As genealogists, we are always looking for new ways to have fun as well as share pieces of our family history with others. Especially others who might, just might, appreciate either the people involved, the history or the genealogy. Like, you know, the younger generation.

You just never know what might plant that seed.

Recently, my granddaughter, Phoebe, had a class assignment to obtain photos of a grandparent as a child and then take pictures of them today that shows the same spirit.

I was the fortunate grandparent selected, which meant that I also had the opportunity to look through old photos to find ones from my childhood, and to share with Phoebe stories of that time and place.

Until I began sorting through the photos, I never thought about why there weren’t any photos, other than school class photos, for about a 10-year period. Reflecting further, I realized that it was because we didn’t own a camera. We were “economically challenged” and a camera was a luxury. I never thought about it at the time.

My grandmother had a camera, but she died in 1960. My father apparently had a camera, because there were a few photos of me and Mom together that he had taken prior to his death in 1963.

I had never really talked to Phoebe about poverty and how we coped. I never knew anything different and our life, such as it was, just seemed normal to me. I didn’t think about discussing that time or those things.

I never told Phoebe that there weren’t places like Salvation Army and Goodwill at that time for low cost clothing. I had never explained about the kind-hearted woman, Gladys Caylor (1904-1997) who refurbished donated clothes, cleaned and repaired them, then invited people in need to “shop” in her living room and porch – never charging anyone one penny for anything.

We always took as little as we could, leaving as much as possible for people who needed more than we did. There were people much worse off than we were – people without food or shelter. We struggled and rationed our food, but never starved. I remember giving most of what little food we had left to a starving homeless beggar. I asked mother why, and she told me that he needed the food far more than we did – and “there but for the Grace of God…”

I learned about compassion at a very young age. Demonstrated lessons of heart stay with us for a lifetime.

I don’t know what we would have done without that generous lady. Mother was always embarrassed and tried to pay Mrs. Caylor, but she would never accept anything. She always insisted that it was nothing, that she enjoyed visiting with and helping people. She invited us to come and visit with her often, always feeding us while we were there too – whether we agreed to eat or not:)

May her soul rest in peace. She made such a difference in our lives.

I had never explained that we always, always, selected clothes “too big,” even if they were free, so I had room to “grow into them.” I don’t think I ever had clothes that actually fit. I don’t remember wearing suspenders, but I assuredly did, as evidenced by this picture, to hold my pants up!

I hadn’t failed to explain because this was a secret, but simply because I didn’t think about it. It’s just how life was and it seemed unremarkable. This was my normal – and I’m none the worse for any of it today. In fact, I’m probably a better person because of those challenges – and examples.

These pictures are cute now and at the time, I was unaware that not everyone’s life was the same. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss. Other than losing important people in my life, I was mostly a happy child.

In preparation for our photo shoot, I sent Phoebe several pictures that she could select from. When she arrived, I didn’t know what to expect, other than we would have fun!

Foreshadowing

The first photo that Phoebe selected is one with me holding an iron and looking a bit pensive. I remember helping Mom making those curtains hanging in the window – I think from what was left of an old sheet.

Phoebe commented that the thing behind me didn’t look like an ironing board. I explained that we didn’t have an ironing board. When we needed to iron, which seemed like all the time, we put layers of blankets on that table, with a sheet over them, and that was our ironing board.

In this case, apparently the table wasn’t yet cleared to be transformed into an ironing board.

Phoebe thought there were flowers on the table, but looking closely, there were dyed Easter eggs and two chocolate bunnies, so this photo was taken near Easter.

Now for today’s recreated photo.

We found a flowered top in my closet, also now too large, that appropriately had been gifted to me second hand. It’s actually one of my favorites.

I’m a quilter, so the photo of the 5-year-old me holding an iron truly was prophetic as were the salvaged curtains.

Today, I have a large ironing board that my friend made for me using a sheet of plywood. It’s larger than most ironing boards, made specifically for ironing quilt tops, so we used a quilt as a cover and put a bouquet of flowers in the middle. My scissors are in evidence too, along with a plate collection from Mom and her mother.

I showed Phoebe her great-grandmother’s wedge irons for doll clothes that were heated in the fireplace.

We discussed when electricity was wired into homes. My mother didn’t have electricity as a child.

Laughter and Smiles

Phoebe said that when she thinks of me, she thinks of me smiling and laughing because I smile “all the time.” If her father had been along today, he would have rolled his eyes and said, “that’s not the mother I knew.” 😊

Thinking about that made me laugh!

Looking at the photos I sent Phoebe, apparently I did smile a lot, even then.

Me with Timmy. I loved that little doggie. He let me dress him in doll clothes.

I loved Rex and my grandmother too. Apparently, something was VERY funny.

There’s about a quarter century between these photos. Not much changed!

And another quarter century later. I came by this trait honestly. That’s my mother beside me at my wedding reception.

Phoebe snuck this one in on me.

If I’m going to be remembered for something, I want it to be for laughing and smiling a lot!

The Prom

I only went to one prom in my life – and this was it. My hair had already been straightened with an iron and curled in just the places I wanted it to curl. I spent years fighting with my hair. Now I just embrace it. So much easier.

Mom had worn stage makeup while performing for years, so she knew exactly how to apply makeup while not getting it all over oneself. Not me, I struggled and still do.

Here, I’m sitting at Mom’s vanity in her bedroom before the prom working on my makeup. Mom sat at this vanity every single day to arrange her hair and apply makeup. Her parents gave the vanity, along with the rest of the bedroom set, to her as a birthday gift when she turned 16.

After mother passed away, in 2006, I inherited the vanity along with her other bedroom furniture. Today, this graces the guest bedroom where Phoebe and her family stay when they visit.

We found Mom’s hand mirror that was laying on the vanity in the prom photo from 1971. Had I thought, I actually have the table runner, the gold powder box, the white porcelain tray and the pincushion too.

Phoebe and I looked through the drawers and I showed her the pea and marble-sized “pretty rocks” that her father had collected and given to his grandmother as a small boy.

Phoebe holds them in her hand today, but Mom held these smooth pebbles close to her heart her entire life.

Second Grade

I remember being so proud of myself in this picture of my second grade class. I’m the girl in the back row, second from right in the blue dress, just to the right of Mrs. Malone, my teacher.

I was quite proud because the smallest children were in the front row with the smallest desks. The medium height kids were in the middle two rows with medium desks.

Only the tallest kids were in the rear row and we had the “big kid” desks.

We were told to sit up straight and look busy. Notice our reading books on our desks. Reading was my favorite activity.

I explained to Phoebe that the classroom had two magazine subscriptions. One was to National Geographic magazine and the other was to Highlights for Children.

The day each month when those arrived was the best day EVER. I liked both magazines, but I devoured National Geographic, cover to cover. I read them over and over.

In June 2018, I was featured in a story in National Geographic magazine about the Lost Colony of Roanoke. It just so happens that I still have my own desk that I used at home as a child. My kids both used this desk too.

You can see how small and low to the ground the chair and desk are. The top of the desk is below my knee, with the chair seat maybe 6 or 8 inches off the floor. I’m amazed I could sit down that far today, or get up😊

It’s braced with iron and miraculously still solid after all these years. I think it has a couple more good generations left – so maybe this will be Phoebe’s one day too.

Phoebe told me to hold up the National Geographic magazine with the Lost Colony article and look proud of myself – just like second grade. Mrs. Malone would be proud. So would Mom.

Phoebe loved the symbolic bookshelf behind me. At first, I was unhappy about the packing boxes in the photo, but they too are symbolic. Now I’m packing and sorting, preparing for life’s next exciting chapter, wherever it leads.

I’ve come so very far from that desk in Mrs. Malone’s classroom.

In the Gene by Gene lab, Courtesy of the History Channel, “In Search of The Lost Colony of Roanoke” documentary which can be viewed here: https://www.history.com/shows/in-search-of/season-2/episode-3

I’m firmly convinced that the enchanted, mesmerizing world revealed in the National Geographic magazine was part of what piqued my curiosity about all things scientific. The first influential steps in a lifelong journey. Today, I’m honored to be an affiliate National Geographic, Genographic Project researcher.

Happy Birthday

This picture was taken on my 5^th birthday. You can count the number of candles on the cake. I don’t remember what was in the gifts, but since my birthday was right after school started, many times I received books and school supplies.

While that might sound disappointing to some people, I didn’t mind at all. I loved books!

Oh, and I still love chocolate cake too!

Today, I often sit at the kitchen table and write my blog stories, like this one. Of course, I have my handy dandy phone by my side now too.

