Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Caledonia Michigan history’ Category

2020 Fill in the Gaps Project: What Information Am I Missing on Charles Mulder?

Posted in Caledonia Michigan history, Family History, Genealogy, Kent County history, Michigan history, Mulder, Netherlands history, tagged , , , , , , , on February 19, 2020| 19 Comments »

Last maternal great-grandparent: Charles Mulder of Caledonia, Michigan. He was the only great-grandparent I knew–and I adored him.

Luanne and her great-grandfather Charles Mulder

Charles was born Karel Pieter Phillipus Mulder on 6 March 1885 in Goes, Zeeland, Netherlands. On my Ancestry page for Charles, I had posted a link to his birth record, but had not downloaded it. I now downloaded it, added it to his Ancestry page, and put it into a folder for all of his documents.

Amberly is helping me with his naturalization info. I do have a ship record (the Zandaam), so I know two-year-old Charles arrived in the U.S. with his parents and his brother Jan, a baby of one. Jan died very soon after the family immigrated.

In fact, I made the Charles folder because I had not yet done so. To that folder, I added his marriage record, death record, and all the census records that feature Charles: 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1940. I also downloaded and added his military registrations for both WWI and WWII.

I was surprised to see that Charles had a social security number. For the sake of dotting all the Is and all that, I ordered  his application.

Charles and his wife Clara share a headstone, and I have that photograph. I added it to Ancestry and to the new folder.

I found that I had a copy of Charles’ obituary, so I added it to Ancestry and to the folder on my computer.

Reading over my great-grandfather’s obituary I was shocked to see he only lived to be 82 years old. I was about 12 when he passed away, and I remember feeling frustrated that I was not allowed to attend his funeral since I adored him. But I thought he was about  a zillion years old. No, he was elderly, but only 82. That doesn’t even seem old to me today.

Once again, I had sponsored my great-grandfather’s page on Findagrave, but am not managing it. I have submitted a request to transfer management to me, but I suspect as with the others I have mentioned before, that I have asked in the past and been ignored. We will see what happens.

 

###

I’ll be taking a little blog break for a couple of weeks. Hope all is well with you and yours. I also hope that when I begin the search for gaps in my great-greats I don’t get too discouraged!

 

Read Full Post »

2020 Fill in the Gaps Project: My Great-Grandmother Clara Waldeck Mulder

Posted in Caledonia Michigan history, Family History, Genealogy, Kent County history, Michigan history, Mulder, Waldeck, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 22, 2020| 26 Comments »

Both my maternal great-grandmothers were born in the United States, but their husbands, my great-grandfathers, were immigrants. First I will discuss my maternal grandmother’s mother, Clara Waldeck Mulder.

I lack a birth record for Clara. Michigan did not insist on birth records for many years, so my inability to find anything about her birth could be a victim of that bureaucratic lapse. Because I don’t have a birth record I do not know for sure if she even had a middle name. Her death record says NONE for middle name.

Clara’s married name, Clara Mulder, is extremely common in Michigan. Mulder is a Dutch name akin to the English Miller. Her parents and all siblings were Prussian immigrants, but she took on her husband’s Dutch name when she got married.

I’ve posted quite a bit about Clara. You can read more about Clara at My Great-Grandmother’s Lifetime of Service.

Clara was a farm wife, which is a sort of business person, and so she did not have a job which earns a salary. Since Social Security was instituted in 1935, when she was 51, she might have gotten a social security number if she had needed it for work. I do not believe she ever got her social security number. That is unfortunate because she might have applied with her place of birth (the town) and a middle name.

I already have her death certificate, which I have posted in the past, and census reports for 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1940. There is no 1890 census, so my records for the census are complete for Clara. I did sponsor Clara’s page at Findagrave, but I do not manage the profile, as I do for Grandma and Grandpa. I also have Clara’s obituary (see the link above for the obit) and her headstone, which she shares with her husband–but I did not have these items loaded to my Ancestry account. I remedied that problem.

While I would love to find more information on Clara, I really could not add anything at this point, so I decided to request to manage Clara’s profile on Findagrave as my weekly task.

Clara is the third ancestor whose records I have combed for gaps, and I have updated my Ancestry records. However, I still have not transferred these records to another tree OR cleaned up my computer files for these individuals. Going to take the opportunity of a light job here to go do that! Hope the rest of your week goes very well!

