Tragedy

I always find this type of prompt to be difficult to write. Many stories that would qualify, have already been used for other prompts. Others are too recent, with too many people involved or affected by the event still living. They need time to recover from whatever happened. They don’t need me to be ripping off their band aid prematurely.

There is more to a person than the worst thing that ever happened to them. Or the worst choice they ever made. Do I ignore them, because trying to write about those things is awkward? Do I pretend those things didn’t happen, despite the impact to their life? How do I balance remembering the person accurately, with remembering them compassionately? Which stories are okay to tell, and which should wait another 10, 20, 30 years?

It’s an inexact decision process, and one I don’t take lightly.

Delia Mentzer was a 2nd cousin of my grandfather, Christoph Jacob Meintzer. No, that wasn’t a typo I let slip by. Delia was from the “Meintzers without the i” branch of the family. Her grandfather, Johann Philippe Adam Meintzer (Phillip) emigrated from Alsace in 1842. He quickly dropped the i from his name, though occasionally it shows up incorrectly in various records. The other Meintzers emigrating later settled in the Northfield/Northbrook area, because Phillip’s family was there. The new families (my great-grandfather and the Fulton County, Ohio, Meintzers) left the i in their surnames.

Delia was the youngest child of Phillip’s oldest child, Heinrich (Henry), so she never knew that grandfather, who had died 20 years before Delia’s birth. Despite being a more distant cousin, her name came up early in my genealogy research. The immigration narrative presumably written by my grandaunt, Sophie Meintzer Kranz, mentioned Delia by name:

“We arrived in New York on the French Steamer Labrador, on May 26th 1881, & in Chicago May 30th 1881, and same day May 30th 1881 by Uncle Henry Meintzer, (where Delia lives now). We were 8 of us, Father, Mother, and 6 Children.” Undated and unsigned, but I was told it was written by Sophie Meintzer Kranz, identified by the handwriting.

I love this kind of document, but it’s frustrating without a signature. I have to hope the people identifying it by the handwriting have it right. “Where Delia lives now” is rather useless without a date of when it was written. Did it mean her father’s farm in 1881 (on Sanders Road)? Or somewhere else? The farm was the most likely place, but without a date, there will always be a question.

Regardless, Delia has always been part of the family history. She was born 1 August 1893 in Northfield Township; the rural area north of the Chicago city limits. Now part of the urban sprawl, back then it was out in the boondocks. The eleventh (and last) child of Henry Mentzer and Salomea Koebelin, three older siblings had already died before Delia’s birth. Her full name was Ardelia Ernestine, and “Ardelia” showed up in many of her records—just not her birth record². Like many babies, her birth record contained only a last name!

She appeared with her family in all the census records from 1900 to 1930³. After her mother died in 1906, Delia took over the housekeeping duties of the family. The 1940 census⁴ recorded she had completed 7th grade, which would be consistent with that timeline.

By 1910, she and her brother, Louis, were the only children still living at home. After their father died in 1927, she and Louis remained on the farm, through at least the 1930 census. She and Louis both attended the 1930 reunion. She was the 6th person from the left in row 3. Unfortunately, her head is behind another woman (Evelyn Kranz), so Delia’s hat and arm are the only parts visible! Louis is the person on the left end of row 2.

1930 Mentzer/Meintzer reunion, at the Riverview Town Hall. See text to locate Delia, Louis, and Herman.

On 6 January 1932, Delia married Herman Johann Philipp Werhane.⁵ He was her first cousin, and 25 years older than she. Herman’s mother, Anna, was the younger sister of Delia’s father, Henry. Several other Mentzer-Werhane matches existed. It was a small community, so that wasn’t unusual. Herman also attended the 1930 reunion, and is easily found in the back row, to the right of the man in the dark suit.

Herman had been married before, with four children from that union—two of them younger than Delia. His first wife had died in 1921, and his three surviving children were all married. The 1930 census showed Herman living in Glenview with his youngest daughter’s family.

How or why Herman and Delia decided to marry, I can’t say. The 1940 census had them farming on Sanders Road, with Delia’s brother elsewhere. It seemed Herman was keeping the Mentzer farm active. Herman and Delia went on to have two children.

On 23 May 1949, Herman found Delia, dead, in a hayloft on their farm.

“By her side was an old revolver with which she apparently shot herself.”

