Shared by Joseph and Ruby’s daughter, Laurel, 2026. Her father told the story to her mother, who passed it on to her.
Several times, maybe more, your grandfather told your grandmother (and she passed it along to me) that the business partners of Joseph I had designs on Katie’s inheritance after she died. They planned to put the children in a home run by nuns and go to court to get the inheritance passed along to them.
So Aunt Larry and Uncle Myron fled to Denver the next day, got married, and then were declared adults and able to care for the younger children. Once married they all took a night train to Denver, and soon after Aunt Larry and Uncle Myron were declared their legal guardians. They spent some time in hiding in Denver until Uncle Myron was able to make arrangements for the family to move to Reedley. Then, after a few years in Reedley, they moved to San Francisco, where they lived out their lives.
Your grandfather always referred to these greedy, corrupt business partners as McIntosh and Callahan. I never had a way of corroborating any of this until I saw the names on this site.
What the records say so far
Denver. The story fits what is known. Katie died in Sidney on 11 April 1907, and by the 1910 census Joe, twelve, was living in Denver with his eldest sister Laura and her husband, Myron Sager. Laura was about 21 when her mother died. Her sister Kathryn, though, married Earl Kratz in 1918 and lived in Sidney all her life, so she may not have been on the train.
McIntosh. The name on this site is from a court case, Sharmer v. McIntosh, decided by the Nebraska Supreme Court in January 1895, three years before Joseph I died and twelve before Katie. It grew out of the collapse of the State Bank of Sidney after its owner, Samuel C. Morgan, died in 1889 owing Joseph $4,477.71. James J. McIntosh was Morgan’s administrator and later the bank’s receiver, and he fought Joseph in court over the notes and warrants Joseph held as security. In the end the court let Joseph keep only part of them. So McIntosh was not Joseph’s partner, but he was certainly someone the Sharmers had reason to resent, and a name the children would have heard (Joseph I’s story). Joseph’s own partner in the Exchange Bank was James Sutherland.
Callahan. No one named Callahan has turned up in the records on this site yet.
Still to find. The records that could settle it: Katie’s probate file in Cheyenne County (1907), any guardianship papers for the younger children in Nebraska or Colorado, and Laura and Myron Sager’s marriage record. If you know more, please share a memory.
