Thunder Butte

Here is a photo of my grandmother's family that probably was taken in 1893 in Boscobel, Wisconsin. This was long before her parents moved to Lake Williams, North Dakota, and about 19 years before she took up homesteading with her husband and family just northwest of Thunder Butte in South Dakota.

On the left is my great-grandmother Catherine (Kane), who would have been about 33 at the time, with baby James Shockley on her lap at about one year of age. My grandmother's half sister Mabel stands in the center. Although we are unsure of her age, she was probably between eight and ten at the time. My great-grandfather, James Riley Shockley is seated on the right and would have been about 35 at the time this photo was taken. My grandmother, Mary, is seated on his lap and would have been four years old at the time.

Baby brother James, pictured in the photo, and brother Joseph, who is not pictured because he would not be born yet for another couple of years, also took up homesteading not very distant from where my grandmother settled with her family in South Dakota.

--Mike Crowley

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