Part I: Pomerania - An Introduction

In February 1945, as World War II was drawing to a close, the leaders of the Allied “Big Three” — Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill — met in Yalta to discuss, among many things, the realignment of borders after the war. Of the four proposals given for the partitioning of Germany, three of them would have kept the province of Pomerania as part of a partitioned Germany. The fourth proposal, pushed by Stalin and eventually agreed upon, did not.

It is in the province of Pomerania where my German roots lie. Pomerania's northern border is the Baltic Sea. To its west lies the province of Mecklenburg, to the south Brandenburg and to the East, Poland. The part of Pomerania that lies west of the Oder River is known as Vorpommern, while the land to the east is called Hinterpommern. In 1939, at the beginning of World War II, Pomerania was comprised of 32 counties. In German, a county is called a Kreis. The Kreis Stolp was one of the northern most counties, and the second farthest eastern county, and it was this county where my great grandparents, Leo Schröder and Emma Gleffe Schröder, were born.

Their families lived in the southernmost area of the county, very close to the Rummelsburg and Butow counties of Pomerania. Stolp was one of the least populated of the counties and it was dotted with many small villages whose names I now recognize. Names such as Budow, Gross Gansen, Klein Gansen, Wundichow, Gaffert, Muttrin, Klein Nossin, and Nippoglense have become like familiar friends. 

Budow, for example, was the village in which my great grandparents were living when their oldest son Wilhelm, or Willi, was born. The village is mentioned in a document dated 1340 but it is thought to be older than that. Slavs settled first in the area and later Germans moved in and coexisted peacefully with their Slavic neighbors. According to one legend, the village was moved after a particularly devastating plague killed many of the villagers. They shoveled under the old village and rebuilt it in another location not far away. 

While the village was once a part of the Holy Roman Empire, and as such a Catholic village, a local priest by the name of John Stojentin began to follow the doctrine of Martin Luther, and the villagers became Lutherans by default. This did not set well with their Polish neighbors and once, in the early part of the 16th century, Polish raiders came and burnt the village along with the church as the people who had been worshiping watched in horror. The word of the burning of the church spread, and donations from all across the Pommern came, enabling a wonderful new church to be built. 

During the Thirty Years War, once again, the church went up in flames and once again, it was rebuilt. The church burned a third time in September 1815 when a house next to the church caught fire and the straw roof of the house blew onto the wooden roof of the church. The church that was rebuilt this time was the same church in which my great grandparents had their sons Willi and Max baptized in 1903 and 1905, respectively.

In Gross Gansen, where my great-great-grandfather Gleffe lived, the population numbered 362 in 1905. It was this village that Emma and Leo listed as their home on the ship's manifest in March of 1906. The county Stolp, had as its largest city, a city also named Stolp with slightly more than 31,000 people in 1905. A letter from Stolp arrived in Clyde, Ohio in 1908. The language spoken in Pomerania was Plattdüütsch or Low German, which is still spoken in parts of Northern Germany and it is a separate language from High German, the official German language.

An Internet friend from Germany, Jörg Gliewe, translated the letter into High German for me, so that I could get an approximate translation from my online translator. The letter is from Emma's brother Paul and his wife, Bertha. Karl who is also referred to in the letter was Emma's youngest brother, who was 10 years older then his nephew Willi. Below is an approximate translation of the letter: 

Dear brother and sister

We have gotten your letter and the picture. We have always asked if you still think of us. Karl has always talked about Willi. He says he remembers quite well how he and Willi drove to Gross Gansen in the wagon. He was very pleased about the picture. We will also send one. We now have 3 (2 boys and a girl) The smallest boy is 1.5 years old. Dear Sister, write us whether you still want to come back. Or don't you? Or do you think you do (in America) better than in Germany? I like it in Stolp and it is also quite good. I deserve also very beautiful. I am here also in the Steinsetzern. I will make 4 Mark each day. I still learn and I only receive about 6 Mark each day. Then I will be ready. Write us, whether the work is also very difficult and how long you have to work. We work here 10 hours from 6 to 6. Tell us whether you also live in the city or in the countryside. And if you live in the country, do you have cows and pigs and chickens -- Just like here, too? Do you have grain and potatoes? And is it also expensive as here? Or is it cheaper? Write us again exactly how it for you. What else I do not know to write. Now you as well and send us back soon. Karl says to say hi to Willi. He says: Willi should come back again. Now you write to us soon.

Best Greeting Paul and Bertha 

An address directory in 1938 confirms that Paul and Bertha were still living in the city of Stolp at that time. As far as we know, because the letters stopped coming from Germany at the start of World War II, all the remaining family were living in either the city of Stolp or in the villages of Stolp as the Russian Army approached from the East in early March 1945. 

