Posted on by Michelle Anderson

Sam’s Susan

Susan has been a mystery to me for quite some time. She’s patient in waiting her turn for me to find her. She is the mother of our Lydia Lohr Miller, and while I don’t know much about her, I feel I have much that I can share about her.

Susan P Sites was born November 26, 1834, in Marion, Pennsylvania. She lived In the Franklin, Pennsylvania area until moving to Illinois, but that’s much later. Franklin County runs along the border of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Delaware.

Susan married Samuel Lohr on November 22, 1855, in Franklin. She was 20, and he was 21 years old. On April 13, 1858, their first son, Andrew Jackson Lohr, was born. When Susan was 25, her mother, Rebecca Goldsmith, died. That year, she gave birth on March 11, 1862, to her Daughter Emma K Lohr. Another daughter, Mary Elizabeth, was born July 25, 1863. At 30, her son Emanuel Lorn was born on September 21, 1865. Two years later, Sam and Susan had another son, Henry, born to them on September 21, 1867. They had three more children born to them: Ellen on December 1, 1869; Lydian Ann, born on September 20, 1871; and Daniel George, born on February 25, 1875.

I’m not sure when the family moved to Illinois. I’ve not located any supporting documents confirming a move date. However, I do know that daughter Emma married Austin Miller, uncle to our Kermit, in 1883, so I would assume that the family moved before this occurred. Our Lydia married Austin’s brother, Isaac, on December 19, 1893.

Susan died on April 6, 1893, at the age of 58. Much too early to leave a loving husband and family. Her youngest was just 18 years old, and her husband was 59 years old. I love this photo of Susan. You can’t tell much about the year, but based on her hairstyle, I imagine it was taken in the late 1860s to early 1870s. I believe she has earrings in her ears. The contrast of the light color at her neck brings focus to the pin at her neck. It’s very simple, and I wish I could see it closer. I also enjoy the expression she has on her face. She has such a pleasing smile. She looks like she would be fun to talk to and be around.

I’m left longing to learn more about Susan and her life. To hear about the ups and downs that occur along with the triumphs of life. I’d love to hear about what it was like to live so close to many battles during the Civil War and why the family decided to go west. But until I find those details out, we must be satisfied with this sweet photo of Sam’s Susan.

Posted on by Michelle Anderson

Maye and Lloyd

I never gave any thought to Maye and Lloyd. I usually am focused on other MIllers that I am searching for. Maye is the oldest of Kermits siblings. She was born January 5, 1894 in Adeline, Illinois to Isaac and Lydia Miller. On April 18, 1918 at the age of 24, Lydia married Lloyd, age 27 in Mount Carroll, Illinois. I’m not sure why they chose to travel to Mount Carroll to be married, but I sure would like to know. 

I like the part of this marriage announcement where it says that Maye had taught the Leaf River schools and that’s how she met Lloyd and they became friends. I wonder how long Maye taught schools for as the census’ begining in 1920 state that she was at home. 

Their photo is beautiful to me. It seems like it could have been taken around the time of their marriage. Their clothing and hair styles fit that time frame. You can really tell that Maye had blue eyes. Aren’t they goregous. I love her dress and would have liked to known what color it is. With the sheer sleeves and the silk cuff that goes up the majority of her arm. The buttons on the cuff are exquisite and her pearls and earings just complete her outfit. Once again Lloyd shows how men tend to have it easy. All they need to do is get the suit and tie, wash up and they are good to go. While Lloyd looks happy, Maye seems to me to be melancholy as her smile is absent. One reason why could have been the war. 

On October 4, 1918 Lloyd as part of the Machine Gun Company of the 150th Infantry, NG 38th Division set sail for France. The 38th Division was out of Indinapolis, Indiana and comprised mainly of soliders from Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia. I’m not sure if he saw combat, but many this Division did. Since he was part of the machine gun unit, I would bet he did as the Meuse-Argonne Offensive was in process when he arrived in France and continued until Armistice was reached. The war ended on November 11, 1918. 

Lloyd and Maye had two children; June born August 25, 1920 and Lois born July 21, 1927. Lloyd worked in the laundry industry throughout his life and had a very successful career. Maye maintained their home, raised their children and also established our ancestor connections within the Daughters of the American Revolution. 

They had 57 years of marriage until Maye died on December 17, 1975 in Rockford, Illinois. Lloyd lived almost 2 months without Maye until his own death on February 18, 1976. 

Posted on by Michelle Anderson

Lots of Unknowns

For some reason I just love this photograph. Even though we don’t know who the subjects are. From the top to the bottom there’s so much to look at. Standing in front of a residence are a male and female. I don’t know if they are married as I can’t tell from her hand if there’s a wedding band. But since they aren’t standing like many couples do; holding hands or one arm around the other, I think that they might not be a husband and wife. But who knows? 

