Tombstone Tuesday: Marie Louise Henrietta (Altman) Froemke

It's Tuesday and that means another edition of Tombstone Tuesday!  Today we're still wandering thru Anselm Lutheran Cemetery.  Among the many family members residing in Anselm Cemetery is my second great-grandmother, Marie Louise Henrietta (Froemke) Altman (a.k.a. Altmann).

Headstone of Marie Louise Henrietta (Froemke) Altman (a.k.a. Altmann)
Located in Anselm Lutheran Cemetery

Tombstone of Marie Louise Henrietta (Froemke) Altman (a.k.a. Altmann)
Located in Anselm Lutheran Cemetery

Marie Louise was the second of seventeen children of John Gottleb Froemke and Efa Rosina (Bair) Froemke.  She had six brothers (all younger), nine sisters (one older and eight younger) and one younger sibling of unknown gender.

Marie Louise was born 5 April 1846 in Buchwerder, Friedeberg, Brandenburg, Prussia, Germany (a.k.a. Welmin, Gmina Strzelce Krajenskie, Strzelce-Drezdenko, Lubusz, Poland).  She died 12 March 1904 in Casey Township, Ransom, North Dakota.  She immigrated to the United States with her family in 1856 and married my second great-grandfather, Julius Ferdinand Altman 5 April 1863 in Waumandee, Buffalo, Wisconsin.  Together they had 13 children.  The inscription on her headstone reads "Asleep In Jesus Blessed Sleep".  She is buried in Anselm Lutheran Cemetery in Anselm, Ransom, North Dakota.  The cemetery borders what used to be family farmland.

Marie Louise Henrietta (Froemke) Altman (a.k.a. Altmann)

You  may have noticed I have added an also known as name of Altmann.  The family story goes that the Altmann/Altman brothers came to the United States and subsequently had a falling out.  The brothers parted ways, with one changing his last name by dropping one of the N's from the end of the Altmann name.  I personally haven't verified that information but it makes for an interesting story.  Big Brother C has been working on the Altman side of the family and he has much more information than I do, but I'm working on updating my records as he shares his findings.

Thanks for stopping by!

Around the Town Thursday: St. Oswald's Anglican Heritage Church

I started my Around the Town Thursday posts with the intention of highlighting all the wonderful things to see and do in Kansas City.  I knew eventually I'd like to expand from just the Kansas City area but I honestly didn't expect it to be this soon.  Having been sent to Langley, BC (Canada) for a work meeting has given me the opportunity to jump into my Around the Town expansion now!  Unfortunately it also caused me to miss last week's Around the Town Thursday post so I'm going to give you a double dose this week!

For those who don't know where Langley, BC is located here's a map:


View Larger Map

Langley is a city of approximately 25,000 people.  Their city website boasts: "With its rich history, wonderful sense of community, lush offerings of nature, and proximity to Vancouver, Langley is the best kept secret in the Lower Mainland."  I had the opportunity to view a little of the city during my two days there and I can say that it is a very beautiful area.  When I travel for work, I always try to stop and see one or two places in the area I travel to.  One of the places I had the opportunity to stop in at was St. Oswald's Anglican Heritage Church.  It's a quaint little church on the corner of a partially industrial area that has been in existence since 1911.  The church's history page says: "It is evocative of an English country church featuring late Mediaeval and Tudor elements."  The church is strikingly painted in white with beautiful bright green trim and is surrounded by four Douglas fir trees at the front of the church and a small church cemetery along the side and back of the church.

Plaque outside of St. Oswald's
Langley, BC, Canada

 

Plaque about St. Oswald's and its community
Langley, BC, Canada

St. Oswald's Anglican Church
Langley, BC, Canada

The church wasn't open for viewing (it's still an active congregation), but I was able to walk around the outside and peek thru the windows.
 

Inside of St. Oswald's Anglican Church
Langley, BC, Canada

The church had both a surrounding cemetery and a memorial garden.  I took some time and walked through the cemetery and memorial garden.

St. Oswald's Cemetery
Langley, BC, Canada

 

St. Oswald's Memorial Garden
Langley, BC, Canada

While walking through it occurred to me that St. Oswald's cemetery might not yet be on Find A Grave.  I was on a limited break from the meeting I was attending so I quickly started at the beginning of the memorial garden and worked my way thru the cemetery taking pictures of each grave.  I managed to get pictures of the entire cemetery before I had to go back to my meeting.  I didn't have a chance to look up the cemetery on Find A Grave until I returned back home.  And I am so glad I was able to get pictures of the cemetery because when I looked it up on Find A Grave I found the cemetery internments had been submitted to Find A Grave, but there were no pictures.  In the next few weeks I plan to submit the pictures I took to the St. Oswald's Find A Grave site.

