Wordless Wednesday: Dad's Grandpa & Grandma Hansen

my great-grandparents,
Nels & Martha (Thomsen) Hansen,
with their grandchildren, ca. 1955
My dad is on the far right, in a striped shirt,
and looks just like childhood pictures of my brother. ;-)

Tombstone Tuesday: Historischer Friedhof Weimar

my favorite cemetery picture
Friedhof am Poseckschen Garten (Historischer Friedhof)
Weimar, Germany
photo: May, 2002

I wonder whom she was visiting.

Found Heirloom: Hecht Family Bible

This is a LOOOOOONG post, I know, but it has helped me to summarize my findings as I gather them. For those who use Ancestry.com, you can also view the family here.

Sometime in the late 1980's or early 1990's, my mother and I went to a garage sale on West 6th Street in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I remember the day perhaps only because I later lived just around the corner from that house. It sits at an odd angle, unlike any of the other houses on the block, and I can still picture the sale there.

That's where my mother found this old German Bible. As I remember, the woman of the house had been recently divorced, and the Bible had been passed down in her ex-husband's family. My mother paid $10 and took it home, though we had no connection to it, because we couldn't stand the thought of it being thrown out with the trash. It's not in good shape now, but it once meant something to someone.

We hoped to find someone in the family who would want it. That person must be out there, somewhere. I'm getting closer to finding him or her, because thanks to the Internet, I know more about the family named inside.


Inside the front cover, in aged ink, the lady of the family is named:

Louise Schmitt
[illegible]
Confirmations Tag -
den 5ten May 1867.
L. Austermann
Pastor

L. Austermann, it turns out, was the pastor of Zion United Church of Christ in Peru, Illinois.

On March 15, 1866, Rev. L. Austmann became Pastor. It was while he was the Pastor that the Church was built. At a special Congregational Meeting on June 4, 1871, they decided to build a tower onto the church. In the summer of 1872 two church bells were installed into the tower, and for the first time in the history of Peru the people were called to worship by means of the clear ringing bells that were imported from Germany. Rev. Austermann served the congregation until 1874.
source: http://www.zionperu.org/history.htm

I've figured out that Louise was the daughter of Philip and Margaret Schmitt, of Peru, La Salle County, Illinois. They were both born in Hessen (Germany) and came to the US around 1855 or 1856. After a short stay in Pennsylvania, they moved on to Illinois. They had a large family:

Henry Schmitt, b. abt 1853 in Hessen (Germany)
William Schmitt, b. abt 1855 in Hessen (Germany)
Louis Schmitt, b. abt 1856 in Pennsylvania
Louisa Schmitt, b. abt 1858 in Illinois
Frank Schmitt, b. abt 1861 in Illinois
John Schmitt, b. abt 1864 in Illinois
Mary Schmitt, b. abt 1867 in Illinois
Ella Schmitt, b. abt 1869 in Illinois

Louisa married a man named Jacob Hecht. My first search was at Ancestry.com, where I put in the name "Jacob Hecht" and his birth year as stated in the Bible. I was immediately led to the family in Peoria, Illinois, from 1870 (when Jacob was single and working as a butcher) through 1920. From 1880 to 1920 they are shown at the same address at 2109 Adams Street.

1870

1880

(The Hechts' son Gerson seems to have been nicknamed "Cassie," which I've never heard given to a male. Given the name, though, it's not surprising that the cenus taker enumerated "Hecht, Casse" as a girl.) The 1890 Peoria directory offers some explanation: a son named Casper is listed as living at the same address as Jacob, working as a clerk for Jacob Hecht. Perhaps his full name was Gerson Casper Hecht?