From her hands I look at the neckline of the dresss. It’s a simple demure wide collared dress. It looks as if there is a pin at the neck. Even though it’s simple to me it seems pretty. From the skirt of the dress my eye is drawn to her shoes. The outfit as a whole and her hairstyle leads me to think this is in the late 1930’s. 

Standing next to the female is a dashing figure indeed. Don’t men have it easy? All they need is a suit with a tie, and they are good to go. His smile shows a hint of dimples, and to me appears begrudgingly. Her smile seems genuine and playful. Someone you’d want to sit down and talk to. 

They are standing on a nice brick path in a herringbone pattern. It’s beautiful, whomever laid down the bricks was a true artist.  I wonder what color their house was. I love the contrast between the siding and windows and trim. You can just see something in the window there. I believe they are cans, and perhaps, they are growing seedlings. It’s hard to tell. 

While this photo at first look seemed full of unknown things to me, I’m glad we have it. I wonder if they are related to us, or were just friends of Kermit and Eunice. To me, photos like this are why it’s so important to put names on your photos. I’m sad that their names are lost to us forever, but glad that they can live on for us in this photo. 

If you haven’t already, I would love for you to subscribe to this page and join me each week as we look at photographs and people who build our Miller family garden. 

Posted on by Michelle Anderson

William Kramer – Stories

William was the third child born to Karl and Doris (Reuter) Kramer. Both were natives of Hannover, Germany. Aunt Doris Chambers did not know when Karl arrived in America as his naturalization paperwork had a big X where that information should have been. Karl and Doris had 7 children, who made 10 total with his daughter and son with his first wife and a daughter from her previous marriage. It is unfortunate that Karl died as a result of a sea tragedy on January 19, 1883. Doris suffered from poor health after her husband’s death and died December 6, 1889. 

I tell you about Karl and Doris so that I can now tell you about Wiliam. Aunt Doris took to the typewriter and wrote down many of the things her father, William, told them about his life. Without radio or television, most people would tell stories to entertain them after meals or before the end of the day. Aunt Doris included them in the Kramer Family History which she compiled. If you have a copy or can get one, I encourage you to read it. There are many riveting stories included in it.

One of Williams earliest memories concerned the first night they spent on the Kramer Farm. It was early spring in 1880, he along with his two brothers, Charles and Herman were bedded down on a feather bed in the loft. Apparantly, they like most active children, moved about during their sleep. They had a rude awakening when they and the feather bed fell from the loft. Fortunately no one was hurt. 

William always lamented the loss of the natural prairie flowers and chickens. William said that during laying season, you could gather a basket full in just a few minutes. 

This next story is harsh by today’s standards, but it shows a time of discipline by their father to William. In Aunt Doris’ narrative, she calls William “Pat.” I believe that was a family nickname for him. One day a dead rabbit was discovered in the open well. Karl was unable to reach it so wanted to let William down by his heel to get it. William emphatically refused. Charles offered to go instead and was let down and secured the rabbit. Their father, determined to be obeyed, threw William in the well. Realizing that he might clutch the reinforcing beams in the well and not come up, Karl prepared to jump in, but William came back up and was pulled out safely. 

Another of the stories that William would tell involved a mystery. One day, a young man stopped at their house asking for lunch. While he ate, he told of a neighbor who had refused him and stated that he had put a curse on her. At the time, she had been churning butter, and he cursed her that she would never be able to gather the butter in that cream nor any other she would churn. The next day, the lady came to their mother carrying her cream. She said she “couldn’t get the butter to come.” Doris took the cream, churned it briefly, and butter came! As far as William knew, the neighbor was never again able to make butter. 

These are just a few beautiful stories that Aunt Doris Chambers compiled for us. What a wonderful gift she has given us! We will always have them to remember William and his life. There are more stories in the Kramer History book. I plan on showcasing them throughout the year for your enjoyment. Thank you, Aunt Doris, for all your hard work and wonderful writing.

Posted on by Michelle Anderson

Siblings

I love photos with Kermit in them. Here we have him and Maye in Adeline outside their mother, Lydia’s house. I would estimate that it is the late 40’s to early 1950’s. The kodachrome photos we have of Isaac with Lydia seem to be a bit older and the date on them is 1952. 

At any rate, there’s lots to focus on in this photo, so let’s begin. My eye is first drawn to their hands. They hold the hands similarly but with different hands on the top. And i wonder what Maye has in her hands. Then I look at her cute outfit with a pin at the neck and cute snap pumps. I think they are open-toed, but I can’t be sure. And finishing off her look is the cute hat that sits back on the top of her head. 