Chicago Tribune, 24 May 1949

The prompt was tragedy, remember?

A local paper provided a few more details revealed at the inquest held the next day. She was found early Monday morning, and the gun was a rusty 32 calibre that had been in a bureau drawer for eight years. She shot herself through the temple.

“Her husband testified . . . that his wife was in apparently good spirits when she left the house. She asked her husband to put the cow to pasture while she cut some rhubarb.”

Cook County Herald, 27 May 1949, p. 1.

When Herman came back to the house and couldn’t find her there, he went looking for her.

The story is tragic. Her children were teenagers at the time—I’m not sure whether that made the situation better or worse. Herman was 81. He died in September, 1950, (a little more than a year later) leaving the children orphaned. I don’t know who took them in, but they remained in the area at least until adulthood. Half-siblings and other relatives from both sides lived nearby, so there should have been someone able to take care of them while they finished high school.

The soon-to-be-released 1950 census probably won’t answer the question of where the kids settled after their father died, because it would have been taken earlier in the year, before his death. It seems unlikely the kids would have been moved to another household after Delia’s death, unless Herman felt raising them by himself was too much at his age. I guess I’ll see.

When a tragedy occurs, it’s human nature to try to make sense of it. Most of the time we are unsuccessful, because there are no answers. Delia’s death was obviously tragic for her family, but it had to have rippled throughout the larger community. While the area had become more populated by the mid-1940s, many of the families were still very interconnected. They didn’t lose just anyone—they lost one of their own.

#52Ancestors

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¹“U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007”, database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com), accessed 16 August 2021, citing Social Security Applications and Claims, 1936-2007, (index only); dated June 1946. Entry for Delia Ernestine MENTZER.

²“Cook County, Illinois, U.S., Birth Certificates Index, 1871-1922”, database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com), accessed 16 August 2021, entry for MENTZER, 1 August 1893, citing “Illinois, Cook County Birth Certificates, 1878-1922,” certificate # n.g., FHL Film 1,287,793. Illinois Department of Public Health, Division of Vital Records, Springfield.

³1900 U.S. census, population schedule, Illinois, Cook, Northfield Township, e.d. 1176; Page 12A; dwelling number 156; family number 161; line 45; Henry MENTZER household; accessed 15 August 2021. Ardelia MENTZER, age 7, August 1892; NARA microfilm publication T623, roll 294; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com).

1910 U.S. census, population schedule, Illinois, Cook, Northfield, e.d. 63; Page 11A; dwelling number 87; family number 88; line 17; Heinrich MENTZER household; accessed 15 August 2021. Dillia (incorrectly indexed as Lillia) MENTZER, age 16; NARA microfilm publication T624, roll 238; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com).

1920 U.S. census, population schedule, Illinois, Cook, Northfield, e.d. 139; Page 16B; dwelling number 332; family number 332; line 86; Henry MINTZER [MENTZER] household; accessed 15 August 2021. Delia MINTZER [MENTZER], age 26; NARA microfilm publication T625, roll 358; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com).

1930 U.S. census, population schedule, Illinois, Cook, Northfield Township, section 6, e.d. 16-2242; Page 1B; dwelling number 16; family number 19; line 81; Louis MENTZER household; accessed 14 August 2021. Ardelia MENTZER, age 36; NARA microfilm publication T626, roll 504; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com).

⁴1940 U.S. census, population schedule, Illinois, Cook, Northfield Township, e.d. 16-346A; Page 3B; household number 65; line 72; Herman J. WERHANE household; accessed 15 August 2021. Delia WERHANE, age 46; NARA microfilm publication T627, roll 784; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com).

⁵“Cook County, Illinois Marriage Index, 1930-1960”, database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com), accessed 15 August 2021, citing Cook County Clerk Genealogy Records, file# 1333244 Cook County Clerk’s Office, Chicago, Illinois. Herman WERHANE and Ardelia MENTZER.

Multiples

A quick glance around my family doesn’t reveal many multiple births, identical or otherwise. The statistical odds of having twins is 1 in 250 natural pregnancies. In my tree of 6358 people, I have 4183 children. A quick calculation suggests I should have 16.7 sets of twins. Let’s round it up to 17. Unfortunately, my software doesn’t provide a way to tease that information out of the file, so I don’t know if that’s right, or not.

