When Joost “George” Paak* lost his wife in 1900 and then his mortgaged home in 1902, he must have been distraught and wondered how he would take care of five children. He was a laborer who was not even working at the time of the fire.
I know that he lost a mortgaged home because of the newspaper article (see post links below for the rest of the story) and because the 1900 census shows that he owned a mortgaged home. At that time, he worked as a farm laborer, but had been unemployed 3 months the previous year. I am guessing that this was a hard physical job and if he was sick he wouldn’t be able to work. I also think he had been unemployed for 3 months the previous year because of the winter. So he didn’t have a very stable job. He had immigrated to the United States at age 18 with his family. He was the oldest–he had 4 younger sisters. There was also a young brother who either died in the Netherlands or came here and would probably be known as William. Still checking into this.
In 1908, six years after the fire, George married Addie Amelia Gifford Wilder. This shows up on the 1910 census. At this time, George was listed as Joseph G. Peake (Joost could easily be Joseph or George, I guess), and he now had a stable job as a paper maker at the paper mill. He again owned a mortgaged home and guess where? At 1016 Trimble Avenue, the scene of the fire. So the house was rebuilt. And you know what? It still stands.
The 1920 census shows George still married to Addie. He owned his home free and clear. He was still a laborer for the paper company, earning wages, not salary. And he was 69 years old. Notice no retirement for George at that time!
Paper mills were big business in Kalamazoo, by the way. The city was known as The Paper City. There is a great article published online by the Kalamazoo Public Library. Click the photo of the paper vats to go to the article.
All three censuses show George immigrating to the United States in 1868, although in one of them it looks like 1860. He was naturalized as a citizen in 1891.
What the census does not show is that George married Esther M. Fields in 1906, gaining a 4-year-old stepdaughter, Florence Wilder! But a year and a half after the wedding, Esther died! (Professor Lawrence heard that George might have been married as many as five times, but I do not have the documentation yet on the other two marriages–or the timeline).
In the 1910 census, George’s household includes Addie, Fannie, and George. These are the two youngest Paak children. And the household also includes Esther’s 7-year-old daughter Florence A. Wilder! So George kept her in the household, which must mean she had no other family to take her in. But his own children, Theresa (Tracy) who was 17, Jane who was 20, and Cora who was 22 were not living at home. Theresa, as we know, was living with the Pickards as their perhaps unofficial foster daughter and being sent to boarding school.
Why did Theresa not live at home with her father and stepmother while a stepdaughter of George continued to live there? Maybe after the upheaval in the household after her mother’s death, the fire, and then the death of her first stepmother it was determined it would be better for her to stay with the Pickards permanently?
Professor Lawrence did tell me that he had heard that the children were farmed out to people, especially relatives, after their mother died. But at the time of the fire two years later it seemed that they were living at home with their father. I do wonder if my own great-great-grandmother helped out when her sister-in-law died or after the fire. The clipping about the fire was saved in the family documents, so she (she died 6 years after the fire) or her daughter must have kept it.
Why did Jane who never did marry and lived to be 107 years old (there might be a connection there haha) not live at home? Maybe she had a job and was providing for herself already. Jane lived in a nursing home near the end. In the photo there is a sign for her 100th birthday. I do have a photo of her at her 107th with cake, but she is in bed and obviously not well, so I don’t want to share that one.
Where was Cora? Was she married yet? Her first child might have been born in 1915, although I have not done much research on Theresa’s siblings as of yet. If she wasn’t yet married, I wonder if she and Jane were living together. That would be something to search.
This photo was probably taken in 1925 when George was 76 years old and a happy grandfather. The woman is Cora, his oldest daughter with her son John Rankin. John was not her first child, but the first by her second husband, John Rankin, Sr.
Here is another photo of George with two children. As always, I appreciate any comments about date identification or other important information.
* I’ve changed his surname spelling to the one that my great-great-grandmother used because I see that he did also use that spelling in addition to other spellings.
