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Archive for the ‘Waldeck’ Category

Rose’s Death and the New Photo of the Young Mulders

Posted in Caledonia Michigan history, Family History, Genealogy, Kent County history, Michigan history, Mulder, Photography late 19th century, Waldeck, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 21, 2022| 33 Comments »

OK, I am going to rewrite this post a bit. I’ve heard from the Grand Rapids History Museum about Rose’s death, so that information will be added into this post.

As I mentioned in the earlier versions, I have written a lot in the past about the Mulder family. The pivotal couple was Peter and Nellie (Gorsse) Mulder, who immigrated from the Netherlands with their two-year-old son Charles (Karel) and baby Jan. Here is one of many articles: Peter and Nellie Mulder

All those years ago, when my grandparents gave me the photo of the couple with all their mainly grown children, I thought it was so wonderful.

But guess what? I finally have a digital copy of a photograph from much earlier. This photo is thanks to another cousin interested in the family’s history. Her grandmother was my great-grandfather’s sister, Cora. So let’s see who is in this new, even older, photo.


The couple seated are, of course, Peter and Nellie. Here they are still young. Charles, my great-grandfather, born 1885, is standing between them. I was startled  how much he looked like my cousin Scot. Standing in the middle is Jennie, born 1887, the first to be born in Michigan.  She married Edward Ralph Kooistra. On Peter’s lap is Cora, the grandmother of the woman who had this photograph. Cora was born in 1890 and married John Lawson Gerow. The baby on Nellie’s lap is indeed Rose/Rosa Melanie as indicated on the photo. Rose was born in 1892, so the photograph is probably from 1892 or 93, making Peter 26 and Nellie 23. So now you see how really young they were here! Peter worked as a furniture finisher in Grand Rapids, Michigan, so the photo would have been taken in that city.

Rose Melanie was named after Peter’s grandmother, Rose Melanie Bataille Mulder. When she died, a bequest to Peter gave him the money needed to bring his family to the United States. Unfortunately, Peter and Nellie’s daughter Rose passed away in 1904.

New info from family and the Grand Rapids History Museum

2nd cousin Niki  says that Rose died in the Great Flood of 1904. Her impression is that her body was taken away on a boat. How horrifying. So I looked up the flood. Sure enough, there was a horrible flood in Kent County in 1904. CLICK HERE This article states that no lives were lost. Well, isn’t that a strange thing then that a branch of our family carried the story that Rose died in the flood and that her death coincides with the time of the flood?

I contacted the Grand Rapids History Museum to ask why the family might have thought that Rose died in the flood, but that history asserts that no lives were lost in the flood. It only took two days to get a response.

The museum found a death certificate that lists Rose’s death as gastro-enteritis and cardiac asthenia. The date of her death is listed as March 24,1904. This is the day the Great Flood has been reported to have begun. The museum states that it is likely  that she died due to illness the day the flood began rather than die during the flood. Really, this fits with Niki’s understanding that her body was taken away in a boat. She died “in” the flood, meaning that during the flood she passed away. Because of the flood, her body was taken away in a boat. Rose was born on 27 March 1892, so she was just short of twelve when she died. You can see on the death certificate that Rose was sick for before the flood began.

So what caused her illness? My cousin and her husband, both medical doctors, posit this theory:

The death certificate indicates that Rose had cardiac asthenia for 3 months. This is an obsolete term for being very thin and weak, probably bed-ridden. Gastroenteritis could be infectious or something like an ulcer or Crohn’s Disease if she had this for months. Crohn’s is very debilitating and really tears up the gut mucosa.  Rose then became acutely ill (toxic or ?? toxaremic), possibly with a high fever of 106 degrees. We don’t know what caused that but it was some sort of infection, possibly even from a perforated bowel if she had Crohn’s. Kids can also get stomach ulcers that can perforate. There would have been no treatment available then except aspirin for the fever. Well water was often contaminated with bacterium H-pylori which causes stomach ulcers. We don’t know if the family had a well or drank city water, of course.