Phoebe took the photos in both black and white and color, adjusting the various camera settings. After all, this was a class assignment that we turned into a really fun afternoon.

We couldn’t decide which version we liked better. The black and white is more authentic to the original photo, but the colorized one reflects life today.

As luck would have it, these photos were taken right after my birthday, so half a century (plus) after the original birthday photo. The new phone and red case was my gift from Jim. How times have changed. We didn’t even have a phone at all when the original photo was taken, and computers that weren’t the size of a building were something waiting in the distant future to be invented.

While overseas recently, my friend gifted me with books. Some things never change.

The only thing missing from this picture was chocolate and that’s because I cleared it off the table without thinking!

Throughout our photo shoot, we talked about things like trait similarities between generations. Who has whose smile? Who loves chocolate? How are we and family members alike and different? Phoebe didn’t have an opportunity to know my mother in person, but maybe she knows her a little better today than she did yesterday.

If we don’t take the opportunity to share our memories, even the ones we don’t think are important or relevant, they die with us.

Your Turn

It’s your turn now.

What kinds of old photos do you have that might be recreated? Maybe during the upcoming holiday season?

What seeds might be planted?

Is there an opportunity to utilize old photos to share the history of your family and family members individually, and have fun at the same time?

What things did you take for granted about your life that the are foreign to a younger generation?

What started you on the path to where you are today?

Whose kindness made a difference in your life?

What pebbles do you hold close to your heart, and why?

______________________________________________________________

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I’ve been trying to figure out how to say this for some time now, so I’m just going to come right out and say it.

I certainly wish you a good life, but I also wish you a good death.

Let me explain.

A quarter century ago today, on Sunday of Labor Day weekend, my much-beloved step-father, Dean Long whom I called Dad, slipped away from us – after removing his own tracheostomy tube.

He took that drastic action because his life, and his slow, tortuous death had become untenable. He was ready to end his own suffering and check out.

Of course, obituaries never tell us about actions like that. They focus on the positive and the family members – generally saying nothing at all about the final chapters of the person’s life.

Especially if it was less than wonderful.

I assure you, death from “end stage COPD” or slow oxygen starvation is less than wonderful.

Punctuation Marks

Our lives are punctuated by major events – the first of which, of course, is our birth. We have absolutely no control or input over that event.

Throughout our lives, other milestones occur – loves, marriages perhaps, births of family members, deaths of loved ones and eventually, our own passing over as our light winks out.

We do control the intervening events, at least to some extent, by our own choices.

But then, there’s death. We may or may not influence our own death, the cause and or the timing. Death may be sudden and swift, an accident perhaps, or long and lingering. It may be as a direct result of our choices, or not.

Landmarks

Each relationship has its own landmark events. My relationship with Dad was divided into three sections, the first being before he came into my life.

I didn’t know him until I was a tween, and he didn’t start dating Mom until I was a teen.

The transition into part 2 occurred in 1972 when he became my stepfather.

He had lost his own daughter as an infant who would have been about my age, before his wife’s death, so our unification as a family was a blessing for both of us.

For the next 22 years, our relationship was marked by seasons on the farm and normal family events. I gave him 2 grandchildren, he “gave me away” at my wedding.

He had faith and confidence in me when no one else did. He told me I could do anything I set my mind to, and I believed him.

The third stage has been since his passing, life without him.

A Personal Demon

Dad lived through hell with the slow, inevitable deaths of his daughter and wife. His only remaining child, a son, had issues that eventually would claim him too.

Dad had chronic health challenges himself, bleeding ulcers, then believed to have been brought on by stress. No one ever doubted that, given what he was living through on a daily basis at the time the ulcers developed.

Dad’s first wife and family were called into a hospital room more than once to be informed of the grim news that he wasn’t going to make it.

Like a cat with 9 lives, miraculously, somehow, he did. But Dad wasn’t immortal, and eventually became his own worst enemy. He ran out of lives and miracles.

Dad smoked.

When he was young, smoking was popular and fashionable. We can thank the tobacco industry for that. He was hooked.

After they were married, Mom quit smoking, but Dad never did. Nicotine is incredibly addictive – the fourth most addictive substance in the world according to American Addiction Centers. Knowing people who have and haven’t kicked the habit, I can vouch for that statement. Even 30 years later Mom said she WANTED to smoke. She just didn’t.

Problems Begin

In the 1980s, Dad began to develop breathing problems. At first, he chalked it up to age and his other pre-existing health issues. By then he was, after all, 60.

He ignored it as long as possible as the symptoms gradually worsened, until ignoring them wasn’t possible anymore. One day in the early 1990s he had an “incident” at home. How my mother who was only a slip of a woman managed to drag him out of the house, shove his limp body into the car and drive the 25 miles or so to the nearest hospital emergency room is beyond me, but she did.

There was little hope. Mom thought sure he was dead and alternated between yelling at him not to give up and praying as she drove like a bat out of hell.

In spite of his condition, the ER staff revived him – barely. He remained hospitalized for weeks, and when finally released, he hadn’t had a cigarette since that fateful day.

He was told that if he stopped smoking permanently, as in didn’t start again, he would probably have several good years left, but if he did not, he would die of COPD, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder, then known as Emphysema. I’ll spare you the photo, but if you’d like to see what lung tissue of a smoker with COPD looks like, click here.

It’s no wonder he couldn’t breathe.

Back to the Barn

Dad was a life-long farmer, and even though he had officially been “retired” for years, unless the farmer moves away from the farm itself, they never really retire.

Dad leased the land to his nephew, but he still kept his workshop at the barn which was his regular respite from all things worldly.

It was also a place where Dad could smoke without anyone knowing. Except of course, we did know. The smell gave him away.

He wound up in and out of the hospital for the next year or two, always swearing he wouldn’t smoke again, and always doing it anyway.

Labor Day, 1994

My life was a mess in 1994, from one end to the other. Every way imaginable – in addition to Dad’s illness.

My (now former) husband suffered a massive stroke in June of 1993, but hadn’t died. I was supporting the family and trying to earn enough to pay his gargantuan bills, PLUS being the caregiver for a severely disabled husband who could never be left alone, not even for a minute.

In early summer, not long after Father’s Day, Dad became ill again. The routine was disturbingly familiar – the hospital, intensive care, tubes, machines endlessly beeping and sleep-deprived prayers.

A few weeks later, Dad was sent to a “rehab hospital” where it was hoped he would recover enough to go home, or at least to a nursing home.

Dad wasn’t improving this time. Mom said he was getting worse and it didn’t look good. She was a wreck. Mom and Dad both needed me.

My friend who was a nurse came to stay with my husband so my daughter and I could go and visit Dad one last time. My son was at college and headed for the hospital directly from there.

Dad had been on a ventilator to assist his breathing, but a permanent tracheostomy was installed during his hospital stay, causing him not to be able to talk.

Dad, quite irritated with the trach, and that he was still alive and miserable, was done with both – and removed his own trach tube.

How he managed to find enough strength to do that is also beyond me – but he was one determined man, and he did.

That event in the rehab hospital caused him to be sent back to the regular hospital where he refused all treatment except for comfort care.

At least now he could talk to people.

The family had gathered and we were sleeping in shifts on the floor in the family lounge, taking turns sitting by his side. As the sun rose on Sunday morning of Labor Day weekend, Dad drifted in and out of fitful sleep. My daughter and I had not left the hospital in 2 days and we needed to go to the farm to take a shower.

Dad hadn’t yet passed away – in spite of removing his trach. Maybe there really was at least a glimmer of hope.

We told Dad we’d be back in an hour. He tried to make a joke about how difficult it was to die and how he wasn’t doing a very good job. My eyes filled with tears to see him that way, so small and weak and vulnerable, yet still trying to be jovial to make us laugh.

A man of very few words who rarely expressed emotion, he told us he loved us. That should have clued me.

As I walked into the farmhouse 20 minutes later, the phone was ringing. There was no need to go back to the hospital. Dad was gone. He had chosen his time and departed.

We turned around and went back anyway, for Mom.

Apparently, Dad was waiting for us to leave because he knew how upsetting it would be for my daughter and me to see him pass. He told Mom as much. Then he shut his eyes.

His last act on this earth was one of generosity – even in his death.

That was the story of those 22 years I spent as his daughter – he was always thinking about Mom and me.

Thankfully, Mom was sitting beside him, holding his hand, telling him to “go on.”

Somehow, I think he was waiting for me at the farm that day, by the time I arrived. I knew he was with me. I was not alone.

