Obituary

We already knew that Peter Schaefer and Maria Magdalena Vierling Schaefer had a son referred to as "Louie" because he appeared on the 1880 census of Murray, Iowa with his family there.  But I could never find any trace of him after that, and so assumed that Mary Schaefer returned to New York with the only two children she had remaining, namely Charles and Lena.

I recently discovered a Schaefer family in the 1892 census of New York.  Mary Schaefer, age 42, was enumerated on Devoe St. in Brooklyn with Ludwig, age 21, Charles, age 17, and Lena, age 14.  Ludwig was a laborer.

On 5 Jun 1893, there was a death of one Louis Schaefer who lived on Devoe St. in the same block where the census of the previous year was taken.  He died of some kind of disease of the heart, and he was buried at Holy Trinity cemetery.  He was 22 years old.

The EMPIRE CITYs - Amateur Baseball in Brooklyn

This post pertains to our "other" Schaefer line, the one that intersected with ours in 1902 when John Schaefer (not our line) married Madeline (Lena) Schaefer, who was our great grand-aunt (sister of our g-grandfather, Charles Schaefer).  I've never been able to establish any certain connection between the two Schaefer lines, the most notable difference being their line was Lutheran and ours was Catholic.  Still in all, Uncle George remembers the characters from this other line, one of whom was known as "Pig's Foot Schaefer".

So every year I try to comb through our family tree to add updates based on new and sometimes changing information. This year I stumbled across a newspaper article where the baseball fans of the Empire City amateur baseball team expressed sympathy to its manager, John "Jerry" Schaefer, for the loss of his wife Madeline.  The article listed the Schaefer's address, known to be the address where our John and Madeline were living, so there is no mistake about there being a different Schaefer in this case.

What a surprise to find that this John Schaefer was involved in early baseball!  And he was known as Jerry? I will withhold my guess as to why he was called that.  But a subsequent search of Jerry Schaefer and the word "baseball" resulted in many interesting articles about his career with amateur baseball! Jerry was apparently an acquaintance of Charles Ebbets, and was responsible for bringing up many of the talented baseball players who later would rise to fame.  From 1910-1921, his team played at a place known as Arctic Park on the north side of Johnson Ave. at Gardner Ave. in Brooklyn.  According to a website about Brooklyn's semi-pro fields, "There were no locker rooms, so teams had to change their clothes at a nearby saloon. In 1912, the Empire City team, realizing they had little chance against the powerful Lincoln Giants negro team, tried to get their opponents drunk and overfull by offering lunch at the saloon before the game. The Giants ate and drank well, and won the game easily."

But John must have decided to leave it all behind as noted in a 1928 news article about an event paying tribute to veteran ball players where it says "Schaefer is no longer actively connected to the game". It appears that he then moved on to become a restaurateur. What's sad to me is that his obituary doesn't mention his baseball involvement at all, which must have been an important aspect of his life. And worse still, there is no entry for the Empire City baseball team in wikipedia!  If anybody out there can tell me where to find more information on this amateur team, please contact me.

Even though John "Jerry" Schaefer was not a direct relation to our family, my father would have loved this story!

Kaiser Updates

I've been able to make alot of progress on the Kaiser line in the last few months, and I wanted to post here that progress. Most notable is that we have now identified the mother of John F. Kaiser. His death certificate had listed her given name, but we just could never make it out because of the way it was written. But now we have it. Her name was Christine Dunmeier, or some derivation thereof. Her maiden name comes from the death certificate of one of her other children, Frederick Kaiser. Since I have learned that the information on death certificates is not 100% reliable, it would be wise to look for more documentation to confirm that maiden name. In the meantime, we at least have the clue.

What's even more interesting is that Christine's husband, John C. Kaiser and our third g-grandfather, died as a result of being hit by a Manhattan train. The title of the newspaper article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle about the incident is called "He Was Cut to Pieces". There was an inquest and the engineer was found not to be at fault. Meanwhile, Christine inherited his farm and subsequently wrote a very informative will, which was probated in 1901. It describes her children as:

• John F. Kaiser and his wife Kate (our 2nd g-grandparents, both of whom died in 1900)
• Anna Kaiser who married Henry Mahland
• Frederick Kaiser who married Elizabeth "Lydia" Behn

The lives of  Anna and Frederick are interesting, but I wanted to see if I couldn't zoom in more on the family of John F. and Kate. Our g-grandmother, Anna Elizabeth Kaiser, was their oldest child. But we didn't know a whole lot about her siblings, except for one, Lottie.  At this point I think I have accounted for all of Anna's known siblings. Here is what I know of them to date:

