Emma

Evansville Journal, 21 June 1892.

My previous post identified Daniel W. Brown as the likely father of Cora Belle Medcalf Halter. I now turn attention to Emma, Cora Belle's mother. From the record above, she died of consumption in Evansville, Indiana in June 1892. As the township trustee had to provide for her burial, she was without a family and living alone. Emma had previously lost her husband, George Walter, on 12 April 1890.

Ancestry. Evansville City Directory, 1891.

George and Emma were married in Evansville on 1 May 1887. The previous year, Emma had been living in the Evansville Home of the Friendless.

Ancestry. Evansville City Directory, 1886.

Emma seems to have lived a hard life, giving up her daughter or placing her in the care of family, then working on her own in low paying jobs or as a domestic servant in Evansville from the late 1870s into the 1880s. Her father died in 1877 (she was about 23), and she had previously lost her mother at the age of 7. While she had various half-siblings on both sides from her parents, the records do not show she had much connection with them in her later years.

To tell more of the story on Emma, I'll next step back another generation to her parents, Thomas P. Medcalf and Julia Ann Musgrave, before returning to Daniel Brown.