Crafting a Family Business: 52 Ancestors 2025 Prompt “Family Business”

 

Bill and Betty Hoffman Carlson and the Founding of Carlson Craft

Betty Bernice Jane Hoffman: 1920-1988 (Maternal Second Cousin 1x Removed)
William Dewey Carlson: 1915-2012 (Husband of Maternal Second Cousin 1x Removed)

 

Growing up in Southern Minnesota, I was familiar with the Carlson Craft Company, located in nearby Mankato. They were the premier printing company in the region, and along with business stationary and publications, they printed many of the wedding invitations and graduation announcements families sent out and received. I think I ordered my own wedding invitations from Carlson Craft. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that the founders of Carlson Craft were in my family tree.

Betty Hoffman was born in Mankato on February 22, 1920, to parents Howard Christian Hoffman and Clementine Morrison Hoffman. She was their only child. Howard’s father, Henry Jacob Hoffman, was my great-grandfather William Hoffman’s brother.

Betty married William “Bill” Carlson on September 15, 1946. She was twenty-six and he was thirty-one. He had served in World War II, and in an interview with Connect Business Magazine in 1988, he recalled that when he returned home from war, he wanted to start a business; he didn’t want to work for someone else.

Bill considered several types of businesses, including a small hotel and a diaper service business. He said that “in early 1948… I got the idea for a letter copying service, from a US Dept. of Commerce booklet that was filled with ideas for returning servicemen for operating their own business. In those days, of course, there weren’t any copying machines, so flyers or invitations had to be copied either by offset printing or, as in our case, by mimeograph.” (see 1 below)

Bill Carlson operating early printing machine

The business fit his and Betty’s needs, he said. In 1948, she was still recovering from cancer treatments, and he wanted a business that wouldn’t risk her recovery. Also, both Bill and Betty had experience with mimeography, and as a prior accountant, Bill had experience managing finances.

They started the Carlson Letter Service in the family room of their home, mailing business pitch letters to fifty potential client companies. 

The Carlsons' Mankato home where they started their business

Within a few years, they decided they wanted to focus on the wholesale wedding invitation market. Bill recalled that, “The profits in being in business for myself did not come overnight. In fact, it took seven years before the profit of my business exceeded what I would have earned at my prior accounting job.” (1 below)

While Bill and Betty tried to get the printing business off the ground, they also started their family. Their daughters Nancy and Patricia were born in 1949 and 1951.

First Carlson delivery truck

The business grew, moving into a building on Front Street in Mankato, eventually employing 500 people.  Bill and Betty tried to treat their employees well, providing some benefits even to part-time employees. They also pledged to donate five percent of their profits to charity.

In 1959 Bill impulsively hired a young college student named Glen Taylor, which turned out to be one of the best business decisions he ever made. Taylor worked his way up in the business, and in 1972 Taylor bought the business from Bill and Betty Carlson, changing the company’s name to Carlson Craft.

1970 Newspaper ad (See 3 below)

According to the company’s website, under Taylor’s leadership, Carlson Craft has grown to become one of the “largest privately held corporations in the US, with more than 80 companies and 12,000 employees. The Occasions Group was formed in 1998 to bring together five Taylor facilities as one company with one goal: to be the preferred social print partner for life's events.”(2 below)

As for Bill Carlson, he stated in 1998, “I retired at 59 and haven’t regretted it because it allowed me to give more time to my family, civic organizations and my church.” (1 below) Betty had continued to have health problems over the years, so they prioritized travel and time together in retirement.

Betty Hoffman Carlson died January 10, 1988. She was sixty-seven. Bill Carlson remarried and died in 2012.

Learning about the history of Carlson Craft and my cousin’s role in founding and growing the company was a real delight. Bill and Betty built a company that just celebrated its 75^th anniversary, and still brings joy to brides and grooms nationwide.

 

Sources:

1.       “How Carlson Crafted His Business.” Vance, Daniel. Connect Business Magazine May 1998

2.        https://www.navitor.com/blog/the-history-of-navitor/

3.       Carlson Wedding Service advertisement. Estherville Daily News, Estherville, Iowa. Tue, May 12, 1970

Were My German Ancestors Fortyeighters? 52 Ancestors 2025 Prompt “Migration”

 

Part of a Wave of German Immigrants: Hoffmans, Funks, and Streus

Johann Friedrich Streu: 1808-1883 (Maternal Third-Great Grandfather)
Friederica Christina Dethloff Streu: 1804-1883 (Maternal Third-Great Grandmother)
Sophia Maria Christiane Streu: 1840-1922 (Maternal Second-Great Grandmother)
Johannes Heinrich Wilhelm Hoffman: 1836-1906  (Maternal Second-Great Grandfather)
Charles Nicolas Funk: 1817-1889 (Maternal Second-Great Grandfather)

A friend who is also working on her family tree recently asked me if my German ancestors were “Forty-eighters”. I had no idea what the term meant, and headed off to do some research. Wikipedia provided me with a basic working definition of the group:

“The Forty-eighters (48ers) were Europeans who participated in or supported the Revolutions of 1848 that swept Europe, particularly those who were expelled from or emigrated from their native land following those revolutions…In the German Confederation, the Forty-eighters favoured unification of Germany, a more democratic government, and guarantees of human rights.” (3)

