REFLECTING ON MOM

Today I was thinking of Mom.  Mom, Grace Worthing,  had a great life but also had some sadness. She was orphaned at age 16 when most young girls are thinking of their first proms, dates, and boys.  Her mother, Nancy Ames Hansen Worthing,  passed when she was only 12 years old and her dad, Charles Worthing passed when she was 16. Mom was lucky to have two step brothers in Ohio.  After her dad passed she was sent to live with her half brother, Walter Worthing and his two daughters, Lucille and Hazel on a farm in Birds Run, Ohio.

Mom didn't stay there long.  She ended up living in New Concord, Ohio at her cousin Eppie Mossholder's.

I know as a child at about age 8 and 10 we went to Ohio to visit mom's family.  The first time was on a train. I remember sleeping curled up in a seat with my sister facing mom and dad who where sitting in the seat across from us. The other time we went to Ohio was when dad drove. I remember, dad didn't like heights and we went across the  dam and winding road on the way to Ohio. I don't remember the name of the dam but think it was part of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Anyway it was high and winding road.

We had fun on both trips to Guernsey County Ohio and New Concord. We stayed at the Frank Buker farm which was the original Richard Worthing farm, my mom's grandfather.  We used an outhouse for a bathroom. I also remember feeding the free range chickens, the hogs, and milking the cows.  We ate homemade fried chicken and drank raw milk.  We played at the Frank Worthing farm down the road with our new found cousins.  Then we drove up and around the bend to Hazel Worthing's farm where we ate home made ice cream. Behind the old Buker farm was a Worthing Cemetery in Ohio where Seth and Harriet Worthing and their children are buried. Seth was one of my Greatgrandfather, Richard Worthing's sons.

In New Concord I remember Eppie and Guy Mossholder. They had a big two story house on main street.  We stayed upstairs. I remember the big huge kitchen. Mom learned to cook there from Eppie as a 16 year old.  I remember the big front porch where we sat at night and visited.  When in New Concord we visited mom's childhood cousin Dr. Castor father of Annie Castor Glenn (wife of John Glenn). Mom used to spend summers with Annie Castor in Akron Ohio.

I think we only made one trip to Truro, Iowa where mom was born and raised. Truro is a small town of 300 nestled in Madison County near all the famous bridges.  A lovely small town.  Only a library and tavern on main street and a school.  We visited the Worthing  Cemetery and put flowers on my grandma and grandpa's graves and visited the Baptist Church near the cemetery where the Worthing's attended. The cemetery is still there today. I have visited it in 2001 and 2004 and 2008. We ate chicken dinners at  a cousin's of mom's in Truro. We went to Merle Cregor's house to visit with the family who were mom's cousins. Mom was trying to get a post birth certificate. She needed to get affadavits from witnesses of her birth so she would have evidence in the futher for her social security.  It turned out mom didn't need these as Social Security could prove her birth by the census records and  school records.

Besides our trips to Ohio and Iowa, mom's half brother, Uncle Kenny Worthing used to come to Aurora every winter to stay with us. I think he was a great comfort to mom.

I only wish we could have made more trips to Iowa and Ohio for mom's sake. She would have loved that and the ability to visit her family.

I wish I could remember more.  Mom had a half sister Blanche Hansen Stevens who died in 1945 in Aurora, Illinois from Cancer of the  uterus.  Sad for mom.  Mom's best friend in Aurora was Marie Flynn Vaghey. They were the "giggle" girls and inseparable. Good for mom. Mom had us and her in-laws who she loved very much and they loved her like a daughter. We were so lucky to grow up in a loving, caring, family oriented home with a sweet, dear mom.

         WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT MOM AND DAD

                      FROM THE 1940 CENSUS

Mom: Grace Worthing, Age 23 and single.

Mom was orphaned at age 16. She was sent to Ohio to live with various relatives for two years. When she turned 18, her half sister Blanche sent for her. Mom moved to Aurora, Illinois. This was five years before the 1940 census.

         Blanche Hansen was working as a telephone operator in Naperville, but is not enumerated in the census. Blanche had moved to Illinois when she turned 18 in 1926, to live with her natural father, Ludwig Hansen who promised her a college education. In the 1940 census I found Mom living with her stepfather, Ludwig Hansen at 811 Grove Street.

         Mom had a 7^th grade education and was working as a maid in a private residence. From Mom’s information the residence was  the W.G. Eilert, M.D.residence of doctor and Mrs. Eilert and their children. Mom always told us she was their cook. Mom earned $ 250.00 in 1939 and Ludwig earned $ 910.00. I have to check to see what this amount of money would be in 2012 dollars.  It does not sound like much to me but the Great Depression was ending and work was picking up.

         Dad: Robert Francis Fermazin, Age 23 and single.

Dad was living at home with his parents, Robert and Mary and his sister, Lola.  Dad had completed two years of high school. Later in life Dad earned his GED and went on to be an Audio Visual Technician at the Fullerton Unified High School District. Occupation: Mechanic worker and earnings from 1939 were

 $ 520.00.

