SNAPSHOT #3

Question…An old, old family rumor has it that Mom was half or quarter Native American. It appears that any evidence was lost in a fire in the courthouse of a city in Wisconsin. The fire occurred the same day as the Great Chicago Fire, but was overlooked by the more famous event. The rumor was fuelled by the fact that the Wisconsin census of 1880 showed only 15 or 20 Caucasian, single women in the whole state of Wisconsin at that time. What are the odds that Grandpa ( or great grandpa ) found a bride among so few? (One of my brothers had some characteristics which were often taken as Native American, and he was told by an Indian woman on the street, once, that he “Was Indian.”) Did the evidence of the marriage burn up in that fire? Nobody else is around to tell us, but a memoir could have!