Wikipedia noted that after the revolutions failed, many of these supporters elected to emigrate, heading for Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Ancestry’s article on German immigration stated:

“Between 1848 and 1861, many Germans, known as “Forty-Eighters”, immigrated to the United States. While the exact numbers are unknown, the best estimates are that between 4,000 and 10,000 Forty-Eighters immigrated along with many other Germans who arrived at that time.” (2)

“Forty-Eighters could be found across the Midwestern landscape from the Dakotas to Ohio.” (2)

Illustration of Forty-Eighters boarding ships to emigrate from Germany

So were my German ancestors part of this movement? First, I needed to check on the years they arrived in the United States—did their arrival dates fall within the period from 1848 to 1861?

Yes, they all did. My second-great-grandfather Johannes Heinrich Wilhelm Hoffman (Americanized name of Henry), was born in Oedelum, Hanover, Germany on June 4, 1836, and arrived in the United States in 1855 at the age of nineteen. He would have only been twelve years old when the attempted 1848 revolution occurred, so it seems unlikely he was involved in the movement, unless his family members, who all remained in Germany, were supporters.

Henry and Sophia Hoffman

Henry’s eventual wife and my second-great-grandmother, Sophia Maria Christiane Streu, was born May 29, 1840 in Mecklenburg, Germany, to parents Johann and Freidrica Streu. The family seems to have arrived in America in 1857 when Sophia was sixteen. Her family moved to the Milwaukee area, and that is where Sophia met and married Henry. Milwaukee was one of the areas that Forty-Eighters settled in, so Sophia’s father Johann could have been a follower of the movement.

My remaining German immigrant ancestor was another second-great-grandfather, Charles Nicolas Funk, the father of my great-grandmother Hellena Funk. Charles was born May 12, 1817 in Prussia. He appears on the 1860 census as a cabinetmaker in Oskaloosa, Iowa, and was naturalized November 8, 1864. His arrival date in America is unclear, but was obviously prior to the 1860 census and at least five years before his 1864 naturalization—five years of continuous residence was required by the government. He was certainly old enough to have been involved in 1848, and as a cabinetmaker, he shared some of the characteristics of Forty-Eighters, who were more likely to have been educated or tradesmen rather than the very poor.

What other characteristics did the Forty-Eighters share? Many of them joined the Turners or formed Turner groups in the United States. According to Wikipedia, “Turners are members of German-American gymnastic clubs called Turnvereine. They promoted German culture, physical culture, and liberal politics.” (4)  I don’t believe any of my second-great-grandparents were members.

In addition, many Forty-eighters supported the Union in the Civil War. While I know that Charles Funk registered for the Union draft, he was already in his mid-forties by that time, so he was apparently never drafted and never served. Henry Hoffman also registered for the draft while living in Wisconsin in 1863, but also never served. He continued to farm and father more children throughout the war years before moving to Minnesota in 1870.

I do know that all three families—Hoffman, Streu and Funk—ended up settling near Mankato, Minnesota. As seen in the map below, that area of southeastern Minnesota welcomed large numbers of German immigrants. Mankato had a German-language Lutheran church that my ancestors attended, and a large German population. The nearby community of New Ulm was all German, and was definitely settled by Forty-Eighters. New Ulm still has an active Turner Hall and Turner group.

1872 map of German population, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

There is no definitive evidence proving that my three German ancestors arrived as part of the Forty-Eighters movement, although all of them arrived around the same time period and settled near the Forty-Eighter community of New Ulm, Minnesota. I will never know whether their political beliefs led to their decision to emigrate or if they were simply part of a larger German migratory movement. Ancestry reports that nearly six million Germans immigrated between 1820 and 1910, and only a small percentage of those migrants were Forty-Eighters.

 

Sources:

1. “German Immigration in 1848. https://www.ancestry.com/historical-insights/migration-settlement/immigration/german-immigration-1848

2. The Forty-Eighters of Germany Come to America.  https://www.junctionbooks.net/blog-2/the-forty-eighters-of-germany-come-to-america

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty-eighters

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turners

Courting Couple: 52 Ancestors 2025 Prompt “Favorite Photo”

 

Ivan and Nora In Love: My Grandparents In Front of Their Future Home

Ivan Macbeth: 1904-1972 (Maternal Grandfather)
Nora Hoffman: 1899-1994 (Materna Grandmother)

 

I loved this photo as soon as I saw it in my grandmother’s old photo album. I feel that it visually captures a special moment in my grandparents’ lives—the point where they knew they were going to build a life together, but before their April 14, 1926 marriage actually started that chapter of their lives . The photo’s background also serves as a striking metaphor for that pivotal moment.

The photo depicts my grandparents standing against the roadcut carved into the hillside below the farmhouse they would move into after their marriage. Roads in the area were changing from narrow, muddy dirt roads traversed by horses, into gravel or paved roads wide enough for cars to pass each other. The county was widening and flattening out the road that wound from Eagle Lake towards Mankato. The equipment had cut down through the hillside to make the new roadbed. While my grandfather wasn’t a tall man—probably about 5 feet 8 inches, and he and Grandma Nora were sitting on a dirt shelf rather than standing up, given that there was at least three to four feet of dirt above their heads, it appears the road cut was at least ten feet deep.