 

Peter and Nellie followed Dutch tradition and named a future daughter Rose as well. After this photo was taken, they had Henry in 1897 (married Hettie Mae Simpson), Peter in 1900 (married Alida Vader), Nellie in 1902 (never married), and Rosa in 1906 (married John C. Kohles).

The discolored tape down the middle of the photo can probably be removed digitally by a photo restorer. Since I know several people who do this work, I might have this done at some point. Although this isn’t the oldest photo in my “collection,” it feels as if it is because these are direct ancestors who immigrated from the Netherlands–and they are young. Additionally, I am seeing my great-grandfather (who I knew) here as a child!

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Narrowing in on Slupsk County, Pomerania

Posted in Caledonia Michigan history, DNA, Family History, Genealogy, Noffke, Prussia history, Waldeck, tagged , , , , , , , on March 4, 2022| 21 Comments »

When I was growing up, I was given a vague idea that my maternal grandmother’s mother wasn’t Dutch like the rest of my mother’s family, but German. Once I began to search my family history, I quickly saw that the records were Prussian, not German. That still sounded German to me. (Before you tell me there didn’t used to be any such thing as “Germany,” but rather German states, I know that, but they were “German,” to my mind).

My Prussians were quickly my worst brick wall, and although I picked at the threads of the mystery a bit over the years, I didn’t accomplish too much until a couple of years ago. That’s when I found some records for the births of my great-grandmother’s siblings. This was a short-lived accomplishment because my great-greats may have moved around for work, so I still had no idea which province of Prussia they were from.  Without that knowledge it is impossible to find their birth and marriage records. To find their parents and grandparents.

Very recently I began to piece together enough information and knowledge to theorize that my relatives were actually from Pomerania, which was the part of Prussia which bordered the Baltic and is now in Poland. I even wondered if they were from northern Pomerania, right near the sea, and even more, from Slupsk or that vicinity. The place names on documents are garbled and there are versions of each place in several languages, but a doc seemed to indicate Świecichowo (Polish) or Schwetzkow (German). This town is in Slupsk County. I explain this doc here. I felt  confident enough to present this theory on this blog, but I’ve been busy so I didn’t write that blog post.

Then something else happened. I went onto my Ancestry DNA “headquarters,” and looked up the new and more thorough ethnicity info–specifically for my mother since her maternal grandmother was the Prussian. And guess what? I don’t have to theorize any longer. Ancestry has done that for me. According to Ancestry, my mother’s Prussian Ancestry is precisely NORTHERN POMERANIAN and NORTHWESTERN POMERANIAN–and if you look at the map, most likely the Slupsk region. Furthermore, the reason Ancestry can fine tune to this region is that Mom’s ancestors lived in that area for many years.

I had to look up Slupsk, of course. From Wikipedia:

Słupsk (Stolp, in German) had its origins as a Pomeranian settlement in the early Middle Ages. In 1265 it was given town rights. By the 14th century, the town had become a centre of local administration and trade and a Hanseatic League associate. Between 1368 and 1478 it was a residence of the Dukes of Pomerania, until 1474 vassals of the Kingdom of Poland. In 1648, according to the peace treaty of Osnabrück, the town became part of Brandenburg-Prussia [and was under Swedish military control (Swedish dominion)]. In 1815 it was incorporated into the newly formed Prussian Province of Pomerania. After World War II, the city again became part of Poland, as it fell within the new borders determined by the Potsdam Conference.

In a nutshell, the area was Slavic tribes, then Polish, then Swedish, then Prussian, and after WWII Polish again. This is with little blips of time as German and Danish.

It’s very satisfying to feel this close to finding Gottfried and Alwine (Noffke) Waldeck’s origins. Maybe before too long I will find their birth and marriage records.

