Hoffman Family News

Merry Christmas to All

2011-12-24T16:10:00.000-05:00

The rather belated holiday issue of the (print) Hoffman Family newsletter has been published. We want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a wonderful new year. I've drawn a greeting for you.

Together in San Francisco: Children of Caspar Hoffman

2011-07-27T19:30:00.001-04:00

Caspar Hoffman’s four children appear to have been in California together in 1892. That was not clear before but newly available California voter registrations, 1866–1898, at Ancestry.com add a piece to the puzzle. Thanks to Randy Seaver for his Genea-Musings blog entry on these records!

Caspar had four children, all with his first wife Louisa Schmid. The children were:

Susanna (Suzie, Suzetta), born 5 September 1863 in Canton Thurgau, Switzerland
Heinrich (Henry H.), born 25 December 1865 in Canton Thurgau, Switzerland
Albert, born 26 October 1868 in Carroll County, Illinois
Louise, born 12 March 1870 in Carroll County, Illinois.

After Caspar’s death in 1877 with an insolvent estate, the children lived with various relatives or connections. Henry worked at the Hanover, Illinois, hotel of his uncle John Hoffman in 1880. He and Albert may have become experienced waiters working for their uncle as that was their later occupation.

In 1881 Suzie married Ohio native Jerry D. Thompson (or Jeremiah) in Carroll County, Illinois. Their daughter Maybelle Alice was born there in 1882. The first California record lists Jerry in the 1889 San Francisco city directory as a plasterer living at 1523 Mission. Henry H. Hoffman was still in Carroll County, Illinois, where he was naturalized on 14 March 1890.

Jerry moved to 534 Ivy Avenue by 1892 when his San Francisco city directory entry lists him as a painter. He is the only resident of that address listed in the directory. In 1895 both he and Henry Hoffman are listed there. A Henry Hoffman is listed in 1892 at 404 Broadway as a waiter, and is probably Henry H. Hoffman.

Louise Hoffman married John B. D. Kelly in Seattle, Washington, 2 November 1892. Her residence on the license is San Francisco. The mystery remains of how she met this Canadian immigrant who homesteaded land north of Seattle, but the marriage license shows she came from San Francisco.

The missing sibling at that time was Albert Hoffman. He married an Irish girl, Katie Nevins, in New York City 1 November 1897. He was a waiter in Manhattan but went to San Francisco with his young daughter after the death of his wife around 1903.

Albert was in San Francisco in 1892!

Both he and Jerry D. Thompson registered to vote 19 October 1892. They both resided at 534 Ivy Avenue despite Albert's absence from the city directory. Jerry’s occupation was painter and Albert’s was waiter. Albert was twenty-three, born in Illinois. His height was 5’ 5 ¼”. He had a fair complexion, brown eyes and dark hair. Jerry was forty, six foot tall, a painter and had a fair complexion, green eyes and dark hair. Assuming Suzie and Maybelle lived with Jerry, all four of Caspar Hoffman’s children lived in San Francisco at some point in 1892. (Click on the image to see it at a readable size. Albert's line is highlighted in yellow.)

Henry H. Hoffman registered to vote in 1896 and 1898 but apparently not in 1892. His occupation was waiter; he was 5’ 7” tall and had a dark complexion, dark or black eyes and hair. He was born in Switzerland and naturalized in the county court in Carroll County, Illinois, on 18 March 1890. (That is four days different from the document I’ve seen, but possibly it took effect then.) In 1896 he lived at 78 Ninth, 2^nd floor, moving to 247 Oak, first floor, by 1898.

Though all of the family lived in San Francisco at one time, questions remain. Not only is Louise’s connection to John Kelly a mystery, but also why Albert moved completely across the country and married in New York.

Wordless Wednesday: Brother and Sister

2011-06-08T12:32:00.000-04:00


Dick and his sister Elaine

______________________
Designer Credits:
-template for Copycat Challenge by clarabear based on LO by domad
-dotted background, green paper, brown paper, frame, leaves from Fallen Sun by TaylorMade Designs
-cream paper from Corinthia by Kitty Designs
-green flower from Primavera by Maya de Groot
-bubble scatter (blended) from Scatter It - Rainbow by Merkeley Designs
-pale splash from Sketchbook Artistry No. 1 by Sue Cummings
-Memories word art, yellow splat from I remember you by Biograffiti
-clock stamp from Kala Stamps by LydiaK Designs
-stitching from The Gift by Fei-fei's Stuff
fonts: Alte Caps, Neuropol, Pea Anderson

This Is the Face of Genealogy

2011-06-05T15:08:00.001-04:00

For the inspiration for this post, read “The Face of Genealogy” at Thomas MacEntee’s Geneabloggers blog.

This charming photo is in a small family album. I believe the annotation on the picture was made by its subject, Gladys Louise Hoffman. She appears to be a young teen, so probably in the mid-1920s in Cleveland, Ohio. She was always very photogenic. Her married name was later Davis. Dick's Aunt Gladys was a treasured part of the family.

Military Monday: Mexican Expedition, 1916 - 1917

2011-05-09T14:45:00.000-04:00

Rosina Hoffman Eiler's family was located two years ago with details added over time. Rosina, the wife of John Eiler, was the daughter of immigrant Margaret. I have just been entering some 1930 census data for Rosina's children and found something new to me. In the columns for Veterans I have seen more than "WW" which stands for World War and which we now call World War I, but the notation of "Mex" was new. It is on a page in Red Oak, Montgomery County, Iowa, where much of the family still lived in 1930. It was on the line for Henry L. Hixenbaugh, husband of Rosina's daughter Lizzie. That seemed to indicate the Mexican episode in which U.S. troops chased after Pancho Villa. The 1930 Census Enumerator Instructions provide the details.

"Mex" is the abbreviation to be used for the Mexican expedition. Further the instructions state: "Persons are not veterans of an expedition, however, unless they actually took part in the expedition. For example, veterans of the Mexican expedition must have been in Mexico or Mexican waters at the time of the expedition..."

Henry L. Hixenbaugh was not the only person on the page with that notation which might imply that a local unit was sent to the border. A website of the Iowa National Guard has more information and a link to a digital copy of an old publication that contains photos and names of the men in each unit of the guard involved in the Mexican Border Service 1916-1917. The Iowa guard was called up in late June 1916, trained about a month at Fort Dodge in Des Moines, then were transported by train to Brownsville, Texas. Guard units were entrusted with securing the Mexican border while regular troops pursued Villa. In December 1916 and January 1917 the Iowa Battalion consisting of three regiments of infantry and other troops returned home.

Henry served as a cook in Company M, 3rd Infantry, a unit from Red Oak as might be expected. He must have had many interesting stories to tell of his time on the border. Council Bluffs newspaper accounts at Ancestry.com show a Henry Hixenbaugh of Red Oak as interested in fostering a baseball program and politics serving as a councilman during the 1940s and 50s. Probably he was Lizzie's husband.

Iowa Troops in Mexican Border Service, 1916-1917, photographed, compiled and published by Dick Dreyer, Iowa City, Iowa

Surname Saturday: MUSCHG in Oetwil am See

2011-02-12T15:29:00.003-05:00

The mother of the immigrant Hoffman generation also immigrated to Illinois, arriving in 1864. She was born Elisabetha Homberger, daughter of Johannes Homberger and Barbara Muschg, on 27 August 1797. She was baptized in Oetwil am See, Canton Zurich, on 3 September 1797. Her father was a citizen of the gemeinde (political community) of Egg, which is just northwest of Oetwil am See. Her mother’s family were citizens of Oetwil and lived in the Oetwil village of Bäch. Village might be a generous term as an 1835 gazetteer of Zurich listed it as having only three households. Despite his citizenship in Egg, Johannes Homberger and his family lived in Oetwil and that is where Elisabeth was raised and where she returned as the widow of Johannes Hoffmann, a citizen of Oberglatt, and where she continued to raise her children. The Muschg family must have been the anchor to that community.

Muschg looks very unfamiliar to American eyes. It appears in family name books for Switzerland and Canton Zurich, important tools in genealogical research. They list the places (gemeinde) in which people of those surnames held citizenship. The Zurich book lists detailed records of 1,200 early surnames. A problem with the books is that they give early (pre-1800) citizenship status, but only if the surname was still in the community when they were compiled. Thus Muschg is listed for Hombrechtikon and Maur but not for Oetwil am See. I believe that Barbara Muschg, wife of Johannes Homberger and her sister were among the last of the name in Oetwil. Some sons existed in earlier generations, but either they had daughters or the sons died early or disappeared from the Oetwil records. Following are the family’s Muschg ancestors.

Barbara Muschg: baptized 27 March 1777, apparently died after 1844

married Johannes Homberger of Egg on 20 September 1777.

Rudolf Muschg: baptized 2 August 1735, died 5 November 1805

married Barbara Krauer of Adetswil in Bäretswil on 6 June 1758.

Ulrich Muschg: baptized 30 May 1669, died 9 April 1739

married (1): Susanna Kunz on 10 January 1700

married (2): Elisabetha Walder on 13 June 1724

married (3): Küngold Heüsser of Männedorf on 10 August 1734.

Bläsi Muschg: possibly born ca. 1640, died 27 December 1685

married Barbara Küster prior to birth of a daughter in 1668.

The family information is from FHL microfilm of Oetwil am See and Egg church records of baptism, marriage, burial and family registers.

Family Recipe Friday: Jesse's Lemon Cake

2011-02-04T12:15:00.000-05:00

Last week we made a lemon cake from the recipe given to me by cousin Donna that was her mother's recording of how Jesse's mother made the cake that became his birthday favorite. We took the cake to dinner at friends where it was enjoyed by all. The next day Dick again commented on how good it had been. While I've had the recipe for over ten years, this was the first time I tried to make it. So happy to know this family recipe is alive and well! One added note, a friend in Germany says she has a couple of cake recipes similar to this, so it may actually have been a German idea that Catherine brought with her, not something she acquired in Tennessee. I think capturing it in a scrapbook page makes a nice way to pass it along. Remember to click on the image to see it full size.

__________________________
Designer Credits: Ohana by Biograffiti
fonts: Kristen ITC, Gold Mine, Euromode

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Ancestor #34

2011-01-15T21:58:00.004-05:00

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings has another interesting challenge for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun (SNGF). This time he's going for ancestral name list roulette. Here is the challenge:

1) How old is one of your grandfathers now, or how old would he be if he had lived? Divide this number by 4 and round the number off to a whole number. This is your "roulette number."

2) Use your pedigree charts or your family tree genealogy software program to find the person with that number in your ancestral name list (some people call it an "ahnentafel"). Who is that person?

3) Tell us three facts about that person in your ancestral name list with the "roulette number."

4) Write about it in a blog post on your own blog, in a Facebook note or comment, or as a comment on this blog post.

5) If you do not have a person's name for your "roulette number" then spin the wheel again - pick a grandmother, or yourself, a parent, a favorite aunt or cousin, or even your children!