I believe the photo was taken in the year before their marriage, since Grandpa Ivan is not wearing a wedding ring on his visible left hand. The trees behind them in the Macbeth farmyard still have leaves, so I am guessing the photo was taken in early fall. Grandma Nora is wearing a long-sleeved top and Grandpa is wearing a suitcoat, so the weather was neither hot as it would have been in summer, nor particularly chilly as it would have been in late fall. I am putting a likely date of September 1925 on the photo; about seven months before their wedding. The shadows are sharp, with the sun coming from the west, so the photo was likely taken in late afternoon.

Ivan and Nora were probably engaged by this point, or close to announcing their engagement. Even though they are a bit stiff-looking and aren’t holding hands, they are sitting close to one another, leaning towards each other. I can see from their body language that they are definitely a “couple”.

My grandmother, Nora Hoffman, was twenty-six when they married, while Ivan Macbeth had just turned twenty-two. My grandmother was always sensitive about the age difference, even lying about her own age on occasion. This is the first photo where I can really see how very young Ivan was, and how Nora looks more mature.

I love their clothes. They seem to have been dressed up for a date or a party. Ivan seems to be holding a scarf or soft hat, and Nora holds a lovely hat decorated with a small bunch of flowers. Her hair is bobbed in the flapper-type style of the 1920s. She appears to be wearing pale hose, and has shoes decorated with some sort of buckle. He is wearing a nice suit and dark tie, and has a handkerchief peeking from his suit pocket. He’s wearing dark dress shoes, and the narrow pants legs accentuate his lean, lanky build.

In this photo, my grandparents are preparing to set out on a new road in their life, so it is appropriate that they are posing on the new road being built in front of their soon-to-be home.

The Language of the Old Country: 52 Ancestors 2024 Prompt “Language”

The Fiction that Our Immigrant Ancestors Quickly Learned English

People who are hostile to new U.S. immigrants often complain that immigrants cling to their home country’s language and prefer to live with other immigrants. What happened to the idea of the melting pot, these people gripe. Our ancestors learned English right after they came to America, and quickly adopted American culture, they claim. They chide today’s immigrants, demanding that they learn to speak English!  Now!

But did our ancestors really embrace American culture and the English language right after they landed in America? I’m sure there were a few people who did, but most of our immigrant ancestors did the same things that modern immigrants do: they took decades to truly learn English, and they preferred to live with other people from their home country, speaking the Old Country language, eating Old Country foods, and worshipping and reading newspapers in their native language.

Examples abound from my own family. My father’s grandparents all immigrated from Norway, and joined other Norwegian immigrants in Minnesota, forming a Norwegian community in Brown County. Nearby was a German community, and a few miles away, a Swedish community. Each community set up their own churches that used their home country language. Newspapers were printed in their home country language. My father, born in 1917, nearly fifty years after his Syverson grandparents immigrated, spoke with a strong Norwegian accent. Why? Because his parents, who had spent most of their lives in America, spoke Norwegian at home as well as English.

An example is this postcard from my great-uncle Siver Syverson addressed to his mother Ragnhild. While my photo cut off the postal cancellation date, the company that made the post card did not begin producing them until 1909. I am guessing Siver travelled to Canada and sent the postcard sometime between 1912 and 1915. Siver was born in the United States in 1882. His parents immigrated in 1868, so Ragnhild had been in America for at least forty years by the time this postcard was written. But her American-born son was still communicating with her in Norwegian.

My father’s family attended a nearby Lutheran church that continued to offer services in Norwegian well into the 1900s. Here is the parish register for my father’s 1917 baptism. The headings are in Norwegian. Most of the ministers that served such churches came directly from Norway to serve American congregations.

My grandmother, Nora Hoffman, was the child of German immigrants, and attended a German Lutheran church in Mankato, Minnesota. Many of the forms they used, like wedding, baptism and confirmation certificates, were written in German. Hymns and services were conducted in German into the 20^th century even though the German immigrants in the area had arrived at least thirty years earlier. Below you can see my grandmother’s 1900 baptism certificate in German. 

No matter how eager immigrants are to start new lives in America, they still take pride in their home culture—and they should! I take pride in my Norwegian and German roots, after all. And it is perfectly natural that immigrants would seek to settle near other immigrants from their homeland—it offers a built-in support system and a sense of community. Our ancestors did the same. In addition, English is a complex and difficult language to master, so it is perfectly natural that adults would take decades to become comfortable and fluent, often being forced to rely on their children, who attended schools taught in English, to act as translators.

We accept that we need to examine historical records to trace our ancestors. We also need to look at what historical records tell us about American immigration before we make unfounded claims about our immigrant ancestors’ embrace of American culture and language.

