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Posts Tagged ‘Mulder’

My cousin Susie (actually my  mom’s cousin, but that’s being picky)  sent me some treasures the other day.

Here is one of my favorite people, my maternal Grandmother, in a color or tinted photo I’ve never seen before.

(Lucille) Edna Mulder
1929

Then there were some newspaper clippings. In the first one, Grandpa is in a photo I’ve shared on here before, but it’s attached to a little story in the “Looking Back” section of the Kalamazoo Gazette. The photo is of my grandfather, who shared the image and the story.

The next clipping is a mention of my grandparents’ 65th wedding anniversary in the same newspaper (not the same issue).

And, finally, this clipping is an announcement for the senior community where my grandparents lived during their last few years.

I often think of how much I miss these two.

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My next fill-in-the-gaps couple is Grandma’s great-grandparents–my 3x greats, Karel Pieter Philippe Mulder and Johanna Maria Boes Mulder.

Here are the Ancestry-created bios:

When Karel Pieter Philippe Mulder was born on February 21, 1837, in Goes, Zeeland, Netherlands, his father, Karel, was 24 and his mother, Rose, was 27. He married Johanna Maria Boes and they had six children together. He also had three sons and three daughters with Klazina Otte. He died on April 22, 1881, in Goes, Zeeland, Netherlands, at the age of 44.

When Johanna Maria Boes was born on July 8, 1835, in IJzendijke, Zeeland, Netherlands, her father, Izaak, was 30, and her mother, Adriana, was 26. She married Karel Pieter Philippe Mulder on November 7, 1861, in Goes, Zeeland, Netherlands. They had six children during their marriage. She died as a young mother on November 19, 1867, in Goes, Zeeland, Netherlands, at the age of 32.

Karel’s family had been in Goes and would continue in Goes, for the most part. But Johanna was born in a town about 30 miles away from Goes. She would marry, live, and die in Goes.

Such a sad story. After bearing six children, Johanna died at age 32. Her sixth child was stillborn about six weeks before Johanna herself passed. Also, a daughter born three years before had also passed away as an infant, only a few months old. The other four children, all boys, survived. One of them was my 2x great-grandfather Pieter Mulder who immigrated to the United States with his wife and first two children.

Karel himself was two years younger than Johanna, so when she died, he was a 30-year-olg widower with four children. Nine months later, he married Klazina Otte. He had six children with Klazina. I have written before about the situation with this family. Karel ended up being a prosperous merchant, but when he died at age 44 in 1881, Klazina was left with her own children, as well as the two youngest children of Johanna’s. Those two were sent to the orphanage in Goes. I wrote about it here: Pieter the Orphan. In that post I wrote how Karel owned the store with family members, and I don’t know how that affected things financially when he passed. Perhaps Klazina couldn’t care for that many children physically. Perhaps she couldn’t afford to. I wondered if the family had been “severed” from the boys being sent to an orphanage, but then I was contacted by family in the Netherlands who shared with me a letter from Pieter to his half-brother Jan: The Treasure that Arrived in an Email. Then I could see that the siblings kept in touch. That was wonderful news.

So what do I have about Karel and Johanna and what am I missing?

For Karel, I have his birth and death records. I also have his marriage records for Joanna. I have information from Yvette Hoitink about Karel’s business and real estate ownership. In working on this fill-in-the-gap project I dug up a marriage record for Karel and Klazina.

For Johanna, I have her birth, marriage, and death records.

I found a painting to represent Johanna on Ancestry. This painting is of a woman from the same town Johanna was, painted by Jan Haak. Maybe this is how she looked when she got married, before she had six children.

Yvette Hoitink was able to find some information about Karel’s military history–namely, there is none. That is because he was actually too short to be taken for the military.

 

KAREL PIETER P. MULDER

  1. 21 February 1837, Goes m. 7 November 1861, Goes

Karel Pieter Mulder married in Goes in 1861, so his marriage supplements did not survive. Goes enlistment records were ordered. He married at age 24, so could have fulfilled his military before marriage.

