48 – Troublemaker

During the Great Depression my uncle Harry lived with his parents and extended family which included two siblings, two cousins and aunt, and his grandparents in Fond du Lac (see the blog "38 – Adversity"). Earlier, they had all lived at the Fond du Lac Insane Asylum when his grandparents ran that health care facility. Here is a 4-generation photo of the four boy cousins, their mothers Dorothy and Marie, grandmother Ida Baker Kenyon, and great-grandmother Otillie Baker:

Don and Russell left with their mother Dorothy, Lawrence and Harry right with Marie

When Harry was 13, he wrote a short autobiography for a school paper in which he says "I am considered somewhat of a Public Enemy No. 1 by my relatives and so my word against any of my angelic cousins or my brother or sister is like a microbe's ghost fighting an elephant – I just haven't a chance." 

Harry, right, age 13, with brother Lawrence and sister Pat with dog Trixie

But an essay Harry wrote two years later paints a darker portrait of his younger cousin Russell, and Russell's fraught relationship with his mother Dorothy. Dated May 28, 1937 and titled "Calling Russell" here it is:

Speaking of child problems and the Great American Tragedy, have I ever told you about my little cousin Russell? No? Well, Russell, who's a puny, sickly child of thirteen years, is a typical spoiled child of a typical downtrodden, suffering, widowed mother. Here's how he's called to bed by his mother:

Tonight Russell has bicycled nonchalantly home with one of his cronies at 10:11. He is greeted by his mother as he enters the driveway: 

"Russell dear, you come to bed now."

"Yeah," Russell answers his mother, who, incidentally, is leaning far out of her bedroom window with an anxious look. 

When fourteen minutes later at 10:25 Russell is still conversing with his crony, his mother again entreats: 

"Russell – ?"

"Yeah!"

"You come to bed right now!"

When the next plea comes seven minutes later at 10:32, it is not any change of heart in Russell, but a compassionate weakness in his less-hardened companion, whose conscience drives him off, that forces Russell to obey. It is five minutes later, at 10:37, that Russell enters the house (the time spent teasing the dog).

Tonight Russell goes immediately to his bedroom. For some unknown reason in his pagan heart he forbears from spending anywhere from fifteen to forty-five minutes in hot argument with his other relatives in the downstairs (strange are the ways of Youth, but stranger are the ways of Russell).

So it is at 10:37 that Russell blithely enters his mother's bedroom, which he shares with her. It is three minutes later, at 10:40, that there come forth from the bedroom sounds of angry quarreling and the laying on of hands. Russell, who has found time to change to his pajamas with one hand, while fending off ineffectual but nevertheless discomfiting blows with the other, stalks from the bedroom, swearing like the little trooper that he is, at 10:42.

There is no need to tell you about the many things Russell finds to absorb his time until 11:42, when he deems it safe to enter his bedroom, where his dear mother has gone to sleep with the light on, waiting for him. Now, if this were an exaggeration I am telling you, just to amuse you, I should say that Russell says his prayers, turns out the light and goes to sleep. But, it being true, I shall only say that Russell turns out the light and goes to sleep.

P.S. (Personally, tho, I like the way Russell's grandmother calls him. She shouts: "Get in here now, you little snip, or I'll come out and you'll come in here in a hurry!" Thereupon Russell meekly enters and retires.)

The close of Harry's essay about his younger cousin

Two years later at 17 Harry entered the University of Wisconsin as a freshman, and a year later he was on his way to West Point. I know him only from these early writing assignments and the weekly letters he wrote home from college, West Point, and his military service. 

Russell was a bit of an enigma for me. According to his obituary he served in the Army Air Corps in the South Pacific in WWII, then owned and operated Kenyon Jewelers in Oshkosh, was "an early participant in Experimental Aircraft Association activities," married but had no children. I only remember meeting him once when I was a child, at his jewelry shop – he didn't seem to be very interested in family ties. Russell Austin Kenyon was born 7 December 1923; on 7 March 1997 he passed away at the age of 73, in Florida.