I do know twins are definitely sprinkled throughout it, though. Often they disappear into the woodwork, due to one (or both) dying as infants or young children. Uncle Iggy’s (Ignatz Joseph Schweiger) twin sister, Clemence Mary, lived 5½ months. Anna Sophia Meintzer, the twin sister of my 2nd great-grandfather, Christian, survived only 2 months. My mom’s cousin, Florence Moeller Eberlein, lost both her twins. Those were just off the top of my head! I still run across unexpected twins as I track down details for families where I have names-only for the kids.

Yet sometimes twins achieved beyond expectations. They reached adulthood. They married other twins.

They all got divorced.

If that sounds like a bad made-for-TV movie, guess again. It happened on the Ohio Meintzer branch.

You met Henry George Meintzer (the head of this branch) in Poor Man. When he and his sweetheart couldn’t get permission to marry in Alsace, he emigrated to the Chicago area in an attempt to earn enough money for Sophie and the daughter he’d left her with, to come join him. Henry arrived¹ in Baltimore in 1871, with mother and daughter coming some time after that. Henry & Sophia married in Northfield, Illinois, 1 October 1872.

They soon moved east, to Fremont, Ohio, along Lake Erie. Henry worked in a sawmill for a couple years, and then spent 9 years in a steel mill. His goal, it seemed, was to purchase farm land in Fulton County, Ohio. In the meantime, their family was growing, adding six more children (a 7th had lived only a short time). The last two additions were the twins: Harold and Arnold. My software sorts them alphabetically, but I don’t actually know which twin was born first, on 27 September 1886. I have not found birth records for them, but Harold was constently listed first in census records. While there are exceptions, mothers tend to list their children in birth order, so a case could be made for Harold being the elder twin.

There’s a bit of a variation on their birth year across various records, but 1886 seems the best bet. “September 1886” was recorded on the 1900 census², the record closest to their births, and both³ boys⁴ used 27 September 1886 on their WWI draft registrations. Their ages were off by a year on their marriage licenses, as was Harold’s death certificate. Ironically, that information was provided by Arnold! During stressful times, our math skills sometimes fail.

This branch of the family put together a nicely done web page, with a good number of old photos. This link will take you there. Just scroll down a bit to see a family portrait when the twins were young (age 5 or 6?). The one immediately below was taken some time before Harold’s death in 1920.

MEANWHILE, the Conklin family moved in nearby. In 1900, 4 census pages after the Meintzer family, Edward Conklin⁵ was also farming. His wife, Fietta (“Etta”) was the schoolteacher. Their twins, Elda and Elna, were nine years old, the 2nd and 3rd of their five children. Again, I have not seen their birth records, but Elda was listed first in the 1900 census. Make of that what you will.

The two sets of twins applied for their marriage licenses together, and participated in a double-wedding on 20 October 1909. The newspaper article seemed to have mixed the couples up, saying Harold married Elda and Arnold married Elna, but their marriage records presumably had it right (see those links).

Four months later, when the 1910 census enumerator came through the area, the married twins were listed in the household of Henry & Sophia Meintzer—the parents/in-laws. I can only imagine how cozy that was! The enumerator listed both sons, first, followed by the daughters-in-law, but drew helpful lines connecting each husband to his proper wife! He got it right.

1910 U.S. census, population schedule, Ohio, Fulton, Swan Creek Township, e.d. 16; Page 2B; dwelling number 53; family number 53; line 91; Henry MEINTZER household; accessed 2 March 2021. Arnold MEINTZER, age 23; NARA microfilm publication T625, roll 1184; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com).

So, what happened to the love birds? Well, it would seem, not much that was good.

24 March 1916, Fulton County Tribune; Wauseon, Ohio; page 7.

On 18 March 1916, the brothers filed divorce papers on their respective wives. The initial notice was pretty terse:

19 May 1916, Fulton County Tribune; Wauseon, Ohio; page 1.

Two months later, their divorces were granted, with additional details that the wives had left them three years earlier:

1 June 1916, The Selma [California] Enterprise; Selma, California; p. 2

The local paper kept the details pretty basic, but the story stretched far beyond rural Ohio—even as far as the west coast! This California paper told us when the wives first left:

Obviously, someone wasn’t happy.

