There were no fortunes hidden away to support Jesse’s family. After his death, Zee and her children lived in poverty, and stayed with various relatives willing to take them in. Young Jesse quit school at the age of eleven to help support his mother and sister. In a strange twist of fate, he obtained employment as a copy boy at the law office of Thomas Theodore Crittenden, Junior; the son of Governor Crittenden, the man who made a deal with Bob Ford that led to the murder of Jesse James. Between the boy’s earnings, and financial assistance contributed by Crittenden, John Newman Edwards, and other friends, the family bought a cottage located at 3402 Tracy Avenue in Kansas City, Missouri. For the first time, they had a permanent home.
Zee shunned the public eye and devoted her life to raising her children. She attended the Methodist Church each week until her health declined, and lived long enough to see her son marry Stella Frances McGown.
With Zee’s health failing, Stella—by now expecting a baby—along with Zee’s daughter, Mary, nursed Zee through her final illness. On November 13, 1900, she died at the age of fifty-five. Only a month later, Zee and Jesse’s first grandchild would be born. The young couple named their infant for Zee’s favorite sister Lucy, a favor Zee had requested before her death.
A few months later, the family arranged to have Jesse’s body moved from his mother’s farm to lie next to his devoted wife at the Mount Olivet Cemetery in Kearney, Missouri. Yet there remained one more promise—unfulfilled until October 31, 2004.
One hundred and one years after her death, one of Zee’s final wishes was granted. Young Jesse’s great-grandson, Judge James R. Ross, obtained a court order to have Gould and Montgomery, the twin boys born to Zee and Jesse in Nashville, exhumed from their gravesite in Humphries County, Tennessee. The babies were buried next to their parents on November 22, 2004, finally together again at the Mount Olivet Cemetery.
Jesse’s mother, Zerelda Cole James Simms Samuel, has been described as one of the most formidable women of the Civil War era, giving anyone who opposed her reason to keep a sharp watch over their shoulder. After Jesse’s death, Zerelda remained at the farm in Kearney where her infamous sons were born and stayed there for the rest of her life. To support herself, she gave tours of the farm and sold pebbles from Jesse’s grave to visitors. Many claimed she gathered new stones from a nearby creek bed to replenish the grave on a regular basis. Strong-willed and fiercely devoted to her boys until the end, Zerelda died in 1911 at the age of eighty-six while on her way home from a visit to Frank.
Following Zerelda’s death, Frank and Annie moved to the farm in Kearney. As Zerelda had once done, Frank greeted people when they arrived to tour the farm, and he told a few stories of his own. Frank died February 18, 1915. The reclusive Annie passed in 1944.
The James Farm itself, where many significant events in the outlaw’s life occurred, eventually fell into ruins. Clay County purchased the farm in 1978 and began work to restore the property, creating the James Farm and Museum. It is open to the public and remains one of the oldest continually operated historic sites in Missouri, with an extensive collection of artifacts from the James family. The museum provides a fascinating look at life in Missouri before, during, and after the Civil War.