Journaling reads:

Jennet was the youngest of the Catton children, the third born in the US. She looks so sweet and a little melancholy in this photo that must have been made shortly before she died, just 10 days after her 15th birthday.



I can’t even begin to imagine the grief and despair in the Catton household. Was it influenza? Typhoid? Cholera? All were rampant during the 1870s. So far, I’ve seen no record that tells the story of this sad event, only the fact of the date.



Jennet was born in Brimfield Community in Peoria County, Illinois, near her father’s brothers and their families. She died in Forrest, Livingston County, Illinois near her mother‘s kith and kin.

It is sad she never had the opportunity to know her grandparents, but she was surrounded by loving family from both sides of her family.



I wonder what Jennet was like? I would like to think she loved music and good books. That she played hopscotch and piano and loved her dolls. I hope she loved having tea daily with her mother. Being English, I’m sure that custom must have come with them, tucked into their hearts, a little reminder of the home they left behind when they embarked on this new adventure.



One day, perhaps we’ll know Jennet’s story. Until then, she remains the sweet, slightly sad young lady in a long ago portrait - unknown, unknowable, but just as surely remembered with love.



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