Using Dick as the base person, here is the result:

Dick's grandfather Henry Hoffman was born in Oct. 1873 making him 137 today. Divided by 4 = 34.25 that rounds to 34.
Dick's Ahnentafel #34 is Johannes Homberger.
He was baptized on 20 January 1771 in Vorder-Radreyh, Hof, Egg, Zurich.
He married Barbara Muschg on 20 September 1795 in Oetwil am See, Zurich which was her home community.
He died on 16 September 1835 in Oetwil am See at the age of sixty-four.

Three facts about Johannes Homberger:

1. He was a citizen of Hof, Gemeinde of Egg in Canton Zurich, Switzerland, but the family lived in the home gemeinde of his wife's family in neighboring Oetwil am See which is near Lake Zurich (the "See") on its east side.

2. Johannes and Barbara had at least eight children although the records were not totally legible. Marriages were recorded for three of the children, Elizabeth to Johannes Hoffmann, Jakob to Susanna Kunz, and Heinrich to A. Barbara Weber. Daughter Elizabeth was the mother of the immigrant generation of Hoffmans. She also came to Illinois where she died in 1870.

3. His occupation or trade was "meisterzimmerman" or master carpenter. I speculate that it was this occupation that brought Johannes Hoffman, zimmerman, into the Homberger family.

Mappy Monday: Hoffman Land in Woodland Township

2011-01-03T23:20:00.001-05:00

The first land owned by Henry and Jacob Hoffman in Illinois was in Derinda Township in southern Jo Daviess County, the northwest corner of the state. Jacob later moved just south to Woodland Township, Carroll County. I wrote earlier about Jacob and the likelihood that he died between 1900 and 1903 when his grandsons, Henry and Jacob Benz, filed paperwork on his land. The Hoffman's brother-in-law, Jacob Blumhardt, husband of their sister Margaret, bought neighboring land in part mortgaged to Henry. When Blumhardt disappeared, Henry eventually got it through a sheriff's sale. I like a pair of landownership maps available from books published in 1893 when the Hoffmans were alive and later in 1908 after their deaths. Jacob Hoffman's land is then owned by Henry Benz, et al. Blumhardt's land that went to Henry Hoffman is then owned by David Burke who was in the process of buying it when Henry died. Also, David is the person with whom widower Jacob Hoffman was enumerated in the 1900 census. The maps tie all these facts together in a nice visual package. The maps were located in libraries, but these digital versions are courtesy of Ancestry.com. Click on any of the maps to see larger versions.

NW Woodland Township - 1893

NW Woodland Township - 1908

Good Wishes for 2011

2010-12-30T22:47:00.000-05:00

While the family saved lots of postcards over the years, I sometimes browse antique malls for old postcards. This is one I found last fall at a shop in Missouri on our way to Tulsa. As it says, good wishes for the New Year.

Designer Credits: Bohemian August by Miss Crow's Magickal Emporium

Greetings from Christmas 1970

2010-12-23T22:49:00.000-05:00

I did this page last December with a photograph of Dick and me opening a Christmas present in 1970. Hard to believe that was forty years ago!

________________
Designer Credits:
-papers, frame, bow, lace, clocks, green deco: Retro Designs - Pretty Shabby
-gold designs, pine cones: Ptitesouris - Les Tres Ors de Laura
-tree: Chili Designz - Holiday Blog Train
-alpha: Retro Designs - 2 Elegant Art Deco Alphas
font: Kristen ITC

Mappy Monday: Snohomish County, Washington, homestead of John B. Kelly

2010-12-13T16:43:00.003-05:00

I think I could get to really like this Monday map theme as I really love maps and also find they can shed much light on our families and their past. I wrote earlier about Aaron H. Kelly, son of John B. and Louise (Hoffman) Kelly. John B D. Kelly was born in New Brunswick, Canada about 1851. I've found him recently at the FamilySearch Beta site in the 1851 and 1871 census of Canada. In 1886 he was in the state of Washington, a long way from the Canadian Maritimes. He filed his Declaration of Intent to become a U.S. citizen and days later filed a homestead claim on 160 acres on the southern edge of Snohomish County. His son Aaron apparently kept the property, running it as a dairy farm. By 1947 Aaron was a deputy sheriff and his address was Woodinville according to the Everett city directory that year. Everett is the county seat and where he must have worked. A current search for Woodinville shows it as a town in King County, home of Seattle and Redmond. It borders the land of the homestead. That land in a current map looks totally developed. The post office there must have been his mailing address. Here is a map showing the homestead location and modern boundaries and towns.

This is a composite of two maps, one from Snohomish County and another of the town of Woodinville in King County, Washington. I have colored in the section where the homestead was located and further colored its parts. The map has the land description written on it. Be sure to click on the map to see it larger.

(not so) Wordless Wednesday: Christmas Tree in 1940

2010-12-08T11:56:00.000-05:00

Alice Minnie Hoffman, daughter of Henry and Catherine (Hochrein) Hoffman, was born 18 December 1902 in Jackson, Tennessee. She was an older sister of Gladys, the aunt in last week's picture. She married Albert Kaltenstein on 3 November 1934 in Cleveland, Ohio. For a few years they lived in the upstairs of the duplex her mother had built next door to her own house in Cleveland. This Christmas tree was photographed in that upstairs by Al and based on similar pictures was probably in 1940. Not long afterward they moved into their own new house. Though seventy years ago, doesn't that tree still look shiny and bright? It was lacking a bit in branches, but not in spirit.
___________________
Designer Credits:
-blue paper, lined paper: TaylorMade Designs - Composure Add On
-mask: ZuzannaH Designs - Let Love Be Your Energy
-gray papers, elements: Kitty Designs - Shimmer
fonts: Classic, Corbel

(not so) Wordless Wednesday: Aunt Gladys (ready for the holidays)

2010-12-01T18:21:00.000-05:00

Gladys Louise Hoffman was born 23 September 1910 in Jackson, Tennessee, daughter of Henry and Catherine (Hochrein) Hoffman and granddaughter of the immigrant Henry Hoffman. Her mother soon moved with the children to Cleveland, Ohio, where her older cousin, Elizabeth (Hochrein) Hückmann lived. Gladys lived most of her life in Cleveland. She was married briefly to George Svec, but had a long marriage to Paul E. Davis from 22 July 1943. She was a special person and dear to us all. She succumbed to complications of cancer treatments on 29 May 1991. Her remains joined those of her husband in the crypt of Lakewood Park Cemetery in Rocky River, Ohio.

This lovely photo was taken by her brother-in-law, Albert Kaltenstein. I thought it would grace this holiday page nicely.
________________________________
Scrapbook Designer Credit: kit by Deb Ammerman: Christmas Goodies

Tombstone Tuesday: Freda E. (Hoffman) Grill

2010-11-30T14:36:00.000-05:00

Freda's gravestone is the last of those of John Hoffman's children in the Savanna City Cemetery. She was born in Savanna, Illinois, 15 August 1888 and married Otto Grill there on 28 June 1916, Paul Froehlke, a Lutheran minister, officiating. Otto was born in Chicago to Bohemian immigrant parents. They lived their lives in Savanna where Otto worked for the railroad. They lived next door to Freda's sister Tillie and her Bowers family. The Grills had no children.

The cemetery photo is from 19 June 2002. Freda's picture is cropped from a portrait of all five of John Hoffman's daughters copied from an original provided by Ruth Whalen.

Sunday’s Obituary: Irene (Hoffman) Anderson, 1987

2010-11-29T00:10:00.000-05:00

Irene Anderson was a special person that it was my misfortune never to know. She was a granddaughter of Caspar and Louise (Schmidt) Hoffman, the daughter of Henry H. and Alice (Houlton) Hoffman. She gathered photos and stories from her family and those of her Uncle Albert and Aunt Suzie. She copied them and compiled them into books for herself and her children. Her children have shared that treasure with the rest of us in the family. The obituaries for Irene and her husband were provided by the San Mateo County Genealogical Society from their Redwood City Tribune files.

Tombstone Tuesday: Mathilda K. (Hoffman) Bowers

2010-11-23T12:56:00.001-05:00

Another of the children of John Hoffman buried in the Savanna City Cemetery is his daughter Mathilda K. (Hoffman) Bowers who was known as Tillie. She was married 28 June 1906 to Clarence Elmer Bowers who died 10 April 1951. Tillie passed away 8 September 1973 in Florida but was buried with her husband in Illinois. John and Kunigunda (Schneider) Hoffman had twelve children. Five of them died very young and are buried in the Elizabeth City Cemetery in neighboring Jo Daviess County, one without name or stone. Four of the remaining children are buried in the Savanna City Cemetery as are their parents: Emma, Mathilda (Tillie), Freda, and Rudolph. Margaret (Maggie) is buried in Colorado, Bertha in Wisconsin and Harry in another Carroll County, Illinois, cemetery. (Photographed in June 2002.)

Sunday’s Obituary: Clarence J. Rose, 1977

2010-11-21T21:53:00.000-05:00

Clarence John Rose was the first grandson of immigrant John Hoffman. Clarence was born 14 October 1892 in Savanna, Illinois, to Emil and Margaret "Maggie" (Hoffman) Rose. Like his uncle, Rudolph G. Hoffman, and second cousin, Aaron H. Kelly, he served in World War I. He later lived in Denver, Colorado. About 1929 Clarence married Mary M. Spangler. As noted, they had two sons, James Allen Rose and Lawrence J. Rose.
Funeral Notice of Clarence J. Rose, Rocky Mountain News, Denver, Colorado, Aug. 8, 1977.
Funeral Notice of Mary M. Rose, Rocky Mountain News, Denver, Colorado, Jan. 25, 1988.

This photograph must have been sent to Clarence's Aunt Bertha. He is with his mother who was by that time married to James Frank Rush and living near Lamar, Colorado.

(not so) Wordless Wednesday: more on Rudolph G. Hoffman

2010-11-17T12:31:00.000-05:00

Ruth remembered this photo as special because of its connection to this letter sent by her Uncle Rudolph from France in 1918. To create this scrapbook page I looked into his area of service finding he must have been working in intelligence. That was probably because of his knowledge of German learned, no doubt, from his parents John and Kunigunda (Schneider) Hoffman.

Tombstone Tuesday: Rudolph G. Hoffman

2010-11-16T18:28:00.001-05:00

Rudolph G. Hoffman, youngest child of immigrant John Hoffman is buried in the Savanna Cemetery, Savanna, Illinois. Buried with him is his wife Celia Azalea (Vandervate) Hoffman. Rudolph's dates are 13 August 1892 to 27 January 1958. Celia's are 23 October 1897 to 18 September 1970. They were married 21 June 1923 in Savanna by Rev. G. W. Fischer. They had no children. (Photographed in June 2002.)

Military Monday: Sgt. Rudolph G. Hoffman

2010-11-15T13:05:00.001-05:00

Rudolph G. Hoffman (or George Rudolph) was the youngest child of immigrant John Hoffman. Rudolph grew up in Savanna, Illinois, and worked for the railroad. In 1918 he joined the army, going to Europe in the AEF. As a fluent speaker of German, from his German mother and Swiss father, he was useful to the army both during and after the war. In January of 1919 he wrote letters to his sister Bertha in La Crosse, Wisconsin, from Coblenz, Germany where he was happy to have a feather bed to sleep in. His address was then Sgt. R. G. Hoffman, Headquarters 3rd Army, G 2 B Coblenz Germany. I believe a set of photos shared by two of his nieces, Ruth Whalen and Lucille McCue, are from the family's celebration of his return home. They were thankful for his return and that the entire family survived the influenza epidemic.