If you ever have the opportunity to go to Langley, take a moment and stop by St. Oswald's; sit in the memorial garden and relax for a bit and let the world pass you by.  It's well worth the time spent.

Tombstone Tuesday: Laura & Clara Altman

It's Tuesday again and you know what that means!  Time for another Tombstone Tuesday.  Continuing our journey through Anselm Lutheran Cemetery, today's tombstone belongs to two of my paternal cousins, twice removed, Laura and Clara Altman.

Laura & Clara Altman's tombstone
located in Anselm Lutheran Cemetery

Clara was the second of seventeen children of Robert Altman and Albertina Amelie (Lange) Altman.  She had five brothers (all younger) and eleven sisters (one older and ten younger).

Laura was the third of seventeen children of Robert Altman and Albertina Amelie (Lange) Altman.  She had five brothers (all younger) and eleven sisters (two older and nine younger).

Clara and Laura were both born on 14 March 1895 in Anselm, Ransom, North Dakota.  They died 15 March 1895 in Anselm, Ransom, North Dakota.  They are buried together in Anselm Lutheran Cemetery in Anselm, Ransom, North Dakota.  Their tombstone inscription reads: "There we shall meet again."  The cemetery borders what used to be family farmland.

Tombstone Tuesday: Florence Bertha Irene Altman

Welcome to Tombstone Tuesday!  Today we're still looking at family tombstones in Anselm Lutheran Cemetery in Anselm, Ransom, North Dakota.  Today's tombstone belongs to my paternal first cousin, twice removed, Florence Bertha Irene Altman.

Tombstone for Florence Bertha Irene Altman
(tombstone only reads Irene B. F. Altman)
located in Anselm Lutheran Cemetery

Florence Bertha Irene was the eleventh of seventeen children of Robert Altman and Albertina Amelie Lange.  She had four brothers (three older and one younger) and eleven sisters (six older and five younger).

Florence Bertha Irene was born 16 December 1905 in Anselm, Ransom, North Dakota.  She died 28 May 1907 in Anselm, Ransom, North Dakota at the of 17 months old.  She's buried in Anselm Lutheran Cemetery in Anselm, Ransom, North Dakota.  The cemetery borders what used to be family farmland.

It's Useful to Periodically Review Your Genealogy Documents

So as I said previously, I've fallen off the genealogy bandwagon for a few years due to general life-stuff and have just recently gotten back into actively pursuing leads.  Since getting back into active mode I decided to start following some blogs and joining some FaceBook groups to help me with organization, motivation and brick walls.  Thanks to The Organized Genealogist FaceBook group I've been actively working on adding citations to my genealogy database (what a mess THAT is, but it'll be worth all the work when I'm done) and organizing my genealogy.

In the process of organizing my e-files I realized that, for the past few years, all I've been doing is collecting genealogy stuff and not categorizing or printing anything at all.  Whoa, not really the smartest move I've ever made.  So, I decided it was time to do some serious printing and organizing of e-files.  For the past few weeks I've been slowly organizing my e-files into family folders on my hard drive, which I will then back up so I have multiple copies.  As I've been doing the organization I've also been taking picture files and converting them to TIFF files (which don't have image loss the way JPG files do) and I've also been converting any picture files of census images and other documents to PDF format.  After all that is done I then print the document and will work on filing those according to the system I've chosen. (Eliminate Genealogy Clutter by Sherene Henrie Whiting is the system I've chosen in case you're interested...it's a fantastic system!)

Whew!  So I'm wading thru this slow process of converting and printing documents last Saturday while D1 was helping his brother and I ran across a rather surprising read.  It wasn't surprising so much that I had it (or that I didn't KNOW that I had it), what was surprising was the content I found within it.

What you see here is an obituary for my 2nd great grandmother (on my maternal side).  It's quite a nice obituary, it tells of her longevity in the community, where she lived and who she lived by, some of her thoughts and, of course, where her services and internment will be.  But within all of that information resides a couple of pieces that I had forgotten about and one piece that I'd never heard about before and I found very interesting.

