I often write about orphans in this blog and very little is known about the lives of these children -- how long they lived with the people who took them in, whether they lived the full span of their life or whether their lives were cut short by disease or deprivation. But for Minnie Prehm all this is known.
Minnie Prehm came to live with a wealthy family in Bloomington-- the Loehrs -- when she was thought to be eight years old in 1866. She wasn't adopted by the Loehrs, but she lived her entire life with the family. The Prehm family was said to have come to Bloomington from Germany just one year prior to the orphaning of the children. As a child Minnie was listed as the hired girl and as an adult she was listed in the census as the housekeeper in the home.
When Anna Loehr died June 3, 1912, Minnie Prehm was still living in Anna's home, as a housekeeper and companion. Anna left a will and bequeathed the majority of her $75,000 estate to Minnie Prehm, cutting out most of the legal heirs, as the Pantagraph put it. Minnie was to have the use of the estate until her own death and then the remainder would go to the other legatees after Minnie's death.
But it seems that the other legatees, distant relatives of Anna Loehr, fought the will for several years. During this time Minnie Prehm, who was fifty one years old, was working as a nurse at the Kelso Sanitarium (pictured here).
In 1914 Minnie Prehm filed papers in court saying she had suffered a mental collapse after being coerced into signing a settlement agreement that required her to surrender a note for $20,000 that Anna Loehr had given her and further required that she give up her claim to the estate and accept only the income from the estate. That settlement ultimately fell through because one of the many nieces and nephews of Anna Loehr failed to sign the settlement.
In 1914 Minnie was adjudged a "distracted person," but in 1921 her rights were restored and her conservator discharged. She was able to enjoy her independence for just a short time, because on April 15, 1927 Minnie Prehm died in her home at 314 E. Front Street. The Pantagraph wrote that she died of a two year illness connected to her mental breakdown.
Minnie's life, boiled down to its essentials, was that she was an orphan, taken into a family as a household drudge. She continued in that role for 45 years and then was driven to a mental breakdown by the greed and avarice of people who had enjoyed lives free of the sadness, stresses and poverty that Minnie suffered. People who never served any person, who had every advantage in life and couldn't understand that Anna Loehr would have had a genuine regard for this woman and had possibly always felt that she should make Minnie's life a bit easier, if only after her death. Sort of like the people who only freed their slaves after their death. Another way of really angering your heirs!!!!!