Ramona Nelson Broste: 52 Ancestors Prompt "Tragedy"

Ramona Nelson Broste: 1928-1962

            My paternal first cousin, Ramona Nelson, died in a tragic auto accident in 1962 that also took the life of her youngest daughter. 


            Ramona was born December 21, 1928 to Joseph Nelson and Ovedia Peterson Nelson. She was the oldest of their five children, and grew up first on a farm place in Watonwan County near Madelia, Minnesota, and then on a farm in Linden Township in Brown County near Hanska. Her father Joe worked as a farm laborer during those years. Eventually Joe got a job as the police officer in the town of Hanska, and the family moved into town, buying a small house at the edge of Ovedia’s brother Oscar’s property.

                                      Ramona, Joel, Noren and Janice Nelson--1940s

Ramona graduated from Hanska High School, where she met local boy Burton Broste, who was a couple years older than her. They married in November of 1947 (the marriage license is dated November 10, but I haven’t found the actual marriage record yet) when Ramona was 18.

                                            Ramona and Burton Broste Wedding Photo Nov. 1947

Their first child, Raydell, was born May 22, 1948, their son Gary on January 20, 1951, and their third child, Cheryl, was born February 17, 1953. The Broste family initially lived in Hanska, but eventually moved to Worthington, Minnesota.

The Nelson family in the 1950s: Ovedia, Angela and Joe in front, Janice, Noren, Joel and Ramona in the back row.

Cheryl Broste had Downs Syndrome, and the family eventually enrolled her in a special residential school for developmentally disabled children located in Beatrice, Nebraska. I believe it was called the Beatrice State Home. 

                                     Beatrice State Home in Nebraska in 1963

In December, 1961, the Broste family brought Cheryl home to Worthington for the Christmas holidays. On January 7, 1962, Burton and Ramona started the long drive back to Nebraska to return Cheryl, age 9, to the Beatrice State Home. Another student at the school, Nancy Ness, 12, of Canby, Minnesota, rode with them. A friend of the Brostes from Worthington, Mrs. James Gay, also joined them on the trip.

At 8:30 in the morning, on Highway 33 just outside of Lemars, Iowa, Burton’s car struck a patch of ice on the snow-packed road. He lost control and his car slid into oncoming traffic and was struck by a car driven by a couple from Merrill, Iowa, James and Gretchen Ortmann. 

Cars in those days were heavy and lacked safety equipment like seat belts. Fortunately, the Ortmanns suffered only bruises and broken bones, but the passengers in the Broste car were not so lucky. The two children and Mrs. Gay were killed instantly. Ramona suffered severe head trauma and Burton had chest injuries. They were taken by ambulance to a hospital in Orange City, Iowa, where Ramona died from her injuries a week later on January 15, 1962, having never regained consciousness. She was only 33 years old.

Burton was able to recover and return home to care for his children. Ramona’s older children were only 13 and 10 when Ramona and Cheryl were killed. Such a tragic loss for Burton, his children, and the Nelson family.  

Dwight “Rex” Hoffman Macbeth: 52 Ancestors Prompt “Comedy”

Dwight “Rex” Macbeth: 1934-2006

            My uncle Rex Macbeth was an entertaining guy. He enjoyed the spotlight—he’d been a race car driver, a race announcer, and amateur historian. Later in his life, he built up a tire business in Mankato with his second wife Rosie—R&R Tires for Rex and Rosie.

            Rex settled on radio as the perfect venue for his business advertising. He wanted his ads to stand out, to be memorable. He, like his sister, my mom, had always enjoyed writing poetry. His poems tended to be wry and funny, so he wrote humorous poems for his ads, and did the voice-overs himself.

            The ads became very popular—radio deejays claimed they’d get requests for his ads instead of for songs. He put together a collection of his poems in a self-published book, which he sold at the tire shop along with the vintage guns he collected.

            Here are a couple of his poems that make me smile and really capture his comic personality. They were both used as radio advertisements for R & R Tires.