1900

1910

1920

Another Google search led me to a biographical paragraph about Jacob in the Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, 1902:

HECHT, JACOB; Merchant; Peoria; born in Giershofen, Prussia, February 20, 1848: son of Gerson and Dorothea (Baer) Hecht, the former of Giershofen and the latter of Puderbach, Prussia. Mr. Jacob Hecht learned his trade while working with his father who was a butcher and dealer in cattle. In 1867 he came to Illinois, stopping for a time at Springfield and La Salle, and in the fall of 1868 located in Peoria. For two years he worked for wages, and in 1871 engaged in business for himself. In 1885 he and his brother Solomon engaged in the clothing business, under the firm name of Hecht Brothers, which has proved very successful. Mr. Hecht owns the buildings at Nos. 2109 and 2111 South Adams Street, where he conducts his business: he also owns other valuable property in Peoria. In politics Mr. Hecht is a Republican. In 1891-2 he was fruit inspector, and in 1895 he was elected Alderman of the Seventh Ward and re-elected in 1898; he was a prominent member of the Seventh Ward Republican Club, of which he was President in 1899. He is a Mason; a member of the Knights of Pythias and the Modern Woodmen of America; he is a member of the Swedzeit Turnverein, of which he has been the presiding officer. Mr. Hecht was married to Louisa Schmidt in Peoria, August 22, 1871. They have four children living; Gerson, Jacob, Bertha and Louisa. In 1883 Mr. Hecht visited his parents and traveled through various parts of Germany, France and England. Mr. Hecht is one of the substantial and influential men of the Seventh Ward.

source: http://www.peoriacountyillinois.info/bios/1902bios_h.html#hechtjacob

I was intrigued. Giershofen and Puderbach are not terribly far (by American standards, anyway) from the places where I once lived in Germany. It's like Jacob and Louise's Bible was meant to find me.

The 1883-1884 city directory, posted online here, confirms that Jacob Hecht was a butcher, working at 2109 S. Adams Street.


On 13 Oct 1915, the Edwardsville (IL) Intelligencer carried the story of Jacob's attempt to gain citizenship. He was denied by the judge because he had previously voted--illegally, as he was an alien.


Jacob must have sold his store in 1919, because the Chicago Heights Star of 18 Sep 1919 carried an advertisement from a local department store, Lassers & Company, announcing that it had bought out the inventory of Jacob Hecht, Peoria, Ill.


You know, Jacob was probably not my kind of guy... He was, after all, a butcher, and I'm a vegetarian. I won't even go into the fact that he was a Republican, and I am... not. (OK, OK, it wasn't quite the same in those days, ha.) Nonetheless, I'm starting to feel like I know him. I even found his picture, originally printed in the Standard Atlas of Peoria City & County, Illinois and posted online here. I have to admit, I felt a little bad for him. The guy was a mover and a shaker in Peoria, and then within a few years, he was publicly embarrassed by this citizenship fiasco and, for some reason, had to sell off his store inventory at a cut rate.


But he still had friends. When Col. John Warner, who had been elected mayor of Peoria eight times, died in 1920, Jacob was named an honorary pallbearer.

Back to the Bible... Here's the page of family records--some in ink, some in pencil.


From the Bible and these three census records, I know that the Jacob and Louise had the following children:

Gerson "Cassie" Hecht, b. 2 May 1872 - a butcher in 1900
Jacob "Jackie" Hecht, b. 8 Sept. 1873 - a city inspector in 1900
Harry Edward Hecht, b. 2 Oct 1879, d. 19 Feb 1881
Emma Bertha Hecht, b. 11 Aug 1881
Louisa Hecht, b. 26 Oct 1886

and then there's...
Elsie Hazel Hecht, b. 6 Dec 1893

But what's the deal with this Elsie?

Elsie, I think, may have been Jacob and Louisa's granddaughter, the daughter of Jacob Hecht, Jr. Unfortunately, Jacob Jr. is confusing in his own right. He appears in the 1900 census, living with his parents.. but there's also another Jacob Hecht in Peoria, married to Rose, with daughter Elsie, who appears to be a match. Was he enumerated in two places? Why?