Tomorrow I will continue this series with a look at end of the war and its aftermath. 

Until Next Time - Happy Ancestral Digging! 

Note: At http://pomeranianews.com/pomerania_map.html you will find these maps of interest. Pomerania – Mid 19th Century 

The German Empire – 1871 – 1918

Pomerania – 1938 

At this website, you can see the villages and towns of Stolp. Most of the villages mentioned can be founded at the southern most tip of the map. http://www.stolp.de/images/Stolp-Kreis/Kreiskarten/Kreis-Stolp-72-2.jpg

© 30 April 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

I am a German girl

For many years, I avoided doing research on my German ancestors. As a child I had read such books as, “Diary of Anne Frank,” “Escape from Warsaw,” “Snow Treasure,” and “Mila 18.” 

I remember watching World War II movies as I drowsily fell asleep in the back of our old Chevrolet station wagon at the local drive-in. The lesson from all these books and movies was clear — Germans bad, everybody else good. I consoled myself with the thought that most of my German ancestors had made it to American shores by the end of the 18th century, so I hoped that whatever character flaw allowed the evil of Treblinka, Dachau and Buchenwald to occur, had not yet entered the German gene pool.

But one set of great-grandparents did not make the American voyage until the beginning of the 20th century. They left behind, in the old country, a large family of siblings, parents, aunts, uncles, nephews and nieces. Many of their family, my family, were still alive when the Nazis came to power. With as much trepidation as a child opening an old cellar door, I have opened my own door to my German past. It is an ongoing project, whose treasures are not easily found. 

Tomorrow, inspired by the Carnival of Genealogy's next edition, “A Place Called Home,” I will share with the information about my own German homeland Until Next Time ...

Note this post first published online, April , 2008, at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The News-Messenger Online http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS02

© 29 August 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

My earliest, scariest television moment — a Sunday in November

Cheryl of “Nordic Blue” has started an intriguing meme that asks the question, “What was your earliest, scariest TV moment?” For Cheryl, who like me is a member of the Baby Boom Generation — the first generation to grow up with television — her answer was the very first episode of “The Outer Limits.”

I've been sitting here pondering what my own answer to the question would be. I have a hunch if I could remember back that far, my answer would be seeing Clarabell the Clown, on “The Howdy Doody Show.” I've never liked clowns and to this day just seeing a picture of Clarabell makes my stomach hurt. But I was too young, and the actual memory has long since dissipated. 

I know for years that the annual showing of “The Wizard of Oz” would necessitate my hiding behind the couch when the Wicked Witch of the West appeared calling Dorothy “my pretty.” Really, I hated that show — even though I watched it year after year. The sight of those beautiful ruby red slippers kept me coming back. But if I were to nominate the scariest moment of all, it would have to be what I witnessed on TV at the age of 10.

To this day, I don't know if I witnessed the actual event as it happened, or if I just saw one of the many replays that flooded the television later. All I can say for sure is that when I saw it that very first time, I didn't realize what was actually happening until it was over. At 10, before I had become hardened to the violence that the magic living room box could bring nightly into our home, I was inconsolably horrified.

As I watched unsuspectingly, the Dallas police brought Lee Harvey Oswald, arrested for the assassination of President Kennedy, out through the basement door of the police station. Jack Ruby, a local nightclub owner, stepped up and shot Oswald in the abdomen, on television, in front of a shocked nation. Those three days in November, almost 45 years ago, with the shooting of an American President, and the subsequent shooting of his accused killer two days later, shook the very core of my emotional being. 

It stripped from me that gentle cloak of childhood innocence, and I remember quite clearly thinking if no one could keep a President from being shot and a group of policemen could not keep his killer from being shot, then how safe could anyone, like, say, my father be? Before those three days, I did not run out into traffic, not because I really thought a car would hit me, but because I knew if my parents found out there would be lectures and some sort of punishment.

I didn't accept candy from strangers, not because I feared poison or some pedophilic lure, but because again, I knew my mother would know and again there would be a lecture and punishment. The world became a darker place for me after those three days in November, and I adjusted my life and my thinking accordingly. Did this in some fundamental way change the person I became? I don't know — maybe, probably. But the sight of a real living, breathing man being shot on television certainly was my earliest, scariest TV moment. So, what was it for you? What was your earliest, scariest TV moment?

Note this post first published online, April 24, 2008, at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The News-Messenger Online http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS02

© 24 August 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Pension File Stories: The Mystery of the Missing Bible

Last month, in my first installment of pension file stories, I introduced you to my great great grandparents, Louisa Ish Smathers and Henry Smathers. Their story was a sobering account of life in the aftermath of war. But not all information found in a soldier's pension file requires such somber thought. Sometimes you come across a piece of family history that will cause a smile.

