Ada will bloom again

One Seward family is working to unravel a historical mystery.

In mid-May, Kate Gokie was planting in the family’s garden with one of her twin daughters when they hit a stone.

Elizabeth, 14, was getting ready to plant a basil plant when she hit the stone just below the ground’s surface.

“I have tilled and planted our garden in the exact same spot for 20 years,” Kate said.

But, she had never come across the stone before.

Richard and Kate Gokie live with their son, Andrew, and twin daughters, Emily and Elizabeth, on land just west of Seward on Bluff Road. Richard first moved to the property in 1993.

“We were just digging holes to plant herbs, and then I hit something,” Elizabeth said.

Kate said the stone wasn’t far from the surface and thinks it had moved over time due to freezing and thawing.

At first, Kate and Elizabeth thought it was one of the many white rocks they have used in the past to mark the garden rows. As they continued digging, they discovered it was much larger.

“I thought it might be an old paving stone that I had used several years ago. Well, we pulled it out and washed it off and it was a grave stone,” Kate said.

What Kate and Elizabeth didn’t realize in that moment was the significance of that grave stone and where it would lead the family in its research.

The stone marks the life and death of a girl named Ada Roberts. As the family began researching, they discovered that Ada was born and died in 1865, two years before Nebraska officially became a state. It’s also the same year that President Abraham Lincoln was shot. According to records, the Roberts family left Illinois to come to Nebraska four days after Lincoln’s assassination. Kate and her daughters visited the Seward County Courthouse and found that the Roberts family had the original homestead patent on the land they currently live on.

To research, the family has looked online, visited Seward City Hall, the cemetery’s caretaker (looking at handwritten books from the 1860s) and the Seward County Courthouse to gather information about Ada and the Roberts family.

What started as a simple search about this gravestone led to an interesting discovery for the Gokies. Ada’s parents, John N. and Margaret Roberts, homesteaded the property that the Gokies now live on.

“I think that is particularly interesting given that this year is our sesquicentennial,” Kate said.

According to his obituary, John Roberts was one of the “worthy and highly respected” citizens of Seward County whose identification with its history dates back to pioneer days. He was a resident in Seward County for 49 years.

“He has taken a most active and prominent part in the work of transformation, and on the rolls of Seward County’s most honored pioneers his name should be found among the foremost,” his obituary says.

Roberts was born in Fulton County, Illinois, Oct. 3, 1838, and continued to make his home there until April 1865, when he started for the west, driving overland and arriving in Seward County on May 2, 1865.

According to his obituary, “His was the first farm house west of the Blue River. It was a rail pen covered with boards, the lumber for which he hauled from Nebraska City, paying eighty-five dollars per thousand for cottonwood. Later he built a log house in which he lived for many years and which was often filled with Indians, who were traveling along the Blue River. As years passed by the comforts of civilization were added to his pioneer home, and as he prospered in his farming operations he at length became the owner of considerable land, which now adjoins the city of Seward.”

On Aug. 6, 1863, he married Margaret Shreves, a native of Pennsylvania. The couple had eight children, four of whom were living at the time of his death.

While the Gokies didn’t realize what it was at first, they decided to investigate the piece further.

“So we decided to go wash it off and then we started seeing words and stuff, and then we realized...,” Elizabeth said.

Elizabeth immediately went to get her siblings to show them what she had found.

One of the unique features of the stone is an encryption near the bottom. After they spent time on cleaning it with a toothbrush, they discovered it said “Ada will bloom again.”

Kate, Elizabeth and Emily then began researching and found that Ada also has a grave stone with the rest of her family at the north cemetery in Seward.

Records show she was born and died in the same year but they do not indicate months or days that she was born and died.

“She could have been stillborn. She could have been an infant,” Kate said.

Kate said they talked to Matt French with the cemetery to find out more information about Ada.

“We couldn’t tell for sure when she was laid there. We found a little more information but not really conclusively whether her name was just written there at that time or whether it was added later,” Kate said.

French told her that the only way they would be able to tell where she was buried is with a probe at either location. Kate said it is difficult to know whether that would show conclusive results.

“This is a baby that died 152 years ago, maybe (buried) in a wooden box,” she said.

She said there may not be anything left at either site.

According to the City of Seward website, the Seward Cemetery Association was developed in 1874 after the need for a cemetery arose due to the sale of land near Plum Creek on which the town’s original cemetery was located. The Seward Cemetery was consequently purchased and is located on Highway 15 approximately 1 mile north of the Seward city limits. Ada died nine years before the north cemetery was established.

Kate and her daughters have enjoyed learning about the Roberts family and its influence on the Seward community.

“It’s just interesting. Roberts Street in Seward is named after him,” Kate said. “He arrived before Lewis Moffitt, and Lewis Moffitt is considered the founder of Seward.”

Elizabeth and Emily said they were both surprised to find the gravestone and took on the challenge of researching records to find out more about the family.

The next question for the family will be what to do with the grave stone.

“I think it should stay with the land. This is where they came. Even if we move away, I think it should stay here,” Kate said.

Editor’s note: If you would like to share information about Ada or the Roberts family, please contact Jill Martin at jillmartin@sewardindependent.com.