Sunday’s Obituary: Aaron H. Kelly, 1947

2010-11-14T18:07:00.004-05:00

Immigrant Caspar Hoffman left four young children when he died. The youngest was his daughter Louise. Like her siblings she eventually went to San Francisco, but then wed John B. D. Kelly and lived in Snohomish County, Washington. They had three children, the oldest their only son, Aaron. He was born 17 August 1893 in Snohomish County. He appeared in the census with his parents through 1920 on farms near the Snohomish/King County border. During World War I he served, between 10 April 1917 and 6 December 1918, in the U.S. Navy as a Seaman 2nd class. Aaron was enumerated on 3 April 1930 in Snohomish Road, Maltby Precinct, Snohomish County as a boarder in the Nels W. Pearson home. He was a farmer on a dairy farm. He registered as Aaron Hoffman Kelly for the World War II draft on 25 April 1942. He lived with his mother at 3803 Meridian and worked at the University Dairy in Seattle. He was recorded as 6' 1" tall, weighing 190 pounds with brown hair, hazel eyes and a ruddy complexion.

At the age of forty-nine he married Isabelle Mullin on 22 June 1943 at the University Methodist Temple, Seattle, King County, Washington, Rev. James Brett Kenna officiating, witnesses Bernice O. Jobson (Aaron's sister) and G. F. Martinson. I don't know if Mullin was her maiden name or not. By 1947 he resided in Woodinville and worked as a deputy sheriff in Snohomish County. In that capacity he must have spent time at the county courthouse in Everett. It would then have looked similar to this postcard though today it is dwarfed within the county complex.

As indicated in his obituary, he died on 30 May 1947. He was in the Providence Hospital in Everett where he died from complications following surgery related to a peptic ulcer. He was fifty-three. His widow was a witness to the marriage of his sister Bernice O. Jobson to Hugh J. Stack 17 July 1950. I have yet to find evidence of children of Aaron or his sisters.

Aaron's name was recorded in a scrapbook of his San Francisco cousin, Irene Anderson, as John. One census recorded his name as the homophonic counterpart, Erin. His signature on his marriage certificate authenticates Aaron.

____________________________
1. 1900 U.S. census, Snohomish County, Washington, population schedule, Bear Creek Precinct, ED 210, sheet 15B, dwelling 319, family 322, John B. Kelly household; National Archives microfilm, T623, roll 1750.
2. 1910 U.S. census, Snohomish County, Washington, population schedule, Bear Creek Precinct, ED 269, sheet 4B, dwelling 83, family 84, John B. Kelly household; National Archives microfilm, T624, roll 1668.
3. 1920 U.S. census, King County, Washington, population schedule, Maple Leaf Precinct 2, ED 351, sheet 5A, dwelling/family 41, John B. Kelly household; National Archives microfilm, T625, roll 1925.
4. 1930 U.S. census, Snohomish County, Washington, population schedule, Maltby Precinct, ED 31-89, sheet 2A, dwelling/family 41, Nels W. Pearson household; National Archives microfilm T626, roll 2519.
5. Aaron H. Kelly, Certificate of Death State File # 231 (June 4, 1947), Department of Health, Center for Health Statistics, PO Box 9709, Olympia, WA.
6. "Aaron H. Kelley (death notice)," The Seattle Times, Seattle, WA, 1 June 1947, p. 21, col. 4; digital images, GenealogyBank.com (http://access.genealogybank.com : accessed 24 May 2010).
7. Descendants of Caspar Hoffman (1837-1877) Hoffman Family Notes by Irene Hoffman Anderson including photographs, information provided to which the author was a witness plus information handed down to her by older family members and completed Aug. 1, 1979; copies provided to the author by her sons.
8. King County Marriage Certificates, 1855-1990, Kelly - Mullin 1943, King County Archives, Seattle, WA, digital images online, Washington State Digital Archives (http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/ : accessed 14 November 2010).
9. “Selective Service Registration Cards, World War II: Fourth Registration” draft cards, Aaron Hoffman Kelly card no. 2158, Draft Board 4, Seattle, Washington; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 14 November 2010); from National Archives records.

Tombstone Tuesday: At Albrecht Cemetery & "Is it a genealogy poem?"

2010-11-09T15:56:00.002-05:00

I just read Harold Henderson's post at Midwestern Microhistory from last month in which he asked if Wallace Steven's poem "A Postcard from the Volcano" was a genealogy poem. I was so impressed that I created a scrapbook page with the poem and some ideas it inspired. Click on the image to see it larger.

The images are: 1. the gravestone of Jacob Weible, M. D. who died 5 June 1875 at the age of twenty-four; 2. the gravestone of Casper Hoffman, his second wife, her second husband and infants (see previous post); 3. A document from Kaspar Hoffman's probate packet in Carroll County, Illinois; 4. the gate to the cemetery. The name on the sign is Albrecht but it is also called Albright and also Fehler for a family in the area.

The note appears to be in the hand of Henry Hoffman, administrator of the estate of his late brother Kaspar. (Note different spellings of the name.) It was signed by George Weible who was a neighbor. Young Jacob was his son. Mr. Weible acknowledged receipt of the full amount of all his claims against the estate. It is dated 28th March [18]79. There were debts to most family members, but while the Weibles were not relatives, they were related in the way of friends and neighbors. The lives of the mostly German immigrants in Derinda Township were intertwined in various ways, but most often I don't write about these others. Perhaps I should.
_____________________________
Scrapbook page credits:
All from Oscraps:
-sandy paper: Fei-fei's Stuff - .. Like Home
-flower overlays: Fei-fei's Stuff - Profiles no. 2
-striped paper (blended): Fei-fei's Stuff - Party On Add On
-wrinkled paper (reduced and blended): Vicki Stegall - Rock On (sneak peek)

Family Recipe Friday: Grandma's Coffee Cake

2010-10-29T11:34:00.001-04:00

I don't think anyone has tried to follow this recipe since I found it, but it seems to elicit memories in Dick's family and that is the important part. He says he didn't like it because it was too much like bread, but he does recall his grandmother holding a loaf in the crook of her elbow and slicing off pieces. His brother remembered the flavor when he saw this. Their cousin is the one who told me about it originally. Grandmother was Catherine (Hochrein) Hoffman Klich. She came to the U.S. from Bavaria in 1894 to live with her Uncle Michael Keller in Massbach, Illinois. She cared for his ailing wife until her death. The Hoffman family lived close by.
---------------------
Scrapbook page credits:
Kit Information: Grandmas Home Cooking (July 2010 Club Deco kit): all contributing designers
Fonts Used: Vintage, Chalk, Tw Cen MT Condensed Extra Bold, Kristen ITC

Treasure Chest Thursday: Alma Rose posed with pooch

2010-10-28T15:26:00.000-04:00

This photo of young Alma Rose and the pooch is quite charming. I wonder if it was her dog or the photographer's? The photo is a postcard mailed to her Aunt Bertha. Bertha was very fond of her older sister Maggie, Alma's mother and kept in touch, even visiting after Maggie moved to Colorado. It passed down to Bertha's daughter Ruth who shared it with me so that I could share a scan of it. I think all these old family photos are real treasures.

Alma E. Rose was born on 29 October 1894 to Emil and Margaret K. (Hoffman) Rose in Illinois. She was the second grandchild of immigrant John Hoffman of Savanna, Illinois. Her brother Clarence turned two fifteen days earlier. In 1900 Alma and her mother lived in Pearl City in Stephenson County, Illinois. Margaret, also known as Maggie, was working as a milliner and claimed to be a widow. Clarence was living with his grandfather Hoffman. Frank Rush became step-father to Alma and Clarence and in 1910 they all lived on Main Street in Pearl City where Frank had a barber shop. His full name was James Frank Rush. Not long after, the family moved to eastern Colorado and took up farming.

About 1916 Alma married widower Hugh L. Jenkins who had a son, Roy M. Jenkins. Hugh was a farm worker near Lamar in Prowers County, Colorado. Alma gave birth to a daughter, Margaret Rose, in 1917 and a son, Hugh L. Jenkins, Jr., at the end of 1918. Alma’s mother died in 1924, buried in Home Cemetery near McClave in Bent County, Colorado. Her step-father lived with the Jenkins family in 1930. Prowers County is part of the area affected by the Dust Bowl in the 1930s, but Alma and Hugh must have continued to live there as both were buried in Lamar’s Riverside Cemetery with Hugh’s first wife Lillian M. Jenkins. Alma died on 20 February 1949 at the young age of fifty-four.

-------------------------------------

1900 U.S. census, Stephenson County, Illinois, population schedule, Pearl City, Loran Township, ED 100, sheet 6A, dwelling 95, family 99, Margaret Rose household; National Archives microfilm T623, roll 346.

1910 U.S. census, Stephenson County, Illinois, population schedule, Pearl City Village, Loran Township, ED 110, sheet 1B, dwelling/family 22, James F. Rush household; National Archives microfilm T624, roll 327.

1920 U.S. census, Prowers County, Colorado, population schedule, Precinct 6, ED 185, sheet 5A, dwelling 87, family 94, Hugh L. Jenkins household; National Archives microfilm T625, roll 169.

1930 U.S. census, Prowers County, Colorado, population schedule, Precinct No. 6, north, ED 50-11, sheet 7B, dwelling 144, family 149, Hugh L. Jenkins household; National Archives micropublication T626, roll 248.

Leon Barton, “Find A Grave Memorials,” Home Cemetery, McClave, CO, Memorial# 31922399 (Margaret Rush), Dec. 3, 2008, digital images Find-A-Grave (http://www.findagrave.com: accessed 28 October 2010)

Leon Barton, Riverside Cemetery, Lamar, CO, Memorial# 54570168 (Hugh), 54570097 (Alma), 54581885 (Lilian), Jul 06, 2010, digital images Find-A-Grave (http://www.findagrave.com: accessed 28 October 2010).

------------------------------------
Scrapbook page credits:
-template: MommySpice - O-Scraps October Copycat Challenge featuring MissMoxie
-background paper: TaylorMade Designs - Composure Plus
-blue patterned paper, buff tag, ribbon, flower: Merkeley Designs - Get Together Add On
-stamp: Fei-fei's Stuff - Crazy Beautiful
-swirl: Fei-fei's Stuff - Something Pop
-circle frame: Fei-fei's Stuff - Cool Bliss
fonts: Ahnberg, ScriptSERIF, James Fajardo

Hoffman Hotel - Saturday Night Genealogy Fun

2010-08-29T02:22:00.000-04:00

I loved Randy Seaver's SNGF topic tonight! He urged us to visit the www.ImageChef.com website and explore their FREE offerings and there create one or more posters. When I saw the old painted sign on the old building it just reminded me of being in Savanna, Illinois, and trying to imagine John Hoffman's hotel there long ago. So here is my little poster.

