Anna Dirks (Goldenstein) was born in 1861 near Coatsburg, Adams County, Illinois, and died in 1932 in Golden, Adams County, Illinois. She married Focke Goldenstein in Coatsburg, in the early 1880s. Some things I learned about research and life from Anna:

• Life is not always easy. Anna and Focke had a child, Johann, who died as a child in Dawson County, Nebraska, in the 1880s. They had another child who died while they lived near Basco, Hancock County, Illinois, in the 1890s and another one who died shortly after birth several years later when they had moved to Golden. Their grown child Bernard died of the flu in 1918 a week after he married. Their son Henry was murdered in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1921. It’s not easy to lose that many children.
• Women aren’t mentioned in homestead records although they were instrumental in the operation of the homestead. Anna’s husband worked during the week for the railroad leaving her alone on the homestead with the children. She’s mentioned just once in the homestead as the unnamed “wife.”
• She drove. She’s one of the few female ancestors I had alive in the 1930s who drove.

My ancestor table can be viewed on my site. Anna is my great-great-grandmother.