Take the case of the missing family Bible. Henry had several brothers who served with Union forces. Two of those brothers, Reuben and Franklin, served, like Henry, in Company E 53rd Infantry Regiment Ohio. Henry enlisted November 21, 1861, followed by Reuben on January 6, 1862, with Franklin enlisting on February 29, 1864. According to their military records, the brothers were 23, 20, and 18, respectively, on their dates of enlistment. 

Congress passed one of several pension acts in 1907, specifically the Act of February 6, 1907, setting the monthly pension payments for veterans of both the Civil War and the Mexican-American War based on the age of the veteran. At age 62, provided the veteran met the other requirements of this act, he would be entitled to $12 a month, while at 70 the amount increased to $15 and at age 75, the amount topped out at $20 a month. 

On April 1, 1909, Reuben applied for an increase in monthly pension, claiming that he had turned 70 earlier that year in February. One problem — he had stated his age at enlistment as 20 years old in January of 1862. A February birthday would mean that he would have been born in 1841 and therefore was only 68 years old in 1909. According to the pension papers, Reuben's testimony was:

He was born in (the) Month of February in year 1839, and the way I fix the date of my birth is that I voted my first time for Abraham Lincoln for President of the United States in the fall of 1860. There was a family record of my birth but it has long since been lost, and I know of no public record of my birth. Was baptized when quite a small child but am not able to give a record of it as it has been so long ago. It seems that the Officers made a mistake in my age when I enlisted in the Army and I thought it not necessary to ever have it corrected, and can only make affidavit that I am positive I am over 70 years of age. 

The pension board was not content with Reuben's testimony and on April 27, 1909, his brother, Lawson Smathers appeared in neighboring Athens County and testified to Reuben's age. The following statement is found in Reuben's pension file derived from Lawson's (whom the record listed as Losen Smathers) statement. 

He is a Brother of the above named Reuben Smathers, of Co. E. 53rd, Ohio Volunteers Infantry. And that he is the youngest of the Smathers Family and that the family record was left in his care and that his children got hold of it through some means and destroyed the records. And that his brother Reuben Smathers was born in the month of February 1839 in Clarion County, Penn. 

In truth, Reuben probably was not certain himself of his actual age. In the 1850 census, his age is listed as 10. The 1860 census has him as 21. The 1870 census finds him at 28. In the 1880 census, he is listed at 39. The 1900 census shows him at 54 and in his final appearance in a census, he is listed as 71 in 1910. It's interesting to see that he aged 16 years in the 10 years between 1900 and 1910. 

Franklin Smathers, the younger brother, also makes a statement about the family Bible in his application dated October 30, 1915. He states that there is no public or family record that proves his date of birth, which Franklin states was January 20, 1846. 

Affiant further alleges that his brother, Lawson at one time put a sum of money in the family Bible and during the night season the house was burglarized and the said family Bible together with the money was taken and never recovered.

Same brother, same record, different story. Maybe family Bibles were hot commodities for thieves at the turn of the century, but my hunch is that if the Bible had indeed ever existed, the first version of the missing Bible would probably have been closer to the truth. 

Though my goal in poring over page after page of pension file papers is that of finding some vital statistic to add to the family tree, these well-mined anecdotal nuggets are the true reward. They fuel the imagination and add to the “color” of my family portrait. For each unexpected find, I am always delighted and grateful. 

Until Next Time - Happy Ancestral Digging! 

1. Reuben Smathers (Pvt., Co. E, 53rd Ohio Inf., Civil War) pension no. 414111, certificate no. 509149, Case Files of Approved Pension Applications, 1863-1934, Civil War and Later pension files, Dept of Veteran Affairs National Archives, Washington D.C. 

2. Franklin Smathers (Pvt., Co. E, 53rd Ohio Inf., Civil War) pension no. 896663, certificate no. 676404, Case Files of Approved Pension Applications, 1864-1934; Civil War and Later pension Files; Dept of Veteran Affairs National Archives, Washington, D.C. 

3. 1850 US Federal Census, State of Pennsylvania, Clarion County, Madison Township, v 1319, Head of Household, Jacob Smathers, online digital image, Ancestry.com.

4. 1860 US Federal Census, State of Ohio, Vinton County, Clinton Township, v 498, Head of Household, Jacob Smathers, online digital image, Ancestry.com. 

5. 1870 US Federal Census, State of Ohio, Jackson County, Milton Township, v 238, Head of Household, Reuben Smathers, online digital image, Ancestry.com.

6. 1880 US Federal Census, State of Ohio, Jackson County, Milton Township, v 284, Head of Household, Reuben Smathers, online digital image, Ancestry.com. 