Mary Donner, First Wife of Henry Hoffman

2010-08-16T19:40:00.000-04:00

The immigrant Henry Hoffman apparently lived in Jo Daviess County, Illinois after his arrival in the state in 1854. He did work on the early railroads and that may be how he came to know a Bavarian woman living in more central Illinois in the town of Peru in LaSalle County. He went to the LaSalle County courthouse in Ottawa on 2 April 1858 where he obtained his naturalization papers and a marriage license for himself and Mary Donner (see the license in this post.) They were married two days later. In the 1860 census they were both recorded in Derinda Township, Jo Daviess County. They had no children and Mary died of heart trouble on 11 September 1872. Her funeral is recorded in the German language records of the nearby St. John's Lutheran Church in Massbach (that Henry did not attend) but she was buried in the Elizabeth City Cemetery. The age on the tombstone allows calculation of her birth date as 22 April 1819, making her almost nine years older than Henry.

The cousin who has this photograph says that it depicts Henry's first wife. She claims they developed a close relationship that was evidenced by their correspondence during the time in 1865-66 that Henry spent away in the Union Army. There is no sign today of their letters, however. Henry remarried and had children, but it appears that was not the happiest of unions, at least according to his widow's comments to a pension claims examiner.
_________________________________
Scrapbook digital materials by Retro Designs kits Flight of Fancy and Golden Memories

John Hoffman of Savanna, Illinois, with Three Daughters

2010-07-11T00:04:00.002-04:00

I have been creating digital scrapbook pages with family photos and stories since 2004 and a number of more recent pages have been posted in this blog. (see scrapbooking label link) When I read that the August 1st 2010 Carnival of Genealogy topic was "Scrapbooking Your Family History!" I knew I had to join in. I've created a new page with a photograph of John Hoffman, youngest of the Hoffman family immigrants, with three of his daughters. Though elderly, he looks so handsome and all the daughters have lovely smiles. This is one of the many photos, letters, and other memorabilia shared by his granddaughter, Ruth Whalen. If you look closely, I believe the ribbon on his vest is his GAR Ribbon. The photo appeared in the February 2000 issue of the newsletter, but looks much more interesting here, but remember to click on the image to see it full size and make the text legible.

If you enjoy scrapbooking your family, especially digitally, I used to host a monthly "challenge" to help folks come up with ideas and a little push to get pages done. You can find other sites now with these types of ideas.
____________________________________________
This page has the following credits:
Lavender Time, Part 1 (Digital Crea)
-pictorial paper, clock: Chouk77
-dried plants, ribbon: Fanette
Lavender Time, Part 2
-hat, leaves: Albina Design
-bird string, patterned paper: Ange
-purple paper: Sev Design
frame: Retro Designs - Shabby Chic Rooms, Part 3, Freebie Frame (Retro Designs)
fonts: Fraktur BT, Ziggy Zoe, Korinthia
>>photo courtesy of late granddaughter of John Hoffman
>>letter: signature on last page of 1865 letter by John to aunt in Switzerland:
.....The letter, in old German script, was written after John's cousin, Jacob Homberger, died while they were in the Union Army on the Texas coast at the end of the Civil War. The aunt, as a widowed mother, successfully applied for a pension based on Jacob Homberger's service. John's letter became part of her application making it available today from the National Archives. Dick's translation of the letter appears in the April 2002 issue of the newsletter.

Wordless Wednesday: Catherine (Hochrein) Hoffman Klich

2010-06-23T15:40:00.000-04:00

Donna is also the youngest great grandchild of the immigrant Henry Hoffman as well as the youngest grandchild of his oldest child, also Henry Hoffman

Tombstone Tuesday: Emma Anna (Hoffman) Acker

2010-06-22T18:28:00.001-04:00

Some of the adult children of John and Kunigunda Hoffman are also buried in the Savanna Cemetery in Savanna, Illinois. The oldest of those buried here is Emma Anna Hoffman. She was born on 14 May 1878, probably in Jo Daviess County, Illinois. On 23 April 1902 she married John Acker in Savanna. He was involved in politics and earned a name for himself. They had two daughters, Clara (Acker) Gholson who lived in their house on the hill until her death in 2001 and a baby who died 10 December 1910. The gravestones in the front row of the photo are those of Emma, John, the family marker, and the baby.

Happy Father's Day, Hans Jakob Hoffmann (1704-1758)

2010-06-20T15:10:00.002-04:00

Prolific Father of 15 Children

Joining in on Randy Seaver’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun (SNGF) on Sunday, Father’s Day, I looked at the Hoffman family and found one father far surpassing all others in the number of his children.

Hans Jakob Hoffmann, a citizen of the gemeinde (community) of Oberglatt in Canton Zürich, Switzerland, was baptized there on 26 October 1704. His parents were Hans Hoffmann and Barbara Albrecht. He was the last generation in our line to remain in Oberglatt. On 13 January 1728 he married Anna Margareth Meier, daughter of Anthony Meier and Euphrosina Bünninger. This Meier family had citizenship in the village of Seeb in nearby Bülach.

With Anna Margareth he fathered twelve children, the second of whom was our progenitor Hans Kaspar Hoffmann baptized 4 September 1729. He would marry Rosina Vetter and settle in Burg across the Rhine River from Stein am Rhein. Anna Margareth died 19 September 1748 in Oberglatt. Widower Hans Jakob married a second time to Elsbeth Rösch, apparently from Kloten, another nearby community. Elsbeth presented Hans Jakob with three children the first of whom, also named Elsbeth, was baptized 25 January 1750. The last of the fifteen children was named Felix and he was born 28 November 1756. The patriarch of the family died on 3 August 1758.

I have followed very few of the other children in this family mostly because many of them died very young. The first one after our Hans Kaspar to survive and marry was the eighth child, Jakob, born in 1740. The youngest two children, another Jakob and Felix, born in 1752 and 1756, also survived and married. With so few children surviving, this huge family suddenly appears much smaller and their hard lives illustrated.

____________________

All the documentation came from Oberglatt parish records on microfilm at the Family History Library. In addition to church registers of baptisms, marriages and deaths, there are household registers (haushaltungsrodel) and population registers or census (bevölkerungsverzeichnisse, 1633-1767) of Reformed Parishes in the Synod of Zürich, Switzerland.

Workin' On the Railroad

2010-06-14T00:17:00.002-04:00

[reprinted from the Henry Hoffman Family News of January 2002]

Henry Hoffman arrived in Illinois as the railroads boomed

When Henry Hoffman arrived in the U.S. in 1854, according to his 1889 biographical sketch, he “soon made his way to Chicago believing that the Great West offered the best opportunity for the poor man to acquire a home. On his arrival in Chicago, he secured work on a grading train, and made his way to Scales Mound in [Jo Daviess] county. Here he determined to make for himself a home, and, returning to Chicago to get his baggage, he came back to Scales Mound, and upon getting there had but twenty cents in his pocket.”

If Henry only had twenty cents, he needed other work. In an 1854 U.S. Gazetteer is the tantalizing statement in the description of Galena, Jo Daviess County: “A branch of the Central railroad from Peru to Galena is about to be constructed.” The grading train on which he worked his way from Chicago was probably part of the construction of the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad to Freeport, or the Illinois Central from Freeport to Galena.

From the map you can see that in 1850 Illinois had barely begun the construction of rail lines, the total perhaps 120 miles, none extending across state lines. The newspaper in New York when Henry arrived in March of 1854 advertised rail travel to Chicago with connections to St. Louis or Dubuque, Iowa, but there were still no bridges then and much had yet to be constructed. Henry's arrival coincided perfectly with the expansion of rail lines in Illinois and the development that followed.

The Illinois Central Railroad (IC), a private company, was chartered by the state of Illinois in 1851 and from the state received the first federal land grant for railroad construction. The interior of Illinois was then thinly settled and the railroad was expected to encourage development and provide cheap transportation of grain and livestock for the settlers. Of course the railroads needed the new customers as well.

The charter to Illinois Central did not dictate the route which had been chosen to run north-south, but did require the inclusion of five specific places: Galena and Dubuque, Chicago, Cairo in the south and the southern terminus of the Illinois and Michigan canal. This last was an eye-opener for me—what was this canal and where was the terminus?

Actually, it might be a bit of a puzzle solution. The canal ran from Chicago to La Salle or Peru in central Illinois on the Illinois River linking Lake Michigan to the Mississippi. The two towns fought over designation for the railroad and I'm still not sure which won. Finally though I see how Peru could be an important place, first as part of the important waterway transport and then for the railroad. The 1854 gazetteer says the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad intersected the IC there and I've seen an historic map that makes it look like a major junction. Finally we might understand how Henry Hoffman came to marry a woman there and even file his naturalization papers in La Salle County.

Segments of the IC were completed and a painting of a work crew in 1856 shows piles of ties and a tent town along the rails. Fourteen miles of track from Warren to Scales Mound was done on Sept. 11, 1854, so was probably where Henry worked. The railroad opened in September 1856, but it was only partially completed. It wouldn't have been a comfortable ride.

By 1860 Illinois supported many miles of rail lines all across the state in a network that played an important role in support of the Union Army during the Civil War. Bridges did eventually span the Mississippi River carrying the trains, but the first to do so at Rock Island, Illinois, was destroyed by a steamer, thought by many to have struck the bridge intentionally.

Steamboat owners and all those connected to river and canal traffic were fighting a strategic battle against the railroads in which the Mississippi bridges were vital. The owners of the ship that struck and burned the bridge sued the railroad claiming the bridge caused a change to the river currents that swept the riverboat out of control.

The case came to trial in Chicago on Sept. 1, 1857 with the railroad represented by Springfield, Illinois, lawyer Abraham Lincoln. The case is now represented as pitting Northern versus Southern economic interests as stifling the railroads would continue shipping of Midwestern produce southward on the rivers making St. Louis, Memphis and New Orleans national centers of trade. But victory of the railroads took that flow eastward making Chicago and New York primary markets.

I found it amazing to imagine the country at that point when shipping was on rivers and canals. Henry Hoffman's part in the building of Illinois rail lines was small, but he would have endorsed the shift away from the south that benefited the north in the Civil War.

Henry's selection of Derinda Township over Scales Mound in Jo Daviess County took him somewhat away from the railroad, but as he later specialized in the Chicago yearling market for his calf production, he was able to benefit from the railroad's existence.

Brought to light by the World War I draft registrations was that nearly all the men of the family in Savanna, Illinois, and La Crosse, Wisconsin, worked for the railroad. So while the first generation made use of building the railroad, the following generations became part of it.

Jacob Benz's son George in Savanna and Henry Benz in La Crosse were employed by the CB&Q while the others (La Crosse: Louis Kjarsgaard; Savanna: Lawrence O'Neal, Harry Hoffman, Clarence Bowers, Otto Grill and Rudolph Hoffman) worked for the CM & St. P. I reported these facts, but was chagrined (having been drilled on railroad abbreviations as a child) to have no idea what the acronyms stood for. Of course it was easy to learn about these railroads and the Library of Congress even has historic maps of their routes on the Internet.

Burlington Route. The CB&Q was The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy (or just the Burlington) an 1856 merger of four short lines near Chicago. It was a line that expanded through land grants and also remained fiscally sound. In 1970 the CB & Q merged into the Burlington Northern Railroad along with the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific. Burlington Northern merged again in 1995 with the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad creating the current BNSF railroad.

