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Mrs. Dalton’s Boys, part 1

© Mary Trotter Kion

Adeline Younger, at age sixteen, married Louis Dalton in Cass County, Missouri. She was a small woman but it's said that she had a firm will while others considered her down right aggressive. Adeline had not had much education, but she did possess a lot of common sense. She surely needed both traits where she and her husband lived in an old ranch house in the wild and unsettled times in Missouri after the close of the American Civil War.

Adeline worked hard to bring up her boys. And it was nearly a situation of bringing them up all on her own. Although she was married, her husband figured that child raising was woman's work. He lent little help, if any, and considered his main job was to provide the vittles his wife would cook, serve, preserve, and clean up afterwards. And, to a point, he provided the means for putting clothes on this brood.

Of Adeline's boys Ben was the eldest. Then came Frank, Grattan, William, Littleton and Robert. The youngest of the group was Emmett. Adeline tried to give them good moral teachings to live by and a loving home environment. Though she was strict with these growing sons of hers she had good reasons for being so. The years after the close of the Civil War, especially in Missouri, were filled with southern resentment towards Yankees who had entered the area during the war, burning farms, taking livestock and often all other means that folks had for feeding their families. And sometimes killing or maiming innocent folks who were just trying to get by till times got better. It just wasn't a real good time to be trying to raise up a bunch of boys to be good and honest citizens. Things might have turned out differently a few years down the trail if early on Mr. Dalton had taken more of an interest in raising the boys, and lent a much-needed hand-or perhaps a backhand now and then as the need arose.

A part of Adeline's concern for the future of her boys was centered on the fact that her maiden name was Younger, as in Bob, Jim, and Cole Younger. These young Younger fellows, soon to be known in the annals of Wild West history as the Younger Gang, were Adeline Dalton's nephews. Their pa was her brother. But Adeline's sons being first cousins to the Younger boys was only one-half of the bad situation.