Did They Go Back?

A couple of Ohio natives move with their two children to Illinois in the 1860s. By 1877, the wife and husband are dead. The grandmother who moved from Ohio with them is apparently dead by this time as well. 

The children apparently went back to Ohio to live with paternal relatives instead of going west with maternal ones. The maternal line was the "connection" and until I considered the "in-laws" and the reality of "going back" I failed to locate the children.