Discovering Mary’s Beginnings

Frank & Mary on their wedding day.

I’d now like to turn my attention to Frank Struck’s wife, Maria Anna Bloedel (also written as Blödel). Frank and Mary were married in Lannon, Wisconsin in April 1901, six years after Frank’s arrival in America. The local newspaper reported their marriage on April 18, 1901:

Mary traveled to America with her mother Elizabeth and three siblings (William, Carl and Barbara) when she was just five years old. Research shows that other members of the Bloedel family had already established roots in the Wisconsin community in earlier years, and it is believed that Elizabeth chose to join them after becoming widowed in Germany (some family notes list Mary’s father’s name as Maechel or Michael Bloedel).

I haven’t been successful at untangling all of the Bloedel family line at this point, but it does appear that many Bloedel family members had emigrated to the Lannon/Menomonee Falls area. There is one clue in researching this line that might help corroborate Mary’s birthplace: several Bloedel “cousins” had opened a blacksmith shop in Lannon. As you’ll see further in the post, I found someone else of the same surname emigrating to Wisconsin with the listed occupation of blacksmith.

THE FAMILY LEGEND

Our family recorded Mary’s birthplace as Dodgelsheim, Germany. As with the Struck family, I haven’t found evidence of such a place. But looking for similar place names in a German gazeteer led me to find a town called Dolgesheim in Germany. It seems very similar in name, but are we correct in assuming this is the right place?

THE CLUES

I start by again turning to the ship transcript. Unfortunately, this manifest for Mary and her family only lists that they were German born (we are rarely lucky enough to get a hometown recorded on these, as it was in the Struck family example).

Click on this image to view it at full size.

However, while searching to find Mary’s ship records, I came across a different manifest that lends us a small clue. Carl Bloedel arrived in America two years before Mary’s ship sailed. He lists his occupation as blacksmith, his intended destination as Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and his “starting point” as Dolgesheim.

Click on the image to view it larger.

Is this 100% verification of Mary’s birthplace? Unfortunately, no. As I said earlier, I’ve had difficulty tracking all of the Bloedel relatives sufficiently to be sure this Carl Bloedel is even a relative. But it remains our best guess at this point.

You’ll note that there is something scribbled in the far right-hand column on Mary’s ship manifest that is hard to decipher, but it appears to be “settler”; in studying the full page, I find that the word “citizen” and “settler” is written beside some names in that section.

FURTHER RESEARCH

One interesting thing to note in the ship manifests above is that Mary’s family is travelling with two other Bloedels who are of unknown relation. It’s also interesting that the C. Bloedel in her group is the same age as Carl Bloedel in the second manifest.

A bit about the ship that carried Mary to America: the Noordland was built for the Red Star Line’s Antwerp-New York route and launched in 1884. It held accomodations for 619 passengers, 500 of these in third-class (steerage), which is where Mary’s family was housed.

The Noordland

In 1886 the Noordland was disabled after colliding with the Cunard liner Servia in the North River because of thick snow and heavy mist. It resumed service in July 1888, two months before Mary’s trip. It was scrapped in 1908.

One other thing to note is the information I’ve found in German Genealogical Database, which lists a significant number of Bloedel persons living in Schornsheim, Germany. This might prove to be an important resource to pursue further as I research the Bloedel family line.

RESOURCES

I have bad news for my cousin: Dolgesheim is a good 8+ hour drive from Mietno, where our Struck ancestors originated.

Dolgesheim is in the Rhineland-Palatinate state of Germany, also known as the Rheinland-Pfalz or Rheinhessen region. This is wine country, and Dolgesheim looks to be a charming village with a rich history according to their city website (in German). Schornsheim is only about 8 miles NW of there, and worthy of some genealogical investigation as well.

As you can see from these posts, the story of Frank & Mary’s ancestral origins is one that holds much yet to be discovered.

Frank & Mary Struck on their 50th wedding aniversary in 1951

Herkunft der Familie Struck

A relative recently asked me what research I had on the origins of our Struck ancestors, because he is planning a trip to Germany in the near future. I thought I would share this information on my blog instead of a private email, so that it is available to anyone else interested in this.

