Wednesday, December 21, 2022
Thursday, December 1, 2022
Of Mothers and Daughters and Dinner Parties — Part II Redux
Sometimes, when you throw a question out into the universe,
you get a response. In January of 2008,
I asked a series of questions for the Carnival of Genealogy. Though my paternal grandmother, Anna, was born
in the United States, all her ancestors were born in the Stolp district of
Pomerania. At the time, because I didn’t
(and still don’t) speak German, finding the information seemed head bangingly
impossible. So, it’s fifteen years later, and guess what? Some of my questions now have answers. I am reposting that January 2008 entry along
with my found answers.
Of Mothers and Daughters and Dinner Parties — Part II
The 41st edition of the Carnival of Genealogy asks the
question: If you could have dinner with four of your ancestors who would they
be and why?
When my great-grandmother, Emma Gleffe Schröder, first set
sail for the United States in 1906, she knew that she would probably never see
her father, brother and sister again. It's not known if Emma's mother, Pauline
Gleffe, was alive at the time of Emma's departure, but in the German letters
that were saved, Pauline is not mentioned.
Emma arrived at Ellis Island with her husband, Leo, and
their two sons, Wilhelm (Willy) and Max, on April 1, 1906. Speaking no English
and being sponsored by Leo's brother-in-law, Karl Kollat, Emma and Leo settled
on the outskirts of Clyde, Ohio. There they found other German-speaking
families, and just as important to Emma, a Lutheran Church that she could walk
to each week, to listen to the German service.
For my second dinner party, I would choose Emma and her
mother, Pauline, as the last two ancestors to share a meal with me. Though I
would love to see the land where Emma grew up and where Pauline lived her life,
I know exactly when and where this dinner party would take place.
There are very few things my grandmother told me about her
mother, Emma. But the one thing she did say was that her mother was a good
cook. My dad has also told me the same thing of the grandmother that he called,
“his buddy.” So I am inviting myself to Sunday dinner at the Schröder house in
Clyde, and Emma and her mother are doing the cooking.
Once they get used to the idea of being together again, I
can imagine the two of them clucking and speaking in German, with my
great-grandmother translating for me. I would be madly scribbling down recipes
and notes and helping with whatever menial chores the two women would assign
me.
I WOULD ASK PAULINE (with Emma translating)
What date were you born?
2 Oct 1849 at Klein Gansen,
Kr. Stolp, Pommern, Prussia (Full Name:
Pauline Albertine Mathilde Gleffe) [i]
What are the names of your parents?
Friedrich Wilhelm Gleffe and
Johanne Helene Wilhelmine Bujack[ii][iii][iv]
What date were they born?
Friedrich Wilhelm Gleffe was
born 20 June 1815 in Klein Gansen, Kr. Stolp, Pommern, Prussia[v]
Johanne Helene Wilhelmine
(she went by Wilhelmine) was born 22 Sept 1819, Klein Gansen, Kr. Stolp,
Pommern, Prussia[vi]
What is your husband's full name and date of birth?
Wilhelm Gottlieb Gliffe DOB: 17 January 1852 Goschen, Kr. Stolp,
Pommern, Prussia[vii]
What are the names of his parents?
Friedrich Gliffe (sometimes
Gleffe) and Henriette Bastubbe[viii]
When and where were you married?
Do you remember your grandparents?
What were there names?
Gottfried Friedrich Gleffe
(he went by Friedrich) and Katharina Anna Zoschke[ix]
Christian Friedrich Bujack
and Dorothea Luise Jahnke[x]
Tell me a story about your grandparents.
Tell me a story about Emma when she was a little girl.
I WOULD ASK EMMA
Who were your paternal grandparents?
Friedrich Gliffe and
Henriette Bastubbe[xi]
What do you remember of them?
What do you miss about your homeland?
Who was Albert Tuschy and how are the Tuschys related to the
Schröder family?