After reading this obituary, I recalled that my mother had told me at one time that I had a family member in Topeka, Kansas who was an undertaker.  Well either I wasn't listening very well or I'd forgotten what she really told me because it seems that my 2nd great-uncle (Frank Conwell) wasn't just an undertaker, he owned a funeral parlor.  The funeral parlor where gg-grandma Margaret's services were held, of course.  The other piece of information I recalled after reading this was the fact that my mother had also told me my 2nd great-uncle Frank's second wife, Jennie Finch, was a member of an OES chapter in Topeka.  Not just that but also that a photo of my 2nd great-uncle Frank, resides on the wall of a Masonic Lodge in Topeka.  I'm going to have to make a trip up there specifically to see that picture I think.  And maybe see if I can find where the funeral home was located.

The piece of information in the obituary that I didn't know about was "Mrs. Conwell recalled that she often had trotted Charles Curtis, former vice president of the United States, and his little sister, Libbie Curtis (Mrs. Jerome Colvin) on her knee."  Wait.  Charles Curtis, former VP of the U.S.?  Something started tickling at my brain after I read that.  It tickled...and tickled...and tickled until...BAM!  I remembered!

A little back story needs to be inserted here: my son, J, is a proud band geek (yep, I raised him right!) and thru my involvement in Eastern Star I learned about the Kansas Masonic All-State High School Marching Band.  J participated in this band for five years (and loved every minute of it).  His last year participating in the band was 2012.  That year the Shrine Bowl, the football game the marching band performs at, was held in Emporia, Kansas.  Activities for the Shrine Bowl last all weekend for the families, it's crazy fun and so memorable.  So D1 and I are down in Emporia killing time driving around and we end up at a museum in Council Grove, Kansas.  The Kaw Mission State Historic Site was a wonderful place to pass the time between events that weekend.  While we were touring the Kaw Mission, I ran across the picture and caption below:

 

Charles Curtis display at the Kaw Mission State
Historic Site in Council Grove, Kansas

At the time I just thought it was pretty interesting that the U.S. had a Vice President that had Native American heritage.  Little did I know that later, I would find the obituary for Margaret that connected my family to the former Vice President and his family.  I really wish I had gone back thru my genealogy files prior to going to Council Grove.  I don't know if the Kaw Mission had any further information on Charles Curtis but it would have been interesting to learn a little more about him if they did.

Since the Curtis family isn't a known part of my family, this is a project I'll be putting on the back burner for now.  I have my hands full with working on my paperwork for the Daughters of the American Revolution.  My intention is to come back to learning about Charles Curtis after I complete my paperwork for the DAR.  I want to learn a little more about his life and see if there's any information about my family included with his family's information.

What this discovery has taught me is that, periodically, it's useful to go back and review your genealogy documents.  Take an inventory of what you have and make sure it's in good condition. Re-reading may provide some new and interesting information.  You don't catch everything the first or second time you look at something.

Tombstone Tuesday: Clarence Harvey Altman

Welcome to another edition of Tombstone Tuesday.  Continuing with the family buried in Anselm Lutheran Cemetery, today's tombstone belongs to my paternal great-uncle, Clarence Harvey Altman.

Ludwig, Ida and Clarence Harvey's tombstone
located in Anselm Lutheran Cemetery

Clarence Harvey was the first of four children of Ludwig Wilhelm Altman and Ida Marie (Krueger) Altman.  He had two brothers (both younger) and one sister (also younger).

Clarence was born 14 April 1907 in Lisbon, Ransom, North Dakota and died 18 April 1933 in Ransom County, North Dakota.  He is buried next to his parents, Ludwig and Ida Altman, in Anselm Lutheran Cemetery in Anselm, Ransom, North Dakota.  The cemetery borders what used to be family farmland.

Thanks for stopping by!

Follow Friday: A Grave Interest

I have been bitten by the blog bug.  Ever since discovering genealogy blogs I've been looking for good ones to follow, so Geneabloggers' blog listing is a genealogical Christmas for me.  I'm slowly making my way through the listing of over 3,000 blogs and finding some really good ones!

I am so excited about this week's Follow Friday subject.  A Grave Interest may have started as a cemetery-based blog but it's not just limited to cemeteries any longer.  Joy Neighbors writes interesting posts about items of note as well.  Her latest post, Bockscar - A Look Back at the Plane That Ended WWII, has a number of interesting facts that I wasn't aware of about this plane.  It's interesting posts like this that lead me to continue reading a blog.

Joy's posts are interesting, well researched and very well written.  I have to admit, one of my favorites (besides the one about Bockscar) would have to be Lincoln's Phantom Train.  That's a very interesting read indeed.

So take a minute and get your read on for A Grave Interest.