34 – Newest Discovery

Schangnau Chorgerichtmanual, years 1731-1787, cover page

New discoveries often come with new sources. Earlier this year I found that digitized copies of many Swiss Bernese "chorgericht" records from past centuries could be ordered online and downloaded as a set of PDF files. The chorgericht was a kind of morals court as described in this University of Zürich online archival course (my translation with assistance from DeepL.com): 

The Bernese "chorgerichte" were introduced by mandate in the course of the Reformation on June 21, 1528, and existed until their abolition in 1831. Each parish had its own chorgericht, which was, however, subordinate to the Bernese chorgericht which acted as an appellate authority for the other courts and was sometimes referred to as the "oberchorgericht". Thus, not only cases from the city of Bern were heard by the Bernese oberchorgericht, but also those from the surrounding communities. The name "chorgericht" can be traced back to the word "choren", which means "to fight out marital quarrels". In addition to the Bernese term "chorgericht", the terms "ehegericht" (marriage court) (Zurich, Schaffhausen, St. Gallen, Appenzell AR) or "banngericht" (bann court) (Basel) existed in other cantons.

The task of the chorgericht was to regulate alms and holidays, to settle marital conflicts and to punish violations of moral and ecclesiastical ordinances, i.e. to supervise sexual and social discipline. Specifically, the chorgericht tried offenses such as blasphemy, irregular church attendance, disobedience to parents, adultery or drunkenness. Punishments included warnings, exclusion from communion, fines, imprisonment, banishment or the death penalty. Punishment was reduced in the 18th century in response to popular opposition.

I remembered that while researching one of my G5 grandfathers, Christen Pfister, I found a record naming him the father of a child Samuel, born out of wedlock. All that I have learned about this Pfister line in my ancestry has come from the 18th century church book records from the Swiss towns where they had lived or had citizenship rights, and I was excited about another possible source, and figured this birth might have made it into a chorgericht record.

Samuel's baptism was in Schangnau, a scattered settlement with several hamlets and a church, and about 645 people at that time, located in the rolling hills of the Emme valley. Christen was living in the next town north, Eggiwil, where his wife was from, also a scattered settlement with several hamlets, farms, and a center with a church, and about 1700 people.

The 1763 baptismal record from the Schangnau church records names Christen Pfister from Trachselwald as the father, but notes that Samuel is "uneheliche" or illegitimate. The mother is Barbara Blaeser, and her brother Peter and sister Anna are two of the sponsors, perhaps in a show of family support:

24 Feb 1763 baptism record for Samuel Pfister

In August of that same year, almost exactly 6 months later, in the neighboring town of Eggiwil, a Peter Pfister was baptized, and his father was also Christen Pfister from Trachselwald, but his mother was Christen's wife Christina Neuenschwander, and his birth was deemed legitimate. Sponsors were two of Christina's brothers and a sister-in-law: 

21 Aug 1763 baptism record for Peter Pfister

The chorgericht records from Schangnau (where Samuel was baptized) covering the years 1682-1858 were available, and so I ordered them and eagerly downloaded the PDF files. This was my first time looking into this type of record directly, but I found these were indexed and easily searched. In the index of the PDF covering 1731-1788 I did not find any Christen Pfister, but found Barbara Blaeser indexed on both pages 85 and 101:

Schangnau Chorgericht records, index B

Page 85 had two entries, both about Barbara Blaeser, from Schangnau, and Christen Pfister from Trachselwald:

Schangnau chorgericht records, page 85, 1762-63

The first entry begins: 

1762. Den 26ten Xbris ist vor unserem Chorgricht erschiennen Barbara Blaeser von hier, welche den Christen Pfister von Trachselwald, dermahlen aber in der Gemeind Eggiwÿl wohnhafft, einen Ehemann beÿ den Sie in dienst gestanden, daß beÿfehlaffs und der Schwängerung angeklagt. 

Roughly translated: 

On the 26th of December, Barbara Blaeser from here appeared before our court. She had been in service to Christen Pfister, a married man from Trachselwald, but now residing in the municipality of Eggiwÿl, and she accused him of having intercourse with and impregnating her.