Once the news wire got wind of the story, someone decided to get creative:

A Symphony in Twins

Arnold and Harold Meintzer of Wauseon, O., twins, who married twins and no doubt slept in twin beds, are now suing for twin divorces on the grounds of twin desertions.

12 June 1916, 2:30 Edition, Chronicling America:  America’s Historic Newspapers : accessed 2 March 2021, record number: [number]; citing original p. 1, col. 7, para. last, entry for Arnold and Harold MEINTZER, Star-Bulletin, Honolulu, Hawaii, online archive (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov).

That version of the story was published everywhere. Honolulu, when Hawaii was only a territory. Norwich, Connecticut. Topeka, Kansas. Those were just the papers on the Chronicling America site!

So what became of the twins after the divorces?

The brothers lived at home. When registering for the WWI draft, they listed themselves as single, though the 1920 census showed them as divorced. That was the only instance I saw, though. Harold died from influenza a month after the family was enumerated on the 1920 census.

Arnold enlisted in the army 27 August 1918, and was honorably discharged 21 December 1918. As far as I can tell, he never remarried. He lived to the age of 89, dying due to injuries sustained when he and his bike were run off the road. He was on his way to visit his sister, Regina, who was over 100 at the time.

And the girls? In 1916, Elna was using her married surname and had moved to Toledo, working as a machine operator in the Urschel-Bates Valve Bag Company. The divorce hadn’t occurred, yet. By the 1920 census, both girls had returned to their maiden names, and were living in Monroe County, Michigan. They had moved in with their mother and her 2nd husband and were working as machinists in a sack factory. Monroe County, Michigan is just across the state line from Toledo, so it’s possible they were still working in the same factory Elna had worked in, before. The sisters listed themselves as single, not divorced.

Elna died in 1925, from a heart valve problem. Elda remarried on 2 June 1920, to an Andrew P. Stokey, near Toledo, Ohio. It appears she had two daughters, and lived to the age of 84.

Even if the couples hadn’t divorced, neither marriage would have been particularly long-lived, with the two early deaths.

So, how were Arnold and Harold related to me? They were 2nd cousins, twice removed, or full 2nd cousins to my grandfather—sharing the same great-grandparents.

Now that my interest has been piqued, I may just start a running list of twins in the family. I can add to it as I run across additional pairs. Who knows when I’ll need to know who they were!

#52Ancestors

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¹“Baltimore, Passenger Lists, 1820-1964”, database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com), citing Records of The US Customs Service; Record Group 36; NAI # 2655153; Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787-2004; RG85; specifically Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at Baltimore, Maryland, 1820-1891, NARA Microfilm Publication M255, RG36. 50 rolls; Roll #19. National Archives, Washington, D.C., U.S.A. Entry for . Heinr. MAINTZER, accessed 2 March 2021. SS Baltimore, p. 3, line 118.

²1900 U.S. census, population schedule, Ohio, Fulton, Swan Creek Township, e.d. 13; Pages 12A. 12B; dwelling number 267; family number 271; line 49; Henry MEINTZER household; accessed 2 March 2021. Henry Meintzer, age 52; NARA microfilm publication T623, roll 1270; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com).

³“U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918”, digital image, The National Archives (https://www.ancestry.com), Arnold MEINTZER, serial no. 997, order no. 16, Fulton County, Ohio; citing World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: NARA microfilm publication M1509, 4,582 rolls. Imaged from Family History Library Roll No. 5,256,062; accessed 2 March 2021. Registered 5 June 1917.

⁴“U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918”, digital image, The National Archives (https://www.ancestry.com), Harold MEINTZER, serial no. 996, order no. 15, Fulton County, Ohio; citing World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: NARA microfilm publication M1509, 4,582 rolls. Imaged from Family History Library Roll No. 5,256,062; accessed 2 March 2021. Registered 5 June 1917.

⁵1900 U.S. census, population schedule, Ohio, Fulton, Swan Creek Township, e.d. 13; Pages 14A. 12B; dwelling number 307; family number 312; line 10; Edward CONKLIN household; accessed 2 March 2021. Edward CONKLIN, age 33; NARA microfilm publication T623, roll 1270; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com).

Poor Man

When first venturing into genealogy, I of course knew my Meintzer family, and quickly learned about the other, “Meintzers without an ‘i’ ” family also living in Northbrook. In the 1980s I discovered we had another branch of the family still living in Alsace. Awesome!

