Using records to reinforce family stories, part 2

As I mentioned in my last post, one of my most memorable genealogical finds is in regards to newspaper accounts that verified some old family stories that have been passed around the kitchen table for years. A lot of times these stories can sound pretty far-fetched or unlikely, or have been too vague to seem possible.  But when I start digging around in old newspaper accounts and searching for records on these family members who lived long ago, I’m sometimes surprised by what I find.

Wally Struck often told his grandchildren this story about a tragic drowning, and a psychic who helped find the lost soul buried deep in the Lannon quarry. He said that a boy was swimming there and drowned, but even though they sent divers down and dredged the lake, no one could find the body.  Then they sent to Milwaukee for a famous psychic, and he came to the small village of Lannon to help.  Grandpa mentioned that they called the man Doctor even though he wasn’t truly one, although he couldn’t remember the man’s last name.  He went on to tell us that when the “Doctor” came to the quarry, he pointed to one area of the lake and told the people they would find the body there, and that it hadn’t surfaced yet because it had been caught under a ledge.  According to his story, divers found the body exactly where the psychic had told them to look.

By chance one day I was scanning the old Waukesha Freeman newspaper, and found this article in an edition dated November 13, 1924:

“Mrs. Wilhelmina Busse, aged 69 years, who disappeared from the home of her daughter, Mrs. Herman Joecks, Lannon, on Nov. 5, was found dead on Sunday, in a quarry pond east of Lannon.  Mrs. Busse, who suffered from attacks of extreme nervousness, used to take long walks when the attacks came and it is believed that she took the wrong road when it became dark and by mistake walked the road leading to the quarry and accidentally was drowned.  The pond was dragged for three days before the body was recovered.  Dr. Roberts, Milwaukee, a spiritualist, was consulted.  He told the family the mother would be found in the quarry pond.  Sunday morning Dr. Roberts came to Lannon and told the searchers just where to locate her body.  It wasn’t long before the body was brought to the surface.  Coroner Lee was called and the remains were removed to this village.  Funeral services were held on Tuesday from the Herman Joecks residence in Lannon and thereafter in St. John’s Lutheran church.  Interment took place in Sunnyside cemetery.  The deceased is survived by one son, C.A. Busse, Sussex, two daughters, Mrs. Joecks, Lannon, and Mrs. Ryan, of Arizona.”

There are so many facts in this article that match Grandpa’s story, that it can’t possibly be coincidence.  The only real difference is the age and sex of the person who drowned, although this can be explained when you remember that Grandpa was only 9 years old when it happened and would understandably have forgotten some details.  But it is quite intriguing just how much information he DID remember.

What I also find very interesting is that it turns out that the drowned person, Wilhelmina Busse, was in fact related to the Struck family by marriage – Grandpa Struck’s aunt Ida had married into the Joecks family.  So this sad tale is interesting to our family on several levels.

Using records to reinforce family stories, part 1

One of my most memorable genealogical finds is in regards to newspaper accounts that verified some old family stories that have been passed around the kitchen table for years. My grandparents Wally & Esther Struck each had a story they loved to tell. Each story was later reinforced by a newspaper account I happened to stumble across during my family tree research. Finding the newsclippings was such a neat “a-ha!” moment, because they established a point of time and some relevant facts that only served to reinforce the tellings.

Esther’s story was about a cousin who was beheaded by a train. According to the story, which was passed down from her mother (Ida Krueger-Heling), the cousin was walking along the railroad tracks and, guessing he was either drunk or had fallen on the tracks, was hit by the train and killed instantly.   The part of the story that always fascinated us children was that she said because his head was crushed by the train, and the tradition in those days was to hold an open casket viewing in the front parlor, they replaced his missing head with a large ball of cotton.

Esther’s grandmother was a Moede, and it was while researching her family line that I came across this story from February 7, 1907:

“Paul Moede Killed: Head Severed From His Body By Railway Train”
    “Paul Moede’s body was found on the Central Railway track near the crossing of the Milwaukee Railway east of this city on Sunday, the head being entirely severed and lying some distance from the trunk.  He was an employe of the Central Ry. Co., and when last seen alive was at work on the track near the crossing.  The body was discovered by the crew of a freight train and Coroner Chas. E. Hill was at once notified.  He caused a jury to be summoned and an adjournment was taken to this Thursday when evidence will be taken and a verdict returned.  
The deceased was 29 years of age.”

Paul’s father, Carl F.W. Moede, was brother to Hulda Moede-Heling, Esther’s grandmother – thus, Paul was a first cousin to Esther’s mother Ida, who originally told her this story.  I don’t know that we’ll ever be able to prove that the family used a ball of cotton in place of his head at the funeral, but the evidence is certainly compelling.

Why does this find matter? It connects the family, both by identifying the subject of the family story as well as connecting future generations to the events that mattered in their ancestors’ lives. This story, as it has been passed down, captures attention because it is gruesome, and tragic, and at the same time holds a bit of dark humor in the image of the cottonball in the casket. Who doesn’t wonder how they would react if they attended a funeral such as this?

What is particularly tragic about this story is that Paul’s brother Herman had committed suicide less than 5 years before this.  Could it be that their mother, in her grief over losing two sons at such a young age, made the unusual decision to hold an open-casket funeral despite Paul’s missing head?