 

Sources:

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Archives; Elk Grove Village, Illinois; Congregational Records. Church Name or Description: Lake Hanska Lutheran. Births: 1917. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/60722/images/41742_314248-00282?pId=776547

A Wedding in the 1880s: 52 Ancestors 2024 Prompt “Favorite Photo”

A Formal Photo for a Formal Occasion: A Typical 1880s Wedding Photo

Elizabeth “Minnie” Hoffman: 1869-1945 (Maternal Great-Grandaunt)
Frank L Graham: 1863-1939 (Maternal Great-Granduncle by Marriage)

 

My grandmother, Nora Hoffman Macbeth, passed down a number of family photos, including wedding photos for most of her numerous aunts and uncles. My brother has the originals; I scanned them for my records. One of these family treasures is this 1888 wedding photo, featuring my grandmother’s Aunt Elizabeth Hoffman and her new husband Frank Graham. I was charmed by the details and the facial expressions in the photo, and by what the image can tell us about weddings in the 1880s.

So who were Elizabeth Hoffman and Frank Graham? Elizabeth was born January 3, 1869 to parents Johannes Heinrich Wilhelm Hoffman and Sophia Maria Christiane Streu. Johannes and Sophia had immigrated from Germany in the 1850s and married around 1860 in the Milwaukee area. Elizabeth was the fifth of their eventual eleven children.

The family moved to Blue Earth County, Minnesota around 1870, so Elizabeth grew up on their farm near Mankato.

Frank Graham grew up on a farm in Martin County in Tenhassen Township, nearly 65 miles away, appearing on the 1880 federal census and the 1885 Minnesota State Census living with his parents.  I am not sure how the two young people met. Perhaps Frank moved to the Mankato area at some point after the 1885 census and they met there.

They married July 1, 1888 in Decoria Township, Blue Earth County, Minnesota. Frank was 24 years old, and Elizabeth was just 19 years old.

What can we gather and surmise from this photo?

First, the bride is not wearing white. It was quite common in the 1880s for brides to simply wear their best dresses for their weddings. White wedding dresses were becoming more popular thanks to Queen Victoria wearing one for her 1840s wedding, but many women could not afford a special dress, especially  in such an impractical color.

Elizabeth’s dress was fairly elaborate, featuring a jacket with dark velvet sleeves, collar and pockets. It is impossible to tell what color it was, but it was obviously quite dark, perhaps a dark green or blue, or even black. Even though Frank and Elizabeth were married in midsummer on July 1, Elizabeth’s skirt and jacket appear to be made of heavy fabrics—possibly a winter-weight wool. Elizabeth wore a blouse beneath her jacket—you can see the shirt sleeves peeping out from the velvet sleeves, and the dark shirt rises above the jacket’s velvet collar. The shirt collar rises high along her throat, edged with light colored piping. Elizabeth wore a bar-shaped broach to pin the shirt collar closed. Given how warm this outfit was, I suspect she may have worn the outfit only for the formal photo with her husband, and wore a lighter weight gown for the actual wedding ceremony.

Elizabeth was also wearing a corset, giving her that wasp-waisted shape that was so desirable in the Victorian era. The jacket hugs her corseted waist, with a double row of buttons holding the jacket closed. The skirt is rather plain in design compared to the jacket, but appears to be well tailored.

Elizabeth also took pains with her hair, which was elaborately curled and pinned.

As for Frank, he has also taken pains with his appearance. He is wearing a handsome suit and vest. Beneath the suit he wore a fancy shirt with a pattern of stripes or checks. The shirt also seems to have a sort of built-in tie or ascot that he has tacked down with a square tie pin. He has a watch chain and fob artfully draped across his chest. His boots look clean and cared for, and he appears to have visited the barber—his hair is neatly cut, and his chin and neck clean-shaven. I found his blond mustache—a contrast to his darker hair—charming.

Frank has a slight smile on his face, while Elizabeth looks very young and very solemn. Of course, due to the long photo exposures of the period, sitters were told not to smile so their image wouldn’t be blurred by movement.

The final thing to note about the photo is that neither the bride nor groom are wearing wedding rings. Was the photo taken before the ceremony, or did the couple not use wedding rings?

So what happened to Elizabeth and Frank after this photo was taken? The couple had only one child, Laura Jane, who was born seven years after their marriage. I suspect Elizabeth may have had some miscarriages or fertility problems.

After her birth, Frank volunteered to serve in the Minnesota Infantry in the Spanish American War. I have been unable to find details about his service, other than that he was a private in the 13^th  Minnesota Infantry, Company D. The Minnesota 13^th was sent to Manila in 1898 to put down an insurrection there. They returned to the United States in 1899. Did he volunteer to earn extra money? Out of patriotism? At 32, he was older than most of his fellow soldiers. It must have been hard on Elizabeth to be left at home to care for their young daughter alone.

By the time of the 1905 state census, Frank was back in Minnesota. He was working as a mason and the couple and their daughter were living in Fairmont, Minnesota. They continued to live in Fairmont at 1000 North Elm Street until their deaths. Frank died March 22, 1939 at age 75. Elizabeth died March 5, 1945 at age 76. Their daughter married and had two children.

1000 N. Elm, Fairmont, MN today, from Google Street View

I love Elizabeth and Frank’s wedding photo. It may not be the most elegant or beautiful photo, but it captures that moment in their lives so vividly, and gives us a window into the world of hard-working immigrant families in 1880s Minnesota. Let’s raise a toast to the bride and groom!

