Found note: A Widow's Sorrow

My husband's grandmother, Marion Inez Widger Schaal, passed away at the age of 91 on 11 January 2020.  My inlaw's had been cleaning out her house because she had been moved into a nursing facility prior to her death.  My mother-in-law picked up photos and anything that might be family history related for me.  Among the things she brought to me was a tiny little notebook with birth and death dates written in.  I don't know who it belonged to as it pre-dates Grandma Marion. 

I should add that the house Grandma Marion lived in has been in the Schaal family as far back as 1860!

Here is a photo of the front of the notebook.

There are several pages filled with writing.  I will be going through the pages and making posts with information for each page that I can document.

Some of the most interesting things in the notebook are 3 pages written by a grieving wife.  They are dated 1923-1924.  Below are the photos and transcriptions of each page.

2-1-23
Belleville IL

My Dear One-
All day my thoughts have been of you but oh I feel so sad, would love to live one week of the time when we were both cheerful & glad.  But those days may never be again.

2-12-23
At the house alone with my thoughts. Oh why should our lives be so shattered why couldn't you always be near.  So we could love forever, oh why should anyone interfere.  One who knows.




12.23.23
Time brings changes.
The time goes by like a dream, Dear, yet the thoughts of you always stay, but oh I get so discouraged & heartsick. It seems like I never can pray.

Your own
  True wife.

To my Loved One.
The days what once were joyful and glad ar enow dreary, lonely, and sad.

Mar 28.24

Oh I am so blue I don't know what to do. I only wish I was far away or resting in the silent clay.


I do not know who wrote these words.  I surmise that she lost her husband prior to 1923.  In looking at the family tree, I see that George Schaal, SR my husband's great-great-grandfather died of influenza in 1920.  He lived in the house that Grandma Marion lived in.  Could this be his wife, Elizabeth?  It's possible. 

What about all the Grandmothers?

As I do more and more genealogy research I have notice that it's difficult to find much information for our average Grandmothers.  I'm not talking about the extraordinary ones that have done amazing things that you can find evident in newspapers, letters, and archives.  I'm talking about your regular grandmother that gave birth to 12 children with the same husband and lived on a farm and handled all that difficult work. The grandmother that lost babies in infancy and went on to have more babies.  Where's the evidence of her life?

We know she was there because she is the mother of her children.  We know she lived because of her gravestone that tells us she was born and that she died.  What records exist for her?  We  might find her name in a birth registry or christening, if the county or church kept the records.  We can find her name when she married, if we can figure out her maiden name and her husband wasn't named John Smith and her name wasn't Mary.

The deeds and wills aren't as likely for her.  She didn't have to register for a draft for a war, so no information is there for that.  We can't know if she was tall or short or slender or what color her eyes were or what color her hair was. She's on the census, and for that we are happy.

With our grandfathers we can find so much detail about his life; who he was.  It's not as easy for our grandmothers.  I hope to begin next week with a series of the ordinary and extraordinary women in my family tree.  Some will have very little detail but we will know she was not insignificant; because without her there would not be a me.