His Own Terms

In one way, Dad died on his own terms. He removed the trach and decided enough was enough.

But in another very crucial way, he did not. No one would ever choose to slowly suffocate.

Yes, you could say that he asked for it by continuing to smoke – and indeed he did.

Addictions are like that – you don’t think about the long-term consequences because you’re only going to do it “just this once” to quiet the cravings. Of course, there is always another “just this once.”

But by the time we had arrived at Labor Day weekend in 1994, the only thing Dad had control over was removing that trach tube. There was no turning back time.

Anger, Sadness, Grief

I loved and still do love Dad incredibly, but I was angry with him too. It seemed like his death was so senseless and futile.

He could have lived longer had he only been able to walk away from those evil cigarettes, if not in the early 1970s when Mom quit, then at least later.

But he was unable to do that.

He suffered terribly, and so did we.

I know one thing – if there was anything that could have motivated Dad enough to stop smoking, it would have been me, Mom and my kids. He told me that he felt he had failed us – although we reassured him that he had not and we loved him regardless.

I didn’t, but I wanted to say that he had only failed himself. I didn’t have to. He knew that. I didn’t want him to think I was disappointed in him.

It wasn’t his own death that concerned him, but what would happen to Mom.

Everyone suffered during Dad’s prolonged illness, his actual death, and the ramifications to the family afterwards. Those lasted more than another twenty years – beyond Mom’s death – and his death colored the quality of the rest of her life.

Thank goodness we had those 22 years, less 18 days, together as a family.

A Quarter Century

It’s been a quarter century ago this morning that he left us.

As I ponder this past 25 years, of course I grieve his actual passing and life without him. He was a Godsend to my family. A quiet, inspirational giant of humanity among men.

However, I’m also struck with the sadness and horrific slowness of his death.

In 1990 when my sister died, it wasn’t slow, but quick and sudden. We were shocked and no one except her husband got to say goodbye. In fact, I’m not positive that he did.

I used to think I didn’t know which was worse, sudden departure with no goodbyes or a more protracted exit, allowing goodbyes.

Clearly, there’s a range for everything. No one, but no one wants a prolonged suffering tortuous death. Just as clearly, very few would opt for an impaired life with little quality or becoming a burden on the family.

Some people might prefer a happy medium, with a little “notice” in order to get their affairs in order and say a proper goodbye, whatever that is for them.

We may or may not have influence or control over the circumstances of our death.

Our “affairs” should always be in order.

Wishing You a Good Death

Perhaps the nicest thing I can do for you is to wish you a “good death” when you’re the most vulnerable and no longer in control of your life. Whatever it is that “good death” means to you.

I know what it means for me.

I’ve prepared, well, except for my genealogy which is probably never going to be “done.” I have a lot more research to do, so I hope I’m graced with a lot more time to finish😊

Wills and other documents have been put in place because eventually, we all need them.

I know that the last time I see people may actually “be” the last time I see them – due to either their demise or mine.

Every time we get in the car to run an errand, we risk our lives at some level. I don’t know about you, but I’m not willing to stay home. I accept whatever level of risk is inherent with full comprehension that one day, somehow, someplace, my 9 lives will expire too.

I try to live my life with the understanding that if I get my way, my “good death” will be quick and sudden. Preferably sleeping with a cat or two laying on me, with no one bothered with hospitals and such. That means that one fateful day, an otherwise routine interaction with my family will in fact be their final memory of me. That’s how I’ll be remembered. I always try to keep that in mind and choose my words so that neither I nor they will have regrets.

May you experience a wonderful life, living every day and each experience to its fullest potential. Reaping every opportunity that life has to offer.

And when the time comes, may you also be blessed with a “good death.”

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Disclosure

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase the price you pay but helps me to keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Transfers

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• MyHeritage DNA only
• MyHeritage DNA plus Health
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Genealogy Services

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My Kirsch ancestors were born and lived in Fussgoenheim, Germany, along with Koehler family members. Recently, a friend, Noél who lives in the US but was traveling to Germany made me a fantastic offer – one I couldn’t believe – or turn down.

Noél offered to drive to Fussgoenheim during a trip to Germany and see if she could find the Kirsch/Koehler houses based on the photos in my blog articles.

Can you believe that? Well, neither could I, especially after discovering that the small local museum was entirely unresponsive and uncooperative. I had heard, for years, that the little museum housed genealogies and photos of the oldest local families as well as the oldest homes. Nope, they said, they know nothing – and then when I tried to make arrangements to visit, crickets.

A year earlier, when another cousin attempted to visit, they also found the door locked and the secrets firmly held. How sad.

I told Noél that I really could not impose on her vacation in that way.

Noél, an avid genealogist, however, was not to be deterred!

“Yes, the minutes are precious, but I can always make time for a fellow genealogist…plus you did help me…”

I can’t even begin to express my gratitude to Noél and her husband.

Historic Fussgoenheim

The article where I published the Kirsch/Koehler photos, taken by a cousin, Marliese, who was raised in Fussgoenheim and sent the photos in letters to a US cousin is titled Margaretha Elisabetha Koehler (1772-1823), Weak Child, Baptized in a Hurry – 52 Ancestors #228.

In early 1948, Marliese, then a teenager, wrote a letter addressed to “Koehler Family of Aurora, Indiana from Marliese in Fussgoenheim,” hoping that it would make it’s way to someone. It did.

In the letter she said:

Hunting through things, I discovered your address and pictures which my grandmother said were her American cousins, her only relatives.

More than a year ago, I decided to write but the thought that my letter might be regarded by you as a begger letter detained me from writing.

After providing additional family information, she closed:

We would be very happy to hear from you, the only relatives on my grandmother’s side.

She signed the letter, “Marliese, granddaughter, niece of Marie Kirsch.”

Hazel Koehler’s father, Henry, then age 79 answered Marliese on August 27th.

Marliese and Hazel wrote back and forth for more than 25 years, with Hazel saving everything, which eventually allowed me to corresponded with Marliese’s daughter briefly a few years ago.

I have never been so grateful for old correspondence. Their letters were immensely helpful, not only with genealogy but to gain historical perspective of both World War II and life in Fussgoenheim during earlier generations.

Please note that in the original article I was uncertain about whether the house pictured above is the Kirsch or Koehler home, but rereading Marliese’s letters, including her address, combined with the address Noél found proves unquestionably that this home is the Kirsch home, not the Koehler home. I’m simply overjoyed, because this home still exists today AND I have photos.

Marliese tells Hazel:

We live in the old homestead of your ancestors, and in Germany the people that live on the farms need not suffer hunger.

Marliese’s letters portray a grim story of the war and the aftermath. I will include snippets throughout this “visit” to put the images in perspective and provide a bit of history about the family that lived in this home during that time.

In her November 1948 letter, Marliese says:

We still live in the old parental home and birthplace of your father and grandmother, because their house and acres were taken over by my great-grandfather, Jacob Kirsch. Even today some of the older people in the village call him Koehler Kirsch.

Marliese enclosed this identification document that included Jacob’s photo.

Marliese continues:

I am 17 on Christmas Day. My father, Otto, 47, is the son of Marie Kirsch born in 1871, daughter of Jacob Kirsch whose sister Elizabeth married Philip Koehler with whom she immigrated to America. With them was also a brother John Kirsch.

Since my grandmother had no siblings and her father’s brothers and sisters went to America, they were her only relatives. I never knew my grandmother since she died 2 years before I was born.

Jacob, pictured above, is the great-grandson of my ancestors, Johann Peter Koehler and Anna Elisabeth Scherer. He also descends from my Kirsch line in Fussgoenheim, but I’ve yet to figure out exactly how. Fussgoenheim has experienced record loss, but the Kirsch, Koehler and Koob families are very intertwined and it’s likely that Jakob descends from multiple ancestors in all 3 families, as do I.

Marliese goes on to say that:

The Kirsch family lived ever since 1626 in Fussgoenheim. Statistics which I have obtained which is one of the oldest families and John Kirsch 4th was one of the richest farmers in the area.

Fussgoenheim is about 70 km from France. I went to college where I studied both English and French.

While goods, according to Hazel, were no longer rationed in the US, they were in Germany according to Marliese, and would be for a long time to come.

In my articles, I always try to give directions so that any future genealogist could follow my path and find what I found. In this case, finding what I thought was the Kirsch home and publishing the location, I did myself a huge, and I mean huge, favor. I just didn’t realize it at the time.

