A boy named Louis

My Grandma Boyle's paternal grandparents were Eugene C. Sullivan and Louise Auguste Huth.  My research just revealed some facts about Louise's life. 

Family member name: Louise Auguste Huth Sullivan
Tree branch: Sullivan
Lifetime: 1867-1948
Relation: My 2x great grandmother (my mom's mom's dad's mom)

Louise was born in 1867 in Marshall, Michigan, in the palm of the hand near Battle Creek.  Her parents were William Huth and Magdelena (Lena) Dewieghter, both immigrants from Germany.  She was the middle child of five with two older sisters and a younger sister and brother.  Louise only finished the 5th grade.

Just a quick note about how I found this information. I've been searching for years and was frustrated by the brick wall, but finally had a breakthrough!

Louise was mistakenly listed in the census as a boy named Louis.  Maybe the census taker didn't understand her parents' accents or maybe two-year-old Louise had a short haircut and looked like a boy. I don't know, but she was hidden in the census.  But comparing with several other sources, this is definitely her.

Notice the 2-year old male named Louis.  This is my great great grandmother, Louise.

We next find Louise at 17 years old in Nebraska working as a domestic servant.  She married Eugene three years later.  Louise and Eugene had five children in Nebraska, and three lived to adulthood.  However, to date we only know of two of their children, Alfred and Percy.

By the time Louise was 53, her husband passed away and she had moved to Sunnyside, Washington.  She worked as a dressmaker, which she may have learned from her father who was a tailor.  She then moved to Eugene, Oregon in 1924.  She lived there for the rest of her life and passed away in 1948, 13 days after my mom (her great granddaughter) was born.  

Sadly, I can't find any pictures of Louise, yet.  This is all I have.

Mother of how many children

Finding cold facts and figures raises so many questions about our ancestors' lives.  Lately I've been looking into the German line on Dru's side of the family.  This post is to show how finding pieces of information about our ancestors only raises many more questions.

Family member name: Veleska Staverinsky Neumann
Lifetime: 1854 - 1907

Places lived: Prussia; Iowa
Tree branch: Newman
Relation: Dru's 2x great grandmother (Dru's dad's mom's mom's mom)

Wilhelm and Veleska Neumann lived on the southern border between Germany and Poland.  That may explain Veleska's maiden name sounding Polish and her married name being German.  At the time, the area was known as Prussia.

Question #1 - Were Veleska and Wilhelm from different areas? (All of their documents just say Germany, which through time could have meant different places as borders shifted.) Were they a bilingual family?  Were there any objections from family members to them getting married?

Two children, Hugo and Bertha, came along in the next few years after their marriage.

Wilhelm emigrated to the United States alone in 1887, leaving his wife and two young children behind.  People from Prussia emigrated at this time in history for different reasons.  Some came for religious tolerance, some because they were hungry, some for economic opportunity. 

Veleska stayed in Prussia for three years until she made the trip to the United States with her children.  They traveled first to Liverpool, England, then sailed on the SS Nevada to finally reach New York City on May 22, 1890.  Ellis Island was not open yet, so they sailed by the Statue of Liberty and arrived at Castle Clinton immigration center.

As a side note, Veleska was five months pregnant on the voyage.  Her son Paul Newman  was born four months after her arrival.   This would obviously bring about question #2....

Question #2 - Did her husband Wilhelm visit her in Germany shortly before she journeyed to America?  If not, who is the father of Paul?

The family settled just south of Iowa City, Iowa.  She lived there the rest of her life.  

The 1900 US Census was taken ten years after her arrival in 1890.  The 1900 Census had some interesting questions on it.  There are columns titled "Mother of how many children" and "Number of these children living".  

In case the chart is difficult to read, here are Valeska's answers:

Mother of how many children: 13

Number of these children living: 3

Wow, Veleska was only 46 years old, yet she had lost 10 children.

Question #3 - How in the world did she endure the heartache?

Question #4 - Who are these children? What are their names?

To date, there are no other records of these children besides this census.  There are no birth certificates, birth records, baptism records, census records or headstones that I can find.  

More questions - Did all of these deaths happen during the years she was married to Wilhelm?  How did these babies die?

These two numbers on a piece of paper can reveal so much about a family member's life. There is so much left unsaid. I'm heartbroken.