Grim Ancestors, Part II

Adding a page to the "Grim Ancestors" annals, I was recently alerted by the website Ancestry.com that a photograph had recently been posted that pertained to relatives from my family tree.  Here are Lucas and Louisa Troendle, prosperous merchants in Mapleton, Minnesota.  They are my great great grandparents on my father's maternal side.

According to a family history written by my uncle, "Lucas Troendle proved himself a gifted wholesale and retail merchant.  His business thrived, his store and warehouse expanded to handsome proportions.  In later life he was a wealthy man.  The wealth and interests that he built slowly evaporated under the management of the easy-going sons who succeeded him.  Of his store the only thing I know of slight interest is my grandmother's account of the day in 1876 when Frank and Jesse James and one of the Youngers stopped to ask directions south after their abortive raid on Northfield.  My grandmother Brown said that everyone suddenly left the street, went indoors, and the window curtains were drawn.  She peeked out, however, and saw a group of horsemen close by, their long white linen dusters splattered with mud."

I do find it oddly curious that they chose to have their portrait taken in their very Victorian bedroom!