect there were many loaded shotguns and watchful nights around Ainsworth for some time afterward.


Sources:
♦ "$50 Reward." Hobart Gazette 24 Nov. 1916.
♦ "Thieves Raid Farm Premises." Hobart Gazette 24 Nov. 1916.


Here's the page where Otto's notice appeared, for those of you who like reading (almost) full pages.


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Sadie Price: One-Third of the Mystery Solved

In Chester Cemetery, you will find an impressive stone marking the grave of Sadie Price.


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I had been wondering who she was. There are no other Prices in that cemetery, and I hadn't encountered that name associated with Ross Township in my reading — until I got to 1911, that is. Then I found out who she was, in a superficial sense: Henry Chester's first cousin. She died in Chicago on January 21, 1911, at the age of 57, survived by a husband and stepson, a brother (in Nebraska), and a sister (in Iowa).

Someone shipped her body on a Grand Trunk train from Chicago to Ainsworth; then a Hobart undertaker, Alwin Wild, brought the remains to Mary Chester's house, where the funeral took place on the afternoon of Tuesday, January 24. And thence to the Chester Cemetery.

That's all very well, but it still leaves a few questions.

First, why did anyone think it proper to bury her in Ainsworth, rather than in Chicago where she had died and where her husband and stepson still lived? What was her tie to Ainsworth, beyond being Henry Chester's cousin — which isn't much of a tie considering he had died some ten months before? Someone evidently cared about her very much, to put that stone on her grave. It is as big as Henry Chester's own marker, and more ornate. Who was that someone — her husband in Chicago, who didn't want her buried near him?

And secondly, what does that "and mother" on her grave marker mean? For heaven's sake, is her mother buried there too with no other marker than that footnote? Or did Sadie's virtues include motherhood? If so, was she the mother of someone in Ainsworth? Then why didn't the Gazette see fit to mention that in its report of her funeral?

Maybe as I keep reading the microfilm — especially when I manage to tear myself away from the forward march of time in order to go back to the pre-1899 newspapers that I haven't gotten to yet (who says time is linear?) (well, I do, for one, but I don't know what I'm talking about) (and I wish I could remember why I started reading in 1899 in the first place) — … um, what was I saying? Oh, yes, maybe as I keep reading I'll solve the mystery of Sadie.

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1/1/2019 update: I've solved another third of the mystery, i.e., why Sadie Price was buried in Ainsworth rather than Chicago. It's explained by this untitled item from the Hobart News of January 26, 1911:

The remains of Mrs. Sadie Price, of Chicago, a cousin of the late Henry Chester, were brought from Chicago Tuesday and the funeral service was conducted by Rev. Series from Mrs. Chester's residence. Deceased was born in Ohio, but many years ago lived in this vicinity. She wished to be laid at rest here beside her mother who was buried here.

That means that, yes, her mother is buried in Chester Cemetery with no marker but that footnote.

There still remains the mystery of exactly who Sadie was. Even with the maiden name, Parkhurst, that Suzi uncovered (see comment below this post), I can't identify Sadie in any local census, or explain how she was related to Henry Chester. As for her mother, I can't confirm that her surname was Parkhurst, and I have no clue as to her first name; and I think whoever gave orders for the inscription of Sadie's grave marker was just as much in the dark, or they would have at least included something like "Mrs. Parkhurst" after "and Mother."