Sister: Lola, age 25. Completed 4 years of high school. Occupation: Boring at the Corset Factory. Lola earned $ 540.00 in 1939.

         Grandpa Robert, age 52 had an 8^th grade education and was working at Pneumatic Tool Company and earned $ 1800.00 in 1939.

         Grandma age 51 is residing in the household. States she had an 8^th grade education. No occupation is listed but we know she was a housewife, seamstress, and mother.

Wanderlust

Wanderlust

                                                               

                                                                 

   AWOL! Adventurer. Good Character. Handsome. Naturalized Citizen. Homesteader. Industrious. Motorman. These attributes describe my great-great-uncle Reinhart Fermazin.

   Reinhart was born on January 28, 1875 in Godziwy, Schubin, Posen, Prussia. He immigrated to America as an infant with his mother Carolina Hartwig and his sister Bertha. 

   Reinhart’s life was adventuresome as an adult. In 1898, Reinhart enlisted in the Spanish American War in Evanston, Wyoming. His military service occurred in Fort San Felipe, Manila, Philippine Islands.  During his time in Manila, he served three times in the brig with ten days of hard labor and court martialed. He was discharged on July 28, 1899. After his court martials and infractions, he mustered out at the Presidio in San Francisco with “service honorable and faithful, character good.”

   In 1903, he married his first wife, Sharlot Wittelsbach, who died of consumption a year later. Two years after her death, Reinhart married Lillian Ryland. In 1908, Reinhart obtained a one hundred sixty-acre homestead in Lemmon, Perkin, South Dakota where he built a twelve by sixteen foot sod house with a lumber floor and roof, three windows, one door and a five foot by six foot cellar under the house. He drilled a twenty-seven foot deep well on the property and built a chicken coop and a sod barn with a pole roof. He planted seventy box elders around the perimeter. During the first year, he planted corn and potatoes, harvesting fifteen bushels of corn and twenty-five bushels of potatoes. 

  

  By 1920, he moved back to Chicago where he obtained work as a motorman for the Chicago Surface Railway Company. In 1931at the age of fifty-six, after Lillian’s death and twenty-four years of marriage, Reinhart married a young, Slavic, woman, twenty-one years old, named Anna. They lived in Chicago for the remainder of his life.

He did indeed live an adventuresome life, AWOL in the armed services, suspected AWOL on his homestead and skirting the law on a few occasions. He was a fascinating guy! You can only help but love him. 

Link: http://creativegene.blogspot.com/2012/03/carnival-of-genealogy-115th-edition.html
Link: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nancysheritage/index.htm

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - The Ancestors GeneaMeme

October 15, 2011

Randy Seaver’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun Challenge:

The Mission is to:

1)  Participate in the Ancestors GeneaMeme created by Jill Ball on the Geniaus blog.

2)  Write your own blog post, or add your response as a comment to this blog post, in a Facebook Status post or note, or in a Google+ Stream item.

Thank you to Jill for the SNGF idea!  Jill is collecting Ancestors MeGeneaMeme entries too.

The rules, and the Meme list, is given below in my response.

The list should be annotated in the following manner:

Things you have already done or found: bold face type

Things you would like to do or find: italicize (colour optional)

Things you haven’t done or found and don’t care to: plain type

You are encouraged to add extra comments in brackets after each item 

The Meme:

Which of these apply to you?

1.  Can name my 16 great-great-grandparents

2.  Can name over 50 direct ancestors

3.  Have photographs or portraits of my 8 great-grandparents

4.  Have an ancestor who was married more than three times: Friederick Fermazin

5.  Have an ancestor who was a bigamist

6.  Met all four of my grandparents

7.  Met one or more of my great-grandparents: Met Minnie Fermazin, my grandfather’s mother.

8.  Named a child after an ancestor

9.  Bear an ancestor's given name/s: Named after my mother’s mother, Nancy Ames Worthing

10.           Have an ancestor from Great Britain or Ireland: Richard Seth Worthing, Sarah Ingram Worthing from Wales

11.           Have an ancestor from Asia

12.           Have an ancestor from Continental Europe: LINDEN, FERMAZIN, POTT, KARTHEISER, BEVIER

13.           Have an ancestor from Africa

14.           Have an ancestor who was an agricultural labourer: Richard Seth Worthing

15.           Have an ancestor who had large land holdings: Richard Seth Worthing

16.           Have an ancestor who was a holy man - minister, priest, rabbi

17.           Have an ancestor who was a midwife

18.           Have an ancestor who was an author

19.           Have an ancestor with the surname Smith, Murphy or Jones: My great aunt married a Jones

20.           Have an ancestor with the surname Wong, Kim, Suzuki or Ng

21.           Have an ancestor with a surname beginning with X

22.           Have an ancestor with a forename beginnining with Z

23.           Have an ancestor born on 25th December

24.          Have an ancestor born on New Year's Day

25.           Have blue blood in your family lines

26.           Have a parent who was born in a country different from my country of birth

27.           Have a grandparent who was born in a country different from my country of birth

28.           Can trace a direct family line back to the eighteenth century: LINDEN, FERMAZIN, POTT, WORTHING, INGRAM

29.           Can trace a direct family line back to the seventeenth century or earlier: WORTHING, FERMAZIN, LINDEN, POTT

30.           Have seen copies of the signatures of some of my great-grandparents: Ira Daniel Ames, Richard Seth Worthing

31.           Have ancestors who signed their marriage certificate with an X

32.           Have a grandparent or earlier ancestor who went to university

33.           Have an ancestor who was convicted of a criminal offence

34.           Have an ancestor who was a victim of crime

35.           Have shared an ancestor's story online or in a magazine (Tell us where): Wrote a poem about my FERMAZIN line and it was published in Everton’s Genealogy Magazine. Everton’s Genealogical Helper: November December 2008.