So, the new bit of information here is that Barbara was working for Christen when she became pregnant, and since he was a married man living in Eggiwil, he must certainly be the same Christen Pfister as the one who was married to Christina Neuenschwander. We know the baby was baptized on 24 February, and was probably born shortly before that, so Barbara was about 7 months pregnant on this day after Christmas, and Christen's wife was just a month or so along in her pregnancy. 

The entry continues: 

Hierauf hat der Pfister seinen fehler gutwillig bekennet, und Sich erkläret, daß er das Kind ohne Weiters nach der Genißt annehmen, und für das Seine halten wolle. Derbÿ aber gebälten, wird er keine zeitliche Mittel habe, daß Ihrer mit Kösten verschonet werde, und wird sein Wieb auf keine Ehepfridung dringe, daß er auf der Erscheinung der Ober Chorgricht möchte enthoben seÿn.

Basically, Pfister had willingly confessed his guilt, and said he would take responsibility for his sin and the child after the birth (Genißt), but asked to be spared a fine as he had little means, and that his wife would not press for a divorce, and so he wanted to be spared an appearance before the oberchorgericht.

Actually the term "Genißt" was not just about the birth, but an interrogation of the mother giving birth: it was thought that she was more likely to be truthful when in labor. Before assigning paternity, and thus citizen rights (and the responsibility of the town for that child who would inherit citizenship), they wanted to be sure they had it right. Kind of gruesome.

The second, more terse entry on the page is dated 17 March 1763, several weeks after Samuel has been baptized, and notes that the baby has been pronounced Christen Pfister's illegitimate child by the oberchorgericht or superior court in Bern. There are only a half-dozen or so cases recorded each year, so this would have been a big thing in that small town.  

Barbara shows up again on page 101, in an entry dated 12 May 1766. There we learn that she is being released from a promise of marriage, and another child is pronounced illegitimate, this one belonging to a Bendicht Eÿmann from Kurzenberg (now Linden). 

Eventually there is evidence that Barbara did marry and lived into her 70s, but I haven't found other children. Samuel grew up and married, and all of his children were registered to Trachselwald like his father, and so all inherited citizenship there. Barbara appears as a sponsor to some of his children.

Ironically perhaps, both Christen's and Christina's mothers were also named Barbara, and they had had two daughters named Barbara, the first dying at 11 months, the second only surviving to age 10. Their two boys, Johannes, also my G4 grandfather, and Peter, both survived to adulthood, married, and had families.

Samuel and his half-brothers Peter and Johannes grew in the same household, and may have been close: Samuel named one of his children Peter (though that might have been for an uncle), and Johannes named a son Samuel. Christina did not have any more children though she had been only 34 when Peter was born; she and Christen had married when she was 23 and he was 21. I haven't found a death record for her, but Christen died at age 52, twenty years after Samuel and Peter were born, in Schangnau; the death record does not note whether he was a widower at that time. Although he was a citizen of Trachselwald, Christen had been baptized and died in Schangnau, had children in Schangnau and Eggiwil, and there is no evidence that he had ever lived in Trachselwald. 

So what did I newly discover? The usefulness and a process for procuring and using court records; some idea on how they are laid out; a bit about the court process; the existence of birth interrogation; that Barbara went on and had another encounter and baby; and that Christen willingly admitted and took responsibility for fathering a child with someone who was working for him at the time. 

But there there are many things I'd still like to know. None of the church or chorgericht records notes Christen's occupation, or exact location where he lived in the town (e.g., a farm). We don't know when Christen moved back to Schangnau where he died. And we'll never know the details of Christen's relationship to Christina and how that changed after he betrayed her.

Sources

“Schangnau.” n.d. hls-dhs-dss.ch. Accessed August 31, 2023. https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/articles/000516/2011-07-08/.

“Eggiwil.” n.d. hls-dhs-dss.ch. Accessed August 31, 2023. https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/articles/000511/2005-11-08/.

“Chorgericht-manual der Gemeind im Tchangnau, 1731 bis 1787.” n.d. Bern Genealogical-Heraldic Society. https://www.ghgb.ch/home.html.

