According to The Martin City Telegraph:
A major cholera outbreak in 1827 slowed [Francois] Chouteau’s progress. [His wife] Berenice baptized 75 dying Indian children, lost two of her own children, sewed shrouds for those that died (including using her own wedding gown as fabric), and established relationships with the Kanza, Seminole and Osage tribes.
Most of the French fur traders inhabiting the area were married to Blackfoot Indian women. …Native Americans called it “Chouteau’s Town.”
Berenice, coined “The Mother of Kansas City,” died in 1888… She outlived all of her nine children.
These French-Catholic fur-traders are the very foundation of the City of Fountains.
To read the entire article in The Martin City Telegraph, please click here.
