Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Adolf Korn On Western Wednesday...!

In the days of the wild west, there were many cases of Pioneer children being kidnapped by Native Americans. Many of these children were eventually brought up as members of their captors' tribe, and did not want to be returned to the white man's way of life, as seen in the case of Adolf Korn.

Adolph Korn

After Adolph Korn was freed from his Comanche captors, his parents moved him far away from the tribe that had harassed them. Unlike the other children on this list, he had no way to get back to the people who had kidnapped him, so, rather than live with his own parents, he fled into the wilderness and spent his life alone in a cave.

Korn had been captured when was ten years old and sold to a childless Comanche woman. She took him in as his own, and although he was initially distraught over losing his family, he soon started to enjoy it. Living in a frontier home, he’d struggled to get any attention from his eternally busy parents. Now, though, he had an adoptive mother who focused every second of her energy on him. He felt more loved that he had ever felt before.

His parents managed to get him home three years later, but he never stopped being a Comanche. He would raid his neighbors’ farms and steal their cattle. Soon, he’d built up a long police record, and terrified they’d lose their boy to a different type of captivity, his parents moved far away to a remote ranch.

Korn, though, refused to become a white man. Instead, he left his parents’ home and moved into a cave, where he lived in solitude until the day he died. As a family member said, for the rest of his life, “Adolph kept a solitary vigil for the Comanche brothers whom he knew would never return.”

It saddens me to think that someone would chose a life of solitude rather than living with their birth family, but I reckon there is a lot more to the story than we will ever know.

Coffee out on the patio again, providing it doesn't start raining.

4 comments:

Mamahen said...

I imagine the children during those years had a pretty hard life, just like their parents. I agree it is sad to think of a child feeling that way.

linda m said...

This is a sad story. But then you do read about how some children are treated badly by their birth parents and would probably rather live in solitude than with cruel parents. Not too long ago we had an couple, in the city that I live, that had to have their children taken away from them because they were living in filth. The family pets were treated like royalty but the children were totally neglected.

HermitJim said...

Hey Mamahen...
I guess that it was hard to adapt to life as a pioneer, both for the parents and the child.
Thanks for stopping by this morning!


Hey Linda...
So many people with children just are not mature enough to be parents. When children are mistreated, many times they pass those actions down to their own kids. It becomes a sad loop.
Thanks for coming over today!

JO said...

There are more stories like this but the others were lucky enough to have a choice.Some were very happy to leave.

Patio time here I come