The saga of John and Tom Kelly rises to the surface one more time…

The fascinating thing about volunteering down at Oswego’s Little White School Museum is you just never know what interesting bit of local history will walk through the door to brighten your day. And if your family has been lurking around these parts as long as mine has, sometimes those bits have a family connection, too.

A few weeks ago, one of those bits arrived when the son of a childhood friend of mine and his wife poked their heads in my office and said they had something that might interest me. And it did, both historically and personally.

Tom Kelly’s snuffbox, now in the collections of Oswego’s Little White School Museum. Tom and his brother, John, were reportedly orphaned by the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, and were then raised by John Peter and Amelia (Minnich) Lantz.

The hinge was missing from the lid on the small, oval-shaped copper-colored tinned box—quite obviously a snuffbox—he showed me, but otherwise it was in pretty good condition. Smiling, he suggested I look closely at what was scratched in the metal box lid, and after turning it to catch the light I could make out “Tom Kelly.”

He’d found it while cleaning out his great-grandparents’ attic, did a little internet research on Tom Kelly, which pointed him to my interest in Tom and his twin brother, John. How the snuffbox got to the attic of Jim and Elizabeth “Bess” McMicken is a complete mystery.

Back in July of 2012, about five months after I started this blog, I published a post about twin boys, orphaned by the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, that my great-grandparents raised.

John Peter Lantz and Amelia Minnich on their wedding day, Feb. 16, 1869.

The story has a couple parts.

First, the twins’ story as recounted via family oral history. My great-grandparents, John Peter and Amelia (Minnich) Lantz, were married in 1869 out east of Oswego in Will County’s Wheatland Township and began farming out on the rich prairie on the family home place. In March 1871, their first child, a boy they named Isaac, was born.

Back in that day, farming was physically demanding for both the farmer and his wife, who had to work in a true partnership to make a go of the operation. Those farm wives, especially, had a difficult life. Common household tasks we take for granted these days, such as washing clothes, were complicated and labor-intensive back then. As a result, most farm couples who lived on large acerages like my great-grandparents had not only hired men to help with farming but also hired girls to help in the house.

But my Pennsylvania Dutch ancestors on my mother’s side were a thrifty lot—cheap, according to my dad—and they were grimly determined to spend as little money as possible on just about everything. But with a new baby to take care of along with all her other regular chores, my great-grandmother began demanding help of some kind.

Along about 1872, my great-grandfather, prodded into eventual action by his increasingly adamant wife, headed off to Chicago. The Great Chicago Fire had swept through the city in the fall of the year their son was born, killing some 300 people and creating a number of new orphans who joined the growing number of parentless children in the city. My great-grandmother, hearing about the availability of orphans, sent her husband into Chicago with orders to bring back an orphan girl to help around the house.

Left to right, Tom Kelly, my great-uncle Isaac Lafayette Lantz, and John Kelly. Tintype in Amelia Minnich Lantz’s photo album.

My great-grandfather was a soft touch and a bit of a dreamer, the kind of guy who dabbled in gold mining stocks bought from ads in the back of magazines and newspapers with hopes of getting rich—hopes that were invariably dashed. So it shouldn’t have been a surprise that instead of coming home with an orphan girl to help his wife around the house, he ended up bring home two six year-old orphan boys, Tom and John Kelly.

Whether they were even actually orphaned by the great fire isn’t part of family lore but they were welcomed as part of the family, although I imagine somewhat grudgingly on my great-grandmother’s part.

The Kelly boys not only lived with my great grandparents, but by all accounts were treated like their own children. In fact, in the 1880 U.S. Census of Wheatland Township, Will County, they are both listed as my great-grandparents’ sons.

During that era, farm children were expected to work hard, both helping on their own family farms and also by being hired out to other families. Their daughter, my grandmother, for instance, was hired out to nearby families when she reached the age of 14. She had graduated eighth grade with good marks and had looked forward to attending high school—and even found a well-off Aurora family willing to offer her board and room in return for help around the house while she went to school, but my great-grandparents refused the offer and insisted she work for wages. Women, their feeling was, didn’t need an education.

The Kelly Twins standing in back and John Peter and Amelia Lantz pose for a photo at the Kindig studio in Naperville. I suspect this photo was taken on the twins’ 20th birthday when they were each gifted with $1,200 and a new suit by the Lantzes.

So the Kelly boys, too, were hired out in their teens. The Sept. 20, 1883 Kendall County Record reported from Oswego that “Dr. Putt has gone to Nebraska; also John and Tom Kelly.” At that time they were 17 years old.

When they reached the age of 20, my great-grandparents gave each of them a new suit of clothes and $1,200—that’s nearly $40,000 in today’s inflation-adjusted dollars—in order to make their ways in the world. They apparently used the money to buy a farm out near Hastings in the southeastern corner of Nebraska where they’d gone with Dr. William T. Putt back in 1883.