The Genealogy

I pieced together the genealogy of the both Marliese and Hazel from their correspondence and subsequent documents. When Marliese first began writing, she had to depend on the memory of her parents, and needless to say, memories had faded with time. Eventually, she did obtain some documents from the town hall as well as a Koob descendant whom she describes as an old neighbor boy Walter Schnebel, and unraveled a bit more. Walter is reportedly writing a book.

Sometimes Marliese referred to people by thier nicknames which really threw me for a loop, necessitating piecing several clues together. Not to mention that names were recycled generation after generation, of course.

I won’t be including a lot of genealogy, but for reference and documentation purposes, I’m providing their trees.

Marliese’s grandmother’s Kirsch/Koehler line. Marie was born in the Kirsch house in Fussgoenheim. Click to enlarge.

Click to enlarge. Johann Peter Koehler was Hazel’s grandfather, born in Fussgoenheim.

Roberta’s Kirsch/Koehler line. Click to enlarge. Philip Jacob Kirsch was born in Fussgoenheim.

Noél’s Trip

I tried to schedule an appointment at the museum in Fussgoenheim, with no luck. The people I was referred to never replied, and then neither did the original contacts. Very frustrating and not very welcoming.

Noél’s trip was imminent, so I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best, meaning that she could find something, even without local assistance. Frankly, I wouldn’t have blamed her one bit had she thrown in the towel at that point.

I waited to hear. I tried not to worry.

A month later, late one night, an email arrived from Noél, where she says:

Let’s start with the “not good” news.

My heart sank.

The museum in Mutterstadt is only open by scheduling an appointment in advance which we found out today at the Rathaus. So that was a bust. 😠 We tried to visit the library in Fussgöenheim in the hope of finding more information on the two families. Only open on Tuesday from 3-6 and Thursday 4-7  😔

By the way, the Rathaus is the city hall – the same place I had called and written trying to schedule someone at the museum. They aren’t open without an appointment, then refuse to schedule one. Yes, I’m still salty about that.

Now on to the good news.

Holding my breath now…

Your Google Earth research was positively spot on. And we have a huge number of pictures for you. However, they are locked in my camera until we can download them so I took a number on my cell phone to hold you over until we return.

Jumping for joy!!!!

Noél is apparently aware of my (ahem) ancestor-rock-addiction.

There were no rocks for me to grab at the Kirsch home but there were a number of rock-shaped pieces of stucco (that had fallen off the house) so I grabbed one for you.

This piece is large marble size – about three quarters of an inch.

You will be happy to know that I was able to walk beside the Kirsch home to take photos. Look at what is on the second floor in that picture…wonder if it came with the house???

Enjoy the pictures and I’ll send a ton more when we return. Let me know if you have any questions. FYI the house number for the Kirsch house is #9.

Then…drum roll…the photos!

The Teaser Pictures

I am literally feasting my eyes.

Click to enlarge

If you compare the original Marliese photo, you can see the “door in the door” above that was standing open in the photo from the 1930s or 1940s.

It looks like the house that Marliese marked secondly as the Koehler home is gone today and is where there is a gate in the wall between the two homes. I wonder when that happened.

Noél tried to find someone at home, but no one answered.

However, look at this beautiful garden area at the Kirsch home today.

And this! THIS! Be still my heart. Were these items from the original house? Did my ancestors own these? What is that area beneath the roof and above the wall? Was it originally the barn and held these items? Marliese did send a grainy photo with her father driving a tractor, so it would have been housed someplace.

Looking at the Kirsch home from down the street. I still can’t believe I actually found it on Google maps, and Noél found it too.

The neighbors, further down the street. I can’t help but wonder if more relatives lived here. Of course they did! We just don’t know who they were.

I was ecstatic to receive these teaser photos, but there was much more on the way a few weeks later!

More Pictures

One rainy day when I desperately needed something uplifting, Noél’s envelope arrived, plopped down on the doorstep in the rain by the mail carrier. Thankfully, Noél had packaged things carefully.

I found these things inside:

• A thumb drive with pictures
• A small box with my stucco piece that had fallen from the Kirsch house
• A guided tour with the photos printed in order that they had been taken

She went to a lot of effort on my behalf. Shall we accompany Noél?

Welcome to Fussgoenheim

I can’t tell you how excited I am!

Fussgoenheim has existed since at least 893 when a list of goods is found in the records of the Prum Abbey. Jerg Kirsch, born about 1630, is reportedly already in Fussgoenheim in the first records and noted as “mitpichter des Sankt Jopten Altargutes,” which I’m told translates to someking akin to “land church tenant.” Another researcher indicated that he was co-tenant of the Josten estate.”

Marliese, who had access to far more records than I do, indicated that the Kirsch family was in Fussgoenheim in 1626.

There may well have been another 800 years of ancestors living right here before Jerg. The first population details were recorded in 1560 when 150-200 people were living in Fussgoenheim. Today, there are about 2,500.

Looking at this sign, I surely wonder if any of my ancestors were here in 893. The town is reportedly in the process of publishing a book by Walter Schnebel, but I’m not holding my breath.

Noél found the Rathaus at the intersection of Ruchheimer Strasse and Hauptstrasse.

Around the corner, the library, also closed.

Not to be deterred, Noél and her husband went on to find the Kirsch and Koehler properties.

Again, the intersection. To find the Kirsch home, Noél would turn to the right.

They found the street.

The older homes have the large doors which function as car doors, driveways and gardens today. Historically, the houses in the village were all joined for protection and defense – so these doors opened into work areas for the homeowners who were farmers and craftsmen. The fields were located behind the homes in very long narrow plots.

Here’s an aerial view with the top red arrow pointing to the intersection and the lower red arrow pointing to the Kirsch home. Note the fields to the rear of all of the properties.

Marliese’s mother wrote to Hazel in 1949:

You asked why our houses are so close together. Our ground is so rich that a farmer with 32-40 acres is considered a rancher of high standing. In normal times, a farmer with 8 to 12 acres can live solely off the crops which he can raise. The fields of various sizes are situated about the village and all is bottom land (not hilly.)

Then she adds:

When the war broke out, we could not buy enough to eat. We raise mainly vegetables and cannot raise livestock so must buy our draft animals.

My father’s sister’s only son just returned from Egypt where he was an English prisoner all this time. Now he’s 28.

Many of the large doors open into a courtyard today. Most seem to be a car door with a person door included.

Look! Look! I can see it, on the left just beyond the pink buildings in the distance!!!

Here it is!

Just look at that! The large door is almost as large as the house and is as large or larger than the portion of the building to the right of the door. I surely wonder what is inside today. The window in the right part is entirely shuttered and the ones on the second floor of the part on the left too.

Garten Testaltung translates into garden design. A gardener – how fun.

To the right of the house is the garden wall where the old Koehler house used to stand. The extremely frugal Germans hardly ever tear anything down, so I wonder what happened to that building. Other buildings of the same age are being lived in and are well-maintained.

You can see that the house in front is gone, but several buildings to the rear remain.

It’s obvious in an aerial photograph too.

Driving on down the street and looking back. I wonder what the difference was between the houses with the roofs with and without that little triangle shaped divit in the front. Maybe built at different times, or socio-economic class perhaps. The tallest buildings had more windows in total and 3 rounded ones.

Why are the upper windows small and rounded on top?

These are the kinds of questions the museum or local historian might have been able to answer.

The sign on this house translates into “installer and heating builder master plant.” Another house with a large door that connects two buildings on the same plot of land.

I love those old wood doors. I wonder how old that wood is.

The Kirsch house has only one small rounded window, while some of the larger homes have 3 and an extra story.

I’ve also wondered when people who lived here obtained amenities like sewers and electricity. In one of Marliese’s letters, she said that they had electricity since 1910 in Fussgoenheim.

Interestingly, she also mentioned in that same letter that the family all has dark hair. So did our Kirsch line.

As Marliese chattered about the family, more than once she mentioned that people often didn’t talk about family members who “died young.”

Anna Maria Kirsch had a daughter, Maria Katherine (1825-1862) who was married to Carl Ritthaler who later moved to Maudach after his wife died. They had a son, Peter, born in 1860 and his name was Peter Ritthaler and now I hear that my uncle’s son-in-law came from Maudach. He said yes, his relatives came from Fussgoenheim and that his father who died 3 years ago was Peter. He said his grandmother was Koehler but she died young. He said he had a godfather in America but he doesn’t know much about it because his father talked little about it.

Taking a Walk

Noél was able to walk along the left side of the house.

Note the corner where the stucco has been repaired. That’s your anchor point for the next few photos.

The wall of the Kirsch house. In the photos from the 1930s or 1940s, another house stood up against the Kirsch home on this side.