Karel Mulder in militia registration, 1856 Source: Goes, lists of men registered for the National Militia, levies 1851-1862, 1856 no. 27, Karel Mulder; call no. 1438, archives of the city of Goes, 1851-1919, Goes Municipal Archives, Goes; scans provided by Goes Municipal Archives.

2

Abstract:

No. 27, lot no. 77

Karel Mulder, born Goes 21 February 1837. Physical description: 1.495 m, broad face and forehead, blue eyes, pointy nose, ordinary mouth, round chin, bond hair and eyebrows, no noticeable marks. Son of Karel [Mulder] and Rose Melanie Bataille. Occupation: apothecary’s hand, father: shoemaker Informant: himself.

This shows the name as Karel Mulder, not Karel Pieter P. Mulder. Karel Mulder is the name found in previous phases. The birth date and parents match the information previously found, proving this is the correct person.

Karel Mulder in militia enlistment, 1856 Source: Goes, lists of men registered for the National Militia, levies 1854-1862, 1856 no. 29, Karel Mulder; call no. 1484, archives of the city of Goes, 1851-1919, Goes Municipal Archives, Goes; scans provided by Goes Municipal Archives.

Abstract:

No. 29, Karel Mulder. Born Goes 22 February 1837. Height: 1.495 m Son of Karel [mulder] and Rosie Melanie Bataille Occupation: apothecary’s hand, father shoemaker Informant: himself

Lot number 77

Undersized, one year delay.

This shows that Karel Mulder was too short to have to serve in the military. He got a one year delay to see if he would grow. Unfortunately, the Goes archives did not check the register for the next year to see if he made the mark that year.

Later from Yvette by email:

The Goes archivist had to be in the archives and checked the following years of militia enlistment registers, but Karel Mulder does not appear in the later years. It appears he never served in the military on account of being too short.

It looks like Karel never got tall enough for the military. Maybe he was happy about that, maybe not.

So how short was he? I believe he was about 4’9. I do think that a line of short men came from this branch. His grandson, my great-grandfather, was not a tall man, although definitely taller than 4’9. After that the men were taller as my great-grandmother was tall.

The gaps I have for Karel and Johanna will probably always be places where I have to insert my imagination. I have all the main pertinent documents relating to their lives.

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My next fill-in-the-gaps couple is one that merged the Mulder and the Zuijdweg families—and the reason my grandparents, a Mulder and a Zuidweg, were distant cousins because it grafted the Zuijdwegs onto the Mulder tree. Note: even in the Netherlands, the surname is sometimes spelled Zuijdweg and sometimes Zuidweg.

Adriaan Zuijdweg was born in 3 February 1805 in Goes, Netherlands. Adriaan was a tailor, so I found this image online to represent him. Unfortunately, I can’t locate anyone to credit for it, but would love to do so.

Apparently this seated position was common to tailors.

Johanna Mulder was born 10 March 1807, also in Goes. She was baptized on 29 March. The couple married 5 May 1836. Johanna worked as a maid at the time of the marriage.

In 1846, facing economic and religious pressures, Adriaan applied for the town of Goes to pay for he and his family to emigrate to the US, but he must have been denied. I suspect he was part of the separatist movement within the Reformed Church and wanted to join the group in Zeeland, Michigan. He must have been very disappointed that he couldn’t emigrate. You can read about the documentation for this on the old post: My Dutch Family Almost Arrived in the U.S. Decades Earlier.

Five years later, on 2 April 1951, he was dead at the age of 46.

The couple had six children. One of them was my 2x great-grandfather, Johannes Zuijdweg.

The youngest child, Willem, was a baby when his father died. Life must have been hard for Johanna after that. The economy in Goes at the time was not good and now she had six children, even a baby, to support by herself.

Many years later, Willem immigrated to Michigan in 1889 with his wife and two sons (a baby girl died in the Netherlands). The older brother, Adrian, was named for his grandfather, as was my great-grandfather. He lived in Cascade in Kent County.  The younger brother, James William, changed his surname to Southway which is what Zuijdweg means. He lived in Detroit. Willem and his family were the first Zuijdwegs to live in the United States. Willem managed to fulfill his father’s dream of living in the United States. Willem’s brother Johannes, my great-great-grandfather, did not immigrate until he was much older–he followed his own son to the U.S.

