Let’s take a little break from Theresa’s story this week. We can return to it next week.
Another branch of the family that I have not yet spent any time investigating begins with Richard DeKorn’s other sister Mary. His sister Jennie is the one who married John Culver, had two little girls, and took off for Seattle. It wasn’t until Joyce sent me the photo album that I began to learn more about that branch. But Richard’s other sister, the one who stayed put in Kalamazoo, I still haven’t spent any time with.
Mary DeKorn DeSmit
Mary died at age 98, two years before I was born. Maria Catharina de Korne was born on 4 Jan 1855 in Kapelle, Zeeland, the Netherlands. Mary married John DeSmit in Kalamazoo in 1873 and they had seven children–3 boys and 4 girls. That means that there are a lot of children to investigate. I wonder how many of their descendents are living in the Kalamazoo area.
In order to begin researching the DeSmits, I looked through my documents to see if I already had anything, and I discovered a wedding invitation from 1899. It amazes me how much it resembles a contemporary wedding invitation. It lists the names of the bride (Nellie) and groom (John) and her parents, although not his parents. The place is a residence with an address. I don’t know the connection of the location to the bride and groom.
The wedding was on Thursday evening, which seems like an odd time to me. Also, I wonder if it wasn’t the residence of the bride’s parents because perhaps they weren’t from Kalamazoo? Or perhaps their home wasn’t large enough? I wonder why the bride has a different last name, Squares, from her parents, Ver Sluis.
I found a newspaper announcement which lists Nellie’s surname as Squires, which makes more sense, but wouldn’t the printed wedding announcement be correct? Also, the newspaper lists John’s home as Battle Creek and Nellie’s as Kalamazoo.
But what is the bigger mystery is this. I show that a John DeSmit, the son of Mary and her husband John, and born approximately June 1877, was married to a woman named Margaret. The age would be right for John to be marrying in 1899, as he was 21 or 22. But who was Margaret?
On closer examination of the 1900 census, I see that John was listed as 22, living at home with his parents and siblings, and already a widower! Poor Nellie?! It seems that Margaret was a second wife, later in John’s life.
You can see that this invitation brings up more questions than I had to begin with, but it does give me some information to pursue. The next thing I went to check out was the address listed: 702 East First Street, Kalamazoo, Michigan. According to Google Maps, it doesn’t exist.
BIG SIGH.
The Family Kalamazoo 
I love a good puzzle! Keep writing!
Haha! Ruth, I do, too! Thanks for stopping by!
I puzzled out where a house was recently by using a little-known resource, at least to me, called the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps. The house is still standing! And just last night, I found another house in the same town that the same people lived in 40 years earlier, just by googling it *one more time*. There’s a photo and a historical paper written about the origins of the house! Try the Sanborn maps – there might be one for your town.
All those questions – I loooove old documents.
Me too!
I also thought an actual wedding invitation should be correct. But I found my grandparents invitation listed my grandfather as Zackaria. ALL other documents list him as Zachory. And by other documents I mean very very many. My thought, printers error and too costly to redo.
At first I thought that it had to be a newspaper error, but I am coming around to this opinion, too, that they might even have gotten a discount on the invitations because of the error. Or perhaps it was their own fault for some reason. Thanks, Mary! There is a big different between Zackaria and Zachory!
Well, what fun would it be if you started work on someone, and 15 minutes later you were done! *g* Don’t we all love a big challenge or mystery? Best of luck to you, and please post about her again. I am waiting to hear
Hah, so true. There would be no challenge at all in that. Very boring. I hope to find out a lot more about this branch of the family and will post my findings in the future! Thanks for stopping by!
What a great find! And I love how you figured it out. By the way, did you know that for Orthodox Jews, Thursday is a very popular day to get married? (I don’t remember why.) I realize these people were not Jewish, but maybe there was once a wider population that liked Thursdays?
Amy, this is so interesting. I did know that, but had forgotten it. And after reading the post and your comment I had a message from a genealogist who told me that Catholics would marry on a Thursday for the purpose of the 25th wedding anniversary turning out to be a Sunday. I love learning cultural tidbits like that!
Interesting! I am not sure what is so magical about Thursdays, though in Israel Friday is like Saturday here since it’s the day before the Sabbath. So I guess having a wedding on Thursday makes sense—no work the next day. Can’t do it Friday night, and for much of the year, Saturday night would mean a very late start. And there is work on Sunday anyway.
But not sure why Orthodox Jews would do that here when Sunday is a perfectly reasonable alternative!
Luanne,
This post was very timely for me. Our son Drew is engaged, and the date was set yesterday for April 25, 2015. So we are very excited!!
And the sight of the wedding invitation in your post today was fascinating – it is truly amazing how similar this one was to the ones today!
You are the best detective I know…
I miss getting my email notices of your posts!!
Have a great Sunday!
Congrats to you and Teresa and to Drew too! I hope to hear more about the wedding on your blog! Will Red be invited?
Definitely not the best detective at all, but this blog is a good magnet for information!!
It’s amazing how many questions are generated by this simple invitation. I’m looking forward to future posts about what you learn.
There will be updates soon!
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First street ran between Mill street and Kings Highway, over the years the names were changed, my Aunt use to live on Second which is still there.
Thanks, Paula! You have so much knowledge about Kalamazoo!
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