Even after the war ended officially, times were very difficult for German citizens. It was to this home that Hazel sent gifts to Marliese and her family who were terribly embarrased about their economic situation resulting from the war.

In a letter in 1948 titled, “To Our American Family from Your German Family,” Marliese’s mother writes to Hazel:

Thanks for that rich package to our Marliese which you have sent her. Marliese has never had these things because she was only 7 when the war broke out. We know them only by name.

However words fail me to say the things I should and feel because the knowledge of knowing we are not in a position to repay you.  No words can express the happiness which you have bestowed upon our child and none of us could keep back our tears of happiness to see her as happy as she was.

It is hard to select which item has brought her most happiness. Take for instance the nylon hose which is only a dream for younger girls over here. And solemnly she tells everyone that this treasure, her nylon hose, she will only wear on very rare and special occasions.

And then the chocolates and sweets; this also is treasured very highly. To prove it, Marliese and her father are fighting a civil war, because every time she checks upon the contents, somehow it has diminished. Questioning her father, he had to admit getting into it. He too is very fond of sweets. His excuse is that he has more of a right to take a piece now and then; so he says that his relationship is much closer than hers. This brought laughter and all was forgiven.

It is true that all the food things which you have sent have made us very happy but you ought not spend money on us. We do not go hungry. Of course it is impossible for us to obtain the things that you have sent. In years past we have learned to restrict ourselves of luxuries and delicacies.

You can imagine how happy it made us to receive your first package on Christmas Day, which is as you know Marliese’s birthday. She was ready to go to church Christmas morning as the mailman came. He said “Santa Clause from America is here.”

It fills my heart with joy and from the bottom of my heart I wish to thank you for all the happiness you have bestowed upon our Marliese. Actually you don’t even know her. I want to take the opportunity to introduce you.

Marliese as a child has filled our hearts with happiness. She was and is a good girl as well as brave. In school she was a top scholar. Her vocabulary is wide, therefore we sent her to college. There again she was one of the best scholars. The sad thing, however, is that we had to curtail her studying.

Financially we became embarrassed but most of all we needed her help at home.  Physically, I am not too well. It was a hard blow to her as well as the professors, but it could not be helped and now she is a very able hand in the house as well as in the field. Her heart however, is still on studying to further broaden her. Any problem that occurs here in document or writing or just plain figuring, it is Marliese who does it. Therefore it is more helpful and interesting to her when you write to us which is a change when she can answer your letters.

The prisoners of war who returned compared American and German farming.  Everything in America is mechanized but over here we must farm day in and day out. Between March and November we spend all our time in the fields and housework is much neglected. Only on Sundays we were allowed to catchup a bit. It is definitely not a nice life to live. It is very trying and tiresome. Farming is since June 1948 due to the stabilizing of the dollar(?), one of the most essentials. We have two hired hands, plus 4 by day in the summer. This last year we have had to do with one hand only and do the rest of the work ourselves.

Perhaps some of the space in the second building, to the rear and in the lofts was for the hired hands.

The windows would have been added since that time, perhaps when the neighbor structure was removed. This tells us that these buildings or additions to the Kirsch home were originally built before the neighbor house was demolished, and probably long, long before.

Obviously, even though the houses are built against each other, they do have separate support, framing and walls because the houses on both sides of the Kirsch home have been removed and this house still stands. I wonder how many hundreds of years old it is and what records might still exist.

It looks like the Kirsch home has been expanded several times. The windows on this side look to be glass bricks, but the bricks in each section are different from each other.

It looks the fourth addition has a more modern square roof on top. I’m reminded of the farm houses in the US. My Dad used to say you could always tell when it was a good year because houses had room additions and new barns.

Notice the pink neighbor building butts right up against the Kirsch home. In some places, the stucco has fallen off and you can see the original brickwork.

The bricks below are exposed on the front portion of the building at the driveway. We know this portion of the house was there when Marliese lived here, and her ancestors before her. These bricks below don’t look like they were laid with mortar. I can’t help but wonder if descendants still own this property, but I have a vague memory of Marliese’s daughter saying no.

Ok, let’s go back out to the street.

I must say, the building between these two wasn’t very large, only wide enough for a driveway now. However, as we’ll see in a minute, that wasn’t terribly unusual.

In the vintage photos, one man was wearing an apron that looked like a butcher’s apron, which might explain the need for a separate building that didn’t need to be very wide. Craftsmen in these villages practiced their trade where they lived.

Between the buildings, you can see another yellow heritage home across the street. I wonder who lived there when my ancestors lived here. Given that both the Kirsch and Koehler families married heavily into the Koob family, they surely lived in very close proximity.

The sidewalks are new, of course. In the vintage photos, they look so to be quite uneven cobblestones, probably constructed at different times, then patched – the goal being mud reduction.

All of the buildings have the dark brown area at the bottom front-facing – both then and now. I wonder what it is and why. This one looks to be metal. Are the spaces vent holes?

Marliese’s father, Otto, may give us a clue in a letter he penned to Hazel on Christmas Day in 1949.

All through the war we lived in constant fear and danger day and night. We had air raids due to the fact that we live right in the vicinity of the two cities of Ludwigshaven and Mannheim.  Night after night we live in our basements in order to get some sleep and again today that fear of constant fear and hardship has arisen from the east (Russia) and we are praying to god to spare us from this danger. We are very well informed what communism is because our boys had fought in Russia and have felt with soul and body the principals of communism.  Thank God I was not a soldier but a factory worker.

This tells us that there is a basement in this house, so these must be basement windows of some sort. I wonder if basements were originally included as safety for the family. Germany has a very long history of warfare and invasions.

My ancestors stood and walked here on these streets. They were born and died here. Generation after generation for at least 400 years – in tough times and those that were prosperous.

Marliese Gets Married

Marliese never got to return to college. The war interrupted so many lives and plans.

By 1951, Marliese was able to send some things to Hazel from Germany, which pleased Hazel to no end. However, for some reason, they were prohibited from sending glass items.

I was very touched in 1954 when Marliese invited her “Aunt Hazel” to her wedding, a love-struck young bride.

Aunt Hazel was greatly appreciative, but unable to attend. Today, we hop on planes with barely a second thought, but not then.

In 1959, Marliese tells Hazel that they are paying her generosity forward by sponsoring two families in the “East Zone” of Germany.

Marliese and Hazel became fast friends, even though Hazel was more than 30 years older then Marliese. They shared news of births and deaths, and at one time, some 25 years later, recapped their quarter century of being enmeshed in each other’s lives. They had met when Marliese’s family was in great need and had seen each other through immeasureable joy and grief as family members arrived on and departed from this earth.

About 1974, Hazel writes, chatting about her cat, then:

So much has happened in 25 years.

Mama, Papa, Papa’s sister Blanche, Papa’s 2 sisters Aunt Anna Metzger and Aunt Laura Littell, cousins Harry and Earl Littell, and Dan Metzger have all passed on.  Also Papa’s half sister Aunt Minnie Gerlach also his 2 half brothers John and George Koehler.  Only one half brother left Herman Peter Koehler who lives in Florida.

Over there in Germany your father and grandfather were gone and you were 17.  Now you are married with 6 children. I hope your mother is well.  I have kept all your letters and pictures.

Marliese’s father and grandfather died 5 weeks apart and the grandfather lived with them in the Kirsch home.

Eventually, in the mid/late 1970s, Marliese shared with Hazel that her daughter was in the US and through another of her children had an 8 month old grandchild.

Marliese’s mother still lived in the Kirsch home in Fussgoenheim and I believe Marliese and her family did as well. Eventually, they all moved.

In 1977, Hazel wrote to Marliese’s daughter in the US. The torch was passed to yet another generation.

Hazel, who never married, told Marliese that she went every week to visit the Riverview cemetery in Indiana where her father, as well as Anne Marie Kirsch are both buried. Hazel said Anne Marie Kirsch Koehler (1804-1888), who immigrated as a widow after Martin Koehler died and remained that way the rest of her life, was the 7th person to be buried in that cemetery. Anne Marie was baptized as Anna Margaretha – Anne Marie was her family nickname.

Marliese continued with her interest in genealogy over the years, in spite of having a large family with at least 6 children. In a letter written some time after 1975, she said:

The ancestors left Germany because it was a time of need.  A lot of hard work and little money.

I had always wondered what prompted Philip Jacob Kirsch and several family members to undertake that journey, especially knowing there was no going back or seeing anyone left behind.

