Amanuensis Monday - Ellen Allard Bellmer, 1865

In every family tree, there is one story that breaks your heart. For me, that story belongs to my husband's great great grandmother. She died a young woman on October 9, 1865, leaving behind a husband and six children. She is buried in an unmarked grave, next to her husband, in the same cemetery as Abraham Lincoln. Her husband died six years later from typhoid fever.

From the Daily Illinois State Journal, Springfield, Illinois, dated October 10, 1865:

Sad Casualty - Mrs. Ellen A. Bellmir, the wife of M.C. Bellmir, one of our old citizens, came to her death, yesterday, in a melancholy manner. She has, for years past, been subject to chronic, nervous attacks, accompanied with lock-jaw, which nothing but chloroform would relieve. Having a violent paroxysm of this character last Saturday, she took an overdose of the opiate, from which she never recovered. She was an estimable woman, and her husband, and friends have the sympathy of the whole community in their deep affliction.