I would discount the second Jacob Hecht if not for the fact that there's no other explanation for the existence of Elsie. If she is the same one I find in the census, she moved with her parents to Chicago (where my supposed Jacob Jr. is a butcher--another hint that he may be a match), married George Conybear, and had a daughter named Dorothy Conybear around 1923.

I haven't yet found any information on the Hecht/Conybear line, except that according to the Database of Illinois Death Certificates, 1916 - 1950, a Jacob Hecht died on 19 May 1938 and a George Conybear died on 4 May 1948, both in Chicago. My next step may be ordering their death certificate and searching for obituaries, in the hopes that it names family members.

Meanwhile Jacob and Louise's daughter Emma Bertha--who went by her middle name, it seems--married a widower named Edmund Schnur around 1903. Edmund was a cigar maker in Peoria, according to the 1900, 1910, and 1920 censuses. His first wife, Anna, had a daughter named Martha (later Mrs. William Luna of Des Moines, Iowa), but Anna died around 1901.

Bertha and Edmund had at least two children, Edna (born about 1904) and Bernard (born about 1907). They are both named in the Bible.

Schnur 1910

Schnur 1920

The same death records index linked above lists a Bertha Schnur who died on 3 May 1941, in Chicago, as well as an Emma Schnur who died on 11 March 1930, in Berwyn, Cook County, Illinois. The Social Security Death Index lists someone named B. E. Schnur (maybe Bernard?), born in December 1906, who died in 2000, in Johnson County, Illinois.

With all this, I'm still stuck. I wasn't able to trace the Schmitts or Hechts any further into the future (at least from the comfort of my computer chair). I decided to turn to Jacob's brother, Solomon, mentioned in the short biography.

I found him in Peoria in 1900, single and rooming with the Fredrick Ernst family at 101 Louisa Street, not far from his brother Jacob's home:

Solomon worked as a merchants in the dry goods business. He said he had come to the US in 1884, which was around the time that he and brother Jacob started their clothing business.

In the 1890 Peoria directory, online at Ancestry.com, Solomon is found with two attached addresses, 2109 and 2027 S. Adams.

Solomon Hecht 1900

But seeing that Solomon was still unmarried at the age of 38 made me think that I was unlikely to find many descendants, anyway. However, if I could find his obituary, it might name nieces and nephews.

So for the moment I'm at a dead end. I think to get any further, I'm going to have to pull out my wallet and start ordering some death certificates and obituaries. My first priority would be those of Louise Schmitt Hecht herself, and the Illinois Statewide Death Index includes two Louise Hechts who died in the 1930's, one in Chicago.

I'm OK with putting more effort into the search, as I'm fond of this Bible and would like to send it "home." As with most family history projects, it's just going to take some time. I just hope that, somewhere out there, there's somebody who wants to take care of Louise's Bible at least as well as I would.

Found Photo: The Ketchum Girls

I have a soft spot for orphan photos, especially when I see them sitting in dusty baskets at an estate sale or serving as mere decoration in an antique store. I could browse through Flickr's Found Photographs pool and DeadFred.com for hours, just wondering about the stories behind the pictures. When I walked into Patina, a gorgeous little antique store here in downtown Sioux Falls, and saw this photo of two beautiful little girls, I knew I had to take it home.


I could also see that this photo had the potential to be reunited with those who would love it even more than I do: it has a photography studio's name imprinted on the front and, even better, someone scrawled names on the back.

The front bears the name F. J. Brown and an address, 243 Commercial St. (Ground Floor), Salem, Oregon. On the back, in old ink, it says "Gene and Bess Ketchum of Independince [sic] Ore. daughters of Dr. and Mrs. Alice Ketchum."


That gave me a great running start. I first looked up Independence, Oregon, on a map, and learned that it's in Polk County, so I visited the Polk County Oregon GenWeb site. Thinking about the "Dr. Ketchum" involved, I clicked on "Death Certificates." One of the first death certificate transcriptions I came across, for a gentleman who passed away in 1903, included the name of the presiding doctor, E. L. Ketchum.