Marliese also mentioned that the French destroyed some of the records at some point, so the regions genealogical records are incomplete. I’ve since discovered the same issue.

It seems that the history of Germany is steeped in both warfare and economic ebb and flow.

The Koehler Family

By comparison, the Koehlers who lived next door, were relative newcomers.

Marliese writes to Hazel on her 17th birthday, Christmas Day, in 1948 saying that soap is a luxurty and simply cannot be obtained in Germany. She says she can’t remember the last time she ate chocolate. Chocolate and cocoa weren’t available at all for most of the 10 year war, “but they are “now” but are very expensive.” Too expensive for Marliese’s family.

She says they have been very busy laboring in the fields and she had to leave college to assist.

Marliese is embarrassed about their poverty and accepting gifts when she can return nothing. War was a decade of hell, encompassing almost all of lifetime that Marliese remembers. Families turned to God and the church, because their faith was often the only thing they had to sustain them.

We are praying to God that He may save our homeland for ourselves, because He would know the approximate time of another war involving our vicinity.  We would pack up and leave.  Maybe we are forced to leave and now I wish you a very happy New Year.

And then, Marliese shifted gears and told us this tidbit.

The old Koehler homestead is not in Fussgoenheim, but is in Rheingoeheim, exactly 8 miles from Fussgoeheim. There are many people there with that name. Our great-grandmother came from there with that name. My mother remembers that her great-grandmother had relatives in America, but cannot remember particulars. I wonder if we are also related on my mother’s side.  I am trying to find the birthplace of Martin Koehler.

In July 1939, Marliese added this:

My father belongs to a singer society and one day when he was coming home from a rehearsal he told me that Martin Koehler, your grandfather, is one of the charter members. He verified it by explaining a large picture on which were all charter members and others that had joined is proudly hanging on the wall of the home of the Society. The picture is in the form of a tree and Martin Koehler is one of the roots as a charter member. And my father is one of them.

We had been told that Martin Koehler, my father’s grandfather was a music teacher and it must be the connection he had with this society and being a charter member, where the folks got that idea.

Not long ago I was told by an old woman that we are related to you on my mother’s side. My mother’s great-grandmother was Barbara Koehler and hailed from Rheingoehheim and now I have found out that Rheingoenheim and Ellerstadt are the same line and clan.

That tidbit about the Rheingoenheim and Ellerstadt families is quite interesting, because those villages aren’t exactly neighbors.

I don’t find the Koehler family in Rheingoenheim, but across the Rhine in Seckenheim in older generations. Rheingoenheim is between the locations, so that makes sense.

Johann Peter Koehler was born in 1723 and died in 1791, in Ellerstadt. However, at least some of his children moved to the neighbor village, Fussgoenheim. Johann Peter’s daughter, Margaretha Elisabetha Koehler was born in Ellerstadt, but she married Andreas Kirsch of Fussgoenheim.

The Koehler home belonged to Johann Martin Koehler and Anna Margaretha Kirsch. I don’t know if Marliese ever found this informatoin, but Martin was born on October 23, 1796 in Ellerstadt. In 1821 he married Anna Margaretha Kirsch, the daughter of my ancestor Andreas Kirsch and his wife Margaretha Elisabetha Koehler who lived next door in the Kirsch house.

Margaretha Elisabetha Koehler was the daughter of Johann Peter Koehler and Anna Elisabetha Scherer of Ellerstadt. Johann Peter and Elisabetha were the grandparents of Johann Martin Koehler. These 2 families began intermarrying and continued for several generations.

After Johann Martin Koehler, a musician, died in 1847 or 1848, Anna Margaretha Kirsch Koehler immigrated to Dearborn County, Indiana with her 3 sons and her brother, Philip Jacob Kirsch’s family.

Ironically, Philip Jacob Kirsch’s son, Jacob, born in Mutterstadt Germany in 1841 founded an establishement in Aurora, Indiana called “The Kirsch House.” Of course, I think fondly of this home in Fussgoenheim as “The Kirsch House” too – the original one.

The Kirsch House

So many of my ancestors lived in this this very house, looked out of these windows and touched this wood. Some, their identities, unknown today, probably roofed this structure with baked ceramic tiles centuries ago. Others passed by and married into the Kirsch family. In a small village, everyone knew every person who lived in every house. There were no strangers and few secrets.

The ancestors blocked above in red we know lived or died in Fussgoenheim. The red stars we can probably safely assume did. Johann Peter Koehler lived in Ellerstadt, the next village over, just two miles up the road, but you know he visited his daughter and several of his other children who married in Fussgoenheim.

The Koob family also figures prominently in both of these families, so I wonder if the Koobs lived in one of the neighbor houses in the pictures.

Looking up at the Kirsch home as we walk past. These two families were surely in and out of both houses as if they were one.

Noél was able to photograph the garden area of the Kirsch home.

Those are incredible wagon wheels, crocks and lanterns! I see a plow, I think, a yoke for oxen and so many other pieces of memorabilia. Horseshoes, baskets and harnesses. Noél’s camera took amazing, clear, photographs and I was able to zoom in for a great view.

Facing the home, at right is the smaller building to the right of the main large door, and indeed, that large brown door is access to the alleyway between the two structures for parking. The actual house doors open into this garden/driveway area.

I believe the wooden gnarly thing beyond the small tree in the very corner of the photo to the left is an old grapevine.

Person after my own heart – a rock on the steps.

The carved or cast stone basins are watering troughs.

A millwheel and a barrel, along with more wagon wheels and a broom.

Goodness. Baskets and bells and tables and chairs and stumps, plus a garden gnome of course.

What a beautiful way to decorate a small space.

The Koehler House

Stepping back onto the sidewalk, the building to the right, above, is the small structure to the right of the large brown door when facing the building from the street, with the one window, before the garden walls starts, below.

The wall is where the Koehler home used to be.

I wonder if the building in back of where the Koehler home stood is original or new.

I think it looks to be newer, based on the windows.

Noél was able to see over the top of the gate.

The right side of the structure behind where the Koehler house stood.

Like all of the old homes in this village, it seems to be a combination of living and work space.

This property today looks possibly to be a combination of 2 earlier properties.

Flooding

I’ve wondered if historically this area flooded. The buildings seem to have some moisture-looking damage at ground level, and the fronts all seem to be “buffered” in some way for a foot or two above the sidewalk.

Marliese wrote to Hazel sometime in the spring of 1949.

Last year in a calendar from our homeland, the Pfalz, I read that many years ago families by the name of Hohenbacher from our town as well as the Pfalz immigrated to America as well as did hundreds of other families. They homesteaded in different states and so it came while reading in the calendar I found Aurora, Indiana. I found a street in Aurora named Hohenbacker. Is that so? I had to write to you and have been so happy to receive your letters.

We live 10k from the Rhine, so don’t have to fear a flood. It used to flood, but it is dammed in its banks.  When your grandmother was here, there was still the danger of high water or floods, but not now.

Aunt Hazel, in your letter to asked me my wishes. Well, this is a little bit embarrassing. I do not want anything. I cannot see that I should burden you with things that are costing money. I am happy that I can write to you and get an answer from you. We have lived through so many years of war and had to make the most of it and better times I do hope are ahead. Direct hunger, we have not, because we always have our bread and potatoes. We are managing and make the best of it with our clothing. We have learned to be satisfied and I am not reared to live in luxury. At the beginning of the War, I was only a little girl. We could not purchase anything and so all clothing for me was retailored from my mothers and grandmothers. Today it is not quite as bad. We are able to purchase the most essential things, but all goods and materials are expensive but cheap. We still do the best we can and only buy when necessary and so again I would like to say it would only hurt me to know you have to spend money on me. If I only knew that times would get better and I would be in a position to repay you, then I would say that I would be happy and pleased over most anything to say outright I need everything, but this I only whisper to you for I am so afraid that you would be sorry you had answered by letter and the greatest heartache for me would be to stop corresponding with my aunt in America.

We take so much for granted today. Eventually, Marliese was able to send a cuckoo clock to Hazel for her father, but sadly it arrived after he died a tragic death.

Hazel was so pleased to be able to send gifts to Marliese and her family that brought joy.

Ancient Homes

The Kirsch and Koehler homes were probably some of the oldest houses in Fussgoenheim, situated a few houses from the Rathaus where government affairs occurred, and the present-day library is located.

How do we know these buildings are ancient?

According to Fussgoenheim history, until the 1800s, only the eastern route consisting of Hauptstrasse, translated literally to “main road,” and Ruchheimer Strasse was populated.