Russell, about 5, with his mother Dorothy and older brother Donald

Russell with cousin Pat

Russell, a bit older...

47 – This ancestor stayed home

My mother's ancestors came from southern Germany, Switzerland, and Sweden. In each of these lands sisters were left behind, often to care for older parents who couldn't make the trip. Several letters they wrote from the "old country" survive. In Solitude I wrote about my Swedish great-aunt Valmina Wederquist who stayed behind to care for her parents in Sweden. Here I blog about the German relatives who stayed behind.

Letter from Mathilde

My great-grandfather Clemens Knaus was born in 1843, the sixth child and fourth boy born to Jakob Knaus and his wife Wilhelmina Gauggel. They lived in Harthausen auf der Scher, a small Catholic town in Hohenzollern, an island of Prussia in an area known as Swabia, now in the southern German state of Baden-Württemberg.  

Clemen's parents, Wilhelmina Gauggel and Jakob Knaus

In 1853 when Clemens was only 10, his oldest brother Jacob (named after his father), age 23, emigrated to America, settling in Syracuse, New York, where he worked as a barrel maker, a trade he had learned from his father. Eventually the other sons Johann, Alexander, and Clemens followed. Clemens emigrated in 1863 or 1865 – sources differ: they were supposedly leaving to escape conscription, so they did not leave much of a trail.

Clemen's oldest sister Johanna was 8 years older than him, and sister Mathilde was just 2 years older, and both had father-less little boys when he left, a sign that society at that time was not in great shape. Clemens lived in Syracuse and worked for his brother Jacob for a few years before traveling out west to the Colorado Territory, to an area near Boulder nearby a small town named Niwot. 

Mathilde kept in touch with Clemens as is evidenced by two envelopes and one remaining letter. In 1876 sister Johanna died, single, leaving two young boys, and in 1877 Clemen's mother Wilhelmina died. There is an envelope which probably came to Colorado with a letter carrying news of one or both deaths (Modoc was an earlier name for Niwot):

Envelope from 1877

The letter found its way to Clemens who had married Eliza Greub Bader, the widow of Nicholas Bader, in 1874, just a few years prior. Unfortunately only the envelope survives, although it's possible that the photo below accompanied it. By this time Harthausen and Hohenzollern had become part of the German Empire (1871), and in 1876 Colorado had become a state.

(Probably) Jakob Knaus with daughter Mathilde, some time after Wilhelmina's death

Clemen's father Jakob lived until 1882. Mathilde never married, and only had the single boy, Kilian, who had been just a few years old when Clemens left for America. When Kilian was 25, and his mother Mathilde was 45, another letter from Mathilde made its way to Colorado. 

1886 letter from Mathilde came in this envelope

Letter and two envelopes, now in possession of a Clemens descendant

Penned the 13th of June, 1886, it begins "Lieber Bruder" ("Dear Brother"):

I am taking up my pen to write to you for the third time. It has been three years since our father died and I never got an answer from any brother. It seems like I am not a sister anymore. I wrote to you this year on Candlemas [2 Feb]. The letter traveled 16 weeks and then came back. Kilian and I are alone now. 

Apparently Clemens and his two surviving brothers Jacob, still living in Syracuse, New York, and Alexander, living in Michigan, were not great at keeping in touch. Mathilde updates Clemens on their deceased sister Johanna's two boys Sturzis and Adolf:

Sturzis has been in the military for a year and a half and Adolf is an apprentice at a saddlery in Strassberg. I am in poor health and I have to work harder than I should. I have already been sick twice because I have to work so hard. I haven't felt well in a year. I am more tired in the morning when I get up than I am in the evening. 