Lucienne Hubler: "Moral courts", in: Historical Encyclopedia of Switzerland (HLS) , version of 01/14/2010, translated from French. Online: https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/009622/2010-01-14/, consulted on 08/31/2023.

“Ad Fontes: Training / German Transcription Exercises / Bern Choral Court Manuals / Bern Choral Court Manuals - Solution Part 2.” n.d. Accessed August 30, 2023. https://www.adfontes.uzh.ch/370544/training/deutsche-transkriptionsuebungen/chorgerichtsmanuale-einleitung/chorgerichtsmanuale-loesung-teil-2.

“DeepL Translate.” n.d. Accessed August 30, 2023. https://www.DeepL.com/translator.

33 – Strength

This week is about my uncle, Harry Kenyon, Jr., and boxing. Harry started his college career at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in the fall of 1939 when he was 17. This is where he began boxing as a sport; his hope was to get into West Point. Harry's weekly letters home tell the story...

Harry the boxer, sometime in 1940-43

1939 Oct 19. Harry has started in college at Madison, Wisconsin, 75 miles southwest of Fond du Lac where he was born and went to high school. He is a bit young – he won't turn 18 until February 15 – and weighs about 145 pounds. We first hear about his interest and participation in boxing:

Tell father that I am out for boxing, persuaded Walsh (the coach) to give me equipment, and that I work out from 4:30 – 5:30 on Mon-Wed-Fri. They haven’t brot out the gloves yet; we just use the punching bags and heavy bags, skip rope, go thru body-conditioning exercises and practice on individual punches and stance. Saw Omar Crocker, National Intercollegiate champ, and probably the best college boxer in the U.S., yesterday. He happens to fight at my weight (145 lbs) and if I should enter the all-school tournament in December, I would be in his division. Pleasant thot.

1940 Feb 29. Harry enjoyed attending the school boxing matches which were a big draw as he wrote in a letter to his father:

You should see these boxing matches. They go over big. They’re lucky if they get 7-8000 at a basketball game, but any crowd under 12-13000 for a boxing match is a disappointment. College boxing is more amateur. 3 two-minute rounds to a match. So there are no slow rounds, the boys are in there slugging most of the time. And knockouts are fairly frequent. Really fine fun, and nobody hurt.

1940 Mar 28. Boxing has ended its season:

Boxing closed for the year yesterday. The team has one match here Friday, then the Nat’l Championships in California. When they come back a boxing banquet is going to be held, April 11. My name was put down on the squad list, so I get a free meal.

Shortly after that letter Harry was accepted into West Point, starting with their summer program for new plebes.

1940 Sep 8. When classes have started in the fall Harry breaks down his schedule, which includes getting some boxing in gym, though he is taking lacrosse as his intramural sport:

This wk. as you can imagine, things started. Not only classes, but full dress parades. Our schedule for as long as we can have parades will be like so. Reveille at 6:00. It’s dark, we should go back to Standard Time before it’s dark an hr. later too. Breakfast 6:30-7:00. Math class – Mon. thru Sat. – 8:00-9:20. Gym on same days 9:30-10:30. We alternate 3 ways in gym, 1st day gymnastics, 2nd wrestling & fencing, 3rd boxing & fencing. 12:00-12:30 lunch. 2:00 Mon. thru Fri – French & English on alternate days for 1 hr. On Wed. after 3:00, and Sat. after Review which comes from about 1:00-2:00 we are free. Of the remaining 4 days, on 2 we have 1 hr of drill followed by parade, on the other intermural athletics. My intermurder is La Crosse. Here La Crosse is a major sport, and most everybody has to start from scratch. It’s a game like hockey, only slightly more gory, as the ball is carried in the stick and not shoved along the ground. So while half the Corps parades, the other takes intermurder. The Review on Sat. is a regimental, of course.

1940 Oct 20. In his letters of October we find that he is now boxing on the C squad:

Tell mother & grandmother not to worry about sending me anything to eat. C squad boxing starts this week, and I’m way overweight. I weighed 148 when I arrived, and I’m almost up to 155 now. I’d like to try to make 145 if it’s possible. And eating between meals is the surest way to ruin training I know.

