The farmer takes a husband.
Anna
Whatever path Cora Stallman followed into Coles County, Illinois, it was her older sister Anna who had cleared the way.
Anna must have been formidable. I’ve only found one photo of her, and you can barely see her face. At Cora’s inquest in late August 1925, she told the news photographers not to take her picture — and they obeyed.1
More evidence than answers.
Monday and Tuesday, Aug. 3-4, 1925. Mattoon, IL.
Cattle and crops can’t go untended, so it didn’t raise eyebrows when Anna and Thomas Seaman returned from Cincinnati immediately after Cora Stallman’s funeral. She was buried on Monday afternoon, Aug. 3; they were back in Mattoon that night.
Perhaps more unusual: Once they returned, Thomas took to his bed.1
They can’t all be good guys.
Mt. Carmel Catholic Cemetery in Hillside, IL, is packed with striking, dramatic headstones. Calogero Lalumia’s is one of them.
Cora Stallman died on a farm, but she lived most of her life in the city.
The handsome young man in the derby hat.
How could I resist that face?
Graveyard Snoop 