1940: Hoffman’s Derinda Farm in the U.S. Census

The 1940 U.S. census was released to the public on April 2^nd. There still isn’t a complete index to it, but rural areas like Derinda Township in Jo Daviess County, Illinois, have a small number of pages that are easy to read through. The Hoffman farm family was counted on 12 April 1940. The household begins on the third sheet and continues onto the fourth.[i] The pages list many familiar names: Wurster, Endriss, Teichler, Dittmar, Krug, and Klopf.

Youngest in the family, John Hoffman (age 60) was the primary force in the family and was listed as head of household and person supplying the information. Next is oldest brother Henry (66) who only is listed as a laborer while William (64) is a brother and Minnie (62) is a sister and housekeeper. All were born in Illinois and lived in the same house five years earlier in 1935. The farm is reported with a value of only $1000 (perhaps that is just the house?) All reported fifth as the highest grade completed in school. None of them were on one of the two lines in each page for which supplemental questions were asked. Click on the image to see a larger version of some of the information.

Combined parts of the two census pages, left side

Missing from the family are brothers Charles and Fred. Fred died in 1934 and Charles had for many years lived in Rockford, Illinois. He will be easier to find in the 1940 census once the index for Illinois is completed.

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[i] 1940 U. S. Census, Jo Daviess County, Illinois, population schedule, Derinda Township, enumeration district (ED) 43-5, sheets 2A-B, dwelling 28, John Hoffman household; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 27 May 2012).

Tombstone Tuesday: Mathilda K. (Hoffman) Bowers

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.)

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: Emma Anna (Hoffman) Acker

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.

Wordless Wednesday: Daughters of John Hoffman

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

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: Family of John Hoffman

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.

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