At the end of this post, I wrote an update.
Instead of griping about not having time to do genealogy research, I’ve decided to change my attitude. I am so blessed with so many old family photos, that my time is best spent right now trying to identify the photos!
Today’s photo is labelled, but it still presents a few problems. The date is 1951. I don’t know the location, but believe that the location is probably in southwest Michigan. The names are Cora, Fred, Godfrey, Anna.
Godrey has to be Gottfried Waldeck (Jr), born 18 December 1880 somewhere in “Germany”–most likely Prussia. He was married to Anna Christine Ruehs. She was born 2 December 1882 (same birthday as my mom!). My mother knew them as Uncle Godfrey and Aunt Anna. I’ve written about him before–how he drove his tractor down the block to work in his fields when he was blind. How I saw him do just that.
I asked Mom, and she confirmed that the two on our right are definitely Uncle Godfrey and Aunt Anna.
I like the photo without the orange a bit better.
But who are Cora and Fred? Godfrey had a brother, Fred. He’s the one who lived at the state hospital. He had brain damage from a terrible accident that happened when he was young and newly married with a young child. Fred was born in 1869 and died in 1953, so he would have been 81 in 1951. You can read more about him at Waldeck Family Research. This man does look the right age, but would he have been in good shape like this? Dressed up in a nice suit and tie?
Take a look at this photo of one of the old Kalamazoo State Hospital photos. It could be the building behind them.
Here is the family photo that includes Fred as a young man. Fred is back row, left side. Godfrey is front row, right side.
I am hoping that I can get verification that this is, indeed, Fred Waldeck who lived at the State Hospital. In comparing the younger Fred to the older Fred in the photos, I do think it is the same person.
If I could find out who Cora was that would be even more amazing!
UPDATE:
Thanks to Linda Stufflebean from http://www.emptybranchesonthefamilytree.com/ I was able to put together the pieces of who is in the photo and who is probably holding the camera.
All along I have been imagining Fred as abandoned at the “asylum” all those years. After all, his son was still almost a baby when Fred was injured. His wife Caroline Meir had to work for a farmer and leave her son Edward with her mother in Grand Rapids. Eventually she became a nurse and lived with her mother and with Edward. Caroline probably worked very hard her whole life and raised Edward to become a pastor. She passed away in 1946.
This new “find,” the photo identified as Cora, Fred, Godrey, and Anna, 1951, shows that the family visited Fred. Cora is Fred’s daughter-in-law, the wife of Edward who must be taking the photograph. So on this day in 1951, Fred’s son and daughter-in-law, and his only surviving brother, Godfrey, and Godfrey’s wife Anna visited Fred who was dressed up in a suit and tie for the occasion. The only close family members not in the photograph, in fact, are my great-grandparents, Clara and Charles Mulder. Clara was Fred’s only surviving sister by 1951.
Little tidbit of info: Fred was to die less than two years later, in January 1953. Clara died mere months after her brother, on 6 September 1953.
The Family Kalamazoo 
I think you are right and it is Fred, based on the younger photo. He appears to have deeply set eyes, giving the appearance of shading to his eyebrows. The older man’s head is at almost the same angle and has the same shading effect.The shape of his head is also similar. Could his brain damage have improved over time? The woman next to him is quite a bit younger. Could that be his daughter?
Linda, thank you so much for two big things here. One is observing the details of Fred’s face and head to see he does look like the same person. Two is that Cora does look a lot younger. No, she is not his daughter as he only had one son before his injury, but it does give me the idea to search that generation for children of Fred’s siblings. Going to do that now!
GOT IT!!!!!!!!!! Thank you, Linda! It isn’t a niece at all, but his daughter-in-law!!!!!!!
I wouldn’t be put off by the suit and tie. Perhaps they were going on some outing and dressed him up. I assume Cora was not his wife?
No, but thanks to Linda (previous comment), I did a quick bit of research and Cora is Fred’s daughter-in-law, wife to Edward, the minister! I imagine Edward was taking the photograph!
I’ve looked at more photos of the State Hospital and the windows look like a match to me. And I definitely think the brow ridge is the same on the young and old man.
Thank you so much! I just this moment published this post updated because not only does he appear to be a match, but thanks to a commenter I realized who Cora is–Fred’s daughter-in-law! Isn’t the blogging community great?!
So glad you solved this! I was thinking a daughter or niece when I looked at it, but wasn’t sure she was that much younger. Good for Linda!