1940 Oct 27. Continuing: 

The Corps squad lists came out this week. Three plebes went out for C squad boxing, we’re all on the squad. Report at the end of intermurder, about the second week in Nov. 

Fall tests in gymnastics have begun. We go to gym six days per week you know. 3 days to gymnastic work, 3 days to 2 out of 3 of boxing, wrestling, and fencing, alternated. The last three I might have taken up in the course of events, but gymnastics would be the furthest from my thots. So it probably does me the most good. I always figure they can’t develop muscles I haven’t got tho. Anything times zero is still zero, as algebra proves. But practice does seem to do it. We worked out for a month, almost two, on high bar, stall bars, parallel bars, vault bars, ropes, & tumbling. And now for test we have things I know I couldn’t do when we started. Because I tried. By the time spring rolls around we’re all expected to be little pseudo Flash Gordons. 

1940 Nov 24. We learn Harry is hurting a bit:

We’ll make this the monthly request issue, since all of your questions are answered. You know the two bandages I used for boxing? About 1 ½” wide, all rolled up, tied, and left I don’t know where. Could you ship those along please. They haven’t issued any accessories yet but expect us to work out as tho we were all set. Look the bandages over before you send them, will you please? As to material, length, width, etc. In case I need more.

Also would you empty my first aid kit & ship it sometime in the near future containing the following: 1 bottle iodine, 1 roll adhesive tape, a few band-aids, and 6-12 Dr. Scholls Zinc-Pads (the kind like the samples in little yellow envelopes given away at the shoe stores).

1940 Dec 1. A follow-up:

Boxing here lacks protective equipment we had at the U. Blood & teeth all over. Don’t want to sprain my thumbs. First Aid kit is what I need, not for boxing, don’t worry but just little things. 

1941, Jan 19. Mid-winter blues...

These are indeed dull days. Just don’t feel like doing anything. Classes, boxing, study, bed, day after day. 

1941 Jan 24. We get some detail on Harry's boxing workouts:

Day by day, I have the most fun at the gym in the afternoons. On Mon & Friday from 4:30 – 6:00, Tues, Wed, Thur, 3:30 – 6:00. We work out in the boxing room for about an hour. Usually like this: 3 rounds on the heavy bags, 10-15 min drill on attack & defense, 3 rounds of boxing, 3 shadow boxing, when a particularly nasty exercise known as “push-and-pull,” which is about what it sounds like, for 2 more rounds. Then we go upstairs & do 15 laps on the track (12 laps = 1 mile) alternately running, sprinting, walking, a lap. Then, on the 3:30 days I’ve spent till 5:30 working on the test exercises for gym. Then downstairs for a shower. Usually I follow the shower with 5-10 minutes in the pool, and about the same time under the sun-lamp. Scientifically speaking, I lose about 2 pounds an hour at this rate. Weighed in at 153 Monday, weighed out at 144 ½ today. Monday I’ll probably start in again at about 49-50. 

1941 Feb 15. A letter to his brother Lawrence.

Boxing, Fencing, and Wrestling, plus Gym, are regular classes for plebes. Hour per day every day the first semester, every other day the second. We took up the four things I mentioned all thru Jan., are taking our final tests now, and will go on to other things as Life Saving & Track until June. Boxing was run by the regular coach, Billy Cavanaugh, a scarred old ex-pro middleweight who was a flash in his day. He still referees in N.Y. besides holding down a regular job here. He refereed all of Armstrong’s bouts, most of the big middle & light & welter weight in N.Y. We spent half the semester sparring and drilling with the left hand only, qualified in that, then took up using both. Qualification grades in boxing rise as the amount of blood spilled. If you get knocked out, you get a 2.8. Come out unmarked, and you only go pro if your opponent looks like hell, I got 3.0 & a 2.7 by the latter method. I could always guarantee myself a 2.7 by sticking my nose out. The right side has a weak blood-vessel that should perhaps be burnt out. A left hook squarely caught invariably starts it dribbling. Makes me keep that guard up.