Biographical info:

Rex was born November 1, 1934 to Nora Hoffman Macbeth and Ivan Macbeth. It was a home birth; he was born in my grandparents’ bedroom on their farm near Eagle Lake, Minnesota. My mother, Ione Macbeth, was his only sibling. She was seven years older than he was, an age gap that was hard to bridge, which led to a rather strained relationship in adulthood. Rex grew up on his parents’ farm helping his dad, and told some funny tales about farming in the 1940s and Grandpa’s adventures on his old tractor. Rex attended elementary school at the Tivoli one-room schoolhouse, and was a member of one of the first classes to graduate from the new high school in Mankato.

                          

Ione, Nora, Ivan and Rex Macbeth, about 1948

            Rex’s birth name was Dwight Hoffman Macbeth, but he never cared for the name Dwight, and started calling himself Rex when he was a young man. He served in the Army and was stationed in Germany for a time. When he left the army and returned to Mankato, he raced motorcycles and midget sports cars, did motorcycle “hill climbs” (sort of an early version of the X Games involving driving a motorcycle up steep hillsides at high speeds) and ran a gas station in Mankato. His first marriage, to Susan Sorell, produced one child, Jessica Macbeth, but ended in divorce. Rex married Rosie Schaefer on New Year’s Eve 1977.

Rex was fascinated with the history of the Old West, especially the exploits of the James Gang. He did a lot of research and collected vintage guns related to the time period. He spoke on his research to civic groups, and worked as an announcer for stock car races in addition to running his tire business with Rosie.

Sadly, Rex developed a blood disorder in his sixties that led to his death on July 14, 2006 at the age of 71. I miss his wonderful stories and incredible sense of humor. He was a true original.

Martha “Mart” Amelia Hoffman Seltenreich: 52 Ancestors Prompt “Sister”

Martha Hoffman Seltenreich: 1891-1984

            Martha “Mart” Hoffman Seltenreich was my great-aunt, one of my Grandma Nora’s five sisters. I believe my grandmother felt closest to Mart as the sisters aged. I remember the two of them calling each other almost daily to chat when I was a child, talking about their gardens, cooking, their children and grandchildren, and their ailments and the doctors who were treating them. I still smile when I remember how Mart would call her chiropractor “the touch doctor”—not a bad description!


            Mart was born September 17, 1891 to William Henry Hoffman and Lena Hellena Funk Hoffman. She was the second of their seven children, eight years older than my grandmother Nora. Mart’s mother, Lena, chose the middle name “Amelia” to honor her sister Amelia Funk. 


   William and Lena Hoffman and all seven children at Macbeth farm. Mart 4th from left?    Approximate date 1926?


            Mart grew up on the farm my grandmother referred to as “The Old Nest” in Mankato Township. The property now features a car repair business and lies at the edge of the city of Mankato on Highway 83 just east of the intersection with Highway 22. Mankato used to be far from the farm, but the city has now grown to surround and cover what had been farmland and river bottom. 

 Confirmation photo of Grace Hoffman, the eldest of six daughters, and Martha, the second eldest. Approx. date of 1913-14.

                 Nora Hoffman Macbeth's writing at top: Hoffman farmhouse, "The Old Nest"

            The household must have been lively, with six young girls and one boy. The children attended the Dickenson School, a one-room schoolhouse. The girls created games and stories. My grandmother said that she and her sisters held elaborate doll funerals when a doll’s china head got broken, ending with a burial in the back yard. Her brother Elmer was pressed into service as the minister for the funeral—ministers had to be men! I would love to excavate that property to find the doll cemetery!

                      
                            Dickenson School--Nora Hoffman Macbeth handwriting

The girls socialized frequently—there were always friends coming and going from neighboring farms with large families given the age range of the seven siblings. The girls’ favorite family was the Seltenreichs who lived just down the road. The family had two older daughters and three strapping young sons, Julius, Carl Oscar, and Frederick. 