The settlement in Fussgoenheim of many peasants, craftsmen and merchants led to a significant population increase in the first half of the 1800s from about 500 inhabitants in 1815 to about 1000 in 1840.

The 16 members of the combined Kirsch and Koehler family left for Indiana on June 14, 1847 from the port of Le Havre, according to the Mutterstadt, Germany civil register which recorded the date. The entire town of both Mutterstadt and Fussgoenheim must have turned out to say goodbye as a wagon loaded with their worldly possessions began the 450 mile overland journey to the port of LeHavre where they would board a boat to cross the Atlantic. A year and three weeks later, on July 4, 1848, they would finally arrive in the port of New Orleans, to board a paddlewheeler that would paddle its way up the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, arriving in Aurora, Indiana a couple weeks later where they may have had family or friends waiting.

Aurora was very similar to the Rhine valley where the Kirsch family had lived for countless generations.

Growth and Expansion

It wouldn’t be until about 1950 that the population of Fussgoenheim reached 1500 according to official records, but Marliese said in 1948 that the population was about 2500.

During the growth period beginning in the early 1800s, settlement expanded in a westerly direction because the steep slope on the eastern border constituted a problem.

The Kirsch and Koehler homes reach far back into antiquity, probably predating the Hallberg Castle, built by Jakob Tillmann von Hallberg just down the street from the Kirsch home in Fussgoenheim in 1740.

Jerg Kirsch predated Jacob Tillman in Fussgoenheim by more than 100 years.

While the Kirsch and Koehler families were craftsmen in the 1800s, we don’t know much about their lives in the 1700s. Jerg’s son, Johann Michael Kirsch, my ancestor who died in 1743 was noted as a court member or juror. This could well have been where he served!

It’s likely that many if not most of the village residents who lived along Hauptstrasse worked for the wealthy Hallberg family, including the Kirsch family who lived at 9 Hauptstrasse and eventually the Koehler family at 11 Hauptstrasse. The castle was only a 5 minute walk away.

Even the Kirsch house number is decorated with horseshoes constructed to look like a flower – a lovely wink to the past. I so wonder if these were salvaged from the barn.

House number 11, the Koehler home, or where it was, well, let’s just say it’s not what it used to be.

Given the smallness of the village and how few homes would have existed – it’s very likely that other ancestors lived in these houses in earlier generations as well. If a village had 500 inhabitants, and each family had 10 members, that’s only 50 homes in 1815 and 100 homes by 1850. We could probably look at the church records between 1750 and 1800 and figure out who those 50 household (500 people) around 1800 would have been.

I suspect that by the time records began to be kept, everyone was already related. In the 1800s, everyone was literally related to everyone else. By that time, the Kirsch family had been there for at least 200 years, roughly 8 generations of intermarrying. Maybe the Koehler bloodline was a welcome addition, although somehow I’m thinking that a village only a couple miles away was also quite interrelated.

Saying Goodbye

Alas, it’s time to say goodbye to the Kirsch home and where the Koehler home once stood.

Will this house still stand in another century, given that the houses on either side have already passed into memory sometime in the past 75 years? It’s difficult to maintain a vintage home.

If they don’t, Marliese and now Noél will have preserved at least a part of this wonderful home’s legacy for future generations. I can’t say a large enough thank you to Noél for her extremely generous gift.

My heart is touched to be able to visit, through Noél, this beautiful home in the quaint village of Fussgoenheim, a medieval farm village sewn into a patchwork quilt of fields in the German countryside.

A place where the land is nourished with the ashes, and DNA, of generations of my ancestors.

Ancestors Stories

If you’d like to read more about this family, I’ve written the following individual stories and there are more to come:

• Andreas Kirsch (1774-1819) of Fussgoenheim, Bayern, Germany – 52 Ancestors #148
• Andreas Kirsch (1774-1819) Gets New and Improved Parents – 52 Ancestors #224
• Elias Kirsch *1733-1804) and the Fall of the Holy Roman Empire – 52 Ancestors #227
• Philip Jacob Kirsch (1806-1880) aka Philippe Jacques: Masquerading as…French??? – 52 Ancestors #226
• Philip Jacob Kirsch (1806-1880), German Immigrant, 52 Ancestors #107
• Jacob Kirsch (1841-1917), Lynching Saloonist with a Glass Eye, 52 Ancestors #109
• How Jacob Kirsch Lost His Eye, 52 Ancestors #146
• Margaretha Elisabetha Koehler, (1772-1823), Weak Child, Baptized in a Hurry – 52 Ancestors #228
• Finding Immigrant Descendnats – aka – Identifying John Kirsch

______________________________________________________________

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Rachel’s life story, unfortunately, must be told through the life of her husband, children and the historic events that surrounded her in colonial Virginia.

We know Rachel’s first name thanks to the will of her husband, Joseph Rice, wherein he mentions his wife, Rachel, twice. We have no idea who Rachel’s parents might be.

Joseph wrote his will on December 14, 1765 and in the will, after leaving land to his sons and son-in-law, along with items to daughter Mary Rice, Joseph then turns to his wife, Rachel:

• Well beloved wife Rachel remainder of personal estate during her natural life.
• Sons John, William and Charles after decease of wife, 7 pounds current money of Virginia.
• Rest of estate divided equally after decease of wife. Wife Rachel and David Rice and John Watkins executors. December 14, 1765.

The will was probated on June 16, 1766, so Joseph died sometime close to June.

When Joseph died, three of his sons were underage, meaning that four children were not. If he had underage sons that were 20, 18 and 16, for example, that means that Rachel, assuming she was his only wife and the mother of those children, was approximately 43 years of age 16 years earlier, making her roughly 59 when Joseph died. This suggests Rachel was born about 1707.

The only other actual document we have involving Rachel is the 1767 tax list where she is listed with son John, which tells us that John is age 16 or over in 1767.

Update: A transcribed 1769 tax list shows Rachel taxed with 1 tithe, although who or why is not clear, adjacent Joseph Rice (1), Matthew Rice (6) with James Rice and 4 slaves, James Rice (1), William Rice and Ben Rice (2), David Rice and Joseph Rice (2), William Rice), Rachel Rice (1), John Rice (1), Matthew Rice, Jr. (1), Nathan Rice (1), Thomas Rutledge (1), John Rutledge (1), John Robbins (no number) and then Jeay Rice (1). Jeay is probably Icay. The next year for which tithes exist is 1776 and Rachel is gone.

This updated information means that Rachel was alive in 1769, so after that date but probably before 1776.

I believe Rachel eventually lived with her son Charles, assuming she lived that long, based on this item from Joseph’s will:

• To my well beloved son Charles Rice the remainder part of my land whereon I now live after the death of my well loved wife to him and his heirs forever.

Birth

If Rachel was born about 1707, her birth might have been recorded in the parish records of either Hanover County or New Kent.

The Saint Peter’s Parish Register exists for New Kent County from 1680 to 1787 and is transcribed here.

Only one birth of a Rachel occurred in the right timeframe.

• Rachel Jackson was married to Edward Bettes in March of 1708 and a daughter, Rachel, was born in 1709. Her mother, Rachel Jackson Bettes died in 1719.

Rachel might have been named after other Rachels as well, and some might have been named after her.

• Rachel daughter of Edward Huchens and Rebecca was baptized in 1686.
• Rachel daughter of Edward Johnson and Elizabeth was born in 1686.
• Rachel Cox was born to George Cox in 1690.
• Rachel daughter of Alice Doe was born in 1690.
• Daniel Murfield married Rachel Coker in July of 1708.
• Rachel Watson died in 1726.
• Rachel Slayden and her husband Arthur had children in 1730 and 1735.
• Rachel Watson, daughter of Alexander and Esther Watson was born in 1734.
• James and Rachel Blackstone had a daughter in 1735.

St. Paul’s Church in Hanover County was established in 1704 and has records beginning in 1706, but apparently only the vestry records remain. No Rachel’s appear before the mid-1700s.

If Rachel Bettes isn’t the right Rachel, and I’m not suggesting that she is Rachel Bettes, then either our Rachel’s birth record doesn’t exist or she wasn’t born there.

Early Life

We know that Joseph Rice was found in Hanover County listed in a merchant’s debt book in 1743 and again in the 1744-1745 book. In 1746, Joseph purchased the land the family lived on the rest of his and Rachel’s lives on Sandy River in Amelia, soon to become Prince Edward, County, Virginia.

Since we know that three children were underage in 1766, they clearly had to have been born after arriving in Amelia/Prince Edward County – birthed in the new homestead.

