Cena Brink, my grandmother, was born somewhere within the Wea Plains, Tippecanoe County. She always said she was from “the Shadeland area”. Her family evidently lived on a farm somewhere in this area. There are 2 small towns of West Point and Shadeland. She attended West Point, Indiana schools.
The Wea Plains has a historical marker and is one of the few sites left that show the Indiana plains. The Wea Indian tribe claims this area as their home. My Dutch ancestors would not have cared about their heritage or the value of this land to them. In their time period, they were given rights to settle this area and the Wea continue their struggle to be officially recognized as a tribe, by the U.S. government.
Cena was the 5th girl born to Martin and Trijntje Brink. (They had one boy, Henry, who did not live long.)
Cena loved school but had to quit at age 12 to do domestic work and assist her family’s income. This is what poor whites did in those days. She was very sad to quit school, and continued to recite the state capitals of all 50 states to us for the rest of her life.
— I write this because in doing some family history work today, it took some time to sort out her birthplace.
Doctor Grandma 
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