Kate Shelley - Later in Life

Later in Life

In 1890, a Chicago newspaper revealed that the Shelley home was mortgaged for $500 at 10% and was near foreclosure. An Armenian rug, woven in the display window of a Chicago furniture store, was auctioned for $500, retiring the mortgage, and other Chicagoans donated an additional $417 before the state of Iowa voted Kate a grant of $5,000.

In July 1896, it was reported that Shelley had applied to the Iowa Legislature for employment in the State House as a menial, because she was destitute and had to support her aged mother and invalid brother.

Although there were apparently men interested in her, including the switchman in the yard at Moingona, Kate Shelley never married, and continued to care for her mother until Margaret died in 1909.

Kate Shelley grew sicker and, in June 1911, doctors at Carroll Hospital removed her appendix. After a month in the hospital, she stayed with her brother John, and was reported a little better by September, but died on January 12, 1912 from Bright's disease (acute nephritis).

Years later, the Chicago and North Western began operating streamlined passenger trains, and named one the Kate Shelley 400. It operated from 1955 to 1971, although the name was officially dropped in 1963.