I then moved to Ancestry.com, where I searched for anyone named Ketchum in Independence, Oregon, in 1910. They were there: Dr. Eugene L. Ketchum, his wife Alice, and three children. The children, Helen (14), Ruth (13), and adult Laverne (29), didn't immediately fit the bill.

Going back another 10 years, though, it was pretty clear: two of Eugene and Alice's four children were Helen Jean Ketchum, born January 1896, and Ruth Elizabeth Ketchum, born March 1897. Jean and Bess!

I followed their family tree in both directions--that is to say, forward in time and backward--hoping to find a direct descendant of one of the two girls on Ancestry.com. They were fairly easy to trace, as their extended family had remained in the same area for many decades.

A Jean Ketchum could be found in 1920, boarding with a family in Tacoma, Washington, and working as a teacher in the public schools. A hint from a public tree said that her husband's name was Charles Bauer, and with that, I was able to find her in 1930, living back in Salem, Oregon, at 2150 Hazel Avenue. Her husband was a life insurance agent, and they had a 3-year-old daughter named Mary A. Bauer.

I found that Bess (or Beth, as it turns out she was called) married Charles Leland Stidd, who was, by 1930, the Vice President of a loan association. They lived in Portland, Oregon, and had two children: Charles K. Stidd (11) and Betty J. Stidd (9).

So I turned to Google and typed in the name "Charles K. Stidd." Up popped numerous links referring to men named Charles Stidd, among them a post on a Stidd message board at Ancestry.com in 2002. The author stated that Charles K. Stidd of Portland, Oregon, was his father. I e-mailed him the same evening. With that, I found little Bess's grandson!

Google also led me to an obituary for Betty Stidd, who lived to be 85 and had three grown children with unusual names (i.e., names that were easy to track down online).

The grandson's e-mail address was no longer in use, but his name is unique enough to make it easy to find him on Facebook. We've exchanged a couple of e-mails, and soon the photo will be in the mail.

I still don't know how this picture came to be in South Dakota, but that's a mystery that will probably remain unsolved.

Wordless Wednesday: Scriver House

the house on the Scriver farm (years later)
home of Peter & Anne Scriver
Lynn Township, Moody County, South Dakota
This house was torn down in the late 1980's.

Tombstone Tuesday: Peter & Anne Scriver

graves of my great-great-grandparents
Colman Cemetery
Colman, Moody County, South Dakota

Peter C. Scriver
1844 - 1917

Anne J. Scriver
1846 - 1930

Black Sheep Sunday: The Pilgers and the Plow

image credit: farmcollector.com

Mrs. Pilger doesn't really qualify as a Black Sheep, but I'm making a very broad interpretation of the term. I don't have many ancestors who were imprisoned or otherwise known to engage in illegal activities, but I do have a few relatives who behaved badly.

I wanted to share this story today because Mrs. Pilger is said to be the sister of my great-great-grandfather, Peter Christensen Scriver, the subject of yesterday's post. For many years, the only indication I'd seen of her was the 1880 census, when a second family was enumerated in the same household as Peter, his wife, and their three children. That family included brother-in-law "Chris Pederson," age 35, his wife "Christena Pederson," age 34, and their daughter "Annie Mary Pederson," age 4. I believe that this "Christena" is Johanne Christine Christensen, born about 1840 in Torslev sogn, and somewhere along the way either she remarried or her husband became known as Jens Pilger.

I came across this story about her in a memoir written by Benjamin Johanson, who was a nephew of Peter Scriver's wife.

"...Mr. Yens [sic] Pilger, who was a brother-in-law of Uncle Peter Scriver and lived a few miles north of him, had purchased a new Mishawaka sulkey plow from the Johanson brothers [Benjamin's father and uncle]."

