Cabinet Card. Photographer:  Kester, Grinnell, Iowa. Circa 1890.

Price:  $15.00          Size:  4 ¼ x 6 ½”

A beautiful young woman in semi-profile with hair pulled back and curled bangs. She wears a high-necked collar that flares out in ruffles, and a pin in Maltese cross-style. We’ll estimate that she was perhaps twenty at the time she posed for this photo. The reverse shows:

Kate Juniata Bortell. Married Walter J. Neely.  Children: Ruth – Mrs. Rainier; Mabel – Dick Raver; and Bob – ?

Juniata was a river in Penn. near where Father & Mother lived so Kate received the name.

This is lovely – the fact that we have the story behind Kate’s middle name. It’s the kind of thing that can be lost for future generations unless someone’s written it down, as the family member did on the reverse of the card. (A detailed person, and we thank them for that.) And details like these are so important in genealogy – in this case it gives us an approximate location (if not found elsewhere) for the parents at the time of Kate’s birth, as well as the correct spelling of the name.

Kate was born November 2, 1871 in Grinnell, Iowa, the daughter of William Bortell and Susan Noon. She married Walter Jerome Neely February 5, 1896, in Grinnell. They had three children, Ruth, Mabel and Robert.

Ruth Neely married Earl DeWitt Rainier. Mabel Naomi Neely married Duane Forrest Raver. Robert Walter Neely was twice married, first to Janet Eleanor Alarik, and then to Donna Jean Ware.

Kate (Bortell) Neely died August 20, 1941, in Grinnell, Iowa.

The photographer is John W. Kester; we’ll put up a post for him shortly.

Sources:  State Historical Society of Iowa; Des Moines, IA, USA; Iowa Death Records, 1921-1940. (Ancestry.com).

Iowa Department of Public Health; Des Moines, Iowa; Iowa Marriage Records, 1880–1922; Record Type: Marriage. (Ancestry.com).

Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/88967782/katherine_janietta-neely: accessed May 17, 2025), memorial page for Katherine Janietta “Kate” Bortell Neely (2 Nov 1871–20 Aug 1941), Find a Grave Memorial ID 88967782, citing Hazelwood Cemetery, Grinnell, Poweshiek County, Iowa, USA; Maintained by: Find a Grave.