Clara and Charles Mulder

50th wedding anniversary

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

2020 Fill in the Gaps Project: My Maternal Grandmother

Posted in Caledonia Michigan history, Family History, Genealogy, Kalamazoo history, Kalamazoo late 1800s - early 1900s, Kent County history, Lucille Edna Mulder Zuidweg, Michigan history, Mulder, Zuidweg, tagged , , , , , , , on January 15, 2020| 33 Comments »

Next up is Lucille Edna Mulder Zuidweg, my maternal grandmother. If you do a search for her under her maiden name (Mulder as Zuidweg is her married surname), you will find many blog posts about her, especially about her school years. I figured I had most everything available about Grandma, or Edna as she was known, but when I worked on Grandpa’s documents last week I discovered I did not have their marriage application or license. I was able to order it from St. Joseph County, Indiana, and it arrived in time for this post.

Here are their applications:

When it asks for Grandpa’s father’s name what does it say? I can’t make it out. UPDATE: with a little help from readers I now believe it says deceased. I do know grandpa‘s father‘s name was Adrian Zuidweg and Grandpa was a junior.


My mother says the reason her parents got married in Indiana is that it was much quicker and easier to get a license there than in Michigan. Also, Grandpa’s mother was dying, and Grandma needed to help take care of her. Them being married made that easier, and it certainly wasn’t a time for a wedding celebration.

This is the license:

I also found that I did not have Grandma’s birth certificate. I ordered it from Kent County, Michigan, and when it arrived, I realized that Wayne Loney, the Kalamazoo genealogist had been right about these old birth records. County just typed up the info they had, put a seal on it, and charged me. It doesn’t even have the location of her birth.

And guess what? I didn’t have Grandma’s obituary either! So here it is, thanks to the Kalamazoo Public Library:

 

I love how the obituary mentions how she used to say, “Let’s go!” Hah, so true. She also loved to sing along to Ethel Merman, but I doubt too many family members know that. She used to babysit me every day after kindergarten (and the year before that, too), so I’m sure her bashful personality felt more comfortable singing with a five-year-old than adults. She also used to sing folk songs to me, and every once in a while do a few dance steps to make me giggle.

I have treasures that belonged to Grandma and photos of her. I have the 1920, 30, and 40 census records. I have a photo of the headstone she shares with Grandpa at Mount Ever-Rest Cemetery. And I sponsored a page for her at Find-a-Grave, just as I did for Grandpa.

My grandparents–at least as the older and then elderly people I knew–had exceptionally cute personalities. I think everybody who knew them would agree with that!

Read Full Post »

A Mulder Anniversary Photo

Posted in Caledonia Michigan history, Family History, Genealogy, Michigan history, Mulder, Photography early 20th century, Waldeck, tagged , , , , , , , on July 10, 2019| 23 Comments »

Nothing beats a genealogy blog for finding family members! I’ve met two cousins–or rather my mother and their father are first cousins. Grandma’s sister Dorothy was their grandmother. Does that make us 2nd cousins? Please don’t tell me to go check out the chart . . . .

These cousins came bearing photographs, and that makes me doubly happy.

Today I will post the first one.

My new cousins and I share the same great-grandparents: Charles and Clara (Waldeck) Mulder. I’ve written about them many times, but here is a photo I have never seen before.

Charles and Clara were married on 30 April 1910 in Hastings, Michigan. This photo was first identified (to me)  as their 50th anniversary photo, but on closer inspection, I am guessing maybe 40th. Her dress is more fitting for 1950, and since she died in 1953, the photo was taken before then.

This photo feels very special to me because it’s the first one where I have seen them together since they were young with young children–or since their wedding portrait.

Here is their marriage record—first the cropped portion.  I will post the whole page at the bottom.

 

 

Doesn’t it look like her name is recorded as Cora? I know this is their record because of the names of their parents. I was surprised by a couple of things. One is that they were married in Hastings. I believe Charles’ brother’s family lived in Hastings and perhaps his family still does. I was surprised that my great-grandfather was a machinist and that Clara was a bookkeeper.

So I went to the 1910 census. Wow, another surprise. They were both boarders at a home in Hastings, which is in Barry County. Charles was a machinist for a car seal factory. The head of household was the married man Otto Jahnke, a German immigrant. He was also a machinist at the same factory. Otto’s wife Mildred was a homemaker. Single Clara was a bookkeeper for a book case factory.

Another surprise was that they were married in a Presbyterian church. Great-grandpa came from the Reformed tradition, and Great-grandma from the Lutheran. Neither church was in Hastings at the time. Presbyterian doctrine is very similar to Reformed. They both sprang from Calvinism.

I can’t read the pastor’s last name.

What in the world was a “car seal” in 1910?