Perhaps the Burlington's best-known achievement took place in 1934 with the introduction of the Pioneer Zephyr - America's first diesel-powered streamlined passenger train.

The Milwaukee Road. The CM & St. P was the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific (the last “P” a later addition) and was in fact a familiar face when I saw its logo. A Granger Railroad like the CB & Q, its focus was the midwestern farmland. The CM & St. P did not fare as well financially as it underwent bankruptcy at several points, the final blow coming in 1977. Thousands of miles of line were abandoned and what remained was sold to the Soo Line in 1986.

Sadly 1970s hopes of revival of U.S. passenger trains have not been realized.

Steam Engines and the Railroad

2010-06-13T18:23:00.000-04:00

The photo shows Bertha (Hoffman) Kjarsgaard, a daughter of John Hoffman with her older children, Elsie and Alfred. This was about 1914, probably when the three of them went from their home in La Crosse, Wisconsin, to visit Bertha's sister. The sister was Margaret or Maggie, John's oldest child. At the time she was married to Frank Rush and living near Lamar, Colorado. Earlier I posted a photo of Bertha, Maggie and Maggie's daughter Alma Rose during the visit.

Tombstone Tuesday: Jesse R. and Helen A. Hoffman

2010-06-08T20:07:00.002-04:00

Jesse Ralph Hoffman and his wife Helen Anna Charlotte Dianiska are buried in the Brooklyn Heights Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio. New graves like theirs have these flat stones so they can be mowed over. Helen's parents and two siblings are buried here as are Jesse's mother, step-father and cousins of his mother. This is lot 410 in the Roselawn section, graves #3 and #4, reading:

Hoffman
Beloved Husband, Jesse R., 1904 - 1997
Beloved Wife, Helen A., 1907 - 1990

(Not so) Wordless Wednesday - Henry H. Hoffman Wedding Day 1905

2010-06-02T14:59:00.001-04:00

Henry H. Hoffman was born 25 December 1865 and baptised as Joh[annes] Heinrich Hoffmann on 7 January 1866 in Bussnang, Canton Thurgau, Switzerland. His parents were Kaspar Hoffmann, whose citizenship was in Oberglatt, Canton Zurich, and Louise (geb. Schmid.)¹ Henry traveled with his parents, older sister Susette, grandmother Barbara Schmid, probable uncle Heinrich Schmid and aunt Margaretta Hoffmann to Antwerp, Belgium. They sailed from Antwerp on the SS Medway arriving in the port of New York on 2 May 1867. Henry was recorded as Heinrich Hoffmann age eleven months.² Their names altered slightly when they settled in northwestern Illinois.

Caspar Hoffman's children were orphaned at his death in 1877 leaving an estate in debt. Henry lived with and worked for his uncle John Hoffman at his hotel in Hanover, Illinois, in 1880. Eventually Henry, his older sister Susie and their younger siblings, Albert and Louise went west to San Francisco. There Henry met and married Alice Houlton. They were photographed in the elegant auto in 1905. They had one daughter and a number of grandchildren.

----------------------------------------
1 Kirchenbuch, 1600-1920 (Oberglatt, Zürich); FHL microfilm no. 0,996,482 from Zurich Staatsarchiv, Book 4, p. 40, 1865.
2 Manifest, S. S. Medway, 2 May 1867, p. 4 for Hoffmann and Schmid family; digital image by subscription, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 24 April 2005); from National Archives microfilm M237 (New York Passenger Lists, 1851-1891), roll 278, list 356.

Wordless Wednesday: Daughters of John Hoffman

2010-05-19T13:20:00.000-04:00

The text about these daughters of John Hoffman, youngest of the immigrant family, is in the scrapbook page. Click on the image to see it larger and read the text. All photos were shared by John's granddaughter, Ruth Whalen.

Wordless Wednesday: John Hoffman plays accordion

2010-05-05T17:22:00.002-04:00

Youngest of the immigrant Hoffman generation, John Hoffman enjoyed music and in this photo is playing accordion with a friend at a gathering in Savanna, Illinois. John is the bearded one on the left. The photo was shared by John's granddaughter Ruth Whalen.

Wordless Wednesday: Catherine (Hochrein) Hoffman Klich

2010-04-28T12:40:00.002-04:00

A summer gathering along Lake Erie in Ohio probably in the 1930s. Catherine's second husband, Charley Klich, is the one in the photo.

Jesse Hoffman's High School Record

2010-04-26T22:45:00.002-04:00

Jesse Ralph Hoffman, son of Henry and Catherine (Hochrein) Hoffman and grandson of the immigrant Henry Hoffman, graduated from West Commerce High School in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1924. He was nineteen then. That September he enrolled in Wittenberg College in the southwestern Ohio city of Springfield. That Lutheran-based school is now Wittenberg University. When Dick notified Jesse's alumni association of his death, we learned that he had been in college later than we expected. It took a while to locate the right source of records, but eventually the school sent Dick his father's college records. One page was the high school transcript in the scrapbook page below.

There is another page listing the courses Jesse took each year in college. It has no record for the 1925-26 school year and the last session listed is the first semester of 1928-29. Although we always thought that he had graduated, it seems that he did not. He took three courses in Business Administration and had the best grades in one of them. The photos above are possibly from high school and later, after college. The later photo was taken in the upstairs of the house where he lived next door to his mother. The photographer was his brother-in-law, Albert Kaltenstein.

After college Jesse had a job as a bookkeeper where he was an office worker among a group of laborers at the C. O. Bartlett & Snow Co., a structural iron works. He told us that they called him the professor. He said it was in part because of the glasses he wore. It seemed to have both pleased and embarrassed him, but he did like to tell the story. Most of his working life was as a painting contractor, first with his step-father, Charles Klich, and later as head of his own business.

Wordless Wednesday: Family of John Hoffman

2010-04-21T11:46:00.000-04:00

Maggie was the oldest daughter of John Hoffman, Bertha Kjarsgaard one of her younger sisters and Alma Rose was her daughter. Maggie was named Margaret and was first married to a Rose and then to Frank Rush.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Hoffman Family Timeline

2010-04-17T19:40:00.002-04:00

Randy Seaver in his post Genea-Musings: Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - a Family Timeline got me interested in creating a similar timeline for the immigrant generation of the Hoffman family. I've included the parents Johannes and Elisabeth (Homberger) Hoffmann though he died in Switzerland and only she came to Illinois. All of their children and their spouses fill the rest of the chart which is sorted by birthdate. That seems to have excluded Regula's husband John Hagie for whom I do not show a birthdate. Interesting that the younger people seem to have lived longer to some extent. Click on the chart to see full size!

Honored to be "Ancestor Approved"

2010-04-15T16:08:00.002-04:00

I am surprised/honored/humbled/pleased to be the recipient of the Ancestor Approved Award from Laura Ann of Dreaming About Home, a fellow GeneaBlogger on 7 April (sorry for the delay.)

My thanks goes to her and the group for designing and sharing this award with me.

The Ancestor Approved Award asks that the recipient list ten things you have learned about any of your ancestors that has surprised, humbled, or enlightened you and pass the award along to ten other bloggers who you feel are doing their ancestors proud.
Here are the 10 things I have learned from my ancestors (and my husband's.)

Humbled: by the daring of Henry Hoffman to leave everything familiar in Switzerland and travel alone to America on a sailing ship in 1854.
Surprised: by the way Henry enabled/encouraged all the rest of the family to follow him to Illinois over the years.
Enlightened: by contact with a granddaughter of Henry's youngest brother John. Ruth Whalen was a treasure both for the knowledge and documents she shared and for the pure joy of knowing her.
Surprised: to learn that cousin Jacob Homberger, who died in the Union Army in Texas after the Civil War, would have a pension file created when his mother in Switzerland successfully applied for a pension based on his service.
Surprised: to find her home village in Switzerland engraved on the gravestone of Henry's mother Elisabeth Homberger Hoffman.
Humbled: to learn of the many hardships so many of our ancestors faced and often overcame.
Surprised: to find divorce and suicide among our ancestors was not as uncommon as expected.
Surprised: to find a record of the death of Christian Hoffman in Toledo, Ohio, on his journey from Switzerland to Illinois.
Enlightened: to learn how much employment by the railroads sustained families and led to migrations.
Enlightened: by realizing how much of our ancestors is still present in us, especially apparent in some of the words and sayings we retain.

I salute my fellow genealogy bloggers by passing along the "Ancestor Approved" award to them for what they have taught me and how they encourage me.

Of course there are many more wonderful blogs, but some of my other favorites have already been given this award!

1905 Wisconsin State Census: Henry Benz

2010-04-15T03:24:00.001-04:00

I realized that I needed to check for Henry Benz, grandson of Jacob Hoffman, in the 1905 Wisconsin state census that is now available on the FamilySearch pilot site. Henry's great-grandson had told me the family moved to La Crosse in 1905, so it was interesting to see if he was on the census, the official date of which was 1 June 1905.

Sure enough, Henry Benz was enumerated in La Crosse with his second wife, Nettie, son Clarence, and a Byron Benz who is also listed as his son, but is not in fact his son. I think I got a rundown on some of the other Benz relatives, but don't remember who this one is. The birthplace of Henry's parents is given as Illinois though both Mary Hoffman and Ambrose Benz were born in Switzerland.

Here is the page with the Benz family down at number 183:

In the Year 1609

2010-04-13T22:27:00.008-04:00

Tonight we watched a PBS Nova special that spent a lot of time discussing telescopes. It reminded me of the piece I wrote for the newsletter on 1609. Following is a reprint of the article from the Henry Hoffman Family News of January/February 2001.

In the Year 1609: The moon was first drawn using a telescope, Heini Hoffmann was born in Oberglatt.

    For Christmas [2000] I gave Dick Galileo's Daughter, a book by Dava Sobel, just because it looked fascinating. It was a fortunate choice; he enjoyed it enough to encourage me to read it too. It is a very readable account of the life of Galileo (1564–1642) in Pisa, Padua and Rome, enlightened by letters from his elder daughter, a cloistered nun.
     Fueled with interest in the 17th century I read Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier's novel based on a painting by Dutch artist Vermeer in the 1650s. The plot was a disappointment, but the book brought to life that time in Delft. I learned that details were mined from the excellent Vermeer and His Milieu, a Web of Social History by John Michael Montias who looked at all sorts of documents of the painter, his friends and three generations of family. The last required genealogical assistance to weave together the names, places and dates to create historical biography. I wish I had access to and could read similar documents in Zürich!
     Galileo's intellectual and aristocratic world is informative for all of Europe, but daily life in conservative, mostly Protestant, Delft was surely closer to that in Zürich. Not having the Catholic faith's need to hurry, probably the same custom was followed in Zürich as in Delft to baptize a child one or two weeks after birth at a service following the Sunday sermon. Creating a 1609 calendar shows the March 5th date of Heini Hoffman's baptism was on a Sunday.
     Bibliographies led me to other books. Interesting is Asimov's Chronology of Science & Discovery which has entries for each year like Grun's The Timetables of History, but only covers a few events, but in some detail. In ArtBook Vermeer I was surprised to learn that the map on the wall in one of his paintings had west, not north, at the top, supposedly common at the time. It looks strange.
     I was especially taken with the pages from Galileo's notebook with the first illustrations of the moon's surface as seen with a telescope in 1609. The telescope was accidentally invented in Holland the previous year but kept secret as a military advantage, but rumors quickly ran through Europe and Galileo easily built his own. He is the first known to have turned it to the sky where he could distinguish the stars of the Milky Way and the mountains and “seas” of the moon.

