This Is Going To Be A Long One!

My kids...I have 3. 
 E. is named for a distant great-grandparent.
My other 2 are N. and A. They were both named for their Great-Great Grandparents N. and A. I am showing you every picture I own of my Great Grandparents N. and A.
I am an exuberant genealogist. I have records of family back to the late 18th century for my mom's family and back to the 17th century for my dad's family!!! I have leads to more information spots. I just need to someday get to them.

Please note that these pictures are NOT

from the Dead Fred web site

and are NOT episodes of "Fantasy Family"!!!!

They are my own family photos.

The story of N. and A. is so intriguing it is better than a novel.

This (above) is an original tin type picture (not sure of the year) of my Great Grandpa N. 
Even though, admittedly, he has a strange hair style, ears that can be joke-worthy, and a kind of haunting expression (remember those were days when snapping a photo and having the "film" exposed long enough for certain kinds of photos was a long boring process of keeping perfectly still; enough to make anyone lose their spirit of Just Say Cheeses!), I love that this photo shows N.'s nose so well and reminds me of both my brother's and son's nose....pretty fun! N. came to America from Germany through Ellis Island in 1894. He traveled in steerage and arrived with one piece of baggage. He listed his occupation on the ship's manifest log as "gardener". Here's the really neat part (I think it's neat, anyway!) Gardener is code for...GRAVE DIGGER! It was a much needed profession. Everyone dies!!!!!! Keep in mind that this was in the days before back hoes and end loaders. N. was the sexton {caretaker, grave digger} for a Catholic church in Ohio. His house was across the intersection from the cemetery. Can you just picture him setting off on foot in the early morning fog to go dig a grave??????? Kinda like a movie scene.
He is listed in the city directory {which is on microfilm at the library} as a "florist", "sexton" and...get ready for this..."saloon owner"!!! Oh I love it! I wonder how many drinkers he put into the ground???? The most ironic part of N's story is that his occupation of grave digger is what ultimately put him, at an early age, under a stone monument in his own cemetery!! More on that later...

This (above) is a copy of a photo taken in Germany (the original picture is now in Luxembourg with relatives). Left to right it is N's brother, Peter; N's father, also Peter; and N's mother, Elizabeth. They lived to be age 49, 90 and 80 respectively.

This photo (above) is a copy of a photo taken in 1899 in Germany (the original photo is now in Luxembourg with relatives). N. had already come to America 5 years prior.

Left to right adults are N's sister-in-law Catherine; N's Father, Peter; and N's brother, Peter. The two children are N's nieces, Catherine and Margaret. I used the name Catherine for E.'s middle name. My nephew used it for his daughter's middle name, as well.

This is a copy of the original wedding photo of N. and A. (Original photo now in Luxembourg).

N. was almost 16 years her senior. A. had 6 siblings; one sister lived to be 98.

This is my favorite photo. I display it prominently and proudly in an enlarged 11x14 framed size on a fancy easel. Even though these may have been their only best clothes, it still makes me think they are a handsome, well put together, dapper family. It is a copy of a photo taken in Ohio in 1905. This is A. and N. with their 5 children.

Children left to right are: sitting- baby Arthur; standing in back are- Ella and Margaret; standing in front are A. Rose and M.

M. is my mom's mom. My daughter is named A. Rose and her Godmother is her aunt, Rose. 

One year after this photo was taken of this beautiful family, N. was dead at age 47 and A. was a widow with 5 young children. A. was rather short and had somewhat large hands for a woman... both traits I share.

(Fair Warning: post-mortem photo below. ) Stop here if this is not for you. However, please know that this was a very common practice in our history... and I offer some trivia below the photo as the post continues.

I apologize if this photo of my Great Grandpa is offensive to any of you.

I have the ORIGINAL memorial death photo of my Great Grandpa N. I personally think it is a treasure!!!!

I have a weird sense of fascination when it comes to traipsing through cemeteries, doing grave marker rubbings and photographing cemetery art. My whole life, my mom often took me to cemeteries to take photos of me with beautiful gardens or among the Autumn leaves. She had a way of taking them so that no one who views them knows they were in a place with tombstones. I get a kick out of someone remarking that they think it is a beautiful garden in the photos and want to know where it was photographed!

Maybe the cemetery attraction comes from heredity??!!

A bit of trivia for you: Did you know that when cemeteries changed from tiny "church yards" to sprawling "memorial parks" people actually treated them as "parks" and often took leisurely strolls and picnics there!!

His official cause of death is congestion of the brain. I have done lots of research on this early 20th century term but have still drawn no clear conclusion.

The stories that have been passed down are somewhat conflicting...

that N. was digging a grave and his foot was injured, either while digging or from a grave marker falling on his foot, blood poisoning and fever resulting. All stories trace the initial injury or event to him being in the process of preparing a grave.

A. then had the task of buying a plot to bury him in his place of employment. She paid $30 for the grave site, a lot of money back then. I wonder if he got an employee discount!
And I don't think there was any workman's compensation benefit for an injury/death on the job.

A. began to take in boarders in her home to help finance the care of her young family. One of her boarders was a Mr. F who came from New York and was a brick worker by trade. Mr. F's family was in Buffalo N.Y. and came to America from Germany.

Ten months after A's beloved N. died she married Mr. F~ She was 33 years old and had 5 children~ He was 23 and agreeing to take on the responsibility of 5 children not his own!!! Imagine that letter sent to the folks back home in Buffalo!!! A. became pregnant with Mr. F's twins and sadly she died in childbirth along with the twins. Mr. F buried her with N.

She was one month shy of her 35th birthday. (I was 35 when I had my 2nd miscarriage.)

Now Mr. F was left a widower at age 25 with 5 mouths to feed; children to which he had no blood relationship.

My grandma was taken by young Mr. F a few weeks after her 8th birthday, along with her 4 siblings, and dropped off at the orphanage. It was run by the Catholic church and she was raised by the nuns until she left as a teenager.

Since they were dropped off without any documents, like birth records, my grandma didn't know for sure which day was her birthday Feb. 20th or Feb 22nd.

Surprisingly, our Luxembourg relatives have a letter that surfaced in the 1980's penned from N. in Ohio to his brother Peter in Germany dated in the Autumn of 1904 ( it is written in German and has been translated to English) stating that " Little M. will get 4 years on February 25th."

This time I used my own family photos to tell a real family story...maybe even better than any of my far fetched "Fantasy Family" stories.

Hey it's so good, you can't make this stuff up!!!!!!!!!!