Here’s the good news for my cousin: I think I have a pretty good idea of the location of our German origins, and even where the old church records are kept.

The bad news? That region is now a part of Poland, since World War II. Let’s hope our relative decides to expand his trip! One day I hope to commission an experienced genealogical researcher to search those archives.

THE FAMILY LEGEND

To begin, let’s take a look at where this information comes from. Family stories say that my great-grandfather Frank Struck emigrated from Plummer, Germany. My research has not identified the existence of such a place; my best guess is that this may have been derived from Pommern, the German word for the region of Pomerania. The only other clue given was that Frank studied to be a cobbler in Berlin as a youth; this might lead one to think that the family lived fairly near that city, but it is certainly inconclusive.

THE CLUES

My first step was to look for historical documents that might shed some more light. My best sources are the ship manifests from Frank’s journey to America in 1895 on the S.S. Wittekind. These documents are readily available, courtesy of Ellis Island and Ancestry.

A little side note on the S.S. Wittekind: when our Struck ancestors sailed to Baltimore (and then Ellis Island) in 1895, the ship was just one year old. It was built for the Norddeutscher Lloyd German sailing company,to use on their Bremerhaven-New York line. It took a fortnight to travel the route, and it was the first twin-screw steamer built for them. In 1917 it was seized by the US Army and renamed the Iroquois, and later the USS Freedom. It was scrapped in 1924.

Here’s a close-up of the ship manifest created when they first arrived at the Port of Baltimore (before they sailed on to Ellis Island):

The first person in this group is Friedrich Birkholz, a 30 year old laborer. His wife Wilhelmina is Frank Struck’s sister. Below their three children is Albertine and Caroline Ziemann. You’ve seen in a previous post that the Ziemanns are known cousins to the Struck family. My best guess is that Caroline Ziemann is actually Frank Struck’s mother (there is much evidence to corroborate this). Below these two women is Ida Struck, another sister to Frank. And finally, we have Frank Struck himself, age 20.

What’s most helpful here is the column titled “Last Residence”. All of the family state that their previous hometown was Minten, except for Frank: he says it is Naugard. Simply to muddy it up a bit more, Frank’s brother Carl Struck emigrated to America two years before this group. On his ship manifest, he listed his hometown as Glietzig, Germany.

DECIPHERING AND TRANSLATING

Where do we go from here? A whole bunch of Googling to learn more about these towns! Some trial and error led me to discover the current names of these communities as they are now listed in Poland:

Naugard (town) = Nowogard

Naugard (district/county) = Gmina Nowogard

Minten = Mietno
Gleitzig = Glicko

What I’ve also found is that the small, rural communities of Minten/Mietno and Gleitzig/Glicko are very near the larger town of Naugard, and all are within the county of Naugard. Here is a current map that might help illustrate this:

If you look at the scale reference, these tiny towns are only about a mile or two apart, and quite close to Naugard/Nowogard. It appears that Naugard county has long been a rural one: in 1925, the community of Minten had 197 residents living in 37 households, while Glietzig boasted 189 residents in 33 households!

The proximity of these locations seems to help explain the varying answers given on the ship manifests. One word of caution: it is admittedly not completely verified that this is our ancestral home, particularly as we are taking these facts from one primary source. However, it is a very likely connection, and one that I look forward to expanding my research on.

One other interesting fact: all of the residents in Minten and Gleitzig were of the Protestant faith. This will be important when I discuss resources below.

RESOURCES

There are a few resources that have been immensely helpful to me in researching my Pomeranian roots: The Full Wiki contains a list of Pomeranian place names, and their Polish name today. Secondly, the Pommerndatenbank contains some amazing genealogical resources concerning both Pomeranian communities and the families that lived there. Finally, the Information System for Pomerania lists a bounty of historical information about these communities that can help provide some insight into the lives of our ancestors.

Traditionally, our European ancestors recorded their most important life events in the church register: births, confirmations, marriages, deaths… all would be written into the book. So it is quite exciting to learn that the church registers were in fact saved, and archived in the Kirchenbücher im Landeskirchlichen Archiv in Greifswald, Germany. It should be a bit easier to research since all of these families attended church in one denomination. I’m eager to see what information might be available to us in researching our Struck family roots!