        

 Father William Hoffman with four daughters on haystack at The Nest

              The Hoffman girls were quite taken with the Seltenreich boys. It sounds like the sisters competed for the boys’ attention, and that there was some jealousy. Grace, the eldest, married Carl, the eldest brother. Sadie married Frederick, and Martha married Julius, known as Jay, who appears in photos to have been the handsomest of the three. My grandmother’s youngest sister Edna used to joke that my grandmother wanted a Seltenreich man, but the only one left was Old Man Seltenreich, the boys’ widowed father, so “Nora had to settle for Ivan Macbeth”. This used to infuriate my grandmother. However, as hinted by the photo below that shows a teenage Nora snuggled up to Jay, I suspect there might have been a little truth behind Edna’s teasing. 

                      


            Martha and Jay were married sometime in 1916--I have been unable to find the marriage record so don't have an exact date yet. They moved to a house at 123 Hubbell in Mankato where Jay first worked as a laborer for the railroad before becoming a firefighter for the city of Mankato. By 1930, they owned a home at 309 Wilton, a street and address that no longer exists, having been razed to build a shopping mall along Riverfront Drive. 


Martha Hoffman and Jay Seltenreich wedding in 1916. Her sister Sadie and his brother Fred were attendants.

It appears the Hoffman girls had fertility issues. Martha’s sisters Edna and Jennie had no children, Sadie had only one, and Nora and Grace had only two each. Martha and Jay had been married for nearly nine years when their only child, a daughter, Lucille, was born July 10, 1925.

            Mart was widowed in 1955; Jay was only 63 at the time of his death. Mart moved in with her daughter and son-in-law on their farm just a couple miles from my grandparents’ farm outside Eagle Lake. This enabled Mart and Nora to visit often. Their daughters were similar in age—my mother was only three years younger than her cousin Lucille—so the two sisters had a lot in common, especially their love of gardening. Both sisters had incredible yards that were riots of color in summer. 


            Mart died June 7, 1984 at age 92. She was buried at Glenwood Cemetery. She was survived by her daughter, her son-in-law Francis Flowers, and grandson Marty Flowers. Marty was named in honor of his grandmother. 

                                 

Fred Ray Macbeth: 52 Ancestors Prompt "Brother"

Fred Ray Macbeth 1906-1943

            Fred Ray Macbeth was my maternal grandfather’s brother and my great-uncle. He was born December 30, 1906 to Walter and Lucy Dane Macbeth. He was the youngest of their sixth children, and was always referred to by his middle name “Ray”.

            Ray grew up on the family farm outside Mankato in Le Ray Township, the farm that my grandfather, Ivan Macbeth, would eventually take over from his parents. 

   Lucy and Walter Macbeth and their six children. Ivan at far right, and I believe Ray is at    the left, with Harold in the middle.

            When Ray was young, he apprenticed as a mason in Toledo, Ohio, living at 929 Brinton Dr. in the Five Points region. It was a new single family home at that time, built in 1925; I expect he was a boarder. I don’t know how he came by this opportunity or how he ended up in Toledo—I don’t know of any family members who lived there. He was already acquainted with young Ila Fern Smith, who grew up on a farm near the Macbeth place. Somehow, Fern (she too went by her middle name) also ended up in Toledo, living just two miles away in the Deveraux neighborhood at 2204 Rood Street, also a newer single family home. The addresses were contained on their marriage certificate—they married in Toledo on July 6, 1929, just months before the stock market crash and a year after my mother’s birth back in Minnesota.

                                   Ray and Fern's marriage record from Toledo, Ohio                          

            By the date of the 1930 census, Ray and Fern were living at 1619 Oakwood Avenue, with Fern’s younger sister Bernice. Ray was still employed as an apprentice mason for a building contractor. The Oakwood house has since been torn down; only an empty lot remains in what is now obviously a ghetto area of Toledo. Ray and Fern’s son, Wilfred Ray Macbeth, was born while they were living there, on May 5, 1930.