Then I had kids, and genealogy came to a screeching halt. That actually worked out well, because in the meantime, the internet grew up, and databases grew. When I resumed searching in 1996, I found Meintzers living in Pennsylvania and West Virginia that I couldn’t connect to mine. There were also several large trees centered around Karlsruhe, Germany. It’s not very far from Alsace, but I could never make a connection between them and my ancestors in Alsace. I left all those guys alone.

Time marched on, and some time after the millennium, my searches for “Meintzer genealogy” brought up a link to a personal web page hosted at Rootsweb.com, for some Ohio Meintzers.

Ohio? Really? Surely they must be from the Pennsylvania or West Virginia people. Nevertheless, I looked at the page. Imagine my surprise to discover they descended from my 3rd great grandfather, Johann Philippe Adam Meintzer, and his wife, Maria Marguerite Meder!

Adam and Marguerite lived in Volksberg, and had 8 children. Marguerite died 26 November 1817, with Adam dying the following year. Of the children, 2 died prior to their father; 3 are complete mysteries right now. The remaining 3 children were sent to live with other families in different towns (though I haven’t actually located them in the Alsatian census records, to confirm!):

• Johann Philippe Adam (almost 15)—don’t know where he ended up, but he emigrated to Northfield, Illinois, in 1842, married, and started the “Meintzer without an ‘i’ ” family. He went by “Philip” in the U.S.
• Christian (almost 12)—moved to Dehlingen, to start my direct ancestors.
• Johann Georg (3 ½) was sent to Berg. He is the ancestor of the Ohio Meintzers.

I don’t have many details on Johann Georg, but he married Christine Männling 25 April 1839, and they had 3 children:

• Marguerite (21 June 1840-1925)—she married back into the Ensminger family.
• Georges (25 September 1843-?)—he married and had at least one child in Berg (1868), but I haven’t researched more than that.
• Henri George (13 January 1849-5 January 1944)—he’s my “poor man.”

Henri (Henry) fell in love with Sophia Holtzscherer, also from Berg. Marriage law in Alsace at the time required parental permission up until age 25 or 27. He was only 19 or so; permission was not granted. Of course, that didn’t cause Henry and Sophia to suddenly fall out of love!

Here’s where the story muddles, a bit. One version I heard was their Plan B was for Sophie to get pregnant. Presumably they would be given permission, then. So that’s what they did, except it didn’t work as expected. Still no permission granted.

The second version, from Henry’s descendants’ web page (same as above), gave a slight variation:

Henry fell in love with a young girl, Sophie Holtzscherer, also living in Berg, and became pregnant. Yet Henry’s parents did not agree with a marriage because her family was too poor. So Henry decided to go to the USA, make a living there and then come get her and bring her to America.

https://sites.rootsweb.com/~ohfulton/MeintzerFamilyReunion.html

Slightly different, but essentially the same. With Sophia pregnant and marriage not possible, Henry emigrated to Northfield, Illinois, where his uncle, Philip, had settled. Henry would be starting from scratch. If his parents didn’t approve of a marriage to Sophia, they certainly would not have financed him traveling to America so he could marry her! He probably still “owed” his father work while he was in Alsace, so would have had to pick up odd jobs to earn his passage money.

In the meantime, while Henry was in Illinois, Sophia gave birth¹ to their daughter, Sophie, 22 May 1869, in Berg. No father is listed in the birth register. The date is consistent with Henry knowing she was pregnant before he left. The Ohio Meintzers’ website continues:

Henry came to America and settled in Cook Co. Illinois. He farmed there for 2½ years and then moved to Fremont, OH where he worked 2 yrs in a sawmill and 9 years in an iron mill before locating in Fulton County.

https://sites.rootsweb.com/~ohfulton/MeintzerFamilyReunion.html

Henry settling near his uncle and cousins made sense. Even if they weren’t able to hire him for work, they would know others nearby needing paid help. They could vouch for him and provide him a place to stay until he was situated.

Unfortunately, I have not located Henry or his uncle and cousins in the 1870 census. Their last name must be extremely mangled in the index, and I didn’t have time to search page-by-page for them. It is on my to-do list! I know they were there, but I’d like to confirm Henry.