Frank & Mary Struck Family in 1955

Happy birthday to…

Today is also the 171st birthday of a Civil War hero, John Calvin Pisel. It seems important to spotlight a family member who was born on the same day as our first president, and gave his life defending his country’s principles. Just to put it in context: the granddaughter of John’s sister Susannah married a Collins, so this would be Mike’s great-great-great uncle (if I’m doing the math correctly!).

John was born on February 22nd, 1841 in Pennsylvania, the son of Peter Pisel and Elizabeth Wahley. It’s likely he was named for the famous Protestant Reformationist. It appears the Pisels had been in PA for a long time; there is a Peter Pisel living in Monaghan, PA on the very first US census taken in 1790, and others’ family research suggests they are linked to a man who founded a religious community back in the 1730′s near Lancaster, PA.

John’s father moved his family westward sometime before John’s 11th birthday, settling on a farm in Linn County, Iowa. Within a decade the country found itself embroiled in a civil war, and in 1863 a young, newly married John signed up.

From the Iowa Civil War Draft Registration Records, dated June & July 1863, courtesy of Ancestry.com

From what records I have found, he was not actually mustered until almost one year later – March 1864 – when he joined the 13th regiment of the Iowa Infantry, Company A. In just five short months, he saw action in at least an astounding 23 days of battle, mostly in and near Atlanta. His company was there for Sherman’s “March To The Sea” and the burning of Atlanta, famously documented in Gone With The Wind. Sadly, on August 20, 1864, John was injured in his left side and died the next day of his wounds. He was just 23 years old.

He is buried in the Marietta National Cemetery in Marietta, Georgia. I don’t know anything about the young bride he left behind, except that the draft record above states he is married, and a Sarah J. Pisel applied for widow benefits.

Happy birthday to…

George Hahn would be 93 years old today. George was my great uncle via marriage – he married Frances Struck in 1962, and settled in the Burlington area. His older brother Harvey had married Frances’ sister Esther seven years earlier.

George was the youngest son of John and Henrietta Hahn (both the children of German immigrants), and in 1930 his family was living in Milwaukee, where his father worked as a gardener for a private family.

Here’s a favorite photo of George, enjoying a soak in the hot tub with his in-laws on a trip to California.

From l-r: Margie Struck, Frances Struck (George’s wife), Esther & Wally Struck, and George Hahn.

Transcription errors

I have to apologize – I’ve been writing some mighty long posts lately. I suspect that covering all this ground will probably make people shy away from genealogy, instead of showing them everything that I find fascinating about it. I promise this post will be much shorter!

As I mentioned previously, errors in historical records are pretty common. Census-takers, for example, would spend long days traipsing up and down stairs, visiting home after home to record information, and it’s possible they sometimes wrote their own notes illegibly. The information they received could be provided by anyone who answered the door, there was no need to verify the information they were given, and there were of course occasional language barriers just to make things worse.

Here’s a particular transcription error that amuses me, from the 1930 census:

Can you spot it? Edris and Lillie’s daughter is Catherine, our very own Grandma Kay! I’m not sure how this one happened… ?

There’s one other factual anomaly that has me puzzled. Family stories say that Lillie and Edris married when she was 15, but you’ll note here that they say she was 20 (the final column shown is “Age at First Marriage”). And going further, by these records it looks as if they got married four years after their daughter was born. Until I obtain a marriage certificate for them and/or a birth certificate for Kay, I won’t really be sure what’s true on this record!

Immigration and the first years

Since I’ve been on the subject of the Struck family and their emigration to America, I thought I’d take a closer look at the Birkholz family history. If you’ll forgive me going off topic for a moment, it was a bit unusual for the Struck family to emigrate so late in the 19th century. In just one decade (1880-89) over 1.5 million Germans had come to America. But in 1891 US Congress had enacted much stricter immigration laws, and that number had dropped to less than 1/3 of the previous decade. Many Americans believed that immigrants were a threat to national security (both financially and in terms of public health) and there was not only overt hostility but actual attacks on immigrants. In addition, just as they prepared to leave Germany, America was still in the midst of the Panic of 1893, the worst economic depression to occur in the US before 1929.