On 11 June 1878, Johanna passed away at the age of 71. There is documentation that she was working as a “laborer” when she was in her early sixties. I suppose it’s possible she worked until she died.

I have the marriage and death records for both husband and wife. I also have the documention of Adriaan’s denied request to leave the Netherlands. I was able to get Adriaan’s military records from Yvette Hoitink.

According to Yvette’s research Adriaan did not serve in the military. Here is the military record (part of it):



I am missing both birth records for Johanna and Adriaan. And I sure wish I had photos, but considering that they were born in 1805 and 1807, I suppose that hope is unrealistic!

In general, now that I am back with an early generation in the Netherlands, this is what I can look for:

  • birth record
  • marriage record (including if there was more than one marriage)
  • death record

These are what I can generally find, but not always, through Wiewaswie and other online sources. Yvette was able to search military records for me. And sometimes I have been blessed with information from Dutch cousins and readers, such as newspaper information. Because I can’t read Dutch if I want a less haphazard method of obtaining newspaper articles, I would need to hire a genealogist, such as Yvette, to search. Yvette’s expertise means that she knows how to find certain information that is not readily available–and where there are gaps of records because of fire, etc.

I had been frustrated that I have not been able to find birth records for Adriaan and Johanna as of yet.  BUT maybe that was because I should have been looking for baptismal records instead! When I searched for those, I found Johanna’s baptismal record dated 29 March 1807. Her religion at birth was “Low German Reformed,” which simply means Dutch Reformed. “High German” is Lutheran. I had to order this record for a cost, but it got to me yesterday, in time for this post. Here is the cropped page for 1807. Johanna is at the bottom of the image.

1 – Zeeuws Archief

Maybe one day I will find Adriaan’s birth or baptismal record. I wonder if there is a spelling discrepancy either on the record itself or in the indexing.

 

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On my Ancestry DNA account I probably have more matches to this branch of the family than any other. The Mulders were also the extended family we shared holidays and visits with more than the rest. They were my mom’s aunts, uncles, and cousins. The oldest person I knew in that branch was my great-grandfather, Charles Mulder.

Peter (Pieter) and Nellie (Neeltje) were his parents, and they immigrated from Goes, Zeeland, Netherlands when Charles, their first born, was just a toddler. He had a baby brother Jan who did not survive to grow up in the United States. After moving here, they had more children.

Here are a couple posts about this couple:

Pieter the Orphan Peter was sent to the orphanage.

Mulders Everywhere This post has a lot of photos of Nellie and Peter

The Treasure that Arrived in an Email This letter was written by Peter after Nellie passed away

When I went to organize what I had on Peter and Nellie, it was pretty easy because I already had so much information. What I do not have is Peter’s obituary, and I will order it when offices open back up. They are currently closed because of the pandemic. I do have Nellie’s meager obituary. I apologize that it appears blurry. That is the best that can be done with this article from 1932. It gives the list of those that survive her, her address, about the funeral and viewing. It also mentions she was 64-years-old.

From Nellie’s death certificate, we know she died of “pulmonary TB.” Her granddaughter Mary, one of Henry’s (Charles’ brother) daughters, recalled that her grandmother was sickly.  She thinks she was even sick when she came to the US from the Netherlands.  It is possible that she had TB when she emigrated to the US, and if so, very likely that she exposed/infected her family members with TB.  (info from cousin Merry)

Amberly worked on the immigration and naturalization of Peter and Nellie, but I already knew the couple had arrived on the Zaandam on 29 August 1887. There is one more piece of information we need, but I cannot order it until the archives open back up.

I also needed military information on Peter, which I did get from Yvette:

So Peter did not serve in the military. He was able to marry at age 19 and immigrate to the United States at age 21. This would not have happened if he had had to serve.