New Year’s Eve Oysters: 52 Ancestors 2022 Prompt “Tranditions”

 

Grandma’s New Year’s Eve Prescription: Oyster Stew

Nora Elsie Hoffman Macbeth: 1899-1994

 

For my Grandma Nora, the New Year couldn’t start properly without a good helping of oyster stew the night before. My mom picked up the tradition, and every year we’d be shopping for canned oysters at the rural Minnesota supermarkets near our home. Amazingly, they were always available, so I suspect that this tradition was fairly common in the area.

Grandma Nora as a young woman

My Grandma Nora’s parents were both of German descent. I believe she acquired the recipe and the tradition from one of them. According to my Google research, oyster stew was only a holiday tradition in the northern areas of Germany, possibly due to the closer proximity to the sea. Lena Funk’s father emigrated from northern Germany, so perhaps the oyster stew was a little piece of the Old Country he brought with him.

Apparently more people serve oyster stew on Christmas Eve rather than New Year’s Eve. However, the tradition makes more sense to me as a propitious way to begin a new year since the oysters are believed to promote libido and fertility. It’s very similar to the southern tradition of eating black-eyed peas for the same reason.

I’m not sure if my grandmother was trying to promote healthy libidos or not. I know that she was rather superstitious, and claimed that consuming oyster stew on New Year’s Eve brought good fortune in the coming year.

Another genealogist who had the same New Year’s Eve tradition found an authentic German recipe for the stew or soup that sounds close to the one my grandmother and mother used (I used Google Translate to convert it into English):

Austernsuppe  (Oyster Soup)

Portionen: 4

Oyster soup ingredients

24 oysters (with juice)

40 grams of butter

3/4 cup(s) whole milk (hot)

Sweet paprika

Salt

Pepper

For oyster soup, cook the shelled oysters in the hot butter with the oyster juice.

As soon as the oyster crusts begin to curl, add hot milk, season with salt and pepper and heat through.

Serve the oyster soup in soup bowls sprinkled with sweet paprika.

 

My grandmother used more milk than this, and less butter. Fresh oysters were hard to find in Minnesota at the best of times, and in winter during the 1970s was nearly impossible. We used canned oysters. I recall that she added carrots and onions, and occasionally potatoes. Here is a recipe that is more similar to hers:

New Year’s Oyster Stew

4 servings

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup minced onion

1/4 cup diced celery

1/4 cup diced carrot

1/2 teaspoon mild paprika

1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon cayenne

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

8 ounces bottled fresh oysters with liqueur

4 cups nonfat milk

1/2 cup nonfat dry milk powder

1 cup half-and-half

Combine water, onion, celery, carrot, paprika, cayenne, salt and pepper in a small pot. Cover and simmer over low heat until vegetables are tender. If necessary, add more water. Strain oysters and pour the liqueur into the pot with the vegetables. Chop oysters into 1/2-inch pieces and set aside.

In another pot, stir together the liquid milk, dry milk and half-and-half. Heat at medium-low temperature until warm. Stir in the vegetable mixture and increase the temperature slightly. Cook 1 minute and add the oysters. Heat at medium heat until hot. Serve immediately.

 

My family’s soup was served with saltines, or even more appropriately, oyster crackers. I remember how my brother and I loved the oyster crackers. It was a fairly bland dish, which was probably why I enjoyed it as a child.

Sadly, I didn’t carry on this tradition. I only made the soup once or twice when my own children were young. I’m not the biggest fan of canned oysters, and my children weren’t impressed. Perhaps I should try again with fresh oysters.

 

Sources:

Recipe courtesy of https://www.ichkoche.at/austernsuppe-rezept-179466

https://www.dglobe.com/news/celebrating-christmas-german-style

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-lz1f31history182839-oyster-stew-holiday-tradition--2008dec31-story.html#:

 

Tracing a Life Gone Awry: 52 Ancestors 2022 Prompt “Timeline”

From Independence to Asylum Inmate

Anna Stroy: 1877-1961

 

While researching my second-great-granduncle Johann Streu/John Stroy, I discovered that his youngest daughter, Anna, ended up in the Norfolk State Hospital for the Insane, spending over half her life as an inmate. I knew that in early part of the twentieth century, people with problems like severe intellectual and developmental disability and severe autism were often institutionalized with the mentally ill. Was Anna’s condition lifelong, or did it develop later in life? I decided to track the data points in the records creating a timeline to see what I could learn.

1877:  

Anna was born April 1, 1877 in Elmwood Nebraska to parents Johann and Johannah Kupke Streu. She was the youngest of their 6 children.  

1880:

Anna appears on the census with her family.

1900:

Anna appears on the census, age 23, living with her parents. She is not employed.

1901:

A news item in the January 4, 1901 issue of the Elmwood Nebraska Leader-Echo states “Miss Anna Stroy returned to her work in Lincoln, Tuesday evening.” So at 24, she was holding down a job and presumably living on her own in Lincoln, Nebraska.

1905:

Anna’s mother dies.

1906:

News item from the Ashland Journal on March 2, 1906 reads: “Anna Stroy and sister Emma Gakemeier are visiting relatives at Glenwood, Iowa for an indefinite period.”