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Aunt Vena and Uncle Al (Part 2 of Grandma’s Sibling Stories)

Posted in Caledonia Michigan history, Family History, Genealogy, Germany history, Kalamazoo history, Kent County history, Michigan history, Mulder, Noffke, Prussia history, Waldeck, tagged , , , , , , , on May 20, 2021| 8 Comments »

In my story about Grandma’s sister Dorothy and her husband, Conrad Plott, dated February 17, we left off with this photo of my mother with Aunt Dorothy and Aunt Vena.

Today I am writing about Aunt Vena (to mom’s right–our left–in the photo) and her husband, Uncle Al.

Vena’s full name was Alvena Nell Mulder at birth. She was named after her grandmother, a Prussian immigrant, Alwine Noffke Waldeck. Although the names are spelled differently in German and American versions, they are pronounced similarly. I never heard Aunt Vena called anything but Vena, so I think she generally went by her nickname.

Vena was the third girl (Dorothy, then Grandma, then Vena) and third child of Charles and Clara Mulder of Caledonia, Michigan, and she was born 20 October 1913, probably in Caledonia at the house. Although I have no birth records for any of the siblings, it’s likely that Dorothy was born in Hastings, and then Grandma and the rest were born in Caledonia, after great-grandpa bought the farm.

You can see that Vena was a very pretty girl.

Much of my information about Vena and her husband Al comes from Uncle Don and their middle daughter, mom’s cousin Elaine.

Vena attended Caledonia High School just as her older sisters had done. She was a year and a half younger than Grandma, so the question is, was she “on track” for her age for graduation or did she graduate early as Grandma did? Did she graduate in 1930, 1931, or 1932? The school records I’ve found only go through 1925.

Vena followed her older sister, Edna (Grandma), to what was then called Western State Teachers’ College (now Western Michigan University). I don’t know how Aunt Vena met Uncle Al (although I remember hearing the story years ago and thought it involved horses), but he also attended Western.

Al was born Alton William Stimson in Middleville, Michigan on 20 January 1911. Middleville is a little village near Grand Rapids, and Uncle Don says Al grew up on a farm, and this is corroborated by the 1930 census.

Uncle Don gave me some information about Vena and Al. He said that they were close in age to his parents (Grandma and Grandpa) and that the two families were close. Al actually lived with Grandpa for a time while Al and the two sisters were attending WMU. Al washed the dishes once a month or when they ran out of dishes. Grandpa liked to tell that story.

This is Uncle Al’s 1934 Western yearbook photo. Next to his name is his degree earned: an AB.

I don’t know if Aunt Vena boarded with someone while she went to college, as my grandmother did (with the Schensul family).

Al and Vena married 1 June 1935 in Caledonia by Edward August Waldeck, pastor of the Portland Baptist Church, Vena’s first cousin. I wrote about his bike accident (as a teen) quite some time ago. Here is a 1912 newspaper article about the accident: CLICK HERE

Al graduated from WMU as an Industrial Engineer. He might have first worked as a teacher and then for Atlas Press, before he was hired by the Upjohn Company. He was a a time and motion analyst—time-study. He stayed with Upjohn until he retired at the end of his career.

At the beginning of their marriage, Vena and Al lived on Balch Street in that same area where my grandfather and then my mother grew up. The address was 317 Balch Street, according to the 1940 census.

But then they built a new house on a beautiful lot on Kilgore at the border of Kalamazoo and Portage. Their house and yard were characterized by an excellent sense of design and a lot of hard work. Elaine said that their lovely yard was designed by a friend of theirs so that there were flowers blooming year round when weather permitted. They both liked to garden. Al also kept a small vegetable garden alongside the house. As a kid, I was so impressed by the flowers and the birds that Vena and Al attracted to the yard. The inside of their house was also beautiful with a living room that looked out upon that backyard and a fish tank that mesmerized me. At least three generations of family had many wonderful family gatherings at their home.

