The Ford Family

Nickname	Tillie
Born	November 19, 1883 Jefferson Wisconsin
Died	August 31, 1902 Rockford
Father	Wenceslaus Wenzel Schrom
Mother	Thekla Schrom
Siblings	Henry Schrom Minnie Weldon Bertha Schrom Albert James Schrom George Gottlieb Schrom Frank Joseph Schrom Edward Schrom Arthur Otto Schrom Fred John Schrom Theodore James Schrom

Bio
Tillie is the fifth child and third and final daughter of Wenceslaus and Thekla Schrom.

Tillie is born in Wisconsin in November 1883, two years to the month after her brother Albert. When Tillie is not even a year and half, her brother Albert dies. Like clockwork, however, not two years later, George is born. In two more years Tille gets little brother Frank, and in two more years she gets twin brothers Ed and Arthur.

The whole Schrom family picks up and moves to a city called Rockford, Illinois when Tillie is about 7 years old. At 9 she gets another brother Fred, and one year final baby brother Teddy is born. We can imagine Tillie very close to her brothers George and Frank being just a few years apart. She is also a big help to her mother and her sister Bertha in taking care of the 6 little brothers.

We don't know much about the family during those early years in Rockford. We find Tillie's father Wenceslaus working as a Saloonkeeper in 1900. Tillie is 16, but not in school like her brothers. Her oldest brother Henry is not living with them and the oldest sister is married and starting a family of her own. This leaves Tillie and Bertha to take of their sick mother and to cook, clean, and care for the family of ten on whatever their father can earn. The family lives in tight quarters in an apartment in Rockford. Tille's Mother dies this year of the TB she has had for 2 years.

There are no records to tell us how it is that little Tillie dies at the age of 18, but it is highly possible that the poverty, close living conditions and hard work caring for a mother sick from consumption takes a toll on Tillie. Likely weak and tired, she may very well have died from TB. When Bertha dies two years later, we can guess that she too became sick with the disease herself.