7. 1900 US Federal Census, State of Ohio, Jackson County, Madison Township, v 90, Head of Household, Reuben, Smathers, online digital image, Ancestry.com. 

8. 1910 US Federal Census, State of Ohio, Jackson County, Madison Township, v113, Head of Household, Ruben (sic) Smathers, online digital image, Ancestry.com. 

Note this post first published online, April 22, 2008, at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The News-Messenger Online http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS02

© 22 April 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Genealogy Quick Notes — The COG has arrived and Desktop Genealogist Archives

Carnival of Genealogy

The Carnival of Genealogy has arrived. The focus of this edition is inherited family traits. To check out the interesting variety of traits each of the genea-bloggers highlighted, go to http://creativegene.blogspot.com/2008/04/carnival-of-genealogy-46th-edition.html. The subject for the next edition is A Place Called Home.

Archives

If you read this blog on any kind of a regular basis, you've probably picked up on the fact that one of my frustrations is that there ARE NO ARCHIVES, so to speak. So rather than continuing my sniffling whine on the subject, I slapped myself on both cheeks and said to myself, “SELF, DO SOMETHING!” So I did.

I've set up a separate blog site specifically for archives of “Desktop Genealogist.” It's called “Desktop Genealogist Unplugged.” (I know, but I only told myself to do something. I forgot to order myself to be creative & original.) For now, it's strictly for archives and my plan is to update the site the first of every month with the previous month's posts.

The advantage of having archives is I can refer back to previous posts when necessary. I have some posts in mind in the next few weeks that may take advantage of this new capability. I didn't want anyone who clicked on a link to the archives to get excited, realize that they weren't in Kansas anymore (read The News-Messenger Web site), and think that their computer had been taken over by aliens, a malicious virus, or candid camera.

I haven't finished labeling the posts, and inexplicably I am missing seven of the darn things, so I am going back to figure out which posts I missed. This blog remains my main mode of communication, and therefore, I won't be posting anything new on the archived site. If that situation should change, I will let you know.

I have not corrected or rewritten any of the original posts. I figured if I started doing that I would be spending all my time working on old material, instead of researching and/or posting new stuff. I do confess, that I did change one word in one post, mainly because I think I made the word up out of thin air. And no, I'm not telling which word or which post!

The web address for the archive is http://desktopgenealogistunplugged.blogspot.com/.

Until Next Time — Happy Ancestral Digging!

Note: If you aren't reading Desktop Genealogist Forums you should be! Sandi posted that the following website has FREE access to Civil War databases until April 30!
The web address is http://alexanderstreet.com/resources/civilwar.access.htm. Way Cool, Sandi! Thanks for keeping us updated!

Note this post first published online, April 21 , 2008, at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The News-Messenger Online http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS02

Genealogy Quick Notes - Veterans of Different Wars

I didn't intend this week's “Genealogy Quick Notes” to be strictly about veterans, but a Where Were You Carnival, a comment, and a well-written blog post by another author have conspired to make it the topic of the week. 

Where Were You Carnival GenLady has posted this month's “Where Were You” Carnival at http://www.genlady.com/2008/04/11/where-were-youduring-the-civil-war/. The subject of the posts is “Where Were You (or in this case, your ancestors) during the Civil War.” Seven authors responded to the challenge. 

Next month's subject — Pearl Harbor. The Wall Dawn left a comment on the forum section of Desktop Genealogist that Footnote.com has placed what they are calling an “Interactive Vietnam War Veterans Memorial” 

You can search for specific names that appear on the wall, leave stories or perhaps a tribute. Footnote has made this part of their database free. Nice job Footnote! And nice job Dawn!

And Finally, a Touching Post

I love this post written by Lee Drew at “FamHist Blog.” In “I Met a Veteran Today” he writes — well, any description I give won't do it justice so you'll just have to go read it for yourself! You can read it here:s 

Until Next Time - Happy Ancestral Digging! 

Note this post first published online, April 16, 2008, at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The News-Messenger Online http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS02

© 16 April 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

My Toxic Effect

I toss my laptop over to my husband to read my “This Little Piggy” post to get his reaction. I watch as he reads it and see him smirk approvingly several times. 

“Is it okay?” I ask. 

 “Yup.” 

“You think it's funny, right?” 

 “Yup,” he says as he walks out of our living room into the kitchen. 

“You don't think it's too weird, um, talking about my feet do you?” 

Silence. Dead silence. I get up, run out to the kitchen, and catch him deep in thought. 

Finally, “Well, I think it's funny, but then I've been living with your sense of humor for a while.”

Holy cow, my humor is so warped that I've killed my favorite love's sense of what is and isn't funny. Be afraid, dear reader, be very afraid. 

Note this post first published online, April 15, 2008, at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The News-Messenger Online http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS02

© 15 April 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder