Updated 2013-08-03: Details of Hattie’s death and burial have been revised. Incorrect details have been left in, but stricken out, and revisions are highlighted in blue.
On August 7, 2012, Harriet Prettyman gave me a few of her older family photos, including the photo pictured below. The woman in the lower right of the photo is my great-great grandmother, Hattie Eddy Askew.
Hattie Eddy Askew lived a short life, dying in her early thirties (32-34) at the young age of 33. She died around 1908-1910† on February 14, 1909, at her farm home outside Casselton, North Dakota. She died of pneumonia, which I was told she caught on a trip to Colorado as a result of a sudden and unexpected heart failure following an illness of about a week’s duration. Not only did her grandchildren never get a chance to meet her, but her own children were only about 1, 8, and 10 1 ¾, nearly 9, and 12 ¾ years old when she died, so they also didn’t get much of a chance to learn about their mother as a person.
This is only the second definitive photo I’ve found of Hattie Eddy Askew, which is why I’m interested in learning as much as I can about this photo. What follows is a log I kept of my initial research on this photo. Continue reading →
Yesterday all I knew of the location of Joseph Askew’s homestead was that in the spring of 1875, immediately after arriving from Gosforth, England, via Liverpool, New York, and Duluth, Joseph claimed his homestead about five miles east of Wadena. This evening I learned exactly where his homestead was, after finding his 1882 homestead certificate in the U.S. General Land Office records.
