Franklin County, Nebraska

For Another Day

Remembering Baby Brinson

Editor’s note, This is the second article on the story of a young child, Elmer Brinson.

Young Joseph Stout Brinson married Lena Leota Butterfield on September 28, 1898. Lena was the daughter of Samuel and Savannah (Chapman) Butterfield.

Lena’s parents were some of the first settlers of Franklin County in Oak Grove Township. They lived on the NW * of section 33 as shown on the map (story for another day). Joseph and Lena had eight children. One of them was Baby E. Brinson.

Franklin Elmer Brinson was born August 2, 1900 and died April 28, 1901. Little Elmer was eight months and twenty-six days old when he died. He only lived long enough to learn to crawl. Santa visited him must one time. Only one winter season did he feel the snow on his face and he died just as the spring flowers began to bloom. Baby Brinson had two living brothers, John and Francis. We don’t know the reason for Elmer’s death. This is not an uncommon tale. The cemeteries are full of children’s graves of that time period. The newspapers of that era had many sad stores of such happenings.

My last step to make a visual connection to Baby Brinson was to drive south of Bloomington into Kansas to see if I could find the home site where Elmer Brinson lived his short life, so…off I went on a warm September day, who should I meet on Draw Road but Doug Kahrs. I flagged him down with my old road map in hand and out of the car I hurried.

With the map lying on the trunk of the car, Doug was able to direct me to find this tiny 40 acres of land. I even found what the late Kenneth Kahrs had known as a dugout home (pictured above). As I saw it close up, it looked like there are two dugout holes facing west. These dugouts have somewhat caved in, but where they meet the top of the hill, about a foot down into the dugout, each contains a cave that goes back underground at least four feet. The rock on overhanging ledges looked very similar to what was used for Baby Brinson’s headstone. One of the dugouts has a fence post deeply embedded into the ground on the outside of the cave, with only about a foot of it still showing. At one time, this post jutted far above ground, telling me that time was filling up this home of the Brinson’s with dirt. Kenneth remembered a tale about someone raising chickens in this dugout.

It was an eight and three-quarters mile long trail that Joseph, Lena and their two remaining children, John and Francis, traveled via horse and wagon with Baby Brinson to the cemetery in Bloomington.

Behind them in other wagons could have been their neighbors, J. Harris, Thomas and Grant Yocum, Alvin Norton, Thomas Henderson and maybe M. Davis, F. H. Kunze and Jane Moore. Altogether, they would have traveled north past the houses of Harris, Norton and Jane Moore.

They would have come north into Nebraska, past the J. O’Brian home. On my research day, I had to stop my car and look from thigh on a hill at the next two miles they would have taken. For now that road is closed past the G. A. L. Stinson and the old Malick Home. The sad entourage slowly traveled past the Bloomington River Bridge and on up the straight stretch into the town. Hats of observers probably would have been held over hearts as the group slowly rode up main street of the town and on past the Holmes house to make a left turn into the cemetery.

After prayer to bless his little soul, Baby Brinson was laid to final rest with his head to the rising sun. Only those who have been through this kind of tragedy know the grief of this loss, so I won’t attempt to describe how long that road was home from the cemetery. But, I do know that the home of Joseph and Lena Brinson was not without the happy sounds of a baby, for there was another Baby Brinson. Franklin Elmer Brinson had a twin brother, Francis J. Brinson and he lived to marry Cora May Wing and departed this world at the age of 90 years in 1990.

Was this meant to be, that we were to learn the story of Baby Brinson some 98 years after his death? Was it meant to be that all these people would line up in a row, one by one, taking their turn to lead us down the path to learn all about this little baby boy. Perhaps it was meant to be. On this next Memorial Day, as some of us gather at the Bloomington Cemetery to honor all our loved ones, I will look from a distance over the top of all the beautiful tombstones to the simple monument marking Franklin Elmer Brinson’s last resting place on this earth. In another 98 years his tiny headstone will be illegible, and perhaps gone from his resting place.

This is my written tribute to this child that he might not be forgotten. For as long as this issue of the Franklin County Chronicle is in existence, so will be the legend of Baby Brinson.

“He is harmless, Ye are sinful;

Ye are troubled, he at ease:

Dare not bless him!

But be blessed by his peace,

And go in peace.” Elizabeth Browning.

Rena Donovan, For Another Day.

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