36.           Have published a family history online or in print (Details please)

37.           Have visited an ancestor's home from the 19th or earlier centuries

38.           Still have an ancestor's home from the 19th or earlier centuries in the family

39.           Have a  family bible from the 19th Century:  Cornelia Palon Ames family Bible in my possession.

40. Have a pre-19th century family bible

41. Find the marriage of Adolphus Ames ;

42. Find the parents of Cornelia Palon

43. Find the birthplace of Friederich Fermazin ancestors

Jason's Wedding

Jason's Wedding

I took pictures at my cousins wedding a few weeks ago. Out of the thousand photos these stand out as my top ten. :)

Renee's Wedding

Renee's Wedding

I took pictures at my cousins wedding a few weeks ago. Out of the thousand photos these stand out as my top ten. :)

Caroline Fermazin Steingraber

Caroline Steingraber was born 13 August 1852 in Rynarzewo, (Labischin) Posen, Prussia to Friedrick Fermazin and Louise Bonau. Caroline was one of four children. She died on 13 December 1937 in Fox, Kendall, Illinois.Caroline
Born: Aug.13,1850 Rynarzewo
Bapt. Aug. 18,1850
Witnesses: Eduard Zillmmer, Louise Wienkauf, August Bartung
Father - Einwohner
Entry # 271/1850 page 320-321

On 25 September 1852 her mother Louise Bonau Fermazin died of cholera along with her sister, Henriette in Labischin, Posen, Prussia.

Her siblings were:
Stephan Carl born 15 October 1847 in Labischen and who emigrated to America.
Henriette born 9, October 1843 who died of cholera 27 September 1852.  ,
August born 12 September 1841 who married Ernestine Kurtz and stayed behind in Kawiesezewo, Posen.

We are not sure when Caroline came to the USA. Her nieces came in 1896 and siblings by her father Friedrich Fermazin and Caroline Hartwig came in 1879 and 1880 to Aurora, Kane, Illinois.

Caroline married  William Steingraber about 1885 and they lived and raised their family in the farming communities  of Rost Township Minnesota and then moving to Aurora, Kane, Illinois, and later to  Yorkville, Kendall, Illinois. She was a housewife. It appears, Caroline was the second wife of William Steingraber and her step children resided in the household in the 1900 census. Prior to living in Yorkville Caroline and William lived in Aurora, Kane, Illinos with their children: Julius, Edward, Awiel, Minnie, Willie, Anna, and Johnnie.
Prior to this they lived in Minnesota.  Johnnie was born in Minnesota in 1893 so the family may have lived near Charles Fermazin who would have been Caroline's half brother. Charles and his family were living in Minnesota in 1893.

According to the 1910 Aurora City Directory Carrie Steingraber was a widow living on Summit Avenue.
 Carrie's step mother-in-law was Carrie Fermazin living at 569 5th Avenue and her step brother Charles and wife Minnie were living at 265 N. 5th Avenue. Her sister in law Augusta Giese was living at 268 Hinman Ave.

I am looking for more information on her and her family. Hopefully the 1940 census will give some more clues.


City Directory: 

Aurora, Illinois 1910-11 City Directory. 

http://www.distantcousin.com/Directories/IL/Aurora/1910_11

Fermazin, Giese, Steingraber.

Source Citation: Year: 1900; Census Place: Aurora, Kane, Illinois; Roll: T623_310; Page: 4B; Enumeration District: 61.

.1900 United States Federal Census about Carie Steingraber

Name:	Carie Steingraber [Carie Sterisgraber]
Home in 1900:	Aurora, Kane, Illinois [Kane, Illinois]
Age:	47
Birth Date:	Aug 1852
Birthplace:	Germany
Race:	White
Gender:	Female
Relationship to head-of-house:	Wife
Father's Birthplace:	Germany
Mother's Birthplace:	Germany
Mother: number of living children:	7
Mother: How many children:	7
Spouse's Name:	Wm Steingraber
Marriage year:	1884
Marital Status:	Married
Years married:	16
Occupation:	View on Image
Neighbors:	View others on page
Household Members:	Name Age Wm Steingraber 44 Carie Steingraber 47 Julius Steingraber 27 Edward Steingraber 23 Awiel Steingraber 18 Minnie Steingraber 15 Willie Steingraber 12 Anna Steingraber 10 Johnnie Steingraber