On this date 100 years ago, Miss Opal Kimball, "the well known nurse" was sick at home at 1008 North Prairie Street. Of course I couldn't help but hope that this nurse would turn out to be a WWI nurse and would have great adventures.
On the contrary, a year later she married a "prosperous" farmer, Allen Schoppe, and moved to his farm near Chenoa to have four children.
But why was she a nurse and where had she come from? Unravelling her story was difficult because Opal appeared in the census just once where I could confirm she was the same person (1910) and I could not confirm her parentage. Two different family trees claim her and her husband -- in one she was a daughter of John Stanley Kimball and in another she was daughter to Joshua Kimball. but she never appeared on a census living with her parents, so which of these family trees was based on actual family records and knowledge and which was based on an erroneous assumption??
I was able to confirm that the Opal Kimble who married Allen Schoppe was my nurse, because the nurses of the Kelso Sanitorium gave her a wedding party. I would note here also that Opal did not only go to Kelso for her education; she pursued post graduate studies in Chicago along with her dear friend Leah Johnson. Leah Johnson died in 1915 of typhoid fever and her deep friendship with Opal Kimble was mentioned in Leah's obituary.
Another clue that allowed me to confirm part of Opal's family tree was the presence of her sister, Mrs. J F (Nettie) Tissel at her wedding in Chenoa. Finding Mrs. Tissel was a challenge though, because the Pantagraph had misspelled her surname, which was actually Pissell. Her husband was J Frank Pissell, and Nettie's obituary in 1942 confirmed the sad story that had been hinted at in the family trees on Ancestry.
Joshua and Rosetta Kimble had 5 children when Rosetta died in 1896. In 1900 the census records indicate that Nettie (16), Paul (10), Jesse (7) and Walter (14) were all living in the Soldiers' and Sailors' Orphanage in Bloomington. Opal (12) however, was living with EF Rutledge and his wife Anna in Mackinaw, IL. Each of these brothers is mentioned in Nettie's obituary, in addition to a brother born to their father and his second wife. Their father died in 1909, nine years after his children were put in the orphanage or boarded out. Perhaps in the intervening years Joshua and his new wife provided a home for his first wife's children.
After her marriage, Opal had four children, one of whom died as a small child. During WWII she reentered nursing at St. Joseph's hospital to do her part in the war effort.
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