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

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.
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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)

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

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.

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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.

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

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

Tombstone Tuesday: Caspar Hoffman (1837 - 1877)

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