Mathide goes into some detail on farming issues, exacerbated by lack of water which was always a concern in Harthausen because it is situated on limestone and rainwater drains off quickly: 

Last winter was a bad one because we had no water. The cisterns were empty and the well was low. We often had to wait 2 to 3 hours for a bucket to fill. We had to buy 45 buckets so the livestock could have water. Last summer was very dry. The fields looked pretty bad. The crops are cheap. One hundred pounds of corn cost 5 to 6 Marks, rye costs 6 Marks, barley is seven Marks. Livestock is always expensive. A pair of draught oxen cost 600 to 700 Marks, a cow 200 to 300 Marks, a heifer is 200 Marks and a calf is 80 to 100 Marks. We have two cows, a heifer and one calf. Straw and feed are always scarce. We had to buy 58 Marks worth this past winter and 68 Marks worth last year. One hundred pounds of straw costs 2.30 Marks and hay is 3 Marks. The last three years we had mediocre harvests. Last year we didn't get a lot of oats because it was too dry, and when it finally rained it was too late. 

She then adds news about a man Clemens would have known, and more news about Sturzis, Johanna's oldest son who would have been a baby when Clemens left; she also talks about her own son Kilian, who apparently is following in the family trade of barrel-making: 

Franziskus Vetter has died. I am sending a picture of Sturzis. He is stationed in Rustat. The first year he was stationed in Muhlhausen. He had it bad there. They treated him bad because he is hard of hearing and had a strict Captain. Now that he is in Rustat he is much better. He has to make shoes and work in the store. He has enough to eat but he dislikes being a soldier. Kilian works in the cooperage and always has enough work. It has been raining for 8 days now, and we can't get our work done. It's time to hoe the potatoes. The rye is mediocre and the oats are good.

(Probably) Photo of Sturzis that Mathilde included in the letter

Mathilde ends with an ask for money to enable her to visit a Catholic shrine a couple hundred kilometers south of Harthausen in Switzerland: 

Dear Brother, I have to ask a favor of you. I would like to go to Einsideln this summer, and since money is always scarce I would like to ask if you can't spare me a few dollars. If you can't spare any, I don't expect you to give me any. I am closing this letter and hope it finds you in best health. Send my love to all, your wife and children. From your loving sister, Mathilde Knaus 

Mathilde lived another 22 years, and died October 7, 1908. There is no other evidence of communication between the German and American Knaus families. Clemens and his brothers never made it back to Germany, and saw neither sisters nor parents after they emigrated. 

The brothers: Clemens, Jacob, and Alexander Knaus (Johann died on the way to California)

In 2009 I discovered in a church book that Kilian Knaus had married and had 8 sons. A German genealogy travel guide helped find some of Kilian's descendants still living in Harthausen, and a great-granddaughter of Alexander Knaus and I made it to Germany in 2010 for a reunion with some of those descendants, and for the first time in well over a century communication between Mathilde's line and those of her brothers was reestablished.

Knaus-Gauggel descendants gather in Harthausen, August 2010

46 – This ancestor went to market

 When I was first working on my Swiss ancestry, I asked a genealogist how my G2 grandparents might have met, as they had lived in towns almost 18 km apart; he suggested that they may have met at a market. It's likely something I'll never know, but that doesn't keep me from wondering; now that I've researched this Swiss line in more detail, I think there are many ways in which my ancestral pairs found each other.

A centuries-old home in Koppigen today

My great-grandmother Eliza Greub was born in Burgdorf, Switzerland, Canton Bern; her "citizenship" was in Lotzwil however, the town her father Rudolf was from. Eliza's mother, Elizabeth Affolter, was from Koppigen, and when we first visited Switzerland and drove between the towns, they seemed pretty far apart for two people to meet in those days.

Koppigen to Lotzwil, 17.6 kilometers by foot

My Swiss seemed a bit different from my other ancestors, who typically lived in the same town for generations, marrying others in those same towns. The Greubs and Affolters had lived in Lotzwil and Koppigen for centuries, as far back as the church books go, but this was just the paternal lines; the women often came from other towns where their paternal lines also went far back, and as I traced my Swiss ancestry back, the map expanded to take in more and more distant towns. Here is a list of ancestors, back to G6 grandparents, grouped by town of birth:

Burgdorf: G1 Eliza Greub (citizenship in Lotzwil)

