Edward and Betsy Move to Topeka

      Edward Walker and Betsy Sharpe sailed from Liverpool in England about the same time. Edward traveled alone and Betsy with her parents and her nine siblings. Through the fates they both ended up living in Kansas. Edward, according to memories of Edna, worked as a pharmacist in Junction City. Betsy’s youngest sibling, the infant Herbert, died when the family reached Junction City. The Sharpes then decided to homestead in Morris County.

Notice that appeared in the Junction City Union, June 3, 1871

Betsy and Edward married on May 30, 1871 - a date that was two days before Edward's 24th birthday and a month before Betsy's 18th. They setup their home near her parents in Parkerville in Morris County, Kansas. Edward was a well-educated Englishman who had apprenticed in England as an apothecary before deciding to emigrate to the U.S.

Junction City Union, Oct 7 1871

The Walker children circa 1890
from left: Percy, Edna, Lily, Eula, Fred and Grace

Their first child, Edward, lived only nine months, but the children kept coming, starting with the birth of Lily in 1873, and then Fred the following year. By the time Percy was born in 1879 they had moved a few miles north to 160 acres southeast of Dwight. Over the next ten years, four more children were born, Eula, 1884, Grace, 1886 and the twins, Edna and Ethel in May 1888. Edward & Betsy Walker's homestead - Morris County as it appears today

In the late winter of 1889, after almost 18 years of marriage and the births of eight children, Edward and Betsy moved to Topeka from Morris County. Lily and Fred were now teenagers and they wanted to give them a better education than was possible in rural Kansas. 

Edward opened the Walker & Co at 111 East Fifth Street in March of 1889. (Or at least that is when the notices first appear in the Topeka papers.

Council Grove Republican, March 8, 1889

     

Go to Walker & Co's, druggists No. 111 East Fifth street,
to see the finest twin-babies in the city,
and while there ask for Lactated Food, the best food
in the market for babies - Topeka State Journal, June 12, 1889

     The family moved to the Fifth Avenue Hotel and Edward opened his store, Walker & Co, at 111 East Fifth Street near the post office in Topeka. Unfortunately Ethel Bessie died the following January. 

      More misfortune occurred on Betsy and Edward's 19th wedding anniversary, May 30, 1890. That night Edward locked the store up at 10 o'clock to return home. Shortly after that, the store was on fire. According to the article on page 1 of the Topeka State Journal: 

      The fire was in Walker & Shane’s drug store at 111 E Fifth Street, just opposite the post office. Two or three people in the vicinity saw a blaze suddenly flash up in the rear part of the front room and in half a minute the whole room was ablaze. The fire burned with such intensity that the fire department was unable to do much more than confine it to the one room. The contents of the room were soon totally destroyed and the walls and front of the building were badly burned. The loss is placed by Messrs. E. B. Walker and D E Shane the owners at $3500. The insurance was $2000. The fire was not in progress over thirty minutes. Mr. Walker had locked up and left the building only a few minutes before the fire broke out. He says he is unable to account for it.

This seems to be a fated spot. It was on this site the first fire in the history of Topeka occurred, June 10, 1859. It nearly wiped out the whole city of Topeka which then contained very few houses. It burned up the first corn bought and stored in Topeka. A year ago another fire occurred in the building, doing serious damage.  

      The store reopened in a month, but the partnership between Edward and Mr. Shane dissolved in the fall of 1890. 

      In the week after the fire, Edward became a registered pharmacist - certified by the State Board of Pharmacists.

There were fifty-six applicants for registration and of these an unusually large proportion passed the examination, namely 32. Before being eligible for registration as a complete pharmacist a man must have had four years’ experience of work in a drug store, and to be registered as capable of being an assistant in the are of a pharmacy he must have had two years of experience. Topeka Daily Capital - page 1, June 6, 1890.

The Edward and Betsy Walker Family circa 1899
Thanksgiving because the store was closed.
Lily, Percy, Edward, Ada, Eula, Betsy, Edna, Fred, and Grace.