John Hoffman of Savanna, Illinois, with Three Daughters

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.
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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.

Tombstone Tuesday: John and Kunigunda Hoffman

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
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KUNIGUNDA, HIS WIFE
FEB. 6, 1849 – JAN. 27, 1909



Photographed 19 June 2002