Edward Walker's Citizenship Papers

Edward Walker Citizenship Papers

     Months ago Lee and I spent a couple of hours at the Kansas Historical Society in Topeka searching for information about various relatives. I looked through the Morris County citizenship records because information I had was that Edward and Betsy had lived there. But no luck. Then in February of this year Cindy handed me a new collection of family documents and there was Edward's Declaration of Intention to become a citizen. I hadn't found it in Morris County because he had filed it in Davis County. After a quick search I learned that Davis County, named for Jefferson Davis, became Geary County in 1889. Davis County was one of the original counties of territorial Kansas and named for then Secretary of War Davis in Franklin Pierce's administration. (I don't think I've quite recovered from Kansas having a county named for the president of the confederacy. John W. Geary on the other hand was briefly Kansas territorial governor appointed by Pierce and then served as a general in the Union Army.) The papers are dated June 25, 1870.

Percy Walker circa 1899, age 20.

     Edward and Betsy were married on May 31, 1871 in Morris County or at least that's the assumption. But I haven't found any records of their marriage, so maybe I should look in Davis/Geary County instead of Morris County.  There are no pictures of the two of them until 1898 so I've used pictures of their children to give us some idea how they might have looked at the ages of 17 for Betsy and 24 for Edward.

Edna - age 20

Ada - age 15

This photograph of Edna is not one that shows her at her best, but one that depicts her with a great sense of fun. It doesn't seem to be a long jump to assume that Betsy could have looked like this, with the same air of fun about her. The photographs I have seen of Edward give him a dignified air, making this one of Percy an easy stand-in. Edna remembered him walking her to school, doffing his top hat and tossing his cane in the air.  Edward first saw Betsy when he was out for a spin with his friends, probably second or third sons from English families, just as he was. It's not hard to imagine the dignified Edward noticing the jumble of jollity that was Betsy.
      They both came from England, but the contrasts were great, he of King's School in his native Chester, and she of probably very little formal schooling. He traveled alone across the Atlantic in probably at least second class. She, on the other hand, made her way across the sea as a member of a large family in steerage. But one can assume they forged a bond that lasted through a nearly 40-year marriage. Through the deaths of two infants, through the winters and the summers on the plains of Kansas.

Edward & Betsy Walker Family 1898