Benjamin used this story to illustrate the differences in personality between his father and his uncles, describing Uncle Christian Johanson as "the soul of patience." The Pilgers, who were not Benjamin's relatives, don't come off as well in the story. ;-)

"After using it for some time, Mother thinks for a season, he brought it back and left it in our yard, saying to Mother that he guessed he did not want it. I don't recall if our machinery was sold subject to trial. When Father was appraised of this fact, he took the plow back to Pilger's, explaining that a bolt, controlling an adjustment, had come loose, which evidently had not been noticed, and that the plow absolutely would work, if operated correctly. My brother was with Father on this trip and gives some interesting sidelights. He does not remember that Father was required to demonstrate that the plow would function. He says that Yens stayed outside, at a respectable distance and did not enter the discussion, which Mrs. Pilger, who evidently 'wore the family pants,' carried on.

Besides the adjustment needed on the sulky it is quite possible that the crux of the problem was that the missus did not think Yens should own a piece of machinery on which he could ride. That, moreover, was quite a general contention when riding machinery first came into use; one should be ashamed to be so lazy, and Mrs. P. did not hesitate to shame out her old man.

When Dad seemed to get nowhere with the argument, he said to Mrs. Pilger, "Have you got a cup of coffee?" This would call her attention to a very evident breach of Danish etiquette. In her subsequent confusion and embarrassment she agreed to try the plow again. But my brother says that Dad did not like Mrs. Pilger's coffees, and could not tolerate it. On the way home he did the whale and Jonah act with it, so he did not accept the coffee for any other reason than to mollify his adversary in an argument.

After Father died, the bill for the plow was still unpaid. Uncle Christian met Yens Pilger in Dell Rapids one day and discussed the matter with him. He still showed no signs that he intended to pay, though he had the plow and was using it. Uncle invited him to go in and set the matter before a Justice of the Peace. This suggestion was all that was required and the money was immediately forthcoming. I am a bit curious to know how my father would eventually have disposed of the matter."

I, in turn, am curious to know what Great-Great-Grandpa Peter thought of this business between his sister and his wife's brothers. Did he say anything to either side, or did he wisely keep his nose out of the matter? The fact that he isn't mentioned again in the story seems to indicate the latter.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: September 19, 2009

1) How old is your father now, or how old would he be if he had lived? Divide this number by 4 and round the number off to a whole number. This is your "roulette number."

2) Use your pedigree charts or your family tree genealogy software program to find the person with that number in your ahnentafel. Who is that person?

3) Tell us three facts about that person with the "roulette number."

4) Write about it in a blog post on your own blog, in a Facebook note or comment, or as a comment on this blog post.

5) If you do not have a person's name for your "roulette number" then spin the wheel again - pick your mother, or yourself, a favorite aunt or cousin, or even your children!

1) My dad is 62. OK, this part is easy enough... Divided by 4, that's 15.5. Round up to 16.

2) That's my great-great-grandfather, Peter Christensen Scriver.

3) Here goes...

#1. According to a relative of Peter's daughter-in-law, who has done more research on him than I have yet, Peter was born in Torslev sogn (parish), Dronninglund, Hjørring amt, Denmark, on 26 December 1844. He was the son of cooper (barrel maker) Christen Pallesen and his wife, Anne Marie Christensdatter, and he had two sisters and one brother.  [This was found to be the wrong Peter, but we've caught the right one since then!]

#2. He came to the US in 1871, with his fiancee, Anne Johansen Visby. They were married on 4 September 1871, in Red Jacket (now Calumet), Houghton County, Michigan. They stayed in the area for about five years. Three of Anne's brothers also came from Denmark to Houghton County, and the men worked in the copper mines in that area. During this time, Peter and Anne's first two children, James and John (my great-grandfather), were born. Later they all homesteaded in Lynn Township, Moody County, South Dakota.

#3. Peter used the name Christensen for some time and is enumerated in the 1880 census as Peter "Christianson." Family lore says that he eventually began to go by "Scriver" because there were already so many families in the area called Christensen, and he didn't want to be confused with them. I'm quite sure that Peter didn't pick "Scriver" out of thin air, as he registered as Peter Christensen Skriver when he emigrated from Denmark, but I don't know at one point he began to use the name, or why. "Skriver" is a Danish word that means "notary" or "secretary," and it's also a family name. There's no indication that Peter's father used the name. Did it come from someplace farther back in the family tree? I hope to find out.