1908:

News item from the Ashland Gazette on January 31, 1908: “Miss Anna Stroy was an Omaha visitor Thursday of last week.        

1909:

News item from the Ashland Gazette on September 3, 1909: “John Stroy and family and Miss Anna Stroy returned Tuesday from a three weeks outing in Colorado.” Note: it is unclear if the John Stroy mentioned is Anna’s father or, more likely, her older brother, who was married and the father of three children in 1909.

News item from the December 3, 1909 Ashland Gazette describing the removal of 700 apple trees from Anna Stroy’s farm, so they must have been running an orchard, but were now returning the land to farming use. Was this Anna’s father’s old land?

1910:

Anna and her father are living together in Elmwood, Nebraska in a house on Kansas Street. She is 33. Her father is 75. She is not employed.

1918:

Anna’s father Johann died on March 27, 1918.

1920:

The 1920 census finds Anna living at the Norfolk Hospital for the Insane in Norfolk, Nebraska. She is 41 years old.

1924:

The Elmwood Leader-Echo published an article on May 23, 1924 detailing a lawsuit brought by Anna’s brother John as her guardian. She owned farmland, and the school district had condemned five acres to use as a school site, but paid less for the land than Anna’s brother thought was fair. She is described as “incompetent.” The jurors awarded an additional $460 in compensation.

1930:

The census finds her still an inmate in the Norfolk Hospital.

1934:

Legal notice in the Plattsmouth Journal of Plattsmouth, Nebraska providing public notice that John Stroy has filed for paperwork requesting approval of his guardianship expenses and report for Anna, an incompetent.

1939:

Anna is listed as a surviving relative in her sister Emma’s obituary. Ashland Gazette October 18, 1939.

1940:

The census finds Anna still a resident at the Norfolk Hospital for the Insane. She is 62.

1961:

Anna Stroy died on July 11, 1961 at age 84. Her obituary stated that “She lived in the Murdock community until 1917 when she became a paitient at the state hospital in Norfolk. She remained there until about five years ago when she was transferred to a nursing home in Plattsmouth.” Obituary published in the Ashland Gazette on July 20, 1961.

1962:

Springfield Monitor, Papillion Nebraska published a Notice of Sale for Anna’s farm on January 11, 1962.

 

So what did I learn from this timeline? First, Anna had been independent early in her life. She was able to hold a job and live on her own. However, at some point she moved back home, and lived with her parents until she was committed to the Norfolk Hospital. Did her mental illness manifest in her early twenties when she moved back home? Schizophrenia can manifest in early adulthood. She could have been bipolar or severely depressed. Did her condition worsen as the years went by? Whatever mental illness she suffered, it apparently wasn’t apparent from birth.  

Anna’s mother died in 1905. Anna continued to live with her father and travel with family for the next decade. However, we see that her father was preparing for her support once he was no longer alive to care for her: he placed 160 acres of farmland in her name by 1909.

As her father’s health failed, the family must have decided that Anna needed more care than they could provide, for according to her obituary, she was committed in 1917, a year before her father’s death. The timeline shows that her siblings took responsibility for her—her sister traveled with her one year, and her brother another year. Her brother became her guardian after her father’s death, and managed her affairs until his death in 1954.

Dining hall at the Norfolk State Hospital around 1915

The Norfolk State Hospital for the Insane appears to have been a decent institution. The photographs I was able to find show attractive buildings and a clean interior with plenty of staff to care for the patients. I hope the hospital was able to provide good care for Anna, as she spent half of her life there, from age 39 to approximately 79, when she was transferred to a nursing home.

The use of a timeline helped me track Anna Stroy’s life more effectively. While I may never know the details, I can at least see the framework and milestones of her life,

Broken Ties Between Parent and Children Leads to Lawsuit: 52 Ancestors 2022 Prompt “Broken Branch”

A Crooked Lawyer, a Suspicious New Will, and Angry Children: the Ernest Kupke Estate Lawsuit

Johann Streu/John Story: 1834-1918

Ernest Kupke: 1840-1903

 

While researching my second-great-granduncle Johann Streu, I came across news articles about a lawsuit that named him as a defendant. To my surprise, Johann was being sued by his wife Johanna’s niece and nephew. They claimed Johann was involved in a scheme to defraud them of the inheritance they were due following the death of their father, Ernst or Ernest Kupke. Ernst was Johann’s brother-in-law and neighbor. What had happened to cause such mistrust and animosity? It sounded as if this branch of the family tree had been broken, perhaps beyond repair.

I collected as many newspaper articles about the lawsuit as I could find on Newspapers.com. The suit was apparently well-known in Nebraska, with articles detailing each ruling published in several newspapers. The case appeared, in various forms, before at least three different judges. I was able to piece together the basic storyline from all these articles.

So who was Ernest Kupke? He was born in July of 1840 in Silesia, Prussia. His parents were Carl and Johanna Setzer Kupke. Ernest and his family immigrated to the United States in 1863 when he was 23 years old. His sister married Johann Streu/John Stroy, and the 1870 census finds Ernst living next door to the Stroys in Wisconsin.

