a boy named jean
Laura Ingalls Wilder introduced readers to her cousins Lena and Jean in By the Shores of Silver Lake. Lena, with her snappy black eyes, curly black hair, and spirited black pony, is every bit as exciting as the day she and Laura spend together on the prairie, and readers are always curious about Lena. What happened to her? Did she marry a railroader? You can read about Lena and other members of her family HERE.

Then there's Jean, "only a little boy" who tries to scare the girls by howling outside their sleeping tent. Lucky he misbehaved, because it's Lena's threat of "telling what you did" that allows Laura to have a turn riding on Jean's black pony.

The last one sees of Jean, he's riding away from Silver Lake camp before sun-up, with a wagonload of stolen scrapers and plows. What happened next?

Laura's cousin Jean was actually August Eugene Waldvogel (he tended to spell his name Waldvogle), called Gene. When he left Silver Lake, Gene had only recently turned eleven, and he and the rest of the family were headed south to Sioux Falls, not west to Oregon as Laura had guessed.

Gene became a farmer, and with eight sisters and a step-father who drank too much, he must have had to do a man's job at an early age. The family wandered around a bit after leaving Silver Lake, but eventually they settled in Dakota City, Nebraska, where Hiram Forbes filed on a claim. Henry and Polly Quiner live nearby, and Gene attended school, with his cousin Louisa as his teacher. When Lena married, Gene went to work for his brother-in-law's family, and he eventually had a farm of his own. It was next to Lena's.

Around 1893, Gene married Marie Harmon. They had three children born in Nebraska: Earl Eugene (1894), William Wesley (1896), and Velma (1898). Gene and Marie were later divorced, and she married Edwin Gilbert.

Around 1904, Gene moved to Washington County, Colorado, where he filed on a homestead, the NW and SW quarters of Section 17, Township 1, Range 51 West. After his step-father died in 1906, Gene's mother Docia joined him in Colorado, and she filed on a homestead claim adjoining Gene's.

Gene married Leora Hinton. They had three children: Ernest (1920), Robert (1928), and Laurence (~1930). Gene died December 24, 1945, in Colorado.
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:14 PM