It was a day to celebrate in Columbia in 1837. There were banners and ceremonies. Men were marching off to war. There were goodbyes and high-spoken words. Missourians were to go for a glorious fight. They were to meet the murderous savage and succeed where others had failed. That’s what they thought; what they hoped. But there were many in the crowd that day who would become widows. One was Ann Hawkins Gentry. Her husband Richard was a founder of Columbia, a member of the legislature, a man prominent in the life of early Missouri. They were married twenty-seven years.
