Henrietta Weikert seems to have left home as soon as she could. At age 18, she married George Washington Shriver who, like her, came from a farming family in Adams County. In the case of Hettie (as she was called), she was the sixth of thirteen children living on a farm east of Little Round Top and on the Taneytown Road. In the early years, her marriage seemed bound for success that would have surpassed her own humble circumstances. Her husband had inherited his father’s 200-acre farm and his father’s three-thousand-gallon liquor stores. Hettie moved to this farm, and in the course of time, she and her husband looked to transition from farming and into retail. They sold the farm in pieces and built a house on Baltimore Street near the center of town where they were in the process of creating a tavern and a ten-pin bowling alley when the war broke out.

George and Hettie had three children before the war’s outbreak: Sarah Louisa (known as “Sadie”), Mary Margaret (known as “Mollie”), and Jacob Emmanuel–Jacob died in infancy in 1859, and it’s probably telling that his middle name is from the Bible and means God with Us.

When the war began, George joined Cole’s Cavalry, and while he would visit on leave after the Battle of Gettysburg, he would be captured in January 1864 and die in the infamous Andersonville Prison.

On the first day of the battle, Hettie decided to take her daughters to her parents’ farmhouse southeast of town (the battle raged in the northwest). She stopped by the Pierce house next door and offered to take Tillie Pierce, the Pierce’s young daughter, with the idea that she would be safer at the farm and could help with the girls. The Pierces agreed, and Hettie and the three little girls set off on a life-changing trip.

Of course, the battle shifted on day two to the Round Tops, and the Weikert farm became a major location. Eventually, the farm would see more than seven hundred dead and wounded soldiers treated and/or buried on the property. Among these were Lieutenant Charles Hazlett and Colonel Patrick O’Rorke, whose bodies were laid out on the porch, while General Stephen Weed died on the farm. Much of this is memorably captured in Tillie Pierce’s memoir.

On July 7, Hettie made her way back to her Baltimore Street house, which she found filled with wounded men. Further, nearly all her belongings of value had been taken by Confederates who had occupied the house. Her neighbor James Pierce explained that the house had been occupied by Confederate sharpshooters, at least one of which had been killed and buried in the garden.

Today, Hettie’s story is memorably captured at the Shriver House, and TIllie Pierce’s memoir lives on as an excellent source of what the Gettysburg citizenry suffered.

But this time in Hettie’s life was only a small portion of an otherwise long life of ups and downs. A few streets away lived the family of Solomon Powers, the prominent stonecutter. Cynthia Powers, one of Solomon’s daughters, contracted a respiratory ailment while caring for wounded soldiers in her father’s house. Cynthia was married to one of Solomon’s apprentice stonecutters, Daniel Pittenturf. Cynthia gave birth to a second son in October 1863, then died of her illness the following April.

Eventually, Daniel and Hettie found each other—no doubt losing spouses to the War created a unique experience and bond. They married in 1866.

Newlywed happiness was short-lived. Three months after the wedding, the second son born to Daniel and Cynthia fell into a bucket of scalding water and died from burns at age three.

In 1867, Hettie gave birth to the couple’s only shared child, Lillian. Tragically, Hettie would bury all her family members except Lillian. Sadie would die in 1874 of tuberculosis, and Mollie would suffer the same illness and fate in 1880. Daniel died in 1900.

Hettie would live another sixteen years, eventually passing away in her eighties at the home of Lillian.