Little Girls Lost

I recently received digital images of two little girls from two generations of the Foreman family of Ainsworth. Both girls died in childhood.

The first was the daughter of Joachim and Maria Foreman.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of R.F.

The original photo was found among a collection of obituaries that had belonged to Louise (Buhr) Foreman, the wife of Otto Foreman and the daughter-in-law of Mike/Helmuth, who was one of Joachim and Maria's two surviving children. But the collection did not include an obituary for the little girl — only this photo, with "Maria" written on it.

The owner of the photo tells me: "In my lifetime no one ever mentioned baby Maria. Joachim's obituary and the picture that was in my Grandmother's belongings are the only indications to me that the child existed."

Let's look at the obituaries of little Maria's parents: first, Maria (aka Mary) Foreman, from the Hobart News of May 3, 1917:


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And Joachim (aka Joseph) Foreman, from the Hobart News of June 14, 1917:


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Both mention a daughter who died at the age of two, but neither gives the daughter's name or any timeframe for her life.

In the 1900 Census, Mary Foreman describes herself as the mother of three children, two of whom are still living.


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Image from Ancestry.com.

Thus we know the daughter died before June of 1900, when the census was taken. As to when she was born, we have no records. No daughter ever appears in any census. She might have been born anytime after 1868, when Joseph and Mary were married, and the early 1890s, after which we might expect Mary, born in 1845, to have passed her child-bearing years.

But if the photograph is indeed the lost Foreman daughter, and if the photographer, Henry Iverson, did not practice his profession in Hobart outside of the timeframe I've been able to establish so far — April 1887 to March 1889 — then we have a better idea of when the child lived and died.

I have re-checked the old issues of the Hobart Advertiser, where I got my information about Henry Iverson, in the hope of finding something about the Foremans' loss of a child. I found nothing, but the Hobart Historical Society's collection of the Advertiser is fragmentary. No Hobart newspaper from that era survives on microfilm. I will have to check other area newspapers that are on microfilm … when I have time.

One problem with this 1887-1889 theory is that by the late 1880s the Foremans were well established in Ainsworth. If they had to bury a child at that time, we would expect the grave to be local, and probably to be marked. But no grave for a little Foreman girl from this era is marked in the Hobart Cemetery, where her parents lie. Even the early readers of local gravestones in the 1950s, as recorded by the NWIGS, found no marker for little Maria Foreman, either in Hobart Township or Ross Township. On the other hand, if a marker ever existed, it might have been broken or removed, or sunk into the ground, as sometimes happens.

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The second photo is not mysterious — just sad.

Betty Jean Foreman was born January 25, 1927, to Otto and Louise Foreman. She was their third child, and first (and only) daughter.

From the Hobart News of March 27, 1927:

Funeral of Infant Daughter of
Mr. and Mrs. Otto Foreman Held Sunday
Betty Jean, infant daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Otto Foreman, died Friday, March 18, after a week's illness. The child was first sick with a severe cold, pneumonia developing at the last and causing its death. She was born Jan. 25, 1927. The parents and two little brothers mourn her departure.

The funeral services were held Sunday afternoon at two o'clock at the residence and at 2:30 at the Ev. Lutheran church, the pastor, Rev. G.H. Hentschel, officiating. Burial in Crown Hill cemetery.

Card of Thanks
We wish to thank our friends and neighbors for their kindly acts and expressions of sympathy during the illness and death of our little daughter, Betty Jean, also for the cars and beautiful flower offerings, and Rev. Hentschel for his consoling words.

Mr. and Mrs. Otto Foreman.

The only image we have of Betty Jean is this one, probably taken in the Foreman home on the day of the funeral.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of R.F.

Otto and Louise were busy farming folk who may not even have owned a camera in 1927, so perhaps this is the only photo they ever had of their baby.

Betty Jean rests in Crown Hill Cemetery, with her parents.