She first married Jim Helms who died from pneumonia after getting wet chasing away a neighbor's cows. I think they had three children. I only know aunt Nanny and Uncle Jim.
Grandma and Grandpa married and had seven children, Sadie, Mary, George (Dike), Jimmy, Bennie, Johnny, and Baby Charlie who died at infancy. I didn't know many of them. We did go to visit Sadie who never married and kept the home place, a forty acre place grandma and Jim Helms owned. I think they homesteaded it. Grandpa became blind some time before the last few children were born so they were desperately poor.
It was a great treat to drive up to see Aunt Sadie and to see her Model T Ford. She bought it new and kept it all her life. She lived at Bronson, Kansas. 'We always stopped at the "Dime Store" in Iola. Daddy always bought us a small gift. Aunt Mary lived near by. They had three girls and they were the cousins we knew best from Daddy's family. Two of them are gone now. We enjoyed sitting by the fireplace with popcorn and home made apple cider. The "secretary" I have belonged to Aunt Sadie, Daddy's oldest sister. Mom didn't know where she got it but had it when she and Daddy were married,on September 30, 1927.
I remember it in Aunt Sadie's living room. She lived sixty miles away and we visited her at least once a year. She kept family pictures in the secretary in the house where Daddy grew up. Aunt Sadie taught school in the same school she and her siblings attended until they needed someone who could teach music. This really hurt her and she always had a rather bitter attitude toward life. It was a very hard life on her forty-acre farm where she raised cows, etc. and hired out the farm. One year she picked out enough black walnuts to buy a couch for the living room. Unless you've ever picked out black walnuts, you can't imagine how long that took her (Daddy used to send me a pound every year----delicious in pumpkin pie!) Sadie had four rooms built on to the original house. (one room with a shed kitchen. I'll always remember her kitchen with the big enamel stove with a warming oven. There was always a cot by the window by the stove. So cozy! Heated with wood.
I never knew either grandparent. Grandma died when I was an infant.
Just so you know: Grace's first marriage was to Daniel Helms, on 2 Nov 1876, in Elsmore (Allen Co) KS. They did indeed have 3 children. Henry Finley Helms (b. 1876, d. 1892). James Nicholas Helms (b. 13 Dec 1879, d. 18 Feb 1959). Nannie Leota (Helms) Burrows (b. 30 Jan 1882, d. 29 Feb 1954). Nannie's father (Daniel) died before she was born. By the way...Nannie is my great grandmother. :-)
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