Lotzwil: G2 Rudolf Greub  b 1824; G3 Johannes Greub b 1788; G4 Johannes Greub b 1766; G4 Maria Greub b 1759; G5 Johannes Greub b 1746; G6 Hans Jakob Greub b 1712; G6 Anna Catharina Hofer b 1714; G6 Ullrich Greub b 1679

Koppigen: G2 Elizabeth Affolter; G3 Jakob Affolter b 1793; G3 Elizabeth Baumberger b 1794; G4 Jakob Affolter b 1767; G4 Niclaus Baumberger b 1770; G5 Samuel Affolter b 1739; G5 Peter Baumberger b 1736; G6 Niklaus Affolter b 1694; G6 Niclaus Baumberger b 1702

Bern: G3 Suzanne Pfister b 1786; G4 Johannes Pfister b 1756; G4 Susanna Kolb b abt. 1754

Bätterkinden: G4 Maria Mühlimann b 1770; G4 Elisabeth Knuchel b 1767; G5 Bendicht Mühlimann b 1740; G5 Barbara Minder b 1745; G5 Bendicht Knuchel b 1736; G5 Elisabeth Schneider b 1735; G6 Abraham Mühlimann b 1703; G6 Susanna Buchser b 1704; G6 Jacob Minder b 1717; G6 Elisabeth Schneider b 1722; G6 David Knuchel b 1694; G6 Jacob Schneider b 1704

Kleinholz: G5 Anna Barbara Spreng b 1747

Schangnau: G5 Christen Pfister b. 1730; G6 Ullrich Pfister b. 1708; G6 Barbara Schlüchter b 1702

Eggiwil: G5 Christina Neuenschwander b 1729; G6 Nicklaus Neuenschwander  b 1676; G6 Barbara Bärtschli b 1677

Seengen, Aargau: G5 Barbara Fischer b 1727

Thunstetten: G5 Barbara Brugger b 1742; G6 Johannes Brugger b 1714; G6 Catharina Steiner b 1716

Mülchi: G6 Barbara Müller b 1705

Ferenbaum: G6 Anna Eichelberger b 1712

Kirchberg: G6 Anna Margreth Leeman b 1708

Putting this data on a map, the majority of ancestors are in the Bätterkinden-Koppigen-Lotzwil area, and start to leak outward from this as we go back by generation. The towns with G5 and G6 ancestors typically go back to G7 and G8 before records run out. All except for my G5 Barbara Fischer (from Aargau, see upper right on the map) were born in Canton Bern.

Ancestral towns (Note: G6 designates that one G6 grandparent was born there, etc.)

How they may have met

With ancestry going back to the 16th century, my ancestral lines from Lotzwil and Koppigen had plenty of time to intersect, even if they were 11 miles apart. Koppigen is somewhat on the way to the city of Bern if you start in Lotzwil, and sometimes there were reasons to travel to the cantonal capital. On my great-grandmother Eliza Greub's paternal side, we see Rudolf Greub's father Johannes, a weaver of some kind in Lotzwil, marrying Susanna Pfister who was a midwife from Bern. Now Bern was the capital of the canton, and also had a large cathedral where many people in the canton would visit, and often marry. Perhaps Johannes met Susanna on a trip to the city of Bern.

Bätterkinden was next to Koppigen, and so it is no surprise that two of my G4 grandfathers in Koppigen married women from that town. It is certainly possible that they met in a local market, or town festival.

Another possibility is via the trades; the Affolters were saddle makers (saddlers) and leather workers, and the Baumbergers were wagon makers (wagners), trades that would interact. My G4 Maria Mühlimann  was daughter of a wagon maker in Bätterkinden and married Jakob Affolter, a saddler in Koppigen. 

People would certainly meet at family celebrations and marriages. On the Baumberger-Affolter line I have to go back to the G7 level to see a first case of pedigree collapse, but on the Greub line this happens sooner: G4 Johannes Greub b 1766 and G4 Maria Greub b 1759 were 1st cousins, 1x removed. They most likely met at some family gathering. 