That same Immigration Act of 1891 created stricter laws on health and financial security. Immigrants had to prove that they were of good health and had good job prospects to enter the US. It is estimated that an immigrant would need to save at least $1200 toward the purchase of land and farming equipment to get started in America, an enormous amount of money in those days! So it must have taken an immense amount of courage and desire for a family to uproot everything and move to this new country.

There is one benefit to the timing of their emigration: US records from 1880 on are more thorough and complete than earlier records. By this time the census takers began recording the names, ages and occupations of all the members of the household, which provides us with a veritable treasure of insights into the lives of this family.

As we learned earlier from the ship manifest, the Birkholz family came to America with three young children: Carl (4), Helene (3), and Emma (2). Luckily, a federal census was taken just five years later (in 1900) so we can see how this family is faring. It appears they are renting a home in the village of Menomonee Falls, and father Friedrich Birkholz is working as a laborer in the local quarry. He’s not alone: all along the street we see that his neighbors are also recent immigrants from Germany, and  employed at the same work. In fact, our great-grandfather Frank Struck is living with the Birkholz family and working at the quarry as well.

One interesting tidbit: while all the adults are listed as being able to read and write, only Friedrich and Frank are able to speak English, unlike Wilhelmina and her mother Carolina. Here is a partial transcript of their census entry:

Fredrick Birkholz – head – age 35

Minnie Birkholz – wife – age 35

Hellen Birkholz – daughter – age 9

Emma Birkholz – daughter – age 8

Charles Birkholz – son – age 3

Ernist Birkholz – son – age 1

Frank Struck – boarder – age 26

Charles Wagner – boarder – age 25

Caroline Struck – boarder – age 69

As you can see, two more children have been born: Charles and Ernest. There is one person missing from this list: their eldest son, Carl. He would have been about 10 years old at this time, and while it may be possible that he is living with another family member (which I have not found via census searches), sadly the most likely explanation is that he passed away sometime shortly after their arrival in America. It seems a bit corroborative of this theory that they named their first son born on US soil Carl (Charles) as well. But one odd note: the census taker asked how many children this couple had, and how many are living, and the written response is 4 (all living). However, as you’ll see in a future post there are plenty of reasons why this might have been a recording error.

We then move forward five more years, to 1905, when a Wisconsin state census is taken. Friedrich is still working as a laborer and renting his home in Menominee Township. Frank Struck has moved on (he married in 1901 and started his own family). The Birkholz family has added to their numbers significantly: with Franz, Otto, and Ruth born in these five short years. There is again a child missing – Helen – but she is “rediscovered” in a later census. Where she is at the age of 15 is only speculative at this point, as extensive searching of the surrounding area has not identified her yet. It could be that she was living with relatives, working as a servant, or she may have been somehow missed by the census-taker. (Update: see bottom of post for a possible discovery on Helen’s whereabouts.)

The next federal census is in 1910, and much has changed again in the five year span. Their son Otto is missing from this census, so it appears that sadly they have lost another young child. We do find a 19-year-old Helen again living with the family, and a clue to where she has been: her occupation is listed as domestic for a private family. There is a marked improvement for the family as a whole, however: Friedrich has purchased his own farm in nearby Lisbon Township!

  The family endures yet more tragedy in January 1914, according to this news article posted in the Waukesha Freeman.

Apoplexy is an old fashioned term for a stroke, although I do wonder if this was actually a choking incident? There is one little clue in this news account that corroborates the question of Otto Birkholz’s fate: it says that Emma is survived by three brothers, which would be Charles, Ernest and Frank.

Emma is buried in the family plot in Sunnyslope Cemetery, Menomonee Falls alongside her parents and brother Frank. The final resting place of the remainder of the family has yet to be determined.

We’ll now jump forward six years to the 1920 census. Four of the Birkholz children are still living with their parents on the farm. Charles, now 23, is working as a machinist at a gasoline company. 21-year-old Ernest is a laborer with the railroad. And 19-year-old Frank is helping his father on the dairy farm. Their youngest, Ruth, is only 15 and in school. Their oldest living child, Helen, is now 30 years old and most likely married. Incidentally, a relative – Carl Struck – has a dairy farm himself just down the street.

