Sophie Kindlinger Davis, 1862 - 1952

Although I was almost 17 when Grandma Davis died, I only remember her from a couple of occasions.  And although she lived probably not more than 150 miles away, we never drove to Litchfield IL to visit her or the Davis cousins.  I remember being with her, a small woman, in Austin IN in the winter and playing beanbag in the living room at her daughter Minnie Casey's house, with a fire burning in the fireplace.  The beanbag smelled to high heaven and I'm pretty sure Grandma Davis had made it and taken it to Austin.

Sophie Kindlinger was born to German immigrants:  her mother came to Illinois as a child and her father as a young man.  They met and married in St. Clair County IL where they had about six children.  Her dad died fairly young, around 1880, and her mom remarried.  I have one letter from Grandma Davis written to her daughter, Minnie, in l940.  It's apparent that she didn't have much education and you can detect an accent in her phonetically spelled words.  A cousin thought she didn't get beyond fourth grade.

Sophie raised her family in a two bedroom home with a barn in the back.  Her husband was a coal miner and as her sons grew, they worked in the mines, too.  Before coming in the house after work, they had to clean up in the barn.  After her husband died and she grew older, her sons insisted she live with one of her children in the winter so she wouldn't have to build and tend a fire for heat.  One cousin wrote that she always wanted to go home the first of March, regardless of the weather.

Even though Sophie was the daughter of German born parents, she married Louis Davis whose parents had immigrated from Great Britain.  He was tall, she was short.  She had worked as a servant before marriage and he was a coal miner.  One of her grandchildren wrote that Sophie fussed at her husband a lot.  She lived to be nearly 90 years old.

Sue<Hilda Casey<Minnie Davis<Sophie Kindlinger