Rudolf Greub and Elizabeth Affolter

And so this brings us back to my G2 grandparents, the ones that the genealogist had suggested may have met at a market. Their marriage is recorded in the church books of 4 towns: Lotzwil (where Rudolf was born and lived), Koppigen (where Elizabeth was born), Langenthal (where Elizabeth was living), and Wynigen (where they married, just south of Koppigen). The Koppigen record gives all this data as well as confirmation dates, in flowing script:

Koppigen church book entry for the marriage of Rudolf and Elizabeth

Now Langenthal was just north of Lotzwil, and one of Elizabeth's relatives had a brewery there. A couple Colorado history sources note that Rudolph was a druggist, one that Elizabeth "was an opera singer", another that "Elizabeth had a talent for singing," and so I think that opens up a lot more possibilities than that they met at a market, though that is also possible, especially since Elizabeth was living in Langenthal and not Koppigen at the time. Four months after they married their first child was born and died at 19 days old. They would eventually have 7 children in total, 2 dying shortly after birth (the second on their trip to Colorado), with 5 surviving to have families. 

The church in Wynigen where Rudolf and Elizabeth married

Sources

Search.ch. 

"They Came to Stay: Longmont Colorado 1858-1920", St. Vrain Valley Historical Association, Longmont Printing Co., 1971

Colorado Families: A Territorial Heritage. 1981. Denver, Colorado: The Colorado Genealogical Society.

45 – War and Peace

Intro

In the blog post Surprise, I introduced my great-uncle Louis E. Kenyon, who had written many letters home during his war experiences from 1917 to 1919. I had compiled those letters into a book in 2011, and had an interest in visiting the areas where Louis had been stationed.

Louis Kenyon, somewhere in France

In 2015 my wife Patti and I were in Reims, France, and had an extra day, so we visited the area where Louis had taken part in the Aisle-Marne offensive, and visited a couple of the WWI monuments in the vicinity. The war memorials in Europe dedicated to Americans who died in the two 20th century world wars are impressive; populated with the bodies of thousands of dead soldiers, they are a peacetime reminder of the tragedy of war. They seem to engender patriotism more than a reminder to fight harder for peace, commemorating battles won more than the mistakes that preceded the wars. They are not Holocaust museums, but bold and orderly exhibits of strength.

Monument at Chateau-Thierry, commemorating WWI American sacrifices, 2015

Three years later, in June 2018, we returned, along with my sister and her spouse, for a 100th anniversary trip commemorating the Armistice ending World War I, and our great-uncle Louis E. Kenyon's part in that war.  Louis had left a description of the places he had been stationed, and we tried to visit as many as we could. 

Louis E. Kenyon: travels in France and Germany

France in Wartime

Louis spent time learning French, and trained for a few more months before a first assignment in Alsace. One adventure caused him to remark on the wartime conditions in France, capturing a bit of the tragedy that war brings:

Several of us were wandering around this P.M., some one suggested that we go thru a large dense woods which we happened to be near, imagine our surprise when about half way thru, we came to the brink of what you might call a large glen, at the head of this glen was a magnificent chateau, it evidently was built during that period when French architecture was at its best. The grounds in front was terraced and in the center a beautiful fountain. Now try to imagine this large lawn, covered with a hundred varieties of rose bushes, nearly all in blossom, and a regular labyrinth of walks bordered by artistically trimmed hedges, at prominent points, were large stately trees.

Again try to imagine how this all would look, after four years of absolute neglect. The owner, a very refined lady, invited us in, and showed us about, was able to parley enough to understand that her husband and three sons were killed early in the war. Considering this once handsome woman, and her look of suppressed grief, then the ruin of that grand home, I called it tragedy personified, and that is practically France today.

Louis had served as a runner in company B of the 127th Infantry Battalion of the 32nd Division: he basically shuttled messages between command posts in this pre-wireless radio era. After training he did a couple tours in the trenches in Alsace, the earliest territory captured from the Germans; in one episode he narrowly escaped capture by an elite German squad. 