            By the time Ray and Fern’s daughter, Renee Aline, was born on December 23, 1932, the couple was back in Minnesota, where Ray turned to farming, working his father’s land with his brother Ivan. I suspect the start of the Great Depression destroyed the construction industry in Toledo, leading to unemployment for masons like Ray. This must have been a difficult time for the family. Ivan had been farming the land alone for several years, having married a couple years before Ray and Fern. Now he had to make the farm support both families. Ray must have been frustrated and depressed, having escaped a life of farming but now being forced to return to it after having spent so much effort and time learning a good trade.

            Ray and Fern moved to a small house near her parents’ farm in the McPherson area of Blue Earth County. My mother remembers that the family called it “the little place”. I can see why from the photo. There can’t have been more than four small rooms. 

            My mother remembers that Ray was a heavy smoker when she knew him. The two families saw quite a bit of one another, as the children were all within a few years of each other, and the parents had all grown up near one another. My mother was close to Ray’s daughter Renee, a pretty blond, and numerous photos feature the Macbeth cousins of Renee, Ione and Joanne, daughter of Ivan and Ray’s brother Harold. My mother Ione disliked her cousin Wilfred, however, who frequently teased and mocked her and destroyed some of her toys. She was still angry in her nineties at the memory of Wilfred laughing uproariously when she fell off a hay rack, breaking her ribs. Interestingly, Wilfred the prankster became a minister.

                                                       Renee, Joanne and Ione Macbeth

            Ray and Ivan continued to farm together into the 1940s. Ray registered for the draft in 1940, and his draft card states that he was five feet ten inches tall, with blue eyes, brown hair, and a light complexion, the same description used for my grandfather Ivan when he registered two years later. 

            Unfortunately, Ray's smoking habit caught up with him. He developed throat cancer, and died at the brutally young age of 36 on January 19, 1943. My mother said her father Ivan tried to care for Fern and the two children, providing money and assistance, as did Fern's parents. I am not sure how the Macbeth farm land was owned. I suspect it remained under the ownership of the brothers' father, Walter, until his death in 1955 when it passed to Ivan. Therefore, Fern may have been left without a share of the farm or the investment property Walter owned in Mankato. Fern went to work to support her children. She moved to Mankato and worked as a cook, a clerk, and then a sealer for an automotive electrical manufacturing company. Fern also died young, at age 50, on May 19, 1959. 

Fern and Ray's graves

            Ray and Ivan seem to have had a special relationship. They were not only close in age, but ended up working together to farm the land they grew up on. They looked quite a bit alike, and had the same vice, cigarettes, that destroyed their health (Ivan died of emphysema in his sixties). They had two children each, one son and one daughter. They also each considered non-farming careers before returning to farming. They were brothers of the heart as well as brothers by birth.

Paul Mayott: 52 Ancestors Prompt “Challenging”

Paul Mayott: 1917 or 1918 to 1929?

The 52 Ancestors challenge paired the prompts “Easy” and “Challenging”. For my “Easy” post, I examined the short life of Penn Soland, who died at age 25 in WWII, noting that short lives were often easy research subjects. However, a short life can also be challenging, particularly when the person resided in a state without centralized, searchable records.

Young Paul Mayott, my second cousin once-removed on my mother’s side of the family, is one of those mysterious child ancestors who appear briefly and tantalizingly in records, only to disappear without a trace. 


Paul was the only son of my cousin Zella (sometimes called Catherine) Macbeth. Zella, born in 1888, had a wild early life, running off at age 16 with a carnival calliope player who abandoned her months later. She divorced him—quite scandalous at the turn of the century—and remarried sometime between 1910 and 1918. The marriage probably took place in Wisconsin, as that is where she appears on a census record in 1920, living with her husband Paul Francis Mayott and her two-year-old son Paul Mayott in Ward 2 of Milwaukee.

