Emma Ryan (1856 - 1900), mother of two daughters in Kansas, Frances Hoart Poth's maternal grandmother

Emma Ryan was Frances Hoart Poth's maternal grandmother.   

Some lives have more than a fair share of "shadow." 

Emma Ryan was born November 3, 1856 in Ohio, the first child of Catherine Bowes and Lawrence Ryan.  

Growing up on a farm: 
In 1860 we find her listed as five years old, with her two younger siblings, and her parents in Hocking, Fairfield County, Ohio, with the nearest post office in Lancaster.   The family is living very simply - her father Lawrence is a farm hand. 

Seven more siblings were added to the family during the decade between 1860 and 1870.  In 1870 the family is living in Perry in Jackson County, Ohio.   Also living with the family is Emma's paternal grandmother, Mary Ryan.  Emma (13) and her younger sister Martha (10) attend school.   Emma's father is a farmer who owns $3000 real estate and $200  personal property.  

In 1871 however, the family moves from Ohio to Johnson County, Kansas.  Emma was 14 years old.  They settled on a farm near Olathe.  Four siblings were born between 1871 and 1879.  Sadly, when Emma was 16, her 8 year old brother George died, just two months after baby sister Blanche was born. 

In 1880, Emma is 23 and living at home, the eldest of all the children.  I imagine she is helping to run the busy farm household alongside her mother. 

Marries Edward Cosgrove: 

On May 9, 1882 Emma married Edward Cosgrove (1853-1888) at St. Paul's Church in Olathe.  Interestingly, her age is mistakenly listed (or accidentally on purpose?) as 20, not 25.  

Motherhood: 

The couple made a home in Kansas and in March 1883, their daughter Jessie H. Cosgrove was born, followed two years later by Katherine Cecilia Cosgrove (this is Frances Hoart Poth's mother).  

Husband died tragically: 

Tragically, just five years after their marriage, Emma's husband Edward was killed, run over by a freight train in the middle of the night, "under the influence of liquor" on November 29, 1888.  Their girls were just 3 and 5 years old.  

Marries Ward Ripley: 

Emma was a widowed mother for four years and then at age 36, remarries on August 23, 1893 in Olathe.   Ward Ripley had served in the Union Army during the Civil War and his first wife had recently died in 1892.  He is 48 years old when he marries Emma.   The family makes their home in Olathe Kansas.  Ward is a building contractor. 

Dies at age 43: 

Sadly, Emma dies at age 43, on April 4, 1900 in Olathe, "of stomach trouble."  She had been failing gradually which makes me wonder if this was cancer.  Jessie and Catherine are 17 and 14 years old when their mother dies. 

Emma has a gravestone in Mount Calvary Catholic Cemetery in in Olathe, Kansas. 

Interestingly, daughters Jessie and Catharine did not stay in Olathe with their step father, but almost immediately moved to Denver to live with their maternal aunt Anna Ryan Beehler, herself a widow (I will write more about this in another post).  Jessie went on to become a nun, and Catharine married and made a life in Denver.

Sources: 

1860, 1870, 1880 census 

Kansas, County Marriage Records Johnson County 

Olathe Mirror newspaper clippings 

newspapers dot com:  Nov 29, 1888 St. Louis Post Dispatch clipping, p. 7

Cynthia Poth Nanto family tree on Ancestry dot com