The next year Ernst married Johanna Caroline Tischer or Fischer, another Prussian immigrant. They had two children, John Christ Kupke, born in 1874, and Johanna Kupke, born in 1873. Shortly thereafter, Ernst and Johanna must have separated and divorced, for by the 1880 census, Johanna had remarried to a man named William Hoerner or Koerner, and she and her two children were living with Koerner and his children from an earlier marriage. Johanna Tischer must have married him quite quickly, for the couple already had three-year-old twins and a 7-month-old son named Gotlieb by 1880.

John and Johanna Kupke Stroy had already moved their family to Cass County, Nebraska around 1875. Ernest followed them, bringing his mother to live with him. He appears on the 1880 census in Cass County, marital status “D” for divorced, just two pages away in the census forms from the Stroy family.

Ernest’s ex-wife and new husband moved their family to Kentucky. Census records list Ernest’s children as Koerner’s children, so they incorrectly appear with the surname Koerner rather than Kupke.

I surmise that Ernest fell out of contact with his children over the years, for whatever reason. They seem to have built lives in Kentucky, and don’t seem to have traveled to Nebraska to visit him. His daughter married a man named Robert Sayre in the 1890s, and by the 1900 census, she was the mother of two sons and was living in Paducah. Her brother, John Christ, was 26 and living with his stepfather and mother in Clarks River, Kentucky, working as a house carpenter.

Ernest fell into poor health in 1903, dying July 27, 1903. His children didn’t know about his death until they received a visit from a slick Nebraska attorney, Carey S. Polk, who spun them a tale about their father’s will, which was written in German and incomprehensible to them. He told them Ernest’s estate was to be split among several heirs and their share was to be $3,300. He proposed that he help them out by buying out their rights in the estate for $700 more—so they would have $4000 to split. He must have been very persuasive, for the naïve pair signed the agreement. Polk scampered back to Nebraska where he tried to parlay his partial interest into a full interest, alleging that the will was improper and unenforceable—Ernest had an earlier will that left everything to his children, and that would come back into effect if the new will were tossed out. The total value of the estate was $22,000, so he had paid $4000 to get hold of four times as much money—a sweet deal for him.

Luckily for John Christ and Johanna, someone let them know the true value of what they had signed away, so in November 1903 they filed suit in Nebraska asking for the agreement with the slick attorney be set aside, and that they be declared sole heirs to their father’s estate. A newspaper article at the time stated; “They tender repayment of the $4000 with interest and seek to recover the value of the estate, asserting that the papers were signed in ignorance of their rights in the matter.”

So who was benefitting under the new will? John Christ and Johanna have a long list of defendants, including Carey Polk of course, and H. R. Neitzel, J. E. Baumgartner, Herman Schmidt, Agnes Schmidt, my ancestor Johann Stroy and his wife Johannah, and the Bank of Murdock.

So what were these people alleged to have done? According to an article in the Lincoln Star, the new will “is alleged to have been made while he was in a dying condition and it is charged in the action that others held the dying man’s hand and guided it to affix his signature to the document, which had been written in German.”

This sounds like something straight out of a crime show—a forged will with a forced signature. So who was holding the pen when poor Ernest was dying?

Another, longer article in the Plattsmouth Journal in October 1903 provides more details of exactly what crooked Mr. Polk was up to.

“The petition filed by these children and heirs at law tells a tale that is, to say the least, most outrageous. The will was written in the German language by [Kupke’s] spiritual adviser, Rev. Baumgartner, of the Lutheran faith, and contained a bequest of $5000 to the Lutheran church. Among other bequests, $3000 to the two children of Kupke’s who reside in Kentucky. The will was propounded for probate…After filing the petition for probate, C. S. Polk hied himself to Kentucky with a translation of the will and requested the Kupke children to join with their Uncle Stroy in a fight to have the $5000 bequest to the church defeated, representing to the heirs in Kentucky that the will was valid and binding on them, and if they would join their uncle in defeating the Lutheran church out of the $5000, Stroy and Mr. Polk would pay them the amount allowed them under the will ($3000) and their pro rata share of the $5000 so snatched from the wicked church.”

The article goes on to state that Polk was well aware that the two people who witnessed the new will were beneficiaries of the will, which is forbidden due to the obvious conflict of interest. That made the new will “incompetent, illegal and could not be admitted to probate under the law of Nebraska”.

While the total value of the estate may not sound like much to us today, according to Google, 1903’s $22,000 would be the equivalent of $718,000 in 2022. It’s easy to understand why John and Johanna were ready to sue to get what they were properly owed. It is also easy to understand why the church was so eager to get that $5000—that would be $163,000 in today’s money.

So how complicit was Johann/John Story in this attempted swindle? I suspect he was the other witness to the will who was also a beneficiary, along with the Rev. Baumgartner, although none of the news articles identify him directly. It would make sense that John’s wife Johannah would have been caring for her brother Ernest during his final days, so they would have been close to hand.

Also, not only was Rev. Baumgartner the Stroys’ minister, he was also their daughter’s father-in-law. Johann’s daughter Mary was married to Conrad Baumgartner, Rev. J. E. Baumgartner’s son. It sounds like the Baumgartners and the Stroys conspired to keep Ernest’s money in their family rather than see it go to his estranged children. Hardly the actions of true Christians!