I’ve been blessed with a lot of information on Peter and Nellie. I also wrote about them in my chapbook Kin Types, imagining them as a young courting couple.

 

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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.

 

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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!

 

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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.

 

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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?

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Clara Mulder, my great-grandmother, passed away on 6 September 1953, as I mentioned on Discovering My Great-Grandmother. I posted her obituary on My Great-Grandmother’s Lifetime of Service.

Two and a half months after her death, the family gathered together for Thanksgiving at the home of her oldest child, Dorothy (Dorothea Rosa) Mulder Plott, and Dorothy’s husband, Conrad Plott. As of the 1940 census, they lived at 148 North Union Street in Battle Creek, Michigan. But my mother believes that they then moved to their farm in Pennfield Township and that this gathering took place in the farmhouse.

In these recently discovered photos (from an album my mother put together), the family can be seen gathered together at the Thanksgiving feast.

The bottom photo lists “Grandpa,” and that is Clara’s widower, my great-grandfather, Charles Mulder. “Mother” and “Dad” are my grandparents, Adrian and Edna (Mulder) Zuidweg. In the top photo, the man on the left, “Uncle Pete,” is Clara’s #4 (of 5) child, Peter Mulder.

In the top photo, “Mother,” “Aunt Dot,” “Uncle Chuck,” and “Vena” are Clara’s other 4 children (besides Pete). Dorothy, Edna, Vena, Pete, and Chuck, in order of birth.

Aunt Ruby was married to Uncle Pete. Most of the others are my mother’s brother and cousins. You saw them as children in Discovering My Great-Grandmother.

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When I was a little girl, my grandmother gave me a ring that belonged to her mother, my great-grandmother, Clara Waldeck Mulder. She told me it was her Eastern Star ring and asked me to take good care of it.

For years I’ve felt that Clara was a bit of a mystery to me as I knew so little of her. Then a few weeks ago, I found a photo of her while I was scanning an album and posted it in Discovering My Great-Grandmother.

The stars must be aligned right because two weeks ago I was scanning another album and found Clara’s obituary! You can see how loved she was by what is written about her.

 

I think the obituary is readable online, but I want to draw your attention to one particular paragraph:

She was a . . . member of Caledonia O.E.S. No. 97, a Past Matron of Caledonia Chapter, a member of the Past Matrons Association, and has been secretary of the O.E.S. for many years. She was also a member of Golden Star Rebekah Lodge, a Past Noble Grand and a member of the Past Noble Grands Association. An active member of the Caledonia Methodist Church, she served ten years as president of the East Caledonia Ladies Aid Society.

O.E.S. is Order of the Eastern Star. I used to think that Eastern Star was the women’s branch of the Masons, but the Wikipedia article shows that I am wrong. Apparently it is for men and women, although it is affiliated with the Masons. But I must say that the names of the top titles (using the word “matron”) sounds like it was for women. My great-grandfather was a Mason, so it made sense to me that my great-grandmother would be Eastern Star. Also, she was a Past Matron, so I think she was the presiding officer of her chapter at one time.

I read this far and got out the ring that Grandma gave me. I have taken good care of it, but age has taken a toll on the ring. The stone is no longer affixed to the band, and I am not sure if it can be repaired or not. I don’t want to take it in because I don’t want to risk more harm coming to the ring.

Since I had the ring out, I thought my friend Google could show me if the design was a common one or not, but I couldn’t find hide nor hair of the ring in my search for Eastern Star rings.

Then I read a little farther: Golden Star Rebekah Lodge. I didn’t know what that was, but I looked it up. The Rebekahs are a fraternal and service organization affiliated with the Odd Fellows. You can read about it here. So for kicks I looked up images of Rebekah rings. Sure enough, that’s what it is. Grandma must have thought it was Eastern Star because her mom was so entrenched in O.E.S. culture, and the R does look a bit like an E. Maybe the R is a bit  worn off, in fact.

Although I am not a “joiner,” I am proud of my great-grandmother for her lifetime of service. It was women like Clara Mulder that made life better for others in the first half of the 20th century.

 

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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.

 

 

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