I could write much more about Peter and his family--and I hope to do so soon. The Scriver family is my current research focus, and I hope to put together some sort of family history book in the next couple of years.

Wordless Wednesday: Marie Peterson

Marie (Brandon) Peterson, 1968
my great-grandmother
She and my great-grandfather owned a cafe in Irene, South Dakota.

Tombstone Tuesday: J. J. Hlavac's Stone Goes Home

I don't have a picture of a tombstone today, but I thought this story is perfect for Tombstone Tuesday. Go check out how South Dakota Gravestones (www.southdakotagravestones.org) volunteer Brad Kellogg brought the tombstone of J. J. Hlavac home!

Mystery of Lost Gravestone is Solved
Yankton Press & Dakotan
Yankton, South Dakota
Monday, 14 September 2009

What do you look for in a GenWeb site?

I recently offered to take over the Moody County (South Dakota) GenWeb site. My great-great-grandparents homesteaded there and my hometown is there, so I feel connected to the area despite the fact that I don't live there now. I'm looking forward to learning more about Moody County history and the families there.

The gentleman who has been administering the site has put a lot of work into it and done a good job, but of course I'm trying to think of ways to make it bigger and better. I'm asking for some advice...

When I venture to learn about a "new" branch of the family, I almost always seek out the GenWeb site for the county in which they lived. Some are better than others. I always hope to find three things: historical biographies from local history books, city directories, and cemetery indexes.

If you use GenWeb, what do you look for in a site? Which are the best ones you've come across? I'd love some suggestions!

Wordless Wednesday: Scriver Street

my grandpa, Howard "Shorty" Scriver
posing on Scriver Street in Santa Cruz, California
1979

Through the magic of Google (how did we ever do anything without Google?), I came across a transcription from the Santa Cruz Sentinel, dated 1932, that mentions my family in connection with Scriver Street:

(Santa Cruz Sentinel - February 15, 1932.)

HOME FURNISHINGS DEPARTMENT MEETS.

The home furnishings department of the Live Oak 4-H club met Saturday afternoon at the home of the leader, Mrs. James Scriver of Haughton avenue and Scriver street, Breakers beach.
The afternoon was spent in working on department projects after which a valentine party was enjoyed. Genevieve Scriver making and presenting a valentine to each girl present.
The next meeting well be in two weeks at the McCrea home on 17 avenue.
Present Saturday were Muriel McCrea, Eleanor McCrea, Marjorie Tefertiller, Dorothy Graves, Ethel Fisher, Genevieve Scriver, Mrs. Lala Doud, assistant leader and two visitor, Jane McCrea and Mary Lippencott.

Mrs. James Scriver was my great-grandmother's sister and the wife of my great-grandfather's brother (2 Scriver brothers married 2 Erickson sisters), and Genevieve Scriver was one of her daughters. Although I don't know the origins of the street name, it seems like too much of a coincidence to think that it wasn't named for the family. It's another story I'm hoping to uncover.

Tombstone Tuesday: Marit Polle Nordseth

grave of
Marit Ingebrigtsdatter Polle Nordseth (1848-1924)
Klæbu, Sør-Trondelag, Norway
photo: 2003

Marit is the wife of my second great-grand uncle. Her husband, Jakob Jensen Nordseth, was the brother of my great-great-grandfather, Jens Peter Nordseth.

Wordless Wednesday: Johanson School District #8

Johanson School District #8
Moody County, South Dakota
where my great-grandfather, John Scriver, was sometimes not absent ;-)

EDITED TO ADD: I'm not actually sure if this is the school building that was in use in my great-grandfather's day. I've heard that a new building was put up in the 1930's, so this may well be it. That's something to research.