Cass County Nebraska farmland similar to the Kupke land...

The courts eventually sided with John Christ Kupke and his sister Johanna Kupke Sayre. They seem to have inherited the full estate, although the slightly shady lawyer Polk was awarded $2500 out of the estate for attorney’s fees for his “work” as the administrator of the estate. I’m sure that didn’t sit well with the Kupke children, nor did it sit well with one of the local newspapers, which published a scathing criticism of the fee award, suggesting it was a political payoff.

Shockingly, the German Lutheran Synod persisted in trying to acquire their bequest from the invalid will. They filed suit to ask that the order throwing out the new will be vacated, and that they get their day in court to argue that the new will was valid. They claimed that, “Material witnesses living, who were present and witnessed the execution of the will, were never called, and the hearing was, from a legal standpoint, a miscarriage.”

The Synod was granted a hearing to present their case to the court. I can find no records in the newspapers of the result of that hearing. It appears that the Kupke children received at least a portion of their father’s estate. John Christ Kupke moved to Nebraska, and took up farming, presumably on his father’s land. His sister and her family remained in Kentucky. John Christ appears on the 1910 census as a single man. A year later, he seems to have married and his first child was born December 3, 1911. His wife was Louise Holare, and was eleven years younger than John, who was 37. They had three daughters.

John Christ Kupke headstone at Lutheran Cemetery. Findagrave. 

I wonder if John Christ Kupke made his peace with the Stroys. Johannah Stroy and her children might have been his only relatives in Nebraska after all. I’m not sure whether they deserved his forgiveness or not, but I hope they tried to mend the broken branch in the family tree eventually.

 

Sources:

Plainview News, Plainview Nebraska. “Sue to Recover Estate”. 13 Nov 1903.

Lincoln Star, Lincoln Nebraska. “Brief in Will Contest”. 8 Nov 1904

Omaha Daily Bee, Omaha Nebraska. “Kentucky Heirs Get Property.” 12 Apr 1904

Plattsmouth Journal, Plattsmouth, Nebraska. “Get Rich Quick”. 29 Oct 1903.

Plattsmouth Journal, Plattsmouth, Nebraska. “Court Orders Resitution.” 14 Apr 1904.

Plattsmouth Journal, Plattsmouth, Nebraska. “Get Rich Quick Scheme”. 4 Aug 1904

Plattsmouth Journal, Plattsmouth, Nebraska. “An Imposition on the Court.” 28 Apr 1904.

Louisville Courier, Louisville Nebraska. “Increases Bond of Administrator.” 5 Mar 1904.

Elmwood Daily Leader Echo, Elmwood Nebraska. “Kupke Case in the Supreme Court.” 18 Nov 1904.

 

A Road Trip Gone Awry: 52 Ancestors 2022 Prompt “Road Trip”

Runaway Horse Leads to Serious Buggy Wreck

Claire Stroy: 1895-1998

 

While researching the Stroy family for my previous post, I happened to run across an amazing news story from 1913 Nebraska that demonstrated that travel was dangerous long before cars ruled the roads.

Claire Stroy was my second cousin twice removed, the grandchild of my second-great-grandmother Sophia Streu Hoffman’s brother, Johann Streu/John Stroy. Claire was born October 13, 1895 in Murdock, Nebraska to parents John Stroy and Margaret Augusta Deusing. She attended local schools, along with her brothers Arthur and Herbert.

On August 4, 1913, sixteen year old Claire and two friends were traveling by buggy near Murdock when the horse bolted. The newspaper reported the resulting accident as follows:

“The young lady with two lady friends were returning from Murdock when the horse took fright and became unmanageable. In the course of its flight it struck a bridge, and jumped over the banister into a deep gulley, throwing the young ladies out with terrible force. Miss Stroy being terribly crushed, while the other two escaped with only minor bruises. The horse’s neck was broken and the buggy reduced to a mass of splinters. Miss Stroy was taken home at once and physicians called. Her condition is quite alarming.”

Horse and buggy image from around 1913

What a wild and terrifying incident! The horse must have been completely crazed to actually jump over the bridge railing, dragging the buggy behind, and plunge into a ravine. This is proof that accidents with horses could be just as serious as car accidents can be a century later.

The loss of the horse was probably also a financial blow to the family, as good horses could be expensive. I wish the article provided more details about how Claire was rescued and moved to her parents’ home. Did the other two girls go for help? Did someone happen along the road and discover the wreck?

While Claire’s condition sounded very serious, the newspaper reported two weeks later that she was “gradually improving from the serious accident”. She was able to return to school in the fall.

Claire went on to attend the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, and married Fred T. Henderson in April, 1922. The couple had three children and eventually moved to Fred Henderson’s hometown, Winter Haven, Florida.

Obviously Claire’s injuries didn’t leave her with long-term health problems. She lived to the amazing age of 103, outliving her husband by forty years!

Sources:

“Miss Clara Stroy is Dangerously Injured”. Ashland Gazette, Ashland, Nebraska. August 7, 1913.