I have always wondered about Emma.  Probably more then I’ve wondered about others in our family.  Emma Schaefer was born March 11, 1863.  I’m not sure where she was born, but she and her parents lived in Peoria.  On November 15, 1885 at 22 years of age, she married Peter Bourscheidt in Peoria, Illinois.  And after 9 years of marriage and three sons, she died on January 19, 1894 at the age of 30 from complications of child birth and is buried in Peoria.  The newspaper reports that it is a very sad bereavement,  it to me sad doesn’t even begin to describe what Peter and his boys were experiencing.  

I like to imagine that Emma was swept away by the dashing and foreign Peter.  A person who had lived an exciting life serving in the German Army, then lived in Paris training to be a furrier and finally traveled to America to visit his brother and decided to make a life in America for himself.  And to give him the gift of three boys perhaps was an even bigger honor.  

Oscar was the oldest and was born in 1888.  Then came Frank born in 1891.  And finally Leo in 1894.   When she died, Oscar was 5 and Frank was 3.  How they must have missed her.  And how lost Peter might have been for now he had two young sons and an infant to care for. and a wife to mourn, who I hope was the love of his life.   But life brings all sorts of people into our lives and love in different ways.  

Jean took me once to where Emma was laid to rest.  She is in a lovely little part of the Saint Joseph’s Cemetery tucked into the back she lies between her parents, Charles who died in 1901 and Josephine who died in 1904.  Then on the other side of Josephine is her oldest son Oscar and his wife Emilie.  And behind her is her youngest, Leo.  

I hope some day to learn more about Emma Schaefer Boursheidt, especially more about her parents and where they were from.  But until that day comes, I will think fondly of the short time she had with her family and the impact she had on their lives.