     Galileo's inventions include a pendulum clock, but that didn't come until the end of his life in 1641. He was blind by then and the model built for him by his son. Try to imagine life in 1609 with no clocks as we know them. He died in January of 1642; Isaac Newton was born Christmas of that year, one of my favorite men of science.
    Exploration was big in 1609 when Henry Hudson, searching for a Northwest passage, reached New York Bay (Manhattan, located by Verrazano in 1531) and sailed his ship Half Moon up the river that would be named for him all the way to the site of Albany. One of Vermeer's ancestors had dealings that year with founders of the East India Company.
     In Oberglatt, the baptism register was begun in 1600. Men named Hoffman first appear as witnesses, Claus in 1602 and Hans in 1605. Soon their own children appear. For some reason the name Hoffman is underlined in these records though others are not. This continues for some years, then another name is underlined. Sadly, around 1609 many baptisms do not list the mother. The given names in this record are diminutives which at this time are very common in the records. These are probably for Heinrich, Jacob, perhaps Gertrude. Heini was always so named. In 1654 his son Hans was born who would become the Ehegaumer.

     I also brought home from the library books on The Thirty Year's War (1618-1648—Switzerland just managed to stay out of this one, but the ending of it had important results for its autonomy and neutrality) and The Black Death or plague which was still a scourge of the 17th century. It was a time of great invention and discovery, but was still very primitive in health and education.

Wordless Wednesday: Alice Minnie (Hoffman) Kaltenstein

2010-04-07T15:56:00.003-04:00

Immigrant Henry Hoffman had only one child who had offspring. His oldest child, son Henry, had three daughters and one son. The oldest was Elsie. Next was Alice whose middle name of Minnie was in honor of her father's sister. The photo is undoubtedly from the 1930s and was taken in front of her mother's house in Cleveland, Ohio. The photographer would most likely be her husband (or husband-to-be), Albert Kaltenstein.

Wordless Wednesday: Clarence Benz

2010-03-31T12:49:00.005-04:00

Clarence W. Benz (1897-1978) was the son of Henry Benz, one of the grandsons of Jacob Hoffman mentioned in the discussion of when did Jacob die.

Wordless Wednesday: Elsie Elizabeth (Hoffman) Makk

2010-02-24T18:38:00.002-05:00

Tombstone Tuesday: No marker for Christian Hoffman

2010-02-23T12:35:00.011-05:00

Instead of a tombstone for Christian Hoffman, next to the youngest of the immigrant family, all we have are these pages from the Lucas County Infirmary in Toledo, Ohio.

Lucas County Infirmary, County Home Registers, 1855-1882, (Vol. 1, filmed by Bowling Green State University), p. 88, "Name: Christ Hoffman, Age: 35, Place of Birth: Germany, When Received: July 11, When Discharged: July 12, No. of Days: 01, Township: Toledo, Remarks: Died July 12 th 12 1864 Congestian brain."

Henry Hoffman's brothers Christian and John came from Switzerland with their mother. They arrived in the port of New York on June 25, 1864 aboard the Goeschen from Le Havre.¹ Having this information, I was puzzled to find no other records of 25-year old Christian. The sad answer came in Henry's 1889 biographical sketch which states that Christian had died at Toledo, Ohio, from smallpox.²

I couldn't imagine how to verify this death from long ago. At the Western Reserve Historical Society I looked at the books for Lucas County, Ohio, and checked cemetery transcriptions. Then I found a slender volume, an index to the register of the county home infirmary 1855 - 1882. And there was "Christ Hoffman" on a page immediately following the census of residents in June of 1864.³ This did not look like coincidence.

Dick and I later went to Toledo to visit the Lucas County Courthouse. At the Toledo library we viewed microfilm of the original register of the county home and printed the pages reproduced here. Three things seem to be in error: the name is shortened, the age is 35 and the birthplace is Germany. Since the 1889 bio said Christian was in delirium when accompanied there by a stranger from Switzerland, he probably couldn't provide information himself and we don't know if the stranger spoke English. I don't think this could be anyone else.

The entry shows Christian arrived on July 11 and died the next day, July 12, 1864, of "congestian [of the] brain." We don't understand how he came to be left at the home. The family must have traveled from New York by canal or train to Buffalo and then to Toledo on a Lake Erie steamer. There Christian was clearly too ill to transfer to land transportation.

Did they speak English? Did they have money to cover an emergency? And had they purchased tickets for their travel in advance in New York? It is likely that leaving Christian was the only thing they knew to do. Giving the contagion of smallpox and the awareness of it at this time, I wonder if the fatal disease was something else. It could easily have been epidemic typhus which can induce high fever and delirium and had common names such as "ship fever" and "brain fever."

Originally the poor farm, the county home and infirmary had a small cemetery, but it was moved for development. Most graves were unmarked. I hope to find records from the move, but it is unlikely Christian's grave was marked.

1. Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1820-1897, microfilm publication M237 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives, ), roll 242; Ship Goeshen, 25 June 1864, Christian Hofmann, p. 3, line 100.

2. Portrait and Biographical Album of Jo Daviess County, Illinois: containing full page portraits and biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens of the county, together with portraits and biographies of all the governors of the State, and of the Presidents of the United States (Chicago: Chapman Brothers, 1889), 780, biographical sketch of Henry Hoffman: "[died] at Toledo, Ohio, from small-pox contracted on the vessel on the passage across the Atlantic. The particulars of his death were never fully known, as he was accompanied to that place by a stranger from Switzerland, who left him there in delirium. from which he never recovered."

3. Beverly Reed Todd, Indexer, Lucas County Home Infirmary Register: Vol. 1, Book 1, March 1855-February 1882 ([Ohio]: Lucas County Chapter, Ohio Genealogical Society, 1994), 42.

Madness Monday: When did Jacob Hoffman die? Where was he buried?

2010-02-22T19:41:00.003-05:00

It is frustrating (maddening?) to be unable to locate death or burial information for one of the last surviving members of the immigrant Hoffman family.

Jacob Hoffman was the first born of the Hoffman family. As with all of the older family members, I do not know his birthplace, but the date is recorded in Oberglatt, their community (or gemeinde) of citizenship, as 16 December 1825. In the 1840s records show them residing in the community of Maur in Canton Zurich. There he married Elizabeth Zollinger on 6 October 1851. Their daughter Maria or Mary was baptized when they lived in Uessikon, a village in Maur. Her birth date was recorded as 5 December 1851.

Jacob’s brother Henry left Switzerland and took up residence in northwestern Illinois in early 1854. Jacob applied for a passport in August and followed on a long, arduous, journey to New York arriving 24 November 1854. With his occupation of carpenter, Jacob must have had plenty of work opportunities in the growing rural area of Derinda Township, Jo Daviess County, Illinois, where they settled.

Jacob’s wife and daughter followed him to Illinois in 1856 and they lived close to Henry for many years. Daughter Mary married another Swiss immigrant, Ambrose Benz, 6 December 1870. Two grandsons were born, Jacob in 1871 and Henry in 1873. Sadly Mary died 17 January 1875. In the 1880 U.S. census Jacob and his wife were enumerated with his niece Louiza, orphaned daughter of Caspar Hoffman, as well as son-in-law Ambrose Benz and the grandsons. They then lived in Woodland Township, Carroll County, which is adjacent to Derinda Township. The close family connection is illustrated by the fact that Jacob and Elizabeth stood witness to Ambrose’s second marriage in 1882.

Jacob experienced another loss when he wife died 29 December 1892. His next residence I’ve located is in the 1900 U.S. census when he was enumerated in Woodland Township as a boarder in the household of David Burk. David Burk (or Bork) has another family connection as the person in the process of purchasing land from Henry Hoffman at the time of Henry’s death in 1897.

When we visited the Carroll County courthouse in 2002 we were happy to find that the county has land record books that list all property transactions for each quarter section. Following the land Jacob owned, we learned that after his wife’s death he began selling his holdings in the NE quarter of Section 8, T25N, R4E (Woodland Township). He had some problems with it as one purchaser defaulted on his mortgage and on 2 June 1900 Jacob accepted a transfer of the mortgage to his grandsons Jacob and Henry Benz. A blank line was left for the money conveyed in the transfer. On 16 June 1900 the original mortgage holder, Samuel Larsen, and his wife signed a quitclaim deed to the Benz brothers. They, however, did not file the transfer until 25 June 1903. The transfer is recorded in Carroll County Miscellaneous Record Book 5 on page 123.

We have found no later record of Jacob Hoffman. We searched probate indexes in the Carroll County Circuit Court and found nothing. A book of funeral home records for Savanna does have a record for his wife’s burial, but not of his. The cemetery where she and their daughter are buried does not have a marker with his name. No cemetery transcriptions for either Carroll County or Jo Daviess County have his gravestone listed. Carroll County kept death records during this time period, but none could be found for him by a researcher at the Illinois Regional Archives Depository that holds microfilm of them.

Without any record of Jacob Hoffman’s death or burial, we can only approximate the date of his death. He was alive in June of 1900, but the land transactions seem to point to his demise sometime prior to 25 June 1903. We can only guess at reasons why his death and burial are not recorded, but the date seems to be in those three years.

Youngest brother John Hoffman of Savanna in Carroll County, Illinois was then the only surviving sibling in the family.

Hoffman Immigrant Family

2010-02-22T17:49:00.003-05:00

Here is a chart of the immigrant family with the parents on the left and the children and their spouses on the right. At the top is Jacob, the oldest; it continues in chronological order. Remember to click on the image to see it full size!

Hoffman Red Cabbage Recipe

2010-02-11T22:58:00.003-05:00

I've just seen a blog post on family recipes (Sharing Family Recipes) and was reminded of a scrapbook page I did over three years ago featuring the red cabbage at family dinners as done by Jim Hoffman. Remember to click on the image to see it big enough to actually read the recipe.

Wordless Wednesday: Catherine (Hochrein) Hoffman & family

2010-02-03T13:24:00.006-05:00

Well, maybe not wordless, but the text is part of this scrapbook page image.

Tombstone Tuesday: John and Kunigunda Hoffman

2010-01-26T00:00:00.006-05:00

John Hoffman, born in Maur, Canton Zurich, was the youngest of the Hoffman siblings. He came to the U.S. with his mother, brother Christian, and niece Rosina in 1864. ¹ Arriving during the Civil War, he enlisted in the Union Army in 1865 shortly after his brother Henry and along with his cousin Jacob Homberger. I’ll tell their army stories in later posts.

After the war John married Kunigunda Schneider, a German immigrant, in Jo Daviess County and was naturalized in Carroll County, Illinois. He first lived on a Derinda Township farm, then had a billiard hall and grocery in Elizabeth, moving on to run a hotel in Hanover, all in Jo Daviess County. He finally settled in Savanna, a town on the Mississippi River in Carroll County. There he had a hotel and among many activities belonged to the R.M.A. Hawk Post 406 of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). (Read more about the GAR in Illinois.)