Complementing Lydia’s look is her brother Kermit, who is smartly dressed in a suit and tie with nice dress shoes. The only thing that’s missing is a hat.  Men have it so much easier when dressing up. What’s not missing is the traces of snow. My yard looks precisely like this currently. But it must not be too cold as they are taking the photo without coats. 

Of her four children, Maye and Kermit were the only of Lydia’s children who lived close to her. So I’m sure this photo is to commemorate a holiday, birthday, or special gathering when they were able to gather as a family and be together. 

If you haven’t yet subscribed, I would love for you to do so. 

Posted on by Michelle Anderson

Feeling Special

When I found this photo, the feelings that I had were overwhelming. It wasn’t because it was a Christmas photo or that we had an aluminum tree. It was the look on my grandma’s face. The love I see there is how she always made me feel. Now I’m not saying my time with Eunice was always smiling times and sunshine. We had our storms and personality clashes. But I always felt her love for me. 

Like many from her era, Eunice was not a professor of loving words. She was raised in a time when children should be seen and not heard. I never asked her what her relationship with her parents was like. She’d tell me stories about them, but never how she felt; they were her parents. After the years spent serving the children and families of West Wichita, I have seen what it’s like when a child is not nurtured with praise or feels like they are loved. I’m not saying that Eunice experienced this with her parents, but it would explain a lot in how she treated others. 

Eunice was, at times, hard to love, and her personality was too much for some. As someone who also can be a lot, I could commiserate with how she may feel. Many times, it was just her and us, Mark and I. But sometimes, I got lucky when she’d come and visit us, and it would be just her and I. She liked to talk about Kermit and her father and I liked to listen. 

It wasn’t until I became a grandmother that I thought about how I wanted my grandchildren to feel, especially when remembering me. It doesn’t matter what photo I see with Eunice in it; her love is right there, shining back at me. Even at the end, when her memories and personality shifted, I still felt love from her. Even though she couldn’t have told me how we were related, I felt she knew we were family. 

My hope is that my brothers and cousins feel the same way I do, but I know they had their own relationships with Eunice and some of them were strained. I witnessed my brother Isaac struggle to find shared interests or topics that he and she could discuss. While they never were able to grow their relatioship, I don’t think it stopped Eunice from loving him or anyone else. While I miss receiving that love from her, I feel so blessed to have these photos so I know that THIS is how I want my grandchildren to feel when they think of me. 

Posted on by Michelle Anderson

Hello 2024

Hello! I have not seen you in so long. While you might not have missed the photos and ramblings, I feel that I owe you an explanation for my absence. 

The past several years have been hard for many of us. Covid, at times, has hit us hard, and while no one I personally know has lost their life to the virus, it has definitely shaped how we act. In the midst of the pandemic my husband and I became grandparents. Our grandson has been a blessing and a joy to be around. And when his sister arrived in May of 2022, things got real busy. The time that I spent researching photos and writing my blogs was now spent with them. 

I was faced with letting these pages go or needing to do something with them. So I did. I looked to the videos I had made last with my yearly reviews and went from there. My goal is to be with you every week through the blogs AND my new adventure of a podcast. 

While I might be late reviewing these postings, I felt they deserved acknowledgment. So sit right back and enjoy this short (and I do mean SHORT) video, looking back on the postings from 2021 and 2022.  

Please like this video and subscribe to my YouTube channel 🙂

If you haven’t subscribed yet please do so! Facebook and Instagram – I can’t link them here due to Facebook restrictions, but you can find me at mandersongenealogy on both sites! Hope to see you all there.

Posted on by Michelle Anderson · 1 Comment

Hope for the New Year

Hope this finds you well on the eve of 2024!  2023 has not been super good to me but I’ve been healing from my total knee replacement and hopefully 2024 will be amazing.  One of the great things I’ve been working on is getting my blogs back up and going.  It was a lot of work, but that’s a story for another day :-).  I also have a surprise and hope that you all will like it.  

Please take the opportunity to subscribe to the blogs. This way, I won’t have to send the postings to you. They will just show up in your inbox when I publish them. Hopefully, it will save me some time, which seems to be in short supply here lately. 

While 2023 did not turn out the way I had hoped (they did not use vibranium in my knee replacement – sad day for me and Black Panther), my hope is that 2024 will be great for all of us.  

Posted on by Michelle Anderson

Tale of a Fateful Trip

Karl Kramer

This is Karl.  Karl had been in America since sometime in the 1860’s. He had a wife named Doris and eight children, one of them our William.  Karl was sick.  His doctors told him he had something called AGUE.  If you suffered from Ague, you had a fever and constant shivering as one would be overcome with chills.  For some reason the Doctors advised Karl to return to Germany.  They felt it would be good for his health.  Karl was smart, before leaving for Germany he made a will.  