Albert Tuschy was the
brother-in-law to Emma’s husband, Leo Schröder (Schrader in the U.S.) He was married to Leo’s sister
Bertha Eva Adeline.[xii]
Albert acted as informant in
the death of his mother-in-law, Caroline Wilhelmine Quetschke Schröder
(10 April 1895, Gaffert, Kr. Stolp, Pommern, Germany)[xiii]
Albert also acted as informant in the death of his
father-in-law, Wilhelm Heinrich Schröder (4 March 1917, Budow, Kr. Stolp, Pommern,
Germany.)[xiv]
Tell me about your in-laws, Wilhelm and Karoline Quetschke
Schröder.
What was the trip to America like?
What is a favorite memory you have of your mother?
What is a favorite memory you have of your father?
Tell me a story about your daughter Anna as a child.
What is your recipe for your Christmas log roll?
I would give them some private time to talk, to cry and to
laugh. Then later, sometime in the afternoon, Emma's daughter Anna would stop
and drop off her 7-year-old son. For I have chosen to have my dinner party the
exact summer that my father stayed with his grandparents during the week.
[i]
Evangelische Kirche Budow Taufen (Evangelical Chuch of Budow, Baptisms), 1849
No. 121
[ii]
Ibid
[iii] Evangelische
Kirche Budow Taufen, for Augustine Philippine Franziska Maria, 1852 No. 20
[iv]
Ahnenpaß (Ancestral Passport) of
Margarete Gleffe, from the Research of Jörg Glewwe, Nov. 2020
[v] Ibid
[vi] Ibid
[vii] Evangelische
Kirche Budow Taufen, 1852 No. 5
[viii]
Ibid
[ix] Ahnenpaß of Margarete Gleffe, from the
Research of Jörg Glewwe, Nov. 2020
[x] Ibid
[xi] Evangelische Kirche Budow Taufen, 1852 No. 5
[xii] Standesamt
Budow Heiraten (Marriage Record Civil Registry for Budow) , 1887 No. 3
[xiii]
Standesamt Budow Tote (Death Record Civil Registry for Budow), 1895 No. 16
[xiv] Standesamt
Budow Tote, 1917 No. 7
©30 Jan 2008 & revised 1 Dec 2022, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder
Thursday, November 24, 2022
Over the River and Through the Woods - Some Hoy Thanksgivings
The picture below was taken 8 days before Thanksgiving 1916. It is the wedding picture of my maternal grandparents, Frank Eugene Hoy and Katheryne Cecile Lynch. The date was November 22, 1916. I asked my grandmother once where she and grandpa met. She had a twinkle in her eye when she told me it was at a Halloween Party, he was very handsome, and that was all she would say.
My grandparents would go on to have nine children (who would give them 29 grandchildren), but the two of them were such opposites that their divorce seems inevitable, Grandpa was a quiet gentle man, and Katie was, well, Katie. My grandmother was a natural storyteller, who never let anything as inconvenient as facts get in the way of a good story. As a child she seemed bigger than life, with her arms and hands constantly in motion making whatever point she intended. Honestly, she was a little terrifying to a quiet little girl who listened intently to her tales.
Monday, November 14, 2022
Then, with eyes that saw not . . .
Sometimes, I
think, it is good to be reminded that as all encompassing as a personal loss
is, there are those who travel their own path of loss. So, be as kind as humanly possible, but be as
fierce as necessary to protect those people and beliefs you cherish.
Heather,
sweet little one, you are in my thoughts.
The First Snowfall
By James Russell Lowell
The snow had begun in the gloaming,
And busily all the
night
Had been heaping field and highway
With a silence deep
and white.
Every pine and fir and hemlock
Wore ermine too dear
for an earl,
And the poorest twig on the elm-tree
Was ridged inch deep
with pearl.
From sheds new-roofed with Carrara
Came Chanticleer's
muffled crow,
The stiff rails were softened to swan's-down,
And still fluttered
down the snow.
I stood and watched by the window
The noiseless work
of the sky,
And the sudden flurries of snow-birds,
Like brown leaves
whirling by.