Kunigunda died in 1909 and John remarried in 1914 to a second German immigrant, Margaret (Kupfer) Toepfer. John passed away in 1922 at the age of eighty-one. He was buried with his first wife in the Savanna City Cemetery. Most of his adult children have also been buried in that cemetery. There is one large marker for both John and Kunigunda and two small stones, one for each of them (photographed from the opposite side of the main photo). John’s has his GAR marker with it. The main stone correctly reads

HOFFMAN
JOHN HOFFMAN
DEC. 16, 1840 – MAY 9, 1922
-------
KUNIGUNDA, HIS WIFE
FEB. 6, 1849 – JAN. 27, 1909

Photographed 19 June 2002

Genealogist Wrote About Digital Scrapbooking

2010-01-19T19:44:00.006-05:00

I was delighted today to find that a genealogy blog that I like had an article on Digital Scrapbooking. You can read it here.

In honor of the occasion, here is one of my pages for the Hoffman Family.
This is Dick's grandfather, Henry Hoffman (1873 - 1947).

Tombstone Tuesday: Elisabeth Hoffman (1824 - 1892), wife of Jacob

2010-01-19T13:31:00.006-05:00

Also in the Fehler Cemetery (or Albrecht/Albright), like last week's tombstone of Caspar Hoffman, is the gravestone for the wife of the oldest of the Hoffman siblings, Elisabeth (Zollinger) Hoffmann. The listing stone was very hard to read, but we could make out her name and dates:
Elisabeth
wife of Jacob Hoffmann
born 14 Oct. 1824
died 29 Dec. 1892
We don't know if Jacob was buried here as well. We have never found his death information. He was still alive at the time of the 1900 census so he should have had a county death record, but he did not. His wife is recorded in a book of funeral home records, but again, Jacob does not appear there. Transcriptions from the cemetery are online HERE.

Their daughter was buried nearby. In 1999 her gravestone was leaning over, face toward the ground making it very hard to read. When we returned in 2002, it was lying on the ground face up. Hers reads (all in German):
HIER RUHT IN FRIEDEN
MARIA BENZ
Geb. Hoffmann
GEST. 17 JAN. 1875
Im Aller von
23 J. 2 M. 14 T.

Photos taken 18 June 2002

Rosina Hoffman Eiler in 1900

2010-01-17T02:01:00.007-05:00

The Rosina Hoffman who married John Eiler in 1872 in Stephenson County, Illinois, appeared to be Rosa, wife of John "Iler," in the 1880 U.S. census in Keokuk County, Iowa. A 1900 U.S. census looks even more like it has to be our Rosina Hoffman.

Her name is listed as Rosina H. Eiler, perhaps with the H. standing for Hoffman. Her birth is stated to be in Switzerland in Jan. 1854. The baptism record of our Rosina Hoffmann in Oetwil am See, Canton Zurich, Switzerland, gave her birth date as 8 January 1854.¹ Immigration information is also on this census stating that Rosina H. Eiler arrived in the U.S. in 1864. Our Rosina appears on the passenger list of 25 June 1864 at New York City, New York, on ship Goeschen from Havre in company with her grandmother and uncles Christian and John.² She and John Eiler had been married for 27 years according to the census which matches the marriage record from Illinois.

With such an exact match for what already appeared to be the right person, I believed when I found this one that we definitely had our Rosina. She and John lived in Red Oak, the county seat of Montgomery County, Iowa. It is in the southwestern part of the state not far from Council Bluffs. He was an engineer for the CB&Q Railroad (Chicago, Burlington & Quincy). They had ten children, all living. John is listed at the bottom of one page, Rosina and seven of the children on the next page.³ Be sure to click on the page images to see them larger.

Next I'll add information from Iowa state census records, one of which has someone else special on it.

_______________
1. Kirchenbuch, 1644-1875 (Oetwil am See); microfilm no. 996,487 (Salt Lake City, Utah: FHL (Zürich Staatsarchiv)), 1836-1875, p. 123, baptism register for 1854, no. 2. Also Kirchenbuch, 1600-1920 (Oberglatt, Zürich); microfilm no. 996,482 (Salt Lake City, Utah: Staatsarchiv, FHL), Book 4, p. 14.
2. Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, NY, 1820-1897, microfilm publication M237 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives, ), roll 242; Goeshen, 25 June 1864, Rosena Hofmann, list 598, line 103. Also Staatsarchiv des Kantons Zürich (State Archives of Canton Zurich), Passerteilungen in Zürich nach Amerika und Australien 1848-1870 (Passports Issued in Zurich to America and Australia), downloadable publication online ( : accessed 16 April 2007).
3. 1900 U.S. census, Montgomery County, Iowa, population schedule, Red Oak City, Enumeration District (ED) 112, sheet 5A&B, dwelling 104, family 105, John Eiler household, digital image, Ancestry.com ( : accessed 11 March 2009), citing National Archives microfilm publication T623, roll 450.

Tombstone Tuesday: Caspar Hoffman (1837 - 1877)

2010-01-12T13:09:00.006-05:00

Caspar Hoffman was one of the younger siblings of the immigrant Swiss family. He was born 7 January 1837 in Maur, Canton Zurich. He was baptized there as Kaspar Hoffmann, his father Johannes a citizen of Oberglatt, Canton Zurich. The witnesses were Kaspar Sennhauser and (Mrs.) Barbara Hofmann.

He arrived in the U.S. and Illinois in 1867 with his wife Louisa Schmid and two children. Louisa died and he married Wilhelmine (Minnie) Sievert in 1872. He had a farm in Carroll County but died there 19 June 1877 leaving a widow and four minor children of his first marriage. His brother Henry Hoffman administered the estate. The land had to be sold to meet the debts but still fell short. He had taken a number of loans, some from his brothers and brother-in-law John Hagie, or co-signed by them. The children were scattered among relatives and associates.

With no money left over, I'm sure he had no gravestone at the time. His widow remarried and had this slightly cryptic marker erected in the Albrecht (or Albright or Fehler) Cemetery. Where it says "Minnie His Wife," it really means wife of both men. I have no idea where Caspar is actually buried, but this cemetery is likely as other family members and friends are buried there. In rural Derinda Township, Jo Daviess County, Illinois, it was once with a church, but even the building is long gone.

photos taken 18 June 2002

Henry Hoffman's in-laws arrived in U.S. in 1880

2010-01-11T00:40:00.008-05:00

Henry Hoffman married his second wife, Eva Barbara Eberhardt, in 1872. She had come to the U.S. from Oberlauringen, Bavaria, in 1870. Her parents and four unmarried adult siblings followed in 1880. I've just put together images from the passenger list and a photo of the ship in a digital scrapbook page. You will have to click on the image to see it large enough to read. You can also view it HERE as posted at Deco-Pages, my digital scrapbooking "home."

Eva B. sailed from Hamburg and we found her on an emigrant list from that port. Her residence was listed as Lauringen rather than Oberlauringen. She traveled with a small group from the town to Jo Daviess County, Illinois. I've corresponded with a descendant of one of them, Heinrich Klopf.

From FHL Microfilm, roll 472,901, Hamburg Emigrant Direct List for 1870, page 330, ship (shiffe) Allemannia, to New York. The top page with header, ship and captain's names and the label "Zwitchen = Deck" which is equivalent to steerage precedes a few pages with some passengers in first and second class then continuing with steerage passengers on page 344 where #589, [Eve] Barbara Eberhardt is to be found traveling with the Wiegand family.

The list is from May 4, presumably the date of departure. The Allemannia arrived in New York on May 20, 1870.

Occupations are given for men such as "Arbeiter" (laborer) for Mr. Wiegand, but women are "frau" (wife) or "ledig" (single) for Miss Eberhardt.

Wordless Wednesday: Suzetta, daughter of Caspar Hoffman, ca. 1890s

2010-01-06T13:31:00.002-05:00

Tombstone Tuesday: St. John's Lutheran Cemetery, Massbach, IL

2010-01-05T23:00:00.008-05:00

Henry Hoffman did not agree with the local Lutheran Church but apparently attended a German language church that may have been a Methodist offshoot. His second wife and mother of his children was Eva Barbara Eberhardt. She was a devout German Lutheran and attended the St. John's Lutheran Church of Massbach, Illinois. It was close to their home. She and their daughter, Wilhelmine, were both buried at the cemetery of that church while Henry and three of their sons were buried elsewhere as shown last week.

Eva B. Eberhardt Hoffman
Feb. 5, 1850 - Dec. 9, 1927
--------------
Her Daughter
Minnie Hoffman
Apr. 29, 1877 - Apr. 13, 1943

Rosina Hoffman Eiler in 1880

2010-01-04T04:57:00.006-05:00

When I found what appeared to be the marriage of Margaret's daughter Rosina Hoffman in 1872 (see Rosina married John Eiler) I looked for the couple in the 1880 census. I found a John "Iler" with wife Rosa. He was born in Hessia Darm[stadt] and she was born in Switzerland. He was a farmer and they were listed with two sons, Frederick and George. The location was Clear Creek Township in Keokuk County, Iowa.¹ They were in eastern Iowa not very far from the Illinois locations of other Hoffman family members. Here is the census page (remember to click on the image to see it larger) with a detail of the "Iler" family. Note that the census taker spelled John's name as it sounded just like the Stephenson County Clerk in the marriage record. It should be written as Eiler. I'll continue with the census records in the next post on Rosina.

_______________
1. 1880 U.S. census, Keokuk County, Iowa, population schedule, Clear Creek Township, Enumeration District (ED) 159, sheet 185D, dwelling/family 61, John Iler household, digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 11 March 2009), citing National Archives microfilm publication T9, roll 349.

New Year's Postcard

2009-12-31T00:54:00.004-05:00

We wish you all the best in 2010!
This is another of the postcards send by Elizabeth (Hochrein) Hückmann to her cousin. They were given to me in a group of old family postcards and when I sorted them out I found that they gave me the timeline of when the family left Tennessee. As they were written in old German script, they are a challenge to read.

Wordless Wednesday: Jesse Hoffman and Rich about 1941

2009-12-30T01:56:00.003-05:00

Tombstone Tuesday: Derinda Methodist Cemetery

2009-12-29T00:36:00.006-05:00

Dick and I first visited Jo Daviess County, Illinois, in June of 1999. It was still early in our discoveries about the family, but we did know some of the cemeteries where family members were buried. We followed a map south from Derinda Center around and up the hill and almost missed the little cemetery on a windy hilltop in Section 16. It was once associated with a church, but the building is long gone. It is the origin of the name of Derinda Methodist Cemetery given in a book of transcriptions that is available online. The USGS name given now is the Morrison Cemetery and it has been known as the Wurster Cemetery. Apparently it is on the Wurster farm and maintained, very well, by that family.

We easily located the gravestone of Henry Hoffman (1828-1897) with its GAR marker. Next to it is one for his son Fred and then one shared by his sons Henry and William. In the row facing them is the older gravestone of Henry's mother. It is inscribed in German and reads

HIER RUHT IN FRIEDEN
ELISABETH
HOFFMAN
GEBORNE [Geboren] HOMBERGER
GEB. IN OETWEIL
CT. ZURICH, SCHWEIZ
DEN 17 SEP. 1797
GEST. [Gestorben] DEN
9 JULI 1870
SANFT RUHE IHRE ASCHE.

