By J1 Reporter Eleanor Kolterman

Agnes King is the 103-year-old descendent of immigrants from Ireland who journeyed across America in their search for a home. King is the great granddaughter of Mary Elizabeth Burke. 

 The Burke family members were first generation immigrants from Ireland who traveled over to America in the 19th century. They came to the United States with two daughters, Mary Elizabeth and Hannah, and settled first in West Virginia where they had several other children. By the time Mary Elizabeth and Hannah were grown and getting married, the gold rush was booming. “After settling in West Virginia, and with the girls grown up, and possibly married, went west in a covered wagon on a wagon train,” said Suzanne Kehm, the great grandchild of Mary Elizabeth Burke. Traveling through the west was a potentially dangerous venture, risking death, illness and injury from many different factors. “The wagon trains ahead and behind them were massacred by the Indians, but their wagon master was well regarded and had no trouble,” Kehm said. Even considering the dangers, the reward of potential job opportunities was worth the risk. 

Their father, who had gone with them, worked as a miner until they moved to Virginia City, Nevada for a short time, then to Butte, Montana where they met up with some distant relatives.

Nana, Mary Elizabeth’s child, had a difficult time growing up, having traveled in the covered wagons across the west. When she grew up she had two husbands, one in Virginia City and one in Butte, both who died young of misfortunate circumstances. With her second husband she had “Kate and Mamie and [Agnes’] mom, Nellie, Harry, another boy,” Kehm said.

When Nana’s daughter Nel grew up, she married a man named Hobart Conklin after he had fought in World War. However, it prompted a rather tense relationship with her family, “Nana and the kids weren’t happy about Nel marrying Hobart,” Kehm said. 

“Nel only lived three or four years after they were married,” Kehm said. Nel died in childbirth with her youngest son, her older daughter, Agnes, only 2 years old. After their mother died, Hobart, their father, brought Agnes and her baby brother to be raised by their grandmother at the Burke’s house in Butte, Montana. From then on Hobart was distant and mostly removed from his children’s lives. Agnes lived a complicated life, growing up amidst the Vietnam war controversy and difficult times politically, socially, and economically around America.

Despite the social atmosphere of the world, Agnes was raised kindly by her grandmother and greatly encouraged in her schooling, later attending College of Saint Mary, on scholarship, in Omaha, Nebraska. 

The Burke women were able to persevere through many hardships and make a home for themselves anywhere they went. They were able to pursue family, higher education, vocations, and even business ownership. Throughout the years this line of women has proven time and again their capability and perserverance in many aspects of life. They prove that one need only look to their past to find inspiration for the future.