 

Read Full Post »

Out of Our Minds

Posted in Adrian Zuidweg, Caledonia Michigan history, Family History, Genealogy, Kalamazoo history, Kalamazoo mid 20th century, Lucille Edna Mulder Zuidweg, Michigan history, Mulder, Zuidweg, tagged , , , , , , on June 5, 2019| 27 Comments »

I’ve written quite a bit about my Kalamazoo grandmother, (Lucille) Edna Mulder Zuidweg. I’ve posted her high school graduation information, about her time at Western Normal School (now Western Michigan University), about her marriage to my grandfather, Adrian Zuidweg.

In my big organization-and-shred project I found something that I love. Grandma wrote me a letter when I was a grad student. She and I had had a phone conversation about how she wanted me to never give up creative writing because she had done so and regretted it. Grandma and I had a love of writing in common.

So she found a newspaper clipping and sent it to me in this letter. Note that we have “cleaning out the desk” in common, too haha.

I sure did love her stories. And Grandpa’s stories, too. I am positive that their storytelling is what inspired me to write poetry and stories.

###

Yes, I said FREE!!!! Deadline Sunday, June 9, 2019

I have exciting news for anybody with old photos like mine that you would like to see colorized. To celebrate her blog’s second anniversary, Val at Colouring the Past is offering a FREE photo colorization with a very minimal “catch” (I can’t even really call it a catch). Go check out her post where she tells about it.

Click here.

Be sure to get over there right now so that you don’t miss the deadline!

You might have seen some of the gorgeous work she’s done for me. Here’s a sample:

Read Full Post »

Family Photos

Posted in Caledonia Michigan history, Family History, Genealogy, Kalamazoo history, Kent County history, Michigan history, Mulder, Photography early 20th century, Zuidweg, tagged , , , , , , , on May 1, 2019| 25 Comments »

Although this photo is a bit blurry because of the dog jumping, it is a photo of my mom in front of her house on Burdick Street with the family dog. I can see the Richard DeKorn brick house down at the next corner and a car in front of it. I wonder what year that car is or how old Mom is here. Is the dog Sandy or a dog that preceded Sandy? I only ask because I knew Sandy, and when I was very young, was bit by that @#%^ dog.  (I love dogs anyway).

Here are a few photos (early 1940s) of my mother, Janet Zuidweg, with her little sister, Alice Zuidweg.  The first one seems to be taken at a park that is riverside or creekside.

 

 

The second photo shows the girls at their grandparents’ (Charles and Clara Mulder) farm in Caledonia, Michigan.


In this one, the girls seem to be near a back door. Is this at the farm or elsewhere? Mom! Uncle Don! Help!

Love Mom’s saggy socks in this last one!

P.S. to Mom: maybe you can show this post to Aunt Alice!

Read Full Post »

Mulder Family Reunion Photo–IDENTIFICATIONS!

Posted in Caledonia Michigan history, Family History, Genealogy, Kent County history, Michigan history, Mulder, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 13, 2019| 18 Comments »

Awhile back I posted a photograph of the Mulder family reunion in SW Michigan. I’m pretty sure the date is around 1940, based on the ages of the identified people in the photograph.

Between Mom, cousin Susie, Uncle Don, and cousin Merry we have many of the people, but definitely not all, identified.

The couple on our right, Mom thought could be Jack and Josie (John Lawson Gerow, Jr. and Josephine Ann Slinsky Gerow–Jack was the son of John Gerow and Cora Mulder, great-grandpa’s sister), but Susie says no. NEW INFO: Niki, daughter of Jack and Josie, says this is not her parents, but it could be her aunt and uncle, Eleanor and Lloyd West.

Some of the individuals are not clearly seen so we can’t do much with those. What seems clear is that certain family groups were present and others were not. For instance, Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Con and their children don’t seem to be in the photo. This helps because if we see children we can be pretty sure their parents are in the photo–and vice versa.

Here is the Mulder family photo that would have come before this family group. In the center is Pieter/Peter Mulder and his wife, Nellie Gorsse. Nellie died in 1932, 8 years before the reunion photo, but Peter was alive until 1953 and is in the photo, in the center, wearing a hat.

In the back row are Peter, Cora, and Henry. Peter was the husband of Alida Van Elk, who is identified in the reunion photo. Their children included Rod, born 1923, and the twins Bob and Bill. I believe all 3 boys are in the photo and I have labelled the twins.

Cora married John Gerow, and they had five children (I think): Ruth, Eleanor, George, John/Jack, Marian. Jack was born in 1918, so I think it’s unlikely that the man on the right is Jack (as Susie also says) because he looks older than 21. Possibly the Gerows are not in the photo. NEW INFO: Unless, of course, that couple is Eleanor (Gerow) and Lloyd West.