Wisconsin’s marriage, birth and death records are difficult to find on Ancestry and other genealogy sites. Apparently I have to go to Wisconsin to do research or hire someone to do it for me. Therefore, I have no birth record for young Paul, so must merely surmise he was born in late 1917 or early 1918. 




By 1930, Zella appears on the census as a widow with no children. She is still living in Milwaukee, but by July 30 of that year, she has moved to Indiana where she married a third time to a Fred H. Williams, a lodger in her Milwaukee apartment.


So what happened to her son Paul? What happened to her husband Paul Francis Mayott? I can find no death or burial records for either.

Some grisly newspaper articles from November 3 and 4 of 1929 may shed some light on young Paul’s fate. Wisconsin and Chicago newspapers reported that a 12-year-old boy named Paul Mayott fell four stories down a ventilation shaft at an abandoned school in Milwaukee on November 3. He was playing on the roof of the building with three friends, jumping over the shaft, which was covered with a metal grate. He failed to make it across and the grate collapsed under his weight. He fell to the first floor of the building.

His friends sought help, and he was extricated by police and taken to the hospital. He suffered internal injuries, a compound fracture of his leg, and a double break of his right arm. He died of his injuries a day later on November 4. 

The Chicago newspaper article lists a home address of 160 Knapp Street, and also states that his friends were from Astor and Jackson streets. I studied a Milwaukee map, and see that this area matches the neighborhood that Zella and her husband were living in in during the 1920s according to city directories. By the 1930 census, Zella is living in the “Juneau Apartments” which is the other side of the block from Knapp. The age of the dead child also matches Zella’s son. I suspect this tragic story explains Paul’s mysterious disappearance from Zella’s life.

                                                    Locations from the Mayott reports


I will keep researching the Milwaukee area, attempting to find records of Paul’s death that would include the names of his parents. Even a newspaper obituary would provide some sort of evidence. I have been unable to locate a Milwaukee newspaper for this period either—the articles I found were from Chicago, Green Bay and other regional cities, and included no mention of the dead boy’s parents. Milwaukee is proving to be a research black hole for this time period.


Until I find conclusive records, young Paul Mayott will remain a challenge.

Hoffman Family Three Generations Photo: 52 Ancestors Prompt "Reunion"

52 Ancestors Prompt “Reunion”

Hoffman Three Generations Photo: 

William Hoffman: 1864-1932

Elmer Hoffman: 1903-1962

Delmer Hoffman 1929-1998

            My grandmother’s family, the Hoffmans, were very fond of family reunions, and I can remember attending several as a child. My grandmother, Nora Hoffman Macbeth, had seven siblings, and her father, William Henry Hoffman, had twelve siblings, so the reunions, usually held at a park in Mankato, could be large gatherings. Picnic tables would be lined up, covered with dishes each family contributed, so everyone could grab a plate and enjoy a huge potluck luncheon. Hours were spent relaxing in lawn chairs, swatting mosquitos, and catching up on family news. 


            For this particular prompt, I am using a photo that I believe was taken at a family event, featuring three generations of Hoffman men: my great-grandfather William Henry Hoffman, his only son, Elmer William Hoffman, and the oldest of Elmer’s six children, son Delmer Edward Hoffman. 

  William Henry Hoffman, Elmer William Hoffman, & Delmer Edward Hoffman, ca.1931


            This photo was taken only a year or so before my great-grandfather’s death. William died at age 67 in 1932. Delmer was born May 3, 1929. He looks like he is about one and one half to two years old in this photo, which would place it in the fall of 1930 or the spring of 1931. 


            The photo shows the family resemblance between father William and son Elmer—they share the same broad forehead and long, lean face tapering down to a narrow chin. All three Hoffmans have good heads of hair, although young Delmer still sports the blond curls of early childhood. 


            It is interesting to note that all three of these Hoffman men died at comparatively young ages: William at 67, Elmer at only 58, and Delmer at 69. 


            This photo reminds me how many years the Hoffman family had been enjoying family gatherings, and how reunions provide opportunities to share experiences across generations.