It states that her maiden name was Homberger and she was born in Oetweil (Oetwil am See) in Canton Zurich, Switzerland on 17 September 1797. (The date is in the month following the one in her Swiss baptismal record.) She died on 9 July 1870. I was so startled to see her birthplace on the stone! We had found the information in a biographical sketch of her youngest son, but if the transcription of this cemetery had included that part of the inscription we would have known so much sooner.

Her second son Henry and three of his sons are buried opposite her in this quiet pastoral setting.

Rosina Hoffman married John Eiler

2009-12-26T21:56:00.008-05:00

We hope you've all had a wonderful Christmas! If you've had a chance to read the newsletter, you'll have seen that we finally learned what became of Margaret (Hoffman) Blumhardt and her daughter Rosina Hoffman.

In March I found a marriage listed in the Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, 1763–1900, provided by the Illinois State Archives (http://www.sos.state.il.us/departments/archives/marriage.html). It took place in Stephenson County, just east of Jo Daviess, and the place where Margaret lived in 1880. The bride was Rosina Hoffman, the groom John Eiler, the date 14 December 1872. Eventually I determined this to be the right couple as detailed in the newsletter.

I wrote to the Illinois Regional Archives Depository (IRAD) at Northern Illinois University, the one covering Stephenson County, for a copy of the marriage record. They sent copies of the license with the minister's return and the separate affidavit. Click on the images to see them larger.

This is the license. In the affidavit below, you will see John's surname spelled "Iler" and Rosina's first name rendered some other way, written by a clerk no doubt, but it does contain John's signature.

I'll have more about this couple in future posts.

Christmas Postcard

2009-12-20T18:23:00.006-05:00

A 1915 greeting card, printed in Saxony, with a message to Mrs. Katie Hoffmann from her Hochrein cousin and her husband, Adam and Eliza Hückmann, in Cleveland, Ohio.

We wish you all a Merry Christmas

St. Helena Vegetarian Café newspaper articles

2009-12-20T17:57:00.007-05:00

Originally posted 8 July 2009

I've also done more searching on the St. Helena Vegetarian Café that Henry H. Hoffman (Cliff's grandfather) was involved with. Oddly the items I found were about his apparent partner A. W. Robins and they don't mention Henry. Hmmm. Anyway, here is the front page story about Mr. Robins and his wife after the fire. There were accounts of their arrangement at the beginning of 1909, but this article has the news that there WAS an insurance payment after the fire. These were sure interesting folks 100 years ago! (Clicking on the image will bring it up full size.)

If you want to read more about the arrangement of this couple, here is what the paper reported at the beginning of 1909.

St. Helena Vegetarian Cafe burned in 1909

2009-12-18T17:14:00.002-05:00

Originally posted 15 Jun 2009

Caspar Hoffman's older son, Henry H. Hoffman, was a waiter and restaurant owner in San Francisco. After the earthquake and fire we know he and A. W. Robins, as Robins and Hoffman, owned and operated the St. Helena Vegetarian Cafe at 418 Market Street in San Francisco from listings in the 1908 and 1909 city directories.

His descendant, Clifford Anderson, and I have recently thought about trying to learn more about this - to us - novel concept of a vegetarian cafe 100 years ago.

Today I learned about a new Internet resource for early California newspapers. It is the California Digital Newspaper Collection which offers free online access to the Golden State's historical newspapers at http://cdnc.ucr.edu/

I searched on the cafe's name and found one article in The San Francisco Call, Thursday, November 18, 1909, on page 4, column 3. Now we know why Henry Hoffman did not continue to run this interesting establishment.

A Hagie Marriage Certificate

2009-12-18T17:09:00.004-05:00

Originally posted on 7 Jun 2009

Marriage records seem to abound these days. The Family Search beta site (http://pilot.familysearch.org/) where so many digital images and indexes are becoming available now has records from Cook County, Illinois, home of the city of Chicago. I try to search in new databases when I learn of them and Chicago marriage licenses had some for various relatives.

One was for a grandson of Regula (Hoffmann) Hagie. She was the second of the Hoffmann sisters and the last of the family to immigrate to the US. She and her husband John settled in the town of Elizabeth near the Derinda farms of other family members in Jo Daviess County. Frederick, the middle of their 3 sons, had two daughters and a son. The younger daughter, Maude, ran a store in Elizabeth into her old age, dying in 1974. The son became a doctor who had a practice in Richmond, Indiana.

Some years ago we visited the library in Richmond on the way home from the west and found many items about the Hagie family in the local newspapers. The doctor's name was Franklin Eugene Hagie. He married a Canadian immigrant whose father was the minister who married them. Her name was Nell Wells Rae.

Franklin served as a doctor in World War I after an internship in Chicago. He settled in Richmond in 1919. He died in 1951 and he and his wife were buried in Earlham Cemetery. His obituary ran this photo which we printed from microfilm and scanned:

His grandmother's name of Regula certainly looked unfamiliar when we first encountered it, but I found many girls with that name in Swiss church baptismal records. I learned that Regula was one of two patron saints of canton Zürich which would explain its being common there but not elsewhere. I found an article at Wikipedia on the Zürich patron saints Felix and Regula at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_and_Regula

Oberglatt: Hoffmann home community

2009-12-18T17:03:00.003-05:00

Originally posted 31 May 2009

Oberglatt is a community that today is just north of the runways of the Zurich International Airport. Above is its coat of arms. It is the place (gemeinde) where the Hoffmann family had its citizenship. I wrote in the newsletter some years ago about Swiss citizenship and will revisit the idea soon. I want to write a summary of the Hoffmann surname ancestors. What we've learned about them goes back to the early 1600s with the earliest man born before 1600 though the church registers did not begin until just after that. I don't have email addresses for all the family, so will need to continue the printed newsletters too.

Most of the communities of Zurich have websites and Oberglatt is no exception. I was disappointed when I looked at photos there to find that the local church was replaced with a modern building in 1964. I did wish it was still there, but there is an old Methodist chapel that looks very attractive, and you might enjoy its picture.

You can visit their website at http://www.oberglatt.ch but it is all in German.

Another Wedding Photo

2009-12-18T16:59:00.002-05:00

Originally posted 24 May 2009

Jacob Hoffman, the oldest of the Hoffman immigrant family, had one daughter, Mary or Maria, who married and had two sons before dying at an early age. The younger son was Henry Benz. He became an engineer for the railroad and established a branch of the family in La Crosse, Wisconsin. On April 15, 1896, he married Mary Alice Fopper in Carroll County, Illinois. Kerry Tischer, one of his descendants has shared this wonderful photo of the couple. Mary Alice's fabulous dress was later worn by their granddaughter Geraldine as you can see below.

Hoffman Marriage Certificates

2009-12-18T16:53:00.006-05:00

Originally posted 17 May 2009

Albert Hoffman's marriage certificate came yesterday from the New York City Municipal Archives! It is rich in information about his bride. It tells where each of them lived in 1897, their ages, birthplaces, parents' names and the name and residence of the priest who married them. One of the witnesses was Ellen A. Nevins who may have been Albert's new mother-in-law. I notice that the bride and witness both signed their names Nevins with an 's' at the end. Also the bride is listed as Catherine, but signed her name Kate. Take a look at both the certificate and the signatures.

Louise Hoffman, Albert's little sister and another of Caspar Hoffman's orphaned children, married a man who homesteaded in Snohomish County, Washington, a little north of Seattle. I still don't know how they connected, but the Washington Secretary of State Digital Archives is now adding marriage records from King County and I found her marriage certificate there. She and John B. Kelley (sometimes spelled Kelly) were married five years before Albert and this record has less information, but it does say Louise was from San Francisco, California. Her older siblings, Susie (Hoffman) Thompson and Henry H. Hoffman both lived in San Francisco by 1892, so she must have been with them.

Henry Hoffman, the original immigrant in the family, in 1858 married the first time in LaSalle County, Illinois, to Mary Donner, a German immigrant. I had an index listing of the marriage, but recently sent to the County Clerk for a copy of the actual record. At this early date there is little data, but it does have his signature. Having begun life as Heinrich Hoffmann, his version of his name in America was still evolving at this time. Sadly, Henry's first wife died in 1872. They had no children.

John and Kunigunda (Schneider) Hoffman

2009-12-18T16:50:00.001-05:00

Originally posted 10 May 2009

The photo of Albert Hoffman and his wife reminded me of this photo of John Hoffman, the youngest of the immigrant siblings, and his wife. It is in a very interesting frame that has an incised design which has been colored. I photographed it at Mary Kelley's in Savanna, Illinois, where John lived. I believe Ruth Whalen had one just like it, frame and all. John has his trademark full beard and it might have been in the 1890s. He is certainly a little older than in the photo I used in the header of this website. That picture was taken in Zurich about 1881 when he went back to Europe to visit.

More About Albert Hoffman

2009-12-18T16:47:00.002-05:00

Originally posted 3 May 2009

I recently commented on the photo of Albert taken in Council Bluffs, Iowa, but there is also a photo of him with his wife Catherine Nevin (or Nevins).
Albert Hoffman with his wife Catherine Nevin

I learned her name from the death certificate and Social Security card application of their daughter Irene (Hoffman) Tompkins. Irene was born in New York on 8 September 1898 and I thought Albert and Catherine were married there about 1897. Friday I was looking for information on a part of my family when I found an index to New York City marriages through 1936. I was delighted to find the marriage of Albert and Catherine on 1 November 1897. I was able to order a copy of the certificate online and hope to learn more about Catherine when it comes (about 4 to 6 weeks). She died about 1903 and it appears that Albert moved with his little daughter to San Francisco where his older brother Henry H. Hoffman and sister Suzie lived.

Albert Hoffman, younger son of Caspar

2009-12-18T16:42:00.002-05:00

Originally posted on 26 Apr 2009

Here is a picture of Caspar Hoffman's son Albert. He grew up in Illinois and with his brother and sisters was orphaned in 1877 at the age of nine. He eventually went to New York where he married, had a daughter, but lost his wife quite young. He then joined his brother Henry H. Hoffman and sister Suzie in San Francisco. There he worked as a waiter.

The strange thing about this particular photo is that it is the work of a photo studio in Council Bluffs, Iowa. That is on the Missouri River across from Nebraska. He looks rather young in it. The location never made any sense to me, but I may have found a missing part of the family living in nearby Red Oak, Iowa!

Hoffman News finds a new home

2009-09-03T13:01:00.000-04:00

The Sampa site where I so happily began blogging about the Hoffman family research closed in August. I have since learned that Blogger allows for private blogs and so am beginning again with a private blog to which I have invited the same family members.

Just to test the image feature, here is a photo from the 1930s of Dick's grandfather Henry Hoffman on the farm in Derinda Township, Jo Daviess County, Illinois.

Hope we can get this site going strong!

If any of you would like to post to this blog, I can add you as an author. Any of you can post comments which I would love to see.

Cheers,
Jean