John Kelly’s tombstone in the Scotch Church Cemetery. (Jim Seidelman photo)

Eventually, however, they came back to Illinois and worked on various farms around the Oswego and Wheatland Township areas, John dying in 1916 and Tom living until 1929. They’re both buried in the Wheatland United Presbyterian “Scotch” Church Cemetery out in Wheatland Township.

Tom Kelly’s Scotch Church Cemetery tombstone. (Jim Seidelman photo)

I’ve heard about the twins my entire life, as part of our family’s lore. Photos of the boys came down to me through my grandmother’s family, a couple tintypes and some cabinet photos. And their burial records are part of the collections at the Little White School Museum. But Tom Kelly’s snuffbox is the first tangible item I’ve ever seen that one of them actually owned and used.

Down at the museum, you just never know what interesting bit of local history will walk through the door to brighten your day.

A memory of twins…

I’ve lived all my life with the memory of twin boys I never knew.

Tom and John Kelly lived with my great-grandparents for about 10 years, starting when they were six years old. My grandmother told me their story when I was a child and it has stuck with me all these years.

My great-grandparents, John Peter and Amelia Minnich Lantz, were married in 1869 and had their first child, Isaac Lafayette, on March 8, 1871. Working a farm in the 19th Century on the Illinois prairie was hard work for both men and women, but my great-grandparents kept striving.

In October of the year their first child was born, the Great Chicago Fire broke out, incinerating a sizeable chunk of the city and killing hundreds. Many children were orphaned, according to the newspapers of the day.

Listening to those stories, Amelia decided maybe one of those orphan girls could be obtained to come out to the Wheatland Township prairie to live and grow up, helping with Uncle Isaac and the rest of the work a farm wife of the era did. That included cooking and caring for the family as well as the hired men, keeping the house clean, doing the laundry (in the era when water had to be pumped by hand in the farmyard, carried inside and heated on a wood-burning stove), planting and tilling the garden, harvesting and preserving the garden and orchard produce, and raising chickens for their eggs (which could be traded for staples at the grocery store) and meat.

So off to Chicago my great-grandfather John Peter went with orders to bring home an orphan girl. Always a soft touch for someone else’s problems, instead of the anticipated sturdy orphan girl to help with Amelia’s work, John Peter came home with six year-old orphan boys, John and Tom Kelly.

The three Kelly brothers, Tom, the unknown brother, and Tom’s twin, John Kelly. The Kellys were Chicago orphans brought to live on my great-grandparents’ farm in 1872, the year after the Great Chicago Fire.

I have no idea whether they were orphaned by the Chicago Fire, nor do I know a whole lot about them, either, other than they were born in 1866 and my great-grandparents took them in and raised them. In addition, they appear to have had a brother. In an old family photo album, there is a tintype of John and Tom flanking a young man with a clear familial resemblance. The names are written underneath in pencil in my grandmother’s handwriting: “Tom Kelly…Brother…John Kelly.”

The twins lived with my great-grandparents and helped on the farm until about 1883. On Sept. 21 of that year, the Kendall County Record’s Oswego correspondent reported that: “Dr. Putt has gone to Nebraska; also John and Tom Kelly.”

A further note in the Aug. 28, 1907 Record reported that: “Tom and John Kelly of Hastings, Nebr., who were boys of this vicinity years ago, are visiting here for a while. They were very prosperous and now have rented their farm to enjoy some traveling.”

John Kelly died on Jan. 13, 1918 and was buried in the Wheatland United Presbyterian “Scotch” Church Cemetery, located in Wheatland Township, Will County. Tom lived on for 11 more years, although by the time his brother died he’d been committed to the Elgin State Hospital for the Insane. He died Feb. 25, 1929 and was buried by the side of his brother in the Scotch Church Cemetery.

There they lay today, enigmatic brothers who drifted into and out of my family’s life 140 years ago.

I often wonder what they made of the whole situation. My great-grandparents must have cared for them. Not only are there tintypes taken of them as children in my family’s albums, but also some individual portraits of them as young men. And when they reached the age of 20 in 1886, my great-grandfather gave each of them $1,200 (a tidy sum then, equal to roughly $38,000, adjusted for inflation) and a “new suit of clothes.” This was three years after they’d apparently moved to Nebraska.

So questions arise. Why did my great-grandparents pick that year to give them their money? Who was their brother and what happened to him? Who, for that matter, were their parents? What were their lives like out in Nebraska? Was there a history of mental illness in their family? And after leaving Illinois, how did they happen to come back to die and be buried here?

I will keep looking because as long as I do, I figure those two orphan boys from Chicago will continue to live a little longer, even only as memories.

Looking for more Kendall County history? Go to their web site to see my weekly Reflections column in the Ledger-Sentinel. While you’re at it, why not subscribe? Give Trena a call at 630-554-8573 and she’ll be happy to set you up.