1941 Mar 10. We learn that boxing has ended for the season, and Harry is looking to tennis:

Boxing ended Tuesday . So I was all set to spend a few afternoons, two or three weeks of them at least, sleeping from 3 to 6. Wednesday I slept from 3 to 6. Thursday tennis started. Indoors, in the gym. There must be 40 men out for “C” squad, which can’t carry more than 10 or 12. In contrast to boxing, where there never were enough men in the heavy and light weights. About 5 men in both the 145 & 155 lbs. classes.  

1941 Jun 3. A first year summary...

... in general I did better in academics than in other phases of my first year. In athletics I made two Corps squads, boxing and tennis. But I got my numerals in neither. 

1941 Dec 6. During his second year we don't hear much about boxing, as his letters focused more on academics and other activities.

Yes, boxing just started. I weighed out at 146 Friday. Very good exercise. The section roll I sent home was German Section 1B. Swank, no 2, ranked no. 1 in French all last year, has an average just equal to mine now. We’ve never been separated by more than three tenths thru the whole semester.

1942 Jan 18. By January Harry feels he is struggling academically:

I mean by “not having settled down” that my grades stink. I quit boxing this last week, at least for a while so that I could study afternoons. I have to, to get good grades in Phil and Calculus. If I can’t study – and it’s hard, I’ve never studied between 3:00 and 6:00 before – I’ll go back to boxing. I was just on the point of being transferred from “B” squad to “A” squad I think, tho I’m not sure. But I just don’t feel as tho I’m accomplishing anything if my grades aren’t good. Another new, and totally different situation.  

1943 Feb 16. Harry did continue his boxing career there at West Point, though not as a starter. Academically he did great, graduating in the top 20 of his class. In his final year we get an update in this letter to his family:

I’m having my usual fun in boxing. I’m in the 155 pound class this year – haven’t gotten down below 153 since summer. Army has at least two good men in this class this year, so I’m only needed as a reserve. In that way I can work more on learning to box, and spend less time fighting, which is the approved way of winning college bouts. Today we had intersquad bouts as usual. I took on the regular in my weight. And like a happy-go-lucky college 4-F I’d just gotten out of bed, where I’d been doing nothing more strenuous than lifting chocolate cupcakes up to my mouth. In the first round my opponent sank a right hand up to the wrist in my stomach. He nearly got all those cupcakes in turn. But the training I’ve received in boxing during the last three years has been some of the best experience I’ve gotten at the Academy. 

The 1943 yearbook shows the boxing team: Harry is seated second from left in the front row:

1943 West Point boxing team yearbook picture

Harry went on to become a paratrooper officer in the Army's 17th Airborne division. He was the only officer of his company to survive the Battle of the Bulge, was promoted to captain, and led his company in Operation Varsity, the jump over the Rhine into Germany. Although it could not make him invincible, boxing helped give him the physical and mental strength and discipline needed for his role in WWII.

Harry during WWII, somewhere in Europe

32 – Reunion

Reunion gatherings are a tradition on my mother's side of the family, where large families were common. These kinship gatherings probably grew out of funerals and weddings, and perhaps holiday celebrations. As the majority of the children in a family began surviving childhood, large families became more common, and in a very large family with lots of cousins there may be multiple births, deaths, and marriages every year. 

Greub-Bader-Knaus reunions

Our "reunion" tradition started two generations back, with the descendants of my mother's paternal grandmother Eliza Greub Bader Knaus. The Knaus-Bader gathering of 1927, on a farm near Niwot, Colorado, was one such reunion, memorialized in this photo:

Knaus-Bader gathering circa 1927

The focal point here was my great-grandmother Eliza Knaus shown seated about four from the left just below the large man in the black coat. Eliza was probably the only immigrant here, emigrating from Switzerland in 1854 as young child. The gathering consisted of descendants from her first marriage to Nicolas Bader and their 3 sons, and descendants from her second marriage to Clemens Knaus and their 10 children. 