Hiking through remaining trenches overlooking the Alsatian plain

In July his battalion was redeployed and took part in the Aisle-Marne Offensive, with a series of battles; Louis was knocked out on July 31 by an artillery shell, just outside the small village of Cierges. A century after the war, the location of that large battle outside Riems is a bucolic countryside, with the small village of Cierges nestled in among numerous farms; the church in that town still exhibits damage from the battle, and shrapnel can still be found in the dirt roads leading up the distant hill from the town. Otherwise, there is no sign that this was a strategic area and site of a significant battleground.

The village of Cierges nestled into the countryside, 2018

On November 18, 1918, when armistice was declared, Louis wrote a letter home from a convalescent camp in France, where he had recovered from the battle injuries caused by that artillery shell in late July:

Dear Mother & Dad: Well, I haven’t traveled any since I wrote you last, so I wasn’t with the old company, when they were in at the finish. Would have given anything to be with them, but maybe I am just as well off.

At last this dam war is over, I suppose everyone in the States is rejoicing, you ought to see us. There is not a happier bunch of fellows in the world. Singing, yelling and parading and also wondering when will we be sent home. I suppose it will be several months before things are straightened up, and then back to the good old U.S.A.

I am in the best of health and hope to join the old outfit soon and sure will be one glad dough-boy when I do... Well I guess I’ll bring this to a finish for one can’t write much this night. We are all talking about what we are going to do when we get to the States. Will write again in a few days. Your son, Louis Kenyon Co B - 127 Inf., Amer E.F. Write soon.

Peace in Germany

Louis had written letters home almost weekly, describing his experiences in the war, and now those letters covered the first six months of the peace that followed, during which he was deployed back to his old unit and sent to Germany for the occupation.

As Louis moves on to Germany and the Army of Occupation, he gets to know the "enemy" and his letters reflect a new humanization of the Germans. In a December 30 letter, the first from Germany, he still uses epithets like "Jerry" and "Bosche" to refer to Germans, still dehumanizing them a bit:

Now we are a small portion of “Der Wact Am Rhine.” I imagine this is a bitter pill for Jerry, if so he carefully conceals his ideas, for they certainly treat us fine. For instance, three of us are billited in a house which by the way is the first house I have slept in since leaving the States, we sleep in the dining room at that, beside a large stove, which is another treat for me. Every evening, the old man insists on bringing in a lot of straw for our bed, it is all he has to give, and he says it is no more than right, as he was in the army that occupied France during the seventies, and they compelled the French to give them good beds.

This is sure one beautiful country, one might say that is just one enormous park, everything is clean and neat. The buildings and farms are laid out in such an orderly precise manner. But what greatly impressed me on my trip up here was the enormous amount of rolling stock, aeroplanes and other war material that was being delivered to France. Now that they have got the Bosche down, they are putting the boots to him good and plenty. 

A few weeks later we learn he is now billeted in Hartenfels, and continues to be a bit suspicious of the native Germans:

Will try to write you a few lines but there isnt much news. We have moved a few kilometers to this village, the natives are friendly and accommodating. I dont know if this is national, or prompted by the knowledge, that we could easily shell hell out of them, if they started something. I have a fine billet, and wonder of wonders a real bed to sleep in, that with five hours per day drill and a little guard duty occassionally, isnt such a bad life after all.

Hartenfels, Germany, 2018

And in a February 2 letter:

Absurd as it may seem, I am not wild about coming home, of course I would like to see you and all that, but life here isnt so bad. Have a bed to sleep in, my clothes are washed and ironed every week, we dont have to drill very much, so I am almost satisfied.

And by March 9 Louis is professing a preference for Germany over France:

With us life is a routine affair, so much guard duty, so much drill, nothing of intrest occurs ay more. You probably know that we are slated to come in May, well I hope so but I doubt it very much. I believe that we will stay here until the affair is finished one way or another. Well I dont care if we have got to stay over here, would much rather be in this country, than in France.

By the end of April Louis was on his way home, to a peacetime America. The year and a month in France and Germany had matured Louis; he was no fan of war and its costs, and had experienced the allies as well as the enemy both in battle and in the subsequent peace. 

At WWI war memorial outside Reims, 2018, with book of Louis' letters