Some details from the Ohio Meintzer website conflict with each other, or with records located. I’m trying to sort it out and resolve the issues. There is uncertainty about:

1. Whether Henry made one or two trips to the U.S.
   • Both 1868 and 1871/72 immigration dates show up in records, consistent with the 2-trip story. I haven’t found passenger lists for either trip to the U.S. (or a trip back to Alsace), but many of them are unavailable. Lacking a specific date (even having the month doesn’t narrow it down much!), it would be hard to find them, not being sure of the port of entry.
   • I’m not sure Henry would have simply sent money back to Sophia. Would he have trusted either set of parents to actually give it to her? I’m not sure I would have, in his shoes! So him returning for her makes sense to me.
2. What year(s)?
   • See above. July 1871 showed up as the arrival date in Henry’s Certificate of Declaration, Sandusky County, Probate Court, 8 October 1877. It’s possible he misremembered the year (see #3, below).
   • Or maybe it was intentional, needing it to be earlier than July 1872? You had to be a resident for a minimum number of years.
   • Maybe he did make only one trip, and sent for Sophia to come over with their daughter on her own? That 1870 Illinois census is looking more important all the time!
3. If Henry and Sophia married in Alsace, before leaving
   • It was suggested they married in 1869, and then left.
   • If they didn’t have permission before she was pregnant, it’s unlikely they’d get it afterwards.
   • They were still too young to marry without permission in 1869.
   • Henry and Sophia had a marriage record² dated 1 October 1872, in Cook County, Illinois. If they married in Alsace, they had no reason to redo it. Their names are unusual enough that it’s unlikely that record is for some other couple!
   • The Tables Décenniales 1863-1872 for Berg³ had only 1 male Meintzer marriage in that window—Henry’s brother, Georg. Being underage, I doubt Henry and Sophia could have married in the nearby towns.
   • It seems unlikely they would have waited a year (until 1872) to marry, if Sophia emigrated in 1871.

Returning to Cook County to marry made sense, though, because that was the only family they had. It seems their move to Ohio might not have been too long after that.

The 1880 census placed Henry (with a poorly recorded surname, but all the right kids and ages) in Fremont, Ohio, occupation: engineer. That part of the story matches, as does the remainder, establishing the family in Fulton County:

He bought 106 acres of land in Swancreek Twp Fulton Co. with only about 20 acres cleared and the remainder in brush.  He added farm buildings to the property and cleared much of the land. Also acquired an additional 40 acres of adjacent land and soon had about 100 acres under cultivation.  He was a general farmer and specialized in livestock and dairying.

https://sites.rootsweb.com/~ohfulton/MeintzerFamilyReunion.html

Despite several fuzzy details in Henry’s story, one thing is clear to me: he and Sophia loved each each other deeply. They both had to endure difficulties for 4 years or so, before they could be together as a family.

It wouldn’t have been easy for Sophia in Berg. She undoubtedly experienced repercussions from neighbors and family for being an unwed mother. Her parents may have pressured her to marry someone else. She kept the faith, though, trusting Henry to come through in the end.

Henry, it seems, worked his tail off to bring his child and would-be wife to America. Why did he move to Ohio, from Cook County? I don’t know. Maybe land was simply too expensive in Illinois. When they married, it was the year after the Chicago Fire. Maybe prices were still inflated, and the cost of living was too high. He figured out an alternate plan, temporarily leaving agriculture for presumably more lucrative pay in the sawmill and iron mill. He saved enough to allow him to return to the land.

Henry may have started out a poor man, but he didn’t stay one.

#52Anestors

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¹”États-civil”, database, Archives Départementales du Bas-Rhin (archives.bas-rhin.fr), Berg, Registre de naissances [birth registers], 1869, p. 4, no. 6, Sophie Hertzscherer, 22 May 1869; accessed 16 November 2019.

²”Illinois, Cook County Marriages 1871-1920″, database, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Family Search Record Search (https://familysearch.org), film number 1030079, Digital GS number 4270000, image number 795, Heinrich MEINTZER and Sophie HULTZSCHER.

³”États-civil”, database, Archives Départementales du Bas-Rhin (archives.bas-rhin.fr), Berg, Tábles décennales, Mariages [ten-year tables, marriage index] 1863-1872, p. 6, right side, entry #3, Georg MEINTZER and Margaretha FREY, 19 March 1868; accessed 16 November 2019.