Vena left school to start their family, and beginning in 1937, they had three girls in this order: Joan(ne), Elaine, and MaryAnn. The three girls attended State High up at Western’s old campus which was a state training school for teachers and was reputed to be one of the top schools in the state.

Al registered for the WWII draft, but he was not called to service. I do not know if it was because of needing to support his children or because he was color blind.

When the girls were “well along” in school, according to Uncle Don, Aunt Vena went back to college and graduated with Honors in 1962, the same year their youngest daughter graduated high school. This reminds me of my mother who did the same thing. I hadn’t realized when my mother graduated a year ahead of me from college that her aunt had been a groundbreaker in the family.

The Portage Public School System hired Aunt Vena as a kindergarten teacher, which she remained (1st and 2nd a bit, as well) until she retired. I’m sure she was a favorite with the kids and their parents because she had a gentle and elegant manner.

Aunt Vena and Uncle Al were members of the First United Methodist Church in downtown Kalamazoo for over sixty years. This is the same church that my grandparents belonged to and where my mother is still a member. I remember Uncle Al was an usher and my grandfather worked in what I thought of as the “money office.”

Aunt Vena and Uncle Al enjoyed their retirement years golfing, bowling, being members of Club 75, and the Cloverleaf Square Dancing Clubs.

Al kept busy with many craft hobbies. He made Christmas presents of shop gadgets and jewelry that he had made. He made jewelry out of plastic, drilling the flowers into the plastic. He made pins, necklaces, cufflinks, and so on. Some pieces he colored in with nail polish.

When I was a little girl, Uncle Al taught me to say what sounded like oskeewawa every time I saw a white horse. I thought it was a Native American word. When I tried to look it up, I couldn’t find anything until I discovered the University of Illinois school song:

Oskee-Wow-Wow
Old Princeton yells her Tiger,
Wisconsin, her Varsity
And they give the same old Rah, Rah, Rah,
At each University,
But the yell that always thrills me
And fills my heart with joy,
Is the good old Oskee-Wow-Wow,
That they yell at Illinois.

Uncle Don has fond memories of going on many camping trips with the family. He felt a bit like Uncle Al’s substitute son for these adventures. After all, Uncle Al lived in a house with four women/girls ;).

In the next photo, it is Grandpa and Grandma’s 40th wedding anniversary, and they are standing with Vena and Al on my parents’ front porch. The image is blurry, but I like that the two couples are photographed together.

 

In the Christmas photo above, I see Uncle Al and Aunt Vena from the era I knew them best. In fact, we used to go first to Grandma and Grandpa’s house on Christmas Eve, and then to Vena and Al’s–at some point my parents’ house was added as one of the houses visited for the Progressive Dinner.

Uncle Al suffered from Parkinson’s and passed away on 11 January 1996 in Kalamazoo.

Aunt Vena moved into what was then the new, state of the art retirement community in Kalamazoo. She died on 9 June 2000, which is the same year that my grandparents died.

They are buried at Mount Ever-Rest Memorial Park South in Kalamazoo.

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Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Con (Part 1 of Grandma’s Sibling Stories)

Posted in Caledonia Michigan history, Family History, Genealogy, Michigan history, Mulder, Waldeck, tagged , , , , on February 17, 2021| 16 Comments »

My grandmother, (Lucille) Edna Mulder (Zuidweg) had four siblings. The kids were born in this order: Dorothy (aka Dot), 1910-1996; Lucille (aka Edna), 1912-2000; Alvena (Vena), 1913-2000; Peter (Pete), 1915-1986; and Charles (Chuck), 1917-1989. They grew up on a farm in Caledonia, Michigan. My grandmother’s childhood story that most impressed me when I was young was that all the kids slept in the same big bed. The girls across the bed as usual, and the boys perpendicular at the girls’ feet. I used to try to imagine how five kids could get to sleep like that because somebody would always be annoying somebody else. The upstairs of the farmhouse had two bedrooms–one for  the parents and one for the kids. I imagine that in the winter it was cold up there, too, which meant that the group body heat helped keep everybody warm.

You know the Biblical expression “the salt of the earth,” meaning virtuous, good people? That was the Mulder family. Not perfect, but definitely good, dependable people.

This post is devoted to Aunt Dorothy, the oldest of the siblings, and her husband, Uncle Con. That’s how I knew them: Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Con. But when Grandma talked about them it was always “Dot and Con.”

When Grandma and Dorothy were still in school, they walked a long way every school day. Occasionally their mother would take them or pick them up in an Amish buggy, but walking was much more common.

Grandma on left; Dorothy on the right

Although Dorothy and Grandma were in the same grade, Dorothy was 1 1/3 years older than my grandmother. Grandma had to be pushed ahead so that the girls could be in class together. That must have worked out because both girls were good students. You can read about their high school graduation and experience here:

Who Put the Ring Stain on the Scrapbook?

The following, I believe, if Aunt Dorothy’s high school graduation speech, or Salutatory (2nd highest grades in class).

After high school, Aunt Dorothy went to nursing school at Battle Creek Sanitarium. It gets a little confusing because her yearbook was from Emmanuel Missionary College, but EMC had moved to Berrien Springs from Battle Creek by 1901. Actually, the Training School for Nurses was in Battle Creek, called Battle Creek Sanitarium also, and part of EMC. Emmanuel Mission College, operated until 1938. It was part of Andrews University, a 7th Day Adventist institution.

For the cropped yearbook photo below, I left the photo of the other young woman because their names on the right are both on this clipping.

During the time that Dorothy was at school, she met her future husband, Conrad Rudolph Plott, born 21 March 1905, from North Carolina.

This photo of the Plott family was shared by my 2nd cousin, Mike Plott. Uncle Con is in the back row, on our right. The date is unknown. 

They married on 29 October 1934 in Steuben, Indiana. This is what my grandparents did, as well. The marriage laws were looser in Indiana than in Michigan, so they could go “down” there, buy a license, and be married–1, 2, 3.

I was able to order a copy of this application and license.

I do have Uncle Con’s WWII draft card–he was 35 years old. Mysteriously, his name is listed as Rudolph Conrad, instead of Conrad Rudolph. Since I do not have a copy of his birth record, I can’t verify which one is correct. But, as you can see, the marriage application lists him as Conrad Rudolph.

Conrad Plott

Together the couple had three children: Jeanne, John (Bill), and Pat. Jeanne followed her mother’s footsteps and became a nurse. She had a stellar career as a colonel in the U.S. Air Force. I know that my family is very proud of her service to our country. John was a college professor. Pat was employed by Western Michigan University as assistant to the chair of the sociology department for thirty years. She and I attended grad school in the English department at the same time.

Uncle Con worked as a mechanic for the Kellogg Company for most of his working days. He was very active in the Kellogg factory workers’ union, even serving as President for a number of years.

When I was a little girl, we went a few times to visit Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Con, but mainly we saw them at large family gatherings. But one day, and this memory is very vivid to me, they stopped by our house. I don’t know if my mother knew they were coming or not. They brought me a present, and no doubt they brought some of the peanut brittle Uncle Con was famous for in our family. His brother Pryor made the North Carolina classic, and Uncle Con used to help him sell it at state fairs and other venues.

I still have the adorable little apron they gave me.

My Uncle Don told me that Con’s family were very welcoming hosts whenever our family visited them in North Carolina. They always had a room to stay in and huge family dinners–“even when we were just passing through.” I am guessing that the passing through was on the way to Florida from Michigan.

My mother still has photos of a train trip she took with Jeanne to North Carolina in 1952. My mother, being raised in Michigan by Michiganders, was struck by seeing the separate drinking fountains and restrooms for black people. She also noticed that the thunderstorms were so much wilder and more severe than in Michigan.

These two photos are two facing pages in a photo album my mother put together when she was a teen.

Uncle Don filled me in on some interesting info about Aunt Dorothy that I could not have gleaned from knowing her when I was a child. He said that when he stayed with “Dot and Con,” Aunt Dorothy talked about her nursing training. She had a lot of strange and humorous (to the listener) experiences. For example, she was assisting in a surgery, not knowing what the doctor was going to do, and he told her to grab the leg and hold it while he performed the surgery. All of a sudden, she was standing there holding a leg and the doctor said, “Just put it over there and help me clamp the veins and arteries.” That was her first experience with an amputation.
My uncle also said that Aunt Dorothy was the best scholar of the siblings and was the “leader of the pack!” She always helped family members and was present when my mother and Uncle Don and their sister were born. She was also there for the death of my great-grandmother, her own mother, Clara Waldeck Mulder. My grandmother trusted her with all medical matters.
Dorothy was very confident and had a take charge personality. She could be a very direct communicator, and the family loved and respected her greatly.

Uncle Con was not only active in the union and busy working at the Kellogg Company, but he was a farmer as well. On their farm, he grew corn, oats, and wheat. They had a big garden and even pasture for the cow.

Notice Jeanne photobombing in the lower right corner. Pretty cute!

 

Here is Uncle Con on his tractor in the 1950s.

 

Dot and Con had a cabin outside of Sault Ste. Marie on the river. One relative says it was the St. Lawrence and another says St. Mary’s. Maybe it was the St. Lawrence Seaway? They spent summers there, but closed it up during the winter.  Con did love to fish and spent a lot of time in his boat,  He also loved to get really close to the big boats. His daughter Jeanne says that very few people would get in the boat with him!

I don’t know what the occasion was for this photo, but here are Grandma’s siblings. The curtain behind them looks like something at a church, so I suspect this must be at a wedding.

Chuck, Vena, Edna (Grandma), Dorothy, Pete

Mike shared this photo of Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Con with Mike’s parents at the wedding of the latter.

In this photo, which was taken in my parents’ front yard, Grandma’s siblings gather with their spouses. The occasion was my grandparents 40th wedding anniversary, in 1972. Standing from left: Con, Dorothy, Adrian (Grandpa), Edna (Grandma), Vena, Al. Kneeling from left: Ruthann, Chuck, Pete, Ruby. So the three sisters and their husbands are in back and the two brothers with their wives are in front.

After Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Con retired, they moved to Florida, where they became an integral part of the community in Estero (Fort Myers area). If I hadn’t already known that, I could tell because I found numerous newspaper articles where Uncle Con, in particular, is mentioned.

Uncle Con passed away on 1 April 1989 in Estero.

At some point after that, Aunt Dorothy must have come back to Michigan. She passed away on 23 May 1996 in Kalamazoo and is buried at Mount Ever-Rest.

 

I have a photo of Aunt Dorothy’s headstone, but I do not have a photo of Uncle Con’s and do not know which cemetery in Lumberton, North Carolina, he is buried.

About a year before she passed, I saw Dorothy at my parents’ house at Eagle Lake. In this photo, my mother is with her aunts, Vena (on our left) and Dorothy (on our right).

 

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2020 Fill in the Gaps Project: My 3XGreat-Grandparents, Ludwig and Dora (Kusch) Noffke and Adolf Waldeck and NN

Posted in Family History, Genealogy, Germany history, Kent County history, Michigan history, Noffke, Prussia history, Waldeck, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 15, 2020| 25 Comments »

My next fill-in-the-gaps couple is Grandma’s great-grandparents–my 3x greats, Ludwig and Dora (Kusch) Noffke and Adolf (possibly his name) Waldeck and his wife NN (name unknown).

These two Prussian couples are my genealogy brick walls. They are the four grandparents of my great-grandmother Clara Waldeck, and the immigration story of the families of her parents, the Noffkes and Waldecks, is intertwined.

August Heinrich Noffke, a single man, was the pioneer who first came to the United States. He departed from Hamburg on 7 May 1869 at the age of 28, which means he was born about 1841. He was possibly from Schwetzkov, Prussia, and a carpenter by trade.

The family history that was passed down through the minutes of family reunions states that August Noffke’s “parents and family” followed him “in about three years.” This means that Ludwig and Dora—perhaps Dorothea– (Kusch) Noffke must have immigrated around 1872. Family must mean their children or August’s siblings.

I believe that by the time this history was typed up the Waldecks had become somewhat separated from the Noffkes because the name used for the history was Neffka. Also, the writer did not know when Ludwig and Dora died.

Back to August Noffke: his sister Alwine Noffke Waldeck (born 1846) was married with children and living in Prussia at that time. Clara wasn’t yet born. So it wasn’t Alwine who immigrated with her parents.

Their brother Carl (born 1843) could have come with the parents, but I don’t think so. The ship manifest shows him with Louise and Herman Noffke, not his parents. In fact, his wife was Louisa and his son was Herman, so I am guessing that he was already married and traveled with his own family.

Until I find the ship manifest for Ludwig and Dora I won’t know who they traveled with.

August Waldeck, age 14, son of Alwine and her husband Gottfried, immigrated to the U.S. and lived with his grandparents, Ludwig and Dora. August paid the passage for his parents and siblings, so then Alwine and Gottfried and their other children immigrated in 1882.

Therefore, I need immigration documents for Ludwig and Dora. It seems likely that Gottfried Waldeck’s parents, Adolf and NN, never left Prussia.

For all four individuals, I am missing birth, marriage, and death records.

There is a Findagrave memorial for Ludwig with a photo of his headstone at Lakeside Cemetery in Caledonia, Michigan. I set up a page for Dora and have requested a photo of her headstone. I’ve called the cemetery for information, but they had no information.

On their son Carl/Charles’s 1897 death record it clearly states that his father is dead, but Ludwig’s name is incorrectly listed as Charles. It’s unclear if Dora is listed as dead or alive. I suspect alive.

I am trying to track down the path of Alwine and her husband in Prussia in hopes of their records leading to the records of their parents.

At this point, I still do not know for sure where either of them was from within Prussia.

You see why I combined all four into one post. I just don’t have enough information on them. The day that wall breaks down and all the information starts to tumble toward me, I will be very excited! After all this is the branch where my mitochondrial DNA comes from ;).

 

 

 

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What Was the Kalamazoo State Hospital Like?

Posted in Family History, Genealogy, Kalamazoo history, Kalamazoo late 1800s - early 1900s, Kalamazoo mid 20th century, Michigan history, Paak, Peek, Waldeck, tagged , , , , , , on May 27, 2020| 11 Comments »

I have a lot of catchup to do on my fill-in-the-gaps project, so I thought I would share with you a link that Jose sent me of the Kalamazoo State Hospital.

I’ve written about the hospital a couple of times in the past. First there were my posts about my grandmother’s uncle Fred Waldeck. He was severely brain-injured in an accident and, subsequently, lived out the rest of his life at the State Hospital.

Fred Waldeck Mystery Solved

Waldeck Family Research with Fred’s Death Certificate

My research and writing on Fred Waldeck’s wife Caroline featured in Broad Street Magazine

Then more recently, I wrote about my great-great grandmother’s sister Annie Paak Verhulst. I discovered that she passed away at the State Hospital, and the best guess is that she went there as so many had because she was elderly with health issues and it was the only place that could take care of her. There were no nursing homes in those days.

So what did this place, the Kalamazoo State Hospital, look like? Here is the link Jose sent.

PHOTOGRAPHIC RECONSTRUCTION OF KALAMAZOO STATE HOSPITAL

This is really an amazing project. Enjoy.

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2020 Fill in the Gaps Project: My 2XGreat-Grandparents, Gottfried and Alwine (Noffke) Waldeck

Posted in Caledonia Michigan history, Family History, Genealogy, Germany history, Kent County history, Michigan history, Noffke, Prussia history, Waldeck, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 6, 2020| 26 Comments »

Introducing my BRICK WALL of genealogy:

My great-great-grandparents, Gottfried and Alwine (Noffke) Waldeck. Gottfried was 1841 – 1913. Alwine 1846 – 1912.

Back row:  Fred (in a terrible accident and lived out the rest of his life at the Kalamazoo State Hospital) married Caroline Meier, Ada (Helene/Lena Ida) married Frederick Steeby, Anna (who was married, but I still need to iron out this “mess”–she was at least married to William Alexander Stewart), August (died in WWI, a bachelor)

Front row: Gottfried, Clara (my great-grandmother), Alwine, Godfrey married Anna Ruehs

There were other children who died young, but exactly who they were needs sorting out.

The family story in America may have started with Alwine’s older brother August. I wrote about him here: Pioneer of the Family

I have written many posts about my great-grandmother Clara and have also written about Fred and his accident and his wife and her family in other posts (search Waldeck).

Gaps might be a ridiculous word for what I have missing from this couple’s lives. I do not know where in Prussia either of them were born, although if the information is correct about August, it is possible that Alwine was born in Pomerania. However, together, the couple seem to have lived in West Prussia, where they may have worked on a large estate or two. I do have birth and/or baptism records for several of their children, but I can’t read them well enough and the place names for Prussia are soooo confusing. I will need help with this portion to create a timeline of locations.

If you are not familiar with Prussia, East Prussia was the province furthest east, but West Prussia is just to the west of East Prussia–still in what is now Poland and on the Baltic Sea. Pomerania, also on the Baltic, is just to the west of West Prussia. Posen is to the south of these provinces.

I don’t have a marriage record for the couple, so I don’t know which area of Prussia they were married–or how they might have met.

Gottfried and Alwine did arrive into Baltimore from Germany in 1882, but I don’t have any other immigration and naturalization records.

I do not have a headstone for either, but have put in a request through Findagrave. I also requested management of their memorials, but have not received a reply. I can only hope for the kindness of the current holder because at 2x greats, they are one removed from my right to manage their memorials. Hmm, but my mother could do it!

I don’t have any military information for Gottfried. Or an obituary.

So what in the world DO I have then (besides anything mentioned above)?

*Gottfried’s death certificate: he died of chronic nephritis. His place of birth is gibberish; nobody has ever heard of such a place.

*Alwine’s death certificate; she died of interstitial nephritis. Her place of birth is just listed as Germany. Notice they both had a form of nephritis and died a year apart.

*Land ownership map in Caledonia, 1894.

*1900 and 1910 census records. The 1890 doesn’t exist, and Gottfried died a few years after the 1910. When there are only one or two census records it really brings home how many of these immigrants only lived 10-20-30 years in this country before dying.

*I know it’s above, but let’s face it, having a photograph of your 2xgreats is pretty cool :).

*Alwine’s obituary, although it’s very limited–and spells her first name Albina. (Alwine is pronounced Alveena)

Finally, I would like to post the property map. The parcel owned by Gottfried is near the bottom, in the center darkened area. His land is a small piece. Do you see the darkened section in the middle at the bottom? His parcel is second from the farthest right (of the darkened section) and the second from the bottom. Although Gottfried and Alwine’s son-in-law, my great-grandfather Charles Mulder, eventually owned a lovely farm in Caledonia, 1894 was long before he purchased his property.

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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| 25 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

 

 

 

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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?

 

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Could This Be Fred Waldeck? Mystery Solved!!!!

Posted in Family History, Genealogy, Germany history, Kent County history, Michigan history, Prussia history, Waldeck, tagged , , , , , , , on February 13, 2019| 39 Comments »

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.

Waldeck surname

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.

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