One year after the census, their grandmother Carolina Struck passed away at the age of 90 (see her death notice in a previous post). Her daughter Wilhelmina Struck-Birkholz died a few years later, in 1926. Her husband Friedrich followed in 1929.

  1930 is the final year that the census is available at this time, and it appears the farm has been sold with their father’s passing and the children scattered, since I cannot find any evidence of the Birkholz family living in the Menomonee Falls area. I found a listing for Charles in Milwaukee; he has purchased a home in the city, where his new bride Irene and his younger sister Ruth are living with him. He is working as a machinist at an electrical control firm, and his sister is a drill press operator for the same company.

  Charles Birkholz’s home in Milwaukee.

His brother Ernest has rented an apartment just four miles away and is working as a truck driver for a hardware store; his wife of four years is an assembler at an auto parts factory.

Ernest’s rented home in Milwaukee.

I was unable to find Frank on this census, although a news article I discovered in the Waukesha Freeman, dated July 1951, marks the final information recorded for this family.

As far as I am aware, the Struck and Birkholz families did not much keep in touch over the years after Wilhelmina’s passing. It seems that the Birkholz family endured plenty of hardships as immigrants to this country, but they were able to achieve their dream of buying a family farm, and their children were afforded a good education that allowed them to make their own way in the world successfully… which is no small matter to a family who came to this country during a difficult time and worked hard to achieve their goals.

Update: While researching related family members, I found the following entry in the 1905 census, which quite possibly could be Helen:

As you see, the age and surname match, and she is living in the Menominee area, although the lack of a first name makes it difficult to be certain.

An addendum

Since I talked in my last post about the Struck and Ziemann families, I thought I’d go a little further into some interesting tidbits related to this research.

As I mentioned, my grandfather Walter Struck recalls a trip to Omemee, ND back in 1940. It was actually a sort of honeymoon for him and his new wife, Esther Heling, since they had been married in late 1938. Accompanying them on their trip were their parents Frank & Mary Struck, and Bill & Ida Heling. This is something that not many would consider appealing these days! But it does appear these families were very close, and travelled together frequently.

A photo of Walter Struck and his young bride Esther in North Dakota on their honeymoon.

Incidentally, what Walter remembered most about the Ziemanns was that they lived a very poor and spare existence in North Dakota. He said they ran a wheat farm and had no indoor plumbing, and he remembers August Ziemann telling his father Frank Struck that they hadn’t had a good crop in more than 10 years. (Remember that this is the tail-end of the Depression and Dustbowl days).

From looking at earlier census records, it appears that August and his wife Anna lived in Minnesota for a time before they relocated to North Dakota, and they had two children: Elenora and Walter. According to the census, Walter Ziemann would have been about 27 years old in 1940. His father August would have been 68, and his wife Anna 58. Elenora would have been 31.

I have a few odd photographs in my archives that have been tentatively labeled as being from that trip. The only clue was that Walter Struck thought the photo of the man nursing a lamb was one of his Ziemann cousins. Then, as I was going through some other mystery photos I thought I recognized some familiar faces. What do you think?

This is the photo Walter S. tentatively identified as Ziemann – maybe his cousin Walter Z.?

Note the similarity of the man holding the lamb in this photo. If this is Walter Z., could this be his parents August and Anna? And is that his sister Elenora in back by the cars?

This photo (likely taken by Walter S.) shows a number of the Struck and Heling relatives, along with what I suspect are the Ziemanns. What would help would be identifying the building in the background! From left to right, this is who I suspect each person is: August Z., Walter Z., Frank Struck, Ida Heling (front), William Heling (back), Mary Struck, maybe Elenora Ziemann?, and Esther Heling-Struck.

Another photo that was evidently taken the same day, judging by the patterns on the women’s dresses. It does appear to be the same people as above with one exception: the woman in white standing next to August Ziemann.

 from l-r: Walter Z., Mary and Frank Struck, August Z., unknown, Esther Heling-Struck, Elenora Z., Ida and Bill Heling.