That, incidentally, corroborates another Heling family story, told by Grandma’s brother Rudy – he said he had been riding beside his father in a wagon after taking their crops to market, and while passing a cemetery he noticed a headstone set apart from the others and bearing the familiar family surname.  Rudy’s father explained that because Herman had taken his own life, he was not allowed to be buried in the same cemetery as his family.  He added that the family did not speak of him any longer.

Herman Moede’s lonely marker remains to this day in a small cemetery on the outskirts of Sussex, while the remainder of the Moede family are buried in Pilgrim’s Rest Cemetery in Pewaukee. His headstone contains his name and dates of birth and death, as well as the statement “Simply to thy cross I cling”.

Happy Birthday to…

April 28th marks Gust Johns’s 130th birthday according to my records. Gust was born in Door County, WI, the first generation to be born in America of German-born immigrant parents. Early records indicate that their name was originally spelled Jahnz, and that this name was “Anglicized” somewhere around the turn of the last century.

Gust’s first marriage didn’t occur until he was 31 years old, but this marked a very sad time for him. His wife, Emma Smith, was just 16 years old when they married in the summer of 1915. Their son Emery was born January 2nd, 1916. Sadly, Emma died just days after childbirth:

From The Sturgeon Bay Advocate – January 06, 1916

Faced with raising a newborn, it appears Gust enlisted the help of his sister Ida for a few months. After this, his sister Minnie (and her husband William Sitte) took Emery into their home. From all accounts, it appears that Emery was raised as one of their own. But sadly, Emery died young from appendicitis. He was the same age as his mother when he died.

From The Door County Advocate – September 22, 1933

Gust remarried a few years later, and raised several children. I bring up these sad events because there are two things I’ve learned in researching Gust’s life, and the tragic events he endured:

First, that Gust’s first marriage, and the son that resulted from that marriage, were previously unknown to my family until researching the Johns family in the archives of the Door County Library, and in particular, their online collection of Door County Newspaper Archives from 1862-1941. I learned of this resource via the Peninsula Genealogical Society, and it is hands-down one of the most accessible archives I’ve discovered. Their search function is greatly effective, saving me many hours of fruitless searches through irrelevant search results… (ask me sometime how depressing it can be to search newspaper archives for the surname Struck!!).

The second reason I note these events is because it is a great demonstration of how the community drew around this grieving father – not just the family members that helped raise his young son, but also the friends that helped celebrate his milestones:

From The Door County Advocate – May 07, 1920

Happy 130th Birthday, Gust!

Historical newspaper finds

One of my absolute favorite resources on Ancestry.com is their historical newspapers collection. It’s vastly incomplete, but there are plenty of gems to be found in what articles are archived there. In particular, there are many years of the Waukesha Freeman available, and this is where I found this bit I want to write about today.

However, if you want to search for our Struck relatives, be prepared to spend a LOT of time scrolling through reports of the various tragic events that have befallen Waukesha-area residents. Many people have been struck by cars, trains, lightning, other people… not to mention all the reports of baseball players being struck out!

  So I was really excited to find this particular article in the Waukesha Freeman, dated April 28, 1921.

The family had long believed that my great-grandfather Frank Struck had travelled from Germany to America on his own as a young man. However, when I found the ship manifest on the Ellis Island website, I discovered that he had arrived with two of his sisters: Wilhelmina and Ida. His sister Wilhelmina had married back in Germany, to August Birkholz, and came to America with three small children in tow. The original ship manifest (the Wittekind) from 1895 shows us quite a bit of info.

It can be hard to read a poor Xerox copy of old fashioned handwriting, so I’ll transcribe it as best I can:

Friedrich Birkholz – age 30 – male – married – laborer

Wilhelmine Birkholz – age 30 – female – married – house (as in keeps house)

Carl Birkholz – age 4 – male

Helene Birkholz – age 3 – female

Emma Birkholz – age 2 – female

Albertine Ziemann – 54 – female

Caroline Ziemann – 54 – female – married

Ida Struck – 26 – female – single – (occupation illegible – maybe school?)

Franz Struck – 20 – male – single – (occupation may read shoemak[er], his profession in America)

Incidentally, all are listed as travelling to Waukesha whereas most of their nearby shipmates were headed for LaCrosse. And Wilhelmina’s husband being listed as Friedrich isn’t terribly unusual; Germans had a long tradition of giving their children multiple middle names, and of using the different names variously as their “official” and/or proper name as opposed to their common name used among family.

It was knowing some details such as Frank, Ida and Wilhelmina’s ages that made me sure this ship was theirs. I also knew about Wilhelmina’s marriage to August Birkholz (although I hadn’t realized it took place prior to their emigration). But I had no clue who Caroline and Albertine Ziemann were until finding this Waukesha newspaper death notice.

You’ll notice that the Carolina who passed away in 1921 would be the correct age for the Caroline travelling on that ship – both would have been born in 1831. Why she was listed as married but without a husband on the ship (perhaps widowed?) and why she has the last name Ziemann is a mystery – unless it was an error of the ship employee who wrote their names on the manifest?

And who was Albertine Ziemann, the one mystery person remaining in this group? I’m not quite sure, but I do have a strong clue that she was also a relative: Frank’s son Walter Struck remembered a trip to Omemee, North Dakota in 1940 with his father where they visited Frank’s cousin August Ziemann. So my best guess is that perhaps Albertine was related to these cousins, and quite likely to Frank’s mother Caroline.