Our Eunice always said that  her grandfather died traveling from Germany when her father was young. Perhaps Eunice didn’t know much about what ship he was on until her sister Doris researched his passage, or perhaps she didn’t want to think about it. But when she would speak of him it was always stated as plainly and mater of fact.  But I wanted to know more.  

I have found that until the Titanic sank in 1912 the largest civilian maritime disaster was the sinking of the Cimbria.  To this day, that catastrophe remains the biggest civilian maritime disaster on German waters.  What ship did Karl travel on?  The Cimbria.  

The following is an account of what occurred from www.MaritimeCyprus.com

The Cimbria was a 330-foot, 3,000-ton steamship built in 1867 and operated by the Hamburg-Amerika Line. It left Hamburg, Germany, on January 18 with 302 passengers and 120 crew members. Among the passengers were eastern Europeans heading to America, French sailors on their way to Le Havre and a touring group of Native Americans who were exhibiting Wild West paraphernalia.

The Sultan, a smaller Hull and Hamburg Line steamer traveling with only a crew, was also moving through the North Sea on January 19. Although there was heavy fog early that morning, neither boat took any precautionary measures, like reducing their speed, and the Sultan smashed straight into the Cimbria on the port side.

Both steamers were badly damaged and the Cimbria‘s lifeboats were launched. Seven were inflated, but in the confusion, they weren’t filled anywhere near capacity. In addition, three lifeboats quickly disappeared in the heavy fog and were never seen again. For those people who did not make it onto a lifeboat, the cold water was deadly. Hypothermia and drowning claimed hundreds of lives within minutes.

A few nearby ships picked up a couple of lifeboats soon after but the bulk of the 65 survivors from the Cimbria were not picked up until two days later. The captain of the Sultan, which had managed to stay afloat, was widely criticized for his failure to provide any assistance to the passengers and crew of the Cimbria. In total, 357 people lost their lives.

In 1974, the wreckage of the “Cimbria” was discovered 19 nautical miles northwest of the island of Borkum. Among the many things to be salvaged was the ship’s bell. It can be found these days in the entrance hall of the Ballin House in Hamburg, where it stands as a memorial to all those who have perished at sea. Between 2001 and 2008, divers have brought up numerous pieces of equipment and cargo goods from the wreckage, including porcelain, wine bottles and ivory. Today, the wreckage stretches over an area 115 meters long, though the ship’s structure can no longer be made out. In just a few years, the already heavily decayed wreckage of the “Cimbria” will disintegrate completely and disappear.

Karl was returning from his visit to Germany to his family in Illinois.  While the accident could have been avoided had precautions been taken, or life boats filled, I’m sure in the chaos and the fog it was hard to see and know what was occurring.  I wonder how long it was until the news of his death reached his family?  While his family mourned his loss, the world and Germany mourned the sining of the Cimbria.  So while you may be celebrating with family and friends this July 4th, raise your glass and remember all those lost in the North Sea at the sinking of the Cimbria.  Remember Karl.  

Posted on by Michelle Anderson · 1 Comment

Kramer Siblings

Back row, Eunice (Miller), Doris (Chambers), Oma (Fager), Alice (Haren)
Front row Pauline (Maubauch), Reta (Kewley) Emmet and Walter Kramer  

Life is funny.  When you’re in a moment and you’re young you don’t think about looking at things so you will remember them.  Maybe it’s because I’ve always felt untethered moving from place to place, house to house. The familiar to me was those places that were consistent and never changing.  Perhaps that is why while I could move to a different home in Wichita, we find our selves still in our starter home.  One of those constants was the Kramer Reunion at Aunt Alice’s.  As I find myself aging, I try to remember those times when we were all together and I realize how lucky we are in that we had these annual get-togethers.  Many of my friends don’t know who their great-aunts or uncles are, let alone all their ‘cousins”.

I just love this photo of the Kramer siblings.  I’m sure like in all families they had disagreements and hurt feelings at times.  But that never stopped them from getting together as a family whenever they could and supporting each other when needed.  The joy on their faces tells how much they love and care for each other and how happy they were to just spend time together.  

Today is the Kramer Reunion in Cullom, Illinois and while many of us can’t be there to join in the festivities and partake in the good food, just knowing that we are all celebrating whether we are there or not makes me happy.  So today as you have your dinner, raise your glass and remember all the Kramers that have come before us and the legacy that they have left in us.  Happy Birthday Aunt Alice!