For the last 17 years, I've been trying to determine whatever happened to my gg-grandmother, Maria Magdalena Vierling, who arrived in New York harbor from Germany in 1866 at the age of 16. She came to America traveling only with her older sister, Catherina. Four years later, Maria married another German immigrant, Peter Schaefer, at the Most Holy Trinity church in Brooklyn.
Peter and Maria moved to Murray, Iowa around 1876. But something must have happened to Peter because by 1889, Mary Schaefer, as she was known in America, was back in New York, a widow. The last record I had of her was the 1900 census of Brooklyn, a widowed washing woman living with the two surviving of her six known children.
Can we guess how many women had the name Mary Schaefer (of various spellings) in New York around that time? Many, and over the years I have pulled at least a dozen death certificates for women of that name hoping to find my gg-grandmother, but as with Peter, I've just had no luck determining whatever became of my immigrant ancestors. Until yesterday. The New York City Municipal Archives has finally started digitizing their vital records, and though not straightforward to use, I finally found my Mary Schaefer. She died April 16, 1916 at the Home of the Aged run by the Little Sisters of the Poor, one of two such homes in Brooklyn at that time. Here is a link that tells something about the Sisters.
Maria was 71 years old when she died. Her fairly long life in America had been full of tragedies and sorrows (see my related blog post about Maria's life), and yet it was by the grace of Maria's courage, faith, and perseverance that my family history can be written the way it has been. If Maria had not returned to New York after Peter's death in Iowa, well, our family story would have been different and that other story would not have included me, my siblings, my cousins, my father, my uncles or my grandfather. As it was, Mary had at least 6 grandchildren alive in Brooklyn when her life was waning - they were Madeline, Martin, John, Charles, George, and Ruth - did they ever meet their grandmother? Even though we don't have any account that they did, I do hope they had that opportunity. Great-great grandmother Maria was a woman whose story was both simple and inspiring, and hers was a full life that mattered in so many ways.
So 110 years after Maria's death, let us remember our gg-grandmother gratefully. Per her death certificate she was buried at the Most Holy Trinity Cemetery in Brooklyn, and I have sent an inquiry to see if we can determine if a marker was ever placed on her grave. There may not have been, and in that case, let this post be that marker.