Henry married Hettie Mae Simpson, and they had Eloise Fern, James, Mary Ellen, and Judith. Because Mae and Jim, Mary Ellen, and Judy were identified by Merry in the reunion photo, I wanted to believe that Henry and Eloise/Fern are also in the photo, but Merry cannot find them. Mary Ellen and Judy are the two teen girls kneeling on the right side of the photo. Jim is the boy in front of Uncle Chuck, seated on the left side of the photo.

In the front row, the girl with the glasses on our left is Nellie who was mentally challenged. She was still living at home in 1930, but I am not sure where she lived after the death of her mother in 1932. There is a woman in the reunion photo who appears to be wearing dark glasses who is seated directly behind the little blonde girl (Joann) that could be Nellie–or could be someone else.

Then there is Jennie who married Edward Kooistra or Koistra. They had a son, Karl. I know very little about this branch and don’t know if they are in the reunion photo or not.

On the other side of Nellie, is her oldest child, my great-grandfather, Charles Mulder. He and his wife Clara had five children, and I see four of the five in the photo, along with their families. It is her oldest, Dorothy, that I do not see.

Rose (Rosa) is on the other side of Great-Grandpa. She married John Kohles, and they had at least one child, Leonard, but she died in 1936.

 

Read Full Post »

Six-Week Family History & Poetry Series at BROAD STREET MAGAZINE

Posted in Caledonia Michigan history, family heirloom, Family History, Genealogy, Kalamazoo history, Kalamazoo late 1800s - early 1900s, Kalamazoo mid 20th century, Kent County history, Kin Types, Michigan history, Netherlands history, Photography late 19th century, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on October 26, 2018| 29 Comments »

The different ways that family history and genealogy intersect with other aspects of the culture is growing. But I think this project might be a first for family history.

Broad Street Magazine, which publishes nonfiction narratives in a variety of genres, has begun a six-week series of feature articles on six poems from my family history poetry and flash prose chapbook Kin Types. Each article publishes one poem and then provides information on the research that went into the poem. Included are family photos, historical records, and old newspaper articles.

An introduction to the series can be found here. SERIES INTRODUCTION

The first feature article is Family Laundry: “An Account of a Poor Oil Stove Bought off Dutch Pete,” by Luanne Castle

 

Read Full Post »

More Photos of Great-Grandma (Hooray!)

Posted in Caledonia Michigan history, family heirloom, Family History, Genealogy, Kent County history, Lucille Edna Mulder Zuidweg, Michigan history, Mulder, Photography early 20th century, Waldeck, tagged , , , , , , on September 11, 2018| 40 Comments »

Last spring I posted a photo of my great-grandmother Clara Waldeck Mulder (1884-1953) that I discovered. You can find the post here. It was the first time I saw what she looked like as an older woman. Up to then, I had seen her as a bride and as a young mother.

The other day my mother sent me another old album and loose photos. Guess what? There are TWO new photos of Clara! In one of them, she is young. It’s taken before she was married–or even engaged, I am pretty sure. The photo has a little damage–a white mark across her skirt and a dark spot on her cheek. I did my best to fix the cheek, but left the white mark alone.

How old does she look here? 16-18? If so, the photo would be from around 1900-1902.

And here is another photo, this time from around 1940.

In my post My Great-Grandmother’s Lifetime of Service it’s clear that Clara was very devoted to her service groups. I wonder if this dress has something to do with a ceremony in Eastern Star or Rebekah Lodge. Any other ideas about the dress?

Read Full Post »

Some Recognition for Kin Types!

Posted in Adriaan Zuijdweg/Adrian Zuidweg Sr., Alice Paak DeKorn, Caledonia Michigan history, Cora DeKorn Zuidweg, DeKorn, Family History, Genealogy, Illinois history, Jennie DeKorn Culver, Kalamazoo history, Kalamazoo late 1800s - early 1900s, Kalamazoo mid 20th century, Kent County history, Klein, Leeuwenhoek, Lucille Edna Mulder Zuidweg, Michigan history, Mulder, Netherlands history, Noffke, Paak, Peek, Richard DeKorn, Waldeck, Zuidweg, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 16, 2018| 28 Comments »

Those of you who have been reading The Family Kalamazoo for a time know that I published a chapbook this past year based on my research findings, my imagination, and some historical knowledge. Kin Types is a collection of lyric poems, prose poems, and flash nonfiction.

On Monday I woke up to discover that Kin Types was a finalist for the prestigious Eric Hoffer Award. It’s in stellar company.. This recognition validates the work I did on the book and on this blog. Best of all, the book gets a gold foil sticker for the cover ;).

It will kind of look like this when the sticker is put on the book (only not such a large sticker).

If you click through the link to the Amazon page, the book can be ordered for a real deal right now; check it out. To order through Barnes & Noble, try this link.

 

 

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »