Posts Tagged ‘Henry Waruf’

Aunt Carrie Paak Waruf’s Countenance

Posted in Family History, Genealogy, Kalamazoo history, Michigan history, Paak, Peek, Photography early 20th century, Remine, tagged Alice Paak DeKorn, Anna Paak Verhulst, antique photographs, Carrie Paak Waruf, early 1900s, family history, genealogy, Henry Waruf, history of Kalamazoo, identification of old photos, Kalamazoo history, Mary Paak Remine, Michigan history, Paak genealogy, Pake family, Peek family on July 6, 2016| 24 Comments »

I’ve written before about my great-great-grandmother’s sister, Carrie Paak Waruf, and her husband Henry Waruf: Who Was Hank Waruf, Kalamazoo Gunsmith, Tennyson’s Words for Henry Waruf’s Funeral, and All the Peek Girls (note that Paak can be spelled Peek, Paake, etc.). And when they traveled to Cuba.

But I’d like you to look at some photos I have that Grandpa had me mark Aunt Carrie.

The first one is a favorite. Carrie and Henry Waruf were well-off merchants. They had no children. And Aunt Carrie did like to spend money on her outfits. Is that a fur piece or a feather boa around her neck here? And what about this hat? On what planet was this popular? I assume it was expensive. That almost looks like a Minnie Pearl price tag on it. Is that a ribbon? Overall the hat mystifies me. I’d place her at around 40 in this photo. What do you think? By the way, she was born in 1862, so that would make the year of this photo around 1902.

Photo #1

Here is another photo of Aunt Carrie.

Photo #2

These are obviously the same woman, although the 2nd photo seems to be a much younger photo. This brings up the mystery of her age that arose in the post What Can the Photographer Tell Me When He’s No longer Here. The evidence on the 2nd photo about the photographer made it seem as if this photo was also around 1900. So now I am more confused than before. But it makes me wonder if that successor craziness went on more than once. I still think she looks under 35 in the 2nd photo, maybe even much younger than that.  Look at the differences in wrinkles with the first photo.

Now, if anybody has an idea on the date of that peculiar hat, it would help assign dates to these photos!

I’m very satisfied with the identity of the woman in photos one and two because I have another photo or two of her with her husband. There is no doubt.

Here is the bigger mystery. Grandpa also told me that this next photo was Aunt Carrie. I don’t see how that is possible. What do you think?

Photo #3

Is this Aunt Carrie? Or is it one of her sisters? There were Alice, Anna, Mary, and Carrie. This is not my great-great-grandmother Alice. But could it be Mary or Anna?

Here is Mary:

Photo #4

Mary Paak Remine

Here is Anna:

Photo #5

Annie Paak

And here is Alice:

Photo #6

Can you hear me screaming? She almost looks like a sister. She looks enough like them that Grandpa called her Carrie. But who is she?

 

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Who Was Hank Waruf, Kalamazoo Gunsmith?

Posted in Alice Paak DeKorn, Family History, Genealogy, Kalamazoo history, Kalamazoo late 1800s - early 1900s, Michigan history, Netherlands history, Paak, Peek, Photography early 20th century, Photography late 19th century, Remine, tagged early 1900s, family history, genealogy, Goes, Hank Waruf, Henry Warrus, Henry Waruf, history of Kalamazoo, Kalamazoo Gazette, Kalamazoo history, Kalamazoo Michigan, Michigan history, Paak genealogy, Pake family, Peek family, Portage, Ramona Palace, Ramona Park, the Netherlands, Walraven family, Zeeland on April 29, 2015| 7 Comments »

Henry (Hank) Waruf and his wife Carrie (Paak) Waruf owned the resort Ramona Palace and Ramona Park, as well as many cottages and their own home, at Long Lake in Portage, Michigan.

Since Carrie is one of the Paak sisters, and her sister Alice Paak DeKorn was my great-great-grandmother, I’ve focused more on the Paaks. But Henry Waruf is a very interesting character in Kalamazoo’s early history.

Adri van Gessel was so kind to do some research on the Waruf family. Henry himself appeared to be a bit of a dead end because the name Waruf seemed to come out of nowhere. But Adri broke through that brick wall and discovered Henry’s origins.

Who Was Hank?

Henry was born Hendrik Walraven on September 7, 1863 at Kloetinge, the Netherlands. Apparently Koetinge is part of Goes. Big shock there since the majority of my mom’s ancestors seem to have come from Goes.

He was married on June 2, 1882 at Kalamazoo (MI) to Cornelia Peek (Carrie Paak), daughter of Teunis Peek and Jacoba Bassa.  Cornelia was born on May 8, 1862 at Lexmond and died in January 1957 at Kalamazoo (MI).  Henry died on November 29, 1945 at Orlando (FL).

I don’t know if Henry was on vacation in Florida, living there part of the year, or if the couple (who had no children) had moved there and Carrie went back to Kalamazoo after his death. I could try to research this through city directories, phone books, etc. The research I have done was mainly through newspapers, and I discovered that, although Henry (or Hank) usually spelled his last name “Waruf,” sometimes it shows up as “Warruf.” Still, it looks to me as if Joseph is the one who changed the family surname to Warruf/Waruf in the United States from the original Walraven.

Henry had one sister,  Maria Walraven, born March 3, 1866 at Goes, but she died before 1870 in the Netherlands.

Henry and Maria were born to Joseph Walraven (Joseph Warruf), son of Hendrikus Walraven and Elisabetha Resch, who was born on October 13, 1837 at Goes, died on December 11, 1910 at Kalamazoo (MI).

Joseph was married on May 21, 1863 at Goes to Melanie de Munck (Mary), daughter of Jan de Munck and Maria Joseph Bataille.  Melanie was born on October 16, 1840 at Goes and died on March 18, 1914 at Kalamazoo (MI). Joseph, Melanie, and Henry immigrated to the U.S. in 1868, when Henry was 5 years old.

A Bataille Connection

Notice the name Bataille. I’ve previously written about a Bataille ancestor in these posts:

An Update on the Bataille Family

A Familial Occupation

How Did Etaples, France, Show Up in My Family Tree?

Hank Went into Business

As I mentioned, “Hank” (Henry) and Carrie (Cornelia) were married in 1882, when he was 19 and she was 20. By 1885, he was advertising a business selling guns in the Kalamazoo Gazette, where it’s noted that he took over the gun shop of W. Blanchard.

Sept 17, 1885 Click the link and scroll to the bottom for the ad. By September 1886, Hank added “gunsmith” to his name on the ads.

I was astonished to discover, in an 1897 Polk Directory, that Henry Waruf owned the gun shop in partnership with Richard “Ro-mine” who I take to be Richard Remine. Richard “Dick” Remine was Hank’s brother-in-law. He was married to Carrie’s sister, Mary, another sister of my great-great-grandmother. Richard was born in 1857 and so was six years older than Hank. I’ve written before that the person who inherited the Long Lake resort was Therese Remine, Richard’s daughter. So there might have been another reason that she was the sole inheritor of that property–because her father had been in business with Waruf. How long were they partners? I am going to guess that Waruf was the true businessman of the two–and an ambitious man.

 

Richard Remine

Hank Was a Man of Many Talents

Hank shows up often in the Gazette, and I was able to see that he became a talented shooter, a prize-winning breeder of English Spaniels (no wonder my grandfather’s family always had this breed of dogs), and a collector of real estate. He reported regularly to the State Board of Fish Commissioners on the fish in Long Lake.

Here is an article where he literally won all the prizes at a shoot. Sept 7, 1899. There are many articles about the shoots he attended and referreed. He also represented Kalamazoo at a state shoot in Bay City.

The award-winning dogs owned by Henry show up in publications by the American Kennel Club, The Field Dog Stud Book, and The Fanciers’ Journal. I traced the beginnings of this sideline to a Gazette article that mentions that Hank was going into the business of raising hunting dogs and had brought in a fine pointer from Lowell with a pedigree going “way back.”  Click the link for the article–right side about 1/3 down.Feb 28, 1899.

In 1919, there is a newspaper article about the houses that Waruf was selling. These houses were all on the north side of Kalamazoo. I know that he also owned all the cottages near the resort at Long Lake, so he was used to being a landlord. I wonder if he had been renting out all these houses or if he was flipping them. I suspect he had been renting the houses. Here is the article. April 2, 1919

Finally, on August 30, 1904, Kalamazoo Gazette published a cute story. A Gazette reporter climbed the water tower at the asylum. This is the tower that my great-great-grandfather Richard DeKorn built (click here). From that vantage point he was able to see all the way to Gull Lake in one direction and Long Lake in another. He mentions a great many notable people and what he claims he saw them doing at the time. About Waruf, he wrote, “‘Hank’ Waruf shining up his guns at Long Lake for the duck season.” The details in the article conjure up a Breughel painting, so I find it a little impossible, but definitely amusing. Here is the article: Aug 30, 1904

 

***

Here are some images I have previously published on The Family Kalamazoo:

Carrie (Paak) and Henry Waruf

Home of Hank and Carrie Waruf, Sprinkle Road

I’ve written about the place and the people here:

Ramona Palace, View from the Lake

What Went On at Ramona Palace

Online Generosity and Family History

Paak-a-boo

A Re-telling of Ramona: The Park with a Literary Name

The Report from My Detectives

Living by Long Lake, Portage, Michigan

All the Peek Girls

The Park with a Literary Name

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What Went On at Ramona Palace

Posted in Adrian Zuidweg, Cora DeKorn Zuidweg, Family History, Genealogy, Kalamazoo late 1800s - early 1900s, Michigan history, Paak, Richard DeKorn, tagged Big Band, early 20th century entertainment, Eddie Smith, Eddie Smith and the Revelers, family history, genealogy, Helen Hunt Jackson, Henry Waruf, Kalamazoo area lakes, Kalamazoo history, Long Lake, Michigan history, Portage, Ramona Palace, Ramona Park, Vicksburg on July 23, 2014| 27 Comments »

When I was a kid my father used to bring me (and sometimes my friend, Jill, a reader of this blog) to Ramona Park. We explored and played while he worked–maintaining and refurbishing the pavilion, the grounds, and the shore of Long Lake that ran along the property.

I’ve written before about this park, located in Portage, Michigan here:

The Park with a Literary Name

A Re-telling of Ramona: The Park with a Literary Name

I remember trying to imagine what the pavilion, which was called Ramona Palace, was like back in its heyday, when people came to listen to live music and dance in the ballroom.

Notice that this old photograph locates the park in Vicksburg, but it is now Portage, Michigan. This is the ballroom as I remember it–big and empty.  The lake was just outside those windows.

A while back I was contacted by Shawna (Smith) Raymond about those days. Her grandfather, Eddie Smith, and his Big Band used to play at Ramona Palace.

Eddie Smith and the Revelers
courtesy of Shawna (Smith) Raymond

Shawna passed on a story from her aunt about those days.

When Mom, whose name was Margene, would walk into the Ramona Palace ballroom where Dad was playing, he’d always stop whatever song they were playing and play ‘My Little Margie.’