• Elizabeth Kaiser (1882-1937) married Harry Tietjen, they had two sons
• Catharine Kaiser (1884-1973) married Hugo Palm, they had two daughters
• Charlotte Kaiser (1886-1958) married Herman Jaeger, they had 10 children, lived in Prattsville, NY
• Magdalena (Lena) Kaiser (1888-1966) married Michael Flaherty, they lived in NJ and had one son who became a priest but who died young
• William John Kaiser (1890-1977) married Caroline F. Ludwig, they had one son whose family relocated to Missouri
• Frederick William Kaiser (1893-1974), married Laura I. Kent, they had one daughter.  This last guy has some confusion because of another man of the same name, about the same age, living in the same general area. After careful study, however, I'm confident that this Frederick belongs to us!

So all these people were the maternal aunts and uncles of our grandmother, Margaret Crown. We know from stories told by her son, George, that Nana knew of and was in touch with her Kaiser aunts. The Kaiser uncles are still of interest, so we should keep our eyes and ears open for any more clues related to them.

Klein Connections in Germany

I was recently contacted by a Klein relation, the wife of my second cousin once removed. His father and my grandfather were cousins who became New Jersey neighbors. We've been able to compare notes and share lots of information, which has been wonderful and exciting. One of those shared items was an old photograph that apparently comes from Germany - wowee!

First let me give some background about what we know of our Klein origins:

• Michael Klein, who was married to Pauline Grimm, might never have come to America. We have only found passenger records for Pauline and her children, but never her husband. (Pauline arrived in New York in 1892 and in 1897 Brooklyn directory she was listed as a widow.)
• Several references state that Pauline was born in Alsace, Germany. To give a very simplified account of the history of the Alsace region, France ruled the area from 1648-1871, after which time the Treaty of Frankfurt ceded the area to Germany in 1871. The German Empire ruled the area from 1871-1918, after which the area was restored to French rule in the Treaty of Versailles. So during the time that the Klein's emigrated, the area was definitely German.
• One of Pauline's children emigrated later, in 1905. Her passenger record clearly states she was coming from Strasbourg.

Here is the wonderful photo which was passed down with old family things belonging to Klein descendants.

Here are some observations and notes:

• The photo probably dates from the 1900s - the presence of the bicycle is clue to that.
• Regarding the label on the building, the word "Wirtschaft" means pub (often had a meaning of hotel).  This particular pub apparently belonged to Eugen Antoni. So far, we have not been able to find any connection between that name and our Klein or Grimm family. There is some hope that it might help establish where the photo was taken.
• The men on the right side of the picture are holding what is called a Dreschflegel, in English called a flail used for threshing wheat. The barn located behind them is likely where they were doing the threshing.

This photo is so interesting - it seems to me so obviously posed - the man in the window, the woman with the baby, the wagons, the bicycle, the men with the flails. Was it for an event maybe? I'm not sure I think these people were all related and it was a family photo, but I suppose it could be. All we know is that this photo was passed down in the Klein family, so there is hope there is some clue in it that can connect us to their family in Alsace.

Do you have any additional comment or information that could help us further identify this photo?  Please contact me!

Our Crown Roots in Ireland

I *think* I have located where our Crown's came from in Ireland! Look up Lurganboy and Manorhamilton in County Leitrum. These are the places about 25km east of Sligo where a pair of twins named Catherine and Charles were baptized in 1866, whose parents were Patrick Crown and Anne Clancy. These same twins appear in the 1870 census in Brooklyn. Catherine did not survive but Charles did. Although Charles H. Crown never married or had children, his claim to fame might have been being busted for breaking prohibition laws!

Meanwhile I also located the death certificate for Patrick Crown who died in Brooklyn in 1903. His parents were listed as Richard Crown and Sarah Meehan. This sent me looking for Richard Crown in the Griffith's Valuation for County Leitrim at a wonderful website called Ask About Ireland. There was one match for Richard Crown in the townland of Pollboy, in the civil parish of Cloonlogher and the barony of Drumhaire. It looks like Richard's property was just across the Shanvaus River, southwest of Lurganboy, denoted on an old map of the area as farm "2a". When comparing that old map to a current-day satellite map, there appears to be a building still standing there, but of course it's hard to tell for sure.

So this is all very exciting. I am in search of more documentation to verify my assumptions here, and will post my findings as they become available.