Here are the other Pake/Paake /Paak //Peek posts:
The Children After the Fire, 1902
George Paak’s Legacy, Part II: Theresa’s Pre-Professional Education
George Paak’s Legacy, Part III: Theresa’s Professional Education
George Paak’s Legacy, Part IV: A Letter to His Daughter
George Paak’s Legacy, Part V: Theresa Gets Married
George Paak’s Legacy, Part VI: Who Were the Pickards
The Family Kalamazoo 
Sounds like you have some research ahead of you – what an interesting story! And the photographs – such family treasures!
I do! It never ceases, but then you know that!
What a hard life for that family, coming back from near extinction. Being farmed out to family members was the social services of yesteryear. My grandmother and her next oldest sister were quite young when their parents died, so one of their older sisters, a successful milliner, raised them for several years — until they were both married. Then the milliner sister, already married, finally went to live with her husband!
Yes, very hard. One blow after another. I am going to have to do a closer census checkup to see if any of the kids show up with other family members. What a story about your grandmother! If she was a successful milliner does that mean education for the girls?
Both completed high school and both married educated men — a Presbyterian minister and a Methodist minister. The milliner sister married a successful farmer. Another sister married a mailman who delivered mail by horse. Yet another sister was farmed out to distant relatives in Florida where she married an orange grower.
Those sound like all success stories! Did your mom write up all this information?
What tragedies your ancestors endured. It’s hard to imagine what effect all that had on the children—losing their mother, their house, the next “mother,: poverty, being separated, etc. I look forward to seeing what else you can find to fill in the lives of the family.
And I did laugh out loud at your comment about living to 107 BECAUSE she didn’t marry. There might be some truth to that (although they say married men live longer than unmarried men).
Right?! You notice that the study only tells us that about men! I suspect it’s the opposite for women!
I keep meaning to switch over to another branch, but the Paaks are so interesting and then I was so lucky to get so much information and so many photos from Professor Lawrence.
But I do have information I haven’t even begun to go through on the Carrie Paak Waruf and Mary Paak Remine families–two of George’s sisters. But I have very very little about Annie, so of course she intrigues me hahaha.
I say follow what interests you. I tend to be so linear and anal about this stuff. If I start a family line, I want to stay with it until I’ve exhausted it. But sometimes like right now I am facing a line of the Schoenthal cousins that is distant and not drawing me in. I want to write about another line, but feel obligated to finish this first. We will see! I usually throw in one off-topic one and then return with more energy to those third and fourth cousins!
There are a lot of benefits to the way you do it. One is that everything is in order to publish in book form. Another is that it’s easier for blog readers. And then you can be more thorough being very systematic. I never have the time to do very much so I grab what I can when I can and sometimes I research something only because I am writing a poem or flash nonfiction piece about that family member.
You’re right. But when I look at Simon Schoenthal who had TEN kids, I start feeling slightly overwhelmed. Do I write about them all? I feel guilty if I don’t!
You could go by generation and circle around that way, I suppose. But I do enjoy the way you are currently working!
Thanks, Luanne. I decided to do the sibling four children first, putting off the one who had ten!
Whew, George sure went through a lot of difficult times. It’s good to know that his marriage to Amelia lasted for many years, and that he was able to rebuild his home and eventually own it free and clear. You did a lot of nice research to pull all of the pieces of this post together.
Thanks, Sheryl. I am glad that he found Amelia and they had many years together with the grandchildren. So interesting I think that the house still stands!
Hello, I love your posts and must set aside some time to read them more closely. May I ask you a question? Would you ever consider travelling to the Netherlands to visit places associated with your ancestors? I’m asking because we run a Bed and Breakfast here in Scotland and hope to appeal to people searching for their family history. Is it important to visit places where your family lived their lives? Thank you and keep up the posts. 🙂
Oh, how interesting. We visited Scotland once and loved it there! The answer is that if it were only up to me I would definitely go, but my husband has celiac disease and it’s hard for him to travel and he isn’t interested in genealogy, so I wouldn’t ask him to go where he might get sick to do something he wouldn’t enjoy.