Shawna’s aunt has a framed collage of the sheet music to “My Little Margie” and Shawna’s grandfather’s conducting baton. According to Wikipedia:

“Margie“, also known as “My Little Margie“, is a 1920 popular song composed in collaboration by vaudeville performer and pianist Con Conrad and ragtime pianist J. Russel Robinson, a member of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. Lyrics were written by Benny Davis, a vaudeville performer and songwriter. The song was introduced by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1920 as Victor 78, 18717-A, in a medley paired with “Singin’ the Blues”. The B side was “Palesteena”.The Rega Dance Orchestra recorded the song in October, 1920 for Okeh Records, 4211. The ODJB recorded their instrumental version on December 1, 1920. The song was published in 1920 and was named after the five-year-old daughter of singer and songwriter Eddie Cantor. Cantor is credited with popularizing the song with his 1921 recording that stayed at the top of the pop charts for five weeks.

Here is a Benny Goodman version from 1938:

 

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The Park with a Literary Name

Posted in Adrian Zuidweg, Cora DeKorn Zuidweg, Family History, Genealogy, Kalamazoo late 1800s - early 1900s, Paak, Remine, Richard DeKorn, tagged Carrie Paak Waruf, early 20th century entertainment, family history, genealogy, Helen Hunt Jackson, Henry Waruf, Kalamazoo area lakes, Kalamazoo history, Long Lake, Michigan history, Portage, Ramona Palace, Ramona Park, Therese Remine on January 14, 2013| 23 Comments »

The property at Long Lake in Portage, Michigan, known as Ramona Park and featuring a pavilion called Ramona Palace was in my family for many years.  Ramona was named after the “Indian Princess” in Helen Hunt Jackson’s popular novel Ramona, which was published in 1884.

When I was a little girl, my father Rudy Hanson tried to re-create the heyday of Ramona Park and its pavilion.  He was  young and ambitious and wanted to restore the place.  Although Ramona Palace had a magnificent ballroom, the owner had sold the liquor license in 1956 or 1957 to Airway Lanes (according to my father).

So my parents held teen dances and concerts; The Association performed there. I remember my parents taking tickets out front, seated at a table.  One time a kid broke in when a dance was going on.  Dad took off running after this high school “track star,” caught him, and turned him over to the police.  It was mentioned in the paper.

My father preferred booking picnics because he could obtain a one day liquor license.  Continental Can held their company picnics at Ramona.  Sometimes I helped out or hung out during events.  The German-American Club held a dance, and I remember a couple dressed in lederhosen, the girl’s thick blonde braid swinging to her dancing.

My father had invested in this property and lost money on the deal.  It was actually owned by a relative named Therese Remine.  Therese’s mother was Mary Paak (Peek), the sister of my great great grandmother, Alice Paak DeKorn.

Therese had inherited the property from Henry and Carrie Waruf, who had owned it for years.  Carrie was born a Paak, and I believe she was one of the Paak sisters: Mary, Alice, Annie, and Carrie.  This is an area for future research.  I don’t know why only Therese inherited and not her brother, Harold.  Or why the cousins, such as my grandfather Adrian Zuidweg, did not inherit it.

Therese Remine

At some point after my father no longer was affiliated with the property, Therese sold and donated it to the City of Portage.

My father has many other memories of the park.  He says Ramona was used as storage for years for ice, which was cut from the lake and packed with straw.  It lasted throughout the summer and was hauled to town by a train.  The tracks ran halfway between the pavilion and Sprinkle Road.

In that front lot off Sprinkle, in the 10s and 20s, was a building and home field for various ball teams.  Later on, Airstream trailers held their annual meetings.  The circus was set up on the Ramona property; I remember the circus billboard which was up for weeks ahead of time.

When I was young, a row of cottages on the property were leased out to renters by Therese.  Sixty years before that, Richard DeKorn, my great great grandfather, had leased his own summer cottage from the Warufs.

Therese’s summer house was on Sprinkle, and a gravel road led back to the park, pavilion, and the lakefront.  My friends and I found arrowheads in the cornfield behind her house.

Ramona Park is a thriving park in Portage, Michigan, still today.

Possibly Long Lake, according to Adrian Zuidweg

Cora DeKorn at her father Richard DeKorn’s cottage on Long Lake

Richard DeKorn enjoying the lake

 

 

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