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64-year-old Sarah Kerns was living in Table Rock precinct, having been a widow for the past six years. A number of her ten children still lived in states to the east. Two sons, Simeon, a 31-year-old farmer, and Thomas, a 22-year-old laborer, lived with her. Sarah's 42-year-old daughter, widow Dr. Mary B. Fox, conducted her medical practice from Table Rock. Sarah's younger daughter in Pawnee county, 41-year-old Nancy, was married to 53-year-old JOHN TAYLOR; and Sarah's 36-year-old son, Henry, was living as a laborer on the JOHN TAYLOR farm. The whole Kerns family were Pennsylvania natives and had come to the area right after the Civil War. Born in Pennsylvania 21 years earlier, the attractive raven-haired Alwilda L. Fox still lived with her doctor mother, Mary, in Table Rock precinct. Alwilda would sometime later marry Charles Henry Carmichael, future brother-in-law of Robert Wishart Taylor. Five and a half years younger than Alwilda, Charles would not turn 16 until mid-1880. Mary Fox's elder daughter, the plain and sweet 23-year-old Minnie J., also lived in Table Rock precinct. Minnie and her 28-year-old husband, William L. Taylor, were also natives of Pennsylvania. Will had abdicated farming in 1879 to begin operating his livery business in Table Rock for the past several months. During the latter part of February, Nancy's 19-year-old son, George W. Wyman, left the state capital city of Lincoln for a Tuesday arrival down at Table Rock. His stepfather, JOHN TAYLOR, was already busy preparing an open field for planting the 1880 wheat crop in late winter. Early on the 23rd of February, JOHN arose and completed his usual chores that Monday morning on the family farm before he returned to the already-tilled soil and began sowing several bushels of the minuscule grain seeds. Sometime in the early part of 1880, Agnes Frances Taylor, about 22, married 23-year-old Nicholas A. Craig, probably right there in Pawnee county, NE. But unfortunately it was not to be a long marriage; Nancy (Kerns) Taylor's stepdaughter died just four years later. Nancy realized early springtime was a good occasion to get some of their favorite people together at the TAYLOR house, and the young farm wife extended invitations for a Friday evening social gathering. On the day following April Fool's Day, friends and relatives visited with the gracious Nancy and her hospitable blacksmith-farmer husband, and the happy guests enjoyed conversation and refreshments with the other household members: 19-year-old Robert, 16-year-old Elizabeth, 13-year-old Frank, 12-year-old JOHN, jr., 5-year-old Eddie, and Nancy's 36-year-old brother, Henry Kerns, who worked as a laborer. The assembled throng may have discussed spring planting, the growing prosperity of Pawnee City, or even a new bridge construction planned to span Taylor Branch of the Nemaha River, a proposed county project which the local newspaper would report later in mid-April. |
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