As soon as she asked about a daughter it kind of clicked in my foggy brain that she was someone from that generation, never dreaming she was a DIL!
It was nice to know that the family visited Fred. I hope more than just this once! But I assume so since Edward must have been visiting him throughout his childhood to be visiting at this point. Had his mother died by 1951?
Yes, his mother died in 1946. I agree that he must have been visiting all along!
I’m so glad you solved they mystery. It would be interesting to know what “brain damage” actually meant — loss of memory? Seizures? Episodes of aggression? Loss of motor skills? It covers a range of possibilities.
I know! It seems as if his body must have been quite healthy for him to live for 53 years at the State Hospital! So what did brain damage mean? I am guessing he might have been childlike, that he couldn’t take care of himself without a lot of help. But, you’re right: we just don’t know for sure.
I probably located a friend’s ancestor in a state hospital but passed it back at that point. Because of privacy laws, one must be a direct descendant to request documents even those that go way back to the turn of the century. The last one.
Oh, that’s a shame. The only record I found for Fred was, eventually, his death certificate with the wrong spelling of the last name.
Glad you solved the Cora mystery. 🙂
Thanks to you, Linda!!!
Fred does appear to be in remarkable shape, and I love that family members came to visit him there!
Great photo – great find, Luanne.
Isn’t it amazing how one lil photo changes a whole look at someone’s history?!
Yes – it really is!!
Sounds like the mystery is solved. I too think it is Fred – brow of the face is the same. They are probably taking him out to something special. Sad to think he was normal and then an accident halted his life as he knew it. ~ Sharon
And what it did to his young wife and baby boy, too. It affected them all so much, I can only imagine.
Good job, Luanne! I’d say you’ve solved it.
I think so, but only with Linda’s help. As usual, my brain didn’t wiggle around enough to think of more ways to research until I read what she wrote!
How fabulous to know that you have solved the mystery. It says something of the character of Fred’s wife and son, that he was still very much a part of their lives and not “abandoned” in the asylum.
I agree. It makes me feel so much better for Fred, although the whole thing is such a tragedy for the three of them: Fred, his wife, and his son. And I imagine there was residual damage that even Cora, Edward’s wife, felt.
Excellent
🙂
Yep, you are VERY lucky to have family photos (I’m sort of jealous) And eventually solving mysteries is the BEST! Congrats!
I am so surprised that so many photos keep showing up! I don’t think my family realized how many they had!!! Thank you so much!
Fantastic you solved this! One less brick wall.. and lots more to solve, I guess 🙂
LOL, you are SO right!!!! It’s unending, isn’t it?!
Kudos to Linda for helping you solve your mystery.
Yay to Linda! I couldn’t think in the right direction until I read what she wrote. Then it clicked. It was her saying that Cora looked so much younger!
You are lucky to have these photos, and Fred was lucky his family visited him and kept him “in the loop” as they say. When we say “state hospital” we always have grim pictures in our minds, but this was probably more akin to a long-term nursing home. He obviously got excellent care.
I sure wish they had bothered to spell his surname correctly on his death certificate. That gave me the idea they didn’t take very good care of him. Still, he couldn’t have lived over 50 years there if the care was terrible.
My grandfather also suffered brain damage after being hit by a streetcar in 1922. He had seizures and sometimes when he was out walking, he would stop and stare and roll his eyes. Then he would come out of it and go home. One time he called his mother-in-law to look at how beautiful his garden was and how in five days they would have all the beans they could eat and enough for their neighbors too, but she said there was nothing out there but weeds and a few radishes, but he saw them alright. The doctor told my grandmother that he should be institutionalized not only for his care, but because if anything happened in the neighborhood, people would blame him, so she had him admitted to Elgin State Hospital (Illinois). At some point, she tried bringing him back home hoping to care for him there, but it proved to be too much and he returned to Elgin State Hospital, where he remained until his death in 1942. As for the suit and tie, that was normal dress back in those days (look at all the old pictures of people going to a ballgame or even on a picnic and it was suitcoats, ties, and hats for the men and dresses, hats and gloves for the ladies). I have pictures of my grandfather while on the hospital grounds wearing a suit and tie when my grandmother and their two daughters visited him.
Glad you were able to figure out the connection between the folks in the photo.
Wow, Barb, what a parallel story. It must have been so difficult to see him being almost himself and having to be at the state hospital and then jarring when he acted oddly. How sad for him and for your grandmother and the rest of the family.
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