Mary Kegebein

From the Busse autograph collection.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Mary was about 13 years old when she wrote this. The 1910 Census shows her living on Lake Street in Hobart, with her parents, Charles and Anna Kegebein — the third of their nine children. At that time both her father and older brother were employed in a brickyard. Her 17-year-old sister was a telephone operator. Her father was a brother of the John Kegebein, Jr. who owned a farm north of Ainsworth (see also the 1891 Plat Book).

I believe Mary became Mrs. Homer R. White in July 1917 (Indiana Marriage Collection) and in the 1920 Census can be found in South Bend, Indiana, with her husband and a little daughter, Gertrude.

As for the "angles," this is one of those traditional children's prayers with a morbid twist (like "if I should die before I wake…"). A little research suggests that the more common form is:

Four corners to my bed
Four angels round my head
One to watch and one to pray
And two to bear my soul away.

These days you can buy a sanitized version to hang on your wall.