Eliza Greub Bader Knaus, 1851-1935, in 1927 at age 76

I tried analyzing the photograph more deeply, and I found that there were probably both happy and sad reasons to congregate. I digitized the photo from my aunt Marian Knaus Berryman's collection in 2009; Marian passed away in 2015 at the age of 94; she was one of the young girls in the front row of the photo. She had known many of the people in the photo, and put a key on the back with identifications of about 50 of the 71 people captured. I wondered which of Grandma Eliza's 13 children were present, and if I could figure out the exact year of the gathering: the photo had an associated notation "circa 1920." 

Reunion photo key on back...

After a bit of sleuthing I am fairly confident that it took place in late spring 1927, around the time my mom was born. Eliza had lost two children in the previous months: George Bader in October 1926, and Clemens Edward "Clem" Knaus in January 1927, and neither is identified in the photo; she had previously lost a daughter, Mollie, in 1921, so only 10 of her children were still living in 1927. Clem's widow Katie is shown with her oldest son holding her shoulder. Clem's daughter Helen is shown with her husband Everett Steele; they had married in January 1927, a week before her father's death. 

Ruth Strain Bader is shown with four children, including a small baby; she had 6 in total, but the 4th was Ada Maria born 4 April 1927. Ruth is the one in front left with a baby in her lap. My grandmother is shown in the back without a baby: my mom was born on May 17, 1927, but she may have been sleeping somewhere, so we can't be sure the date was between 4 April and 17 May. But her older siblings are all shown, and appear to be about the age they would have been in 1927, including my uncle Gordon who was born in 1923. 

Six of Eliza's ten living children were present: Will Bader, John Knaus, Albert Knaus, Emma Knaus Oliphant, Dan Knaus, and probably Carl Knaus (at least his wife is in the picture – perhaps Carl was taking the photo). Not in the picture: Frank Bader, Tillie Knaus Hawley (they lived in Oregon), Fred Knaus, and Jessie Knaus Whaley.  

According to her obituary Eliza had 50 grandchildren and 42 great-grandchildren when she died of a stroke in 1935 a couple months shy of her 84th birthday, about 8 years after this reunion. It looks like a few more than half of those 50 grandchildren are in the reunion photo. Her descendants have grown exponentially, to over a thousand today. 

There have been Clemens & Eliza Knaus reunions to present times. I attended some, including one of the last. For a while they held these every summer as a picnic up at Grand Lake. Then it switched to a city park in Longmont (the altitude being a bit of a challenge for some folks). There is nothing stopping us from having another, but as the generations grow, we get to be strangers, and know few of our second or third cousins.

Knaus-Wederquist descendant reunions

I descend from Eliza Greub Knaus' 11th child, Dan Knaus; he married Lillian Wederquist, and they had 8 children, living on a farm outside Niwot (Dan, Lillian, and their first 5 children can be found in the photo above). The children grew up and married, and had families, producing 33 cousins, including 20 in the ten years from 1951 through 1960. 

After my grandparents had passed away, when we cousins had mostly grown up and new families were being created, we started having Dan Knaus and Lillian Wederquist descendant reunions, often with over 100 people. Our last gathering was a picnic in Longmont in August 2022. Here's a photo from one of our reunions, in 1992 at the YMCA in Estes Park:

1992 Estes Park YMCA, Dan & Lillian Knaus descendant reunion

Kenyon-Knaus descendant reunions

I have five siblings, and once we had all made good starts on families of our own, we would get together occasionally for our own reunion, sometimes dovetailing these on Knaus-Wederquist descendant reunions. The last that all six of us siblings attended was in 2006 in northern Wisconsin for a few days; my mom was 79; I think only 5 of the next generation are missing in this photo:

2006 Shirley Knaus Kenyon family reunion, Wisconsin

My mom has been gone since 2011, and we siblings get together occasionally, but haven't put together a big gathering of everyone since then; we are spread out from coast to coast making that difficult. We still have Knaus-Wederquist cousins reunions, but sporadically – the last was a picnic in 2022 in Longmont, Colorado. 

More distant relative reunions

Since I took up genealogy and started finding more distant relatives, there have been a few reunions organized around our more ancient ancestors. There were a couple on my Swedish side (my mother's mother's ancestry) in Illinois, with descendants of my G3 grandmother Christina Larsdotter 1814-1902. And in 2010 we had a reunion of distant Knaus ancestors in Germany, but that is a longer story!