Older children would have been born in Hanover County where baptism records don’t exist, so the wagon lumbering westward would have carried Joseph, Rachel and at least 4 children.

It’s likely that either there were more children and they either died or married and moved away before 1766, or, Rachel buried several babies in Hanover County. Perhaps a combination of both.

Most couples had children on the average of every 18 months to 2 years, for approximately 22 years of marriage. Someplace between 11 and 14 or 15 children would have been born, assuming no deaths at birth which would have resulted in an earlier “next” pregnancy.

Only 7 children total are mentioned in the will and Icay, although not mentioned, is very probably #8.

Dissenters

Religion is always a hot-button. Religious doctrine defines many of our life choices as well as our personal beliefs. For example, Joseph and Rachel did not own slaves, while most of their neighbors and even Joseph’s brother, Matthew, did own slaves. Based on Joseph’s land purchases and estate, the fact that he didn’t own slaves wasn’t based on money, so it clearly had to be based on a moral compass, likely a religious belief. Quakers, Brethren and some Methodists eschewed slave ownership.

Joseph Rice’s son-in-law, James Moore didn’t own slaves either, and James’s son William Moore had become a dissenting minister in the Methodist faith by 1775.

In 1759, Joseph Rice built a dissenting “meeting house” on his property in Prince Edward County.

Dissenters in colonial Virginia were those who did not want to worship in the Anglican church even though their actions were illegal at the time. Catholics were outlawed, but dissenters were any non-Catholic faith such as Presbyterians who arrived from Pennsylvania between 1738 and 1743, Methodists and Baptists. In Virginia, legal activities, such as marriages, were required to be performed by Anglican ministers, resulting in many marriages performed outside of the Anglican church not being registered with the clerk at the county courthouse.

Women at that time didn’t have a lot of choice in selecting a faith different from that of their husband. Rachel was a dissenter’s wife, and therefore by definition a dissenter, whether or not she would have made that decision without the influence of her husband. Either way, that choice, whosever it was, affected her life in numerous ways. For example, the work that was performed by slaves elsewhere fell to the family members – and much of it to the wife.

While wives at that time weren’t sold as chattel property like slaves were, they didn’t have many rights and fewer realistic options.

Dissenting, however, seemed to run in Rachels’ family, so perhaps she had been raised in a family with “radical” religious ideas.

Rachel’s nephew through her brother-in-law, David Rice, was a Presbyterian minister, also named David Rice, another dissenter, who settled and was beloved in Kentucky.

William Rice, perhaps Rachels’ son, built a meeting house, believed to be Baptist, in 1775, just 9 years after Joseph Rice died in Prince Edward County. Rachel may have lived long enough to witness that!

Dissenting seemed to run in the family!

Rachel’s Children

Joseph’s will provides us with the names of Joseph’s children, presumed to be Rachel’s children as well.

In order mentioned:

• Son-in-law James Moore, who is married to Joseph’s daughter. James Moore’s wife, possibly Mary Rice, was born about 1723 based on the ages of known children.
• John Rice, underage in 1765, so born after 1744, appears in Prince Edward County records as early as 1752, so this John is clearly not John, the son of Joseph.
• William Rice, underage in 1765, so born after 1744, appears in the county court records in 1766 as a patroller for 20 pounds of tobacco per day as pay. These records are likely for William, the son of Joseph and Rachel. In 1775, William Rice built a dissenting meeting house on the main road.
• Charles Rice, underage in 1765, so born after 1744, first appears in the Prince Edward records in 1761, so that Charles cannot be the son of Joseph and Rachel.
• David Rice, born before 1744, appears near Rachel on the 1767 tax list. Joseph’s brother Matthew also has a son named David.
• Joseph Rice, born before 1744, appears near Rachel on the 1767 tax list with 1 tithe and the 133 acres left to him by his father.
• Daughter Mary Rice who appears to be single in 1766.
• Icay Rice, not mentioned in the will, but in May of 1765, Joseph states in a deed where he sold land to Icay that he was his son. Ican first appeared in the county records in 1760 signing as a witness, so would probably have been born in 1739 or earlier.

Joseph’s Estate

While life on the frontier in a homestead was indeed challenging, especially when compared to life today, Joseph and Rachel were not poor by the standard of the time in which they lived.

In colonial Virginia, when a man died, the estate was appraised and his effects sold or at least valued.

One can tell a great deal about the life of the family by the estate inventory since absolutely everything was included, down to the silverware.

Let’s take a look at Joseph Rice’s estate inventory, because those items will tell us a great deal about Rachel’s life too. The wife owned nothing separate from the husband, so her possessions, except for her clothes, would be included in his estate inventory. I’ve left the spelling, which was not standardized at the time, as found in the original.

• 31 cattle
• mare, 5 horses
• 12 sheep
• 10 geese
• 16 hoggs

In that day and time, 31 cattle and 6 horses was a substantial estate. Five of those horses would probably have been stud horses, probably “rented out” to “cover mares” for local farmers.

• Cart, wheels, old rake

A cart would have been a two-wheeled device as opposed to a wagon with 4 wheels. Wooden wheels broke often, so the wheels were likely spares from “other carts.” You can see colonial carts here that would have been used to ferry tobacco from the fields. Carts can be pulled by people, but wagons need horses or oxen.

Primitive rakes were nothing more than a backbone of wood with wooden teeth, attached to a handle.

• 12 bells

These must surely have been cowbells. At that time, farmland wasn’t fenced so you needed to go and find your cows in he woods.

• 4 jugs, butter pott

The jug was probably stoneware. I wonder what Joseph kept in his jug. Some jugs were whiskey jugs.

The butter pott was probably included in the inventory with the jug because it too was stoneware – a cup or small bowl into which churned butter was deposited.

• some camphire and tickler (tuhler) bottles and a funnel

I can’t find either tickler or tuhler bottle, so perhaps this word is something different.

You can see a Camphor bottle, here. Camphor was used in colonial America as a purgative and was also believed to prevent illness. In 1793, a letter sent to a doctor in Philadelphia where a yellow fever outbreak was underway instructed people to use vinegar or camphor on their handkerchief when visiting the sick, to carry it in smelling bottles and use it frequently.

Camphor was a luxury, imported from Asia, the only place in the world where it was grown. In 1764, Sauer’s Herbal Cures Book referred to its usage. The Dutch imported Camphor into the Netherlands, which in turn exported it to the colonies. It was believed that because Camphor was acrid smelling and kept moths out of clothing, it would do the same for other agents of disease.

Most uses of camphor were external, because internal uses have unexpected, or maybe expected, results. Camphor “drives worms out of children and suppresses sexual passion,” so women were warned about not taking it internally. Camphor, especially camphor brandy, served to effect clandestine abortions. Fits, as mentioned by Sauer, were epileptic seizures.

Here’s what Sauer had to say:

I had to laugh. Yes, Camphor combined with Opium and brandy will assuredly “calm feverish delirium,” because you’re out cold!

So sniff it, drink it, use it as a poultice, make it into Camphor Brandy, or mix with opium and brandy and if it doesn’t kill you, it will cure you!

So, I’m guessing between the Camphor bottles, funnel and jugs, that perhaps Joseph Rice was medicating his family with this wonderful all-purpose remedy, as needed – like any responsible head of household in the 1700s would do.

• 4 pair cards

Given the word pair, these have to be wool cards.

Sheep were washed in a nearby stream before they were shorn in late spring or early summer. The sheep weren’t happy and resisted, requiring multiple adults.

This painting is from the later 1800s, but sheep shearing didn’t change much in a century.

Wool much be thoroughly greased before it can be carded using either rape seed oil or pig grease – three pounds of grease or oil per 10 pounds of wool.

Wool cards were typically leather covered wood with wire teeth. Matted wool was place on one card and them “combed” with the other, unmatting the wool much like brushing hair. You can see how, here.

By 1830, this process had been mechanized. The fact that Joseph Rice had 4 pairs of cards tells us that Rachel and her two daughters spun wool thread to be woven into clothing and the sheep tell us where it came from.

• 3 drawing knives

A drawing knife is a traditional woodworker’s tool used for shaping wood by removing shavings.

By Simon A. Eugster – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7606363

Here’s a contemporary draw knife being used to construct a flatbow. According to Wikipedia, drawknives were used to remove large slices of wood for faceted work, to debark trees or to create roughly rounded or cylindrical billets. In essence, it’s used for curved shaving.

Did Joseph and his sons use these 3 for clearing his land and debarking the trees?

• parcel carpenter tools

Carpenters tools consisted of mallets and hammers, wood screw vices