I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn
Where a little
headstone stood;
How the flakes were folding it gently,
As did robins the
babes in the wood.
Up spoke our own little Mabel,
Saying,
"Father, who makes it snow?"
And I told of the good All-father
Who cares for us
here below.
Again I looked at the snow-fall,
And thought of the
leaden sky
That arched o'er our first great sorrow,
When that mound was
heaped so high.
I remembered the gradual patience
That fell from that
cloud-like snow,
Flake by flake, healing and hiding
The scar of our
deep-plunged woe.
And again to the child I whispered,
"The snow that
husheth all,
Darling, the merciful Father
Alone can make it
fall!"
Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her;
And she, kissing
back, could not know
That my kiss was given to her sister,
Folded close under
deepening snow.
Thursday, October 27, 2022
Happy Anniversary, Little Sis. I miss you.
My sister had many sparkling qualities. She had a photographic memory, a quick mind, and an ability to know what she wanted in life. And what my sister wanted, more than anything, was to be a wife and a mother, and to someday be a
grandmother. Forty-eight years ago today, she started that journey when she
married the love of her life. Happy Anniversary, little sis. I miss you.
Wednesday, October 26, 2022
Thursday, October 20, 2022
October is National Family History Month
Before you can celebrate Family History Month shouldn’t you at least have a working definition of the term, family? Some define family as those individuals who live or have lived together in one dwelling. Some define family by a minimum number of shared centimorgans. And some use the heart to set the parameters for who is and isn’t family.
Karen Ferry in Make Me Believe wrote, “Family
isn’t whose blood you carry … It’s who you love and who loves you back.”
Fifteen years ago, I struggled with my own definition. Below
is the post I wrote My words were
true then, and they are true now.
(FYI – I no longer am a Grey’s Anatomy aficionado, and the
number of grandchildren has mushroomed from that mere puny four.)
In honor of Family History Month:
For National Family History Month — One Definition of
Family
For someone who professes a great interest in family
history, I have dragged my heels on mentioning the fact that October has been
designated as National Family History Month. As I mentally planned this post, I
intended to link you to some terrific ideas on how to celebrate the month.
Instead, I find myself squirming about writing on the
subject. Preferring instead to put the laptop down, and go foraging for
something to eat, or something interesting to read. Or, when I finally make
myself sit with laptop in hand, I suddenly feel the need to find spoilers for
“Grey's Anatomy,” or a good recipe for crock-pot Chili or googling about any
errant thought that flitters through my brain — anything but writing this post.
The sticking point for me is I'm suddenly self-conscious
about the definition of family. If human beings conducted their lives in a nice
orderly fashion, and if we all lived to be ninety, the concept of family would
be easy. But we don't. We sometimes die in automobile accidents, or get cancer,
or we find the love of our life isn't, or we somehow derail a perfectly good
life for liquor or drugs or lust. I'm not making judgments; I'm stating that
human beings lead messy lives. And these messy lives have consequences, one of
which is that the definition of family gets bruised and muddied.
Is a favored uncle by
marriage who died more than 40 years ago, still part of my family? Is the aunt
of my youth, no longer married to my biological uncle still my aunt? The grade
school project of making a family tree seems innocent and straight forward,
unless you happen to be an adopted child, or a foster child, or child of a
blended family. What tree does that child make? What genealogical chain does he
follow? What family history should she celebrate?
Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao, author of The Family of
Adoption, talks instead of a family tree, a family orchard that
includes as many trees as necessary for an individual's identity. The concept
allows for both biology and reality, for inclusion of nature and nurture. In my
family, it allows the man who adopted my grandfather when he was 10, and whose
last name I carried until I married, to be recognized and honored in our family
orchard. It allows my orchard to include four beautiful grandchildren for whom
I am not grandmother by blood, but rather grandmother by heart. It is a concept
I embrace.
Until Next Time — Happy Ancestral Digging!
Note: This post first published
online, October 11, 2007, at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The Fremont News-Messenger.
Terry
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