31 – Flew the Coop

Louis E. Kenyon, 1890-1924, and chickens

My father's uncle Louis E. Kenyon was not given a middle name, and so he adopted a middle initial; no one seems to know why he chose the letter E. His father was Louis Austin Kenyon, and so perhaps he just went for the next vowel in the alphabet. In the 1900 United States census and the 1905 Wisconsin census he's listed as Louis Jr., but it's "Louis E." in a 1907 Fond du Lac phone directory when he was just 17, and from then on in all records:

Fond du Lac city directory entry, 1907

The photo of Louis and the chickens is one of a handful we have of him, this one depicting him post WWI back at the Fond du Lac County Insane Asylum; he worked as an engineer at the facility, so hanging out with chickens must have just been something he liked to do.

Louis E. had married a Laura Drier sometime in 1915, but came home one day to find her dead in early 1916. And so, footloose again and feeling very patriotic, he volunteered for the Wisconsin National Guard, knowing it was a precursor to getting into the war, and by the end of 1917 he was on his way to France as part of the American Expeditionary Forces. He wrote frequent letters home which I've transcribed and organized into a book. In a letter from France dated April 29, 1918, he mentions getting into chicken farming:

"Am having the time of my life, trying to learn French whenever I can corner one of the natives I jabber with them until they run away; it isn't so awful hard to understand. You write about John & Harry, well it happened I was thinking about them the other night, and I sent a postal card to both. In one way I would just as soon be home and making furniture, but everything is new to me over here so you can imagine how I nose around. Have got some new designs in tables & buffets, that beat anything you ever saw. I wrote Ed a letter last week, if he gets it he will have a good laugh, he is right about that, chicken farm, for that is just what I am going to do when I return." 

Louis was honorably discharged from the Army on May 17, 1919, and returned home to the asylum. His discharge papers note he was last assigned to Company B of the 127th Infantry, and when he had enlisted he was 26 years of age, a cabinet-maker, with brown eyes, black hair, dark complexion, and stood 5 feet 4 1/2 inches. We know from his letters that he was a "runner," or someone who took messages between command posts, that he spent some time in the trenches in Alsace, was knocked out of the war by an artillery shell during a big battle near Riems, recuperated in the south of France, and was part of the occupation of Germany after the war.

Louis E. Kenyon, somewhere in France

In the 1920 US Census we see Louis listed as an engineer at the Fond du Lac Insane Asylum, working for his father again, the returned war hero. He married Dorothy Neice in August 1920 and the following June had a first son, Donald Louis. So apparently the closest he got to owning a chicken farm was the the chicken coop on the asylum.

Louis with son Don, at the asylum

Louis liked to drink, and spent much of his free time with friends about town; his wife Dorothy claimed in later years not to have known him that well. He only lived a few years longer, dying in November 1924 of pneumonia, leaving behind two sons ages 3 and almost 1 and a widow. Dorothy and her sons continued to live with her father-in-law well into the Great Depression in the 1930s; Don, the oldest son, only had vague direct memories of his father, but knew him pretty well through those WWI letters Louis had written home. 

30 – In the News

My great-great-grandmother Elise Steiger grew up in Limburg, a city on the Lahn River, in the Duchy of Nassau which became part of Prussia, and is now in the German state of Hesse. Most of its old timbered houses survived WWII, and are worth a visit. When I was first getting serious about family history in 2010 I made a trip to Germany, flying into Frankfurt, and I stayed a few days in Runkel where my Gerhards were from, just down the Lahn River from Limburg. 

Elizabeth "Elise" Steiger Gerhard, 1836-1878

Allen Holth, the husband of my distant cousin Joan Gerhard, had already written a few books on our Gerhard ancestry, and included an entry about my G2 grandfather Wilhelm Jakob Gerhard from Runkel and his wife, my G2 grandmother Elise Steiger from Limburg. I have a postcard passed down by my great aunt showing this home where her mother Elise grew up, daughter of Dr. H. Steiger:

"Our mother's home" – Limburg an der Lahn, Germany

The blank postcard is an old tourist one from Limburg, the photo probably taken in the early 1900s, and likely included the family living there at the time. Prior to my trip I had sent a scan of the postcard to the tourist office in Limburg looking for a guided city tour, and asked if perhaps that house still survived. They arranged the tour, and on the 5th of August 2010 I met my guide Herr Winfried Prokasky in front of the Limburg train station. He walked me through the Altstadt, and pointed out that the timbered houses had mostly had the exposed timbers plastered over in the 1800s as that looked more upscale in those times, but as the "Fachwerk" came back into style, the timbers were being exposed again in renovations.  

Near the end of the tour we came to that house, now under reconstruction. The timbers matched the postcard, but we were unable to enter the building due to the construction; he also mentioned that it was currently owned by the Catholic church – it was on the same square as the Limburg Cathedral, consecrated in 1235. I made a mental note to return at some point and try again.

The childhood home of Elise Steiger in Limburg, in 2010

We ended the tour at the local historical society where my guide introduced me to Johann-Georg Fuchs, a man who had written a book about the old homes in Limburg. This house was one of those he documented, known as "Haus Staffel" after one of the early owners, and indeed it had belonged to a Dr. Johann Heinrich Steiger who purchased it in 1852, and sold it in 1878. It has belonged to the Diocese of Limburg since 1903. The entry in Fuchs' self-published book Altstadtbauten noted that the property was first documented in 1287, but that "Dendrochronological investigations revealed that the present building was not built until 1515 and the stair tower in its present form until 1522." So it was really only about 500 years old, but still respectable.

Elise Steiger came to America in 1864, so she had lived in the home about 12 years. Her mother had died when she was not quite 4 years old, and so she had been living with her father, a court veterinarian, a step-mother, and some half-siblings. Perhaps emigrating was a good option for her as she was already 27, and so she came to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, and immediately married Jakob Gerhard who was a baker in that town, and who had arrived in America a decade earlier. We don't know if Elise had met Jakob in Germany – she would have only been 17 when he emigrated – or if the match had been arranged. Wilhelm Jakob's younger brother Carl Jacob had married Elise's first cousin Christiane Steiger in 1862, and so there was a close family connection.

I continued on in my genealogy hobby, not giving the Steiger home a lot more thought. A few years later my wife was watching Good Morning America on the TV when she saw a story about a house in Limburg that looked similar to the home I had photographed. The Catholic bishop of Limburg, Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, had spent an astounding amount of money renovating this house and its surroundings as a clerical headquarters, and it was becoming a bit of a scandal. This was at the start of Pope Francis' papacy, and Francis was known for his concern for the poor and was a critic of consumerism. The news stories referred to Tebartz-van Elst as "the bishop of bling"; one renovation that particularly caught the news was a $20,000 bathtub. So, the bishop was recalled, and eventually the hubbub subsided. 

In 2018 my wife, sister, and brother-in-law were traveling in Germany, and we spent a couple days in Limburg. The house is part of a compound which includes a museum. The home itself is still a clerical headquarters of some sort, and when we tried to get a peek inside we were quickly rebuffed: I think they are still a bit sensitive about the publicity, and must get a fair number of people who want to see the bathtub. A museum clerk was a bit more empathetic, and gave us a private tour of the grounds outside. 

Our trip in 2018, what it looks like now

Inside the compound, 2018, house in distant right corner

"Haus Staffel" – early 1900s, 1995, 2018

Limburg is a very pretty city, and I would like to return someday, but doubt that I will ever get to see that bathtub; I'm pretty sure that nothing remains of the original insides of the home from Elise Steiger's days anyway. Most of my ancestral homes were poor and have long since vanished, and so I appreciate one that it appears will survive for centuries.

Sources

McCoy, Terrence, "How the 'Bishop of Bling' spent $43 million renovating this house." Washington Post, 28 March 2014. Accessed online 31 Jul 2023.

Fuchs, Johann-Georg. Limburger Altstadtbauten: Bürger und Begebenheiten. Germany: Selbstverl., 2006.