Bessie Dragoun was 17 in the spring of 1910, when she left her job at an Omaha glue factory and ran away.
She wanted to see the world, she said after getting arrested in Sioux City.
The jailer asked: Then why come here?
“Oh,†the girl answered, “to see Halley’s Comet.â€
Eleven decades later, at her home near Minneapolis, Kathy Latuff read the short account at the bottom of an inside page in the Sioux City Journal -- and the grandmother she’d never known came into even clearer focus.
For most of her 69 years, Latuff knew only what her mother -- who spent her first decade in an orphanage -- had known about Bessie Dragoun. Almost nothing.
“She attempted suicide,†Latuff said. “And she got put away. End of story.â€
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The story started getting longer, and more interesting, a few years ago. Latuff logged onto to try to learn more about her grandmother, who she thought was named Elizabeth Gamble. She found nothing.
Last year, she visited Omaha’s Graceland Park Cemetery, where she knew other family was buried. And she found her grandmother’s grave, but under the name Bessie Weatherby.
“All of a sudden, I let out a yelp. There she was, in the ground.â€
Now Latuff and her niece, Valerie Young of Wisconsin, could start scouring the internet and working their phones and making Bessie Weatherby more three-dimensional.
“We’re able to get newspaper articles and follow her life and say, ‘Wow, you’re an amazing woman, strong and brave.â€
And adventurous. After trying to see some of the world in Sioux City, she went even farther, working as an elevator operator in Seattle, living with a naval officer in San Francisco, traveling by train around the West.
“What a fascinating life she led. I think her problem was she was born 100 years too early. She wasn’t going to be content living in Omaha.â€
She led a troubled life, too. A year after her arrest, she gave birth to her first daughter, Lucille, who was raised by family. In 1919, she had Latuff’s mother, Evelyn, who ended up in an orphanage as an 11-month-old. All she would have of her mother was a photograph, and two pieces of jewelry.
The next year, the 27-year-old tried taking her life and was sent to the Nebraska Hospital for the Insane, now the Lincoln Regional Center.
She lived there for 15 years, not knowing her father was gunned down in a Chicago robbery, or her firstborn died at 22 from diphtheria, or heart failure had taken one of her sisters.
Bessie Weatherby, 41, died at the hospital in 1936.
Latuff and her niece were thorough in their research. Earlier this year, they contacted the Lincoln Regional Center to request Weatherby’s records, and were so impressed with how they were treated they wanted to make a donation, said Rachel Johnson, the center’s religious coordinator.
Johnson had an idea. How about using the donation to plant a tree of hope and recovery in the center’s arboretum, dedicated to the center’s past, present and future patients?
“Recovery is grounded in hope. Sometimes hope is the only thing we have. I think that for what we do, hope is the foundation. Hope that people can get better, hope that people can leave, hope that there’s a better life.â€
They also made arrangements for Latuff and Young to visit the 150-year-old, tree-filled campus on the southwest edge of Lincoln, to see where Weatherby had lived for more than a third of her life.
“It was a sad time for Bessie and her life here,†Young told a small crowd Thursday gathered in the arboretum. “And it was painful to read that file, frankly. But what we decided was this can't define Bessie, this record alone, and we need to find out more about her life.â€
It made sense to visit during May, Mental Health Awareness Month, Latuff said. By telling their family’s story, she wanted to let her grandmother know they feel no shame or embarrassment that she lived here, and she hoped other families would be encouraged to tell their stories, too.
Latuff and Young placed a small paving stone -- dedicated to the memory of Bessie (Dragoun) Weatherby -- at the base of the newly planted burr oak.
“We’re so happy that they’re allowing us to come here to honor her, celebrate her,†Latuff told the crowd. “And that she’s not defined by the last chapter of her life.â€