I found Mattie

After much searching, I believe I have found Mattie (1864), younger sister of Lizzie Singelmann Mauer, my great grandmother.

There is a grave in the Silver Valley Cemetery for Martha E. Sengelmann, 1876-1896, died at the age of 19. Her parents are buried in that graveyard as well.

There are no death notices anywhere, in Council Bluffs, Omaha, or anywhere in Iowa, that I have found, though Sengelmann has over a half-dozen valid spellings and death notices can appear with any of them. Martha has only one; I am surprised I have found almost nothing on any Martha in the area.

To summarize what I know, John Sengelmann moved his family of himself, Katherine, Ana Lucinda, Ida Louise, Lizzie, and Mattie to Pottawattamie County, near Hancock, soon after 1880. In 1880 he was 49, Kate was 38, Ana 15, Ida 12, Lizzie 11, and Mattie 4. He seemed to be one of 75 called for a jury in a case of a Dr. Cross murdering Dr. McKune; I have yet to really look into this.

The timeline goes something like this: Louise married into the Mischler family in 1889; Louis Mischler was a prominent farmer who appears all over the news. Eliza married Charles Mauer in 1891 but John himself died in December of 1891. At this point Mattie was 15. Ana married in 1893.

At 19, Mattie died and was buried in the Silver Valley Cemetery, with no fanfare, no death notices. This says suicide to me for some reason. Hancock by the way was a little far out there, a ways even from Minden but in the same general vicinity. Why would a 19-year-old farm girl die and be buried like that?

Her mother died in 1898, heartbroken, I'd imagine. My guess is also that life was hard on the farm after he died. It's possible that Katherine and the girls moved in with the Mischlers toward the end of their life. Katherine is listed as dying in Minden, not Hancock.

Related to the question of what made Lizzie so unpleasant, so as to sue her own son and make life miserable for her grandson and mother, to "drive her husband into the grave" or "be the reason her daughter checked out early", I still don't know. Was there something about western Iowa at that point that drove everyone to untimely deaths? Or maybe it was the Mischlers who were doing everyone in?