Jacob Walter, Whiteside County

Jacob Walter was just 10 years old when he lived with Napoleon Peters near Neoga, Illinois in 1895. Peters reported to the Asylum that they were getting on well together and that Jacob had learned to read. By 1900 the Peters had added to their family by "adopting" a daughter, Lillie Hazelman, who was seven years old. She was reportedly born in Missouri, so was most likely not a child from the orphan trains, but other organizations in the West had by this time started large child placing operations of their own.

Jacob married Mary Miner in 1913 and they had one son, Fay, but he was divorced from his wife after just two years of marriage. She remarried and his child took on the name of her second husband, John L. Dancey. Jacob died July 9, 1918, but no obituary could be found for him. Oddly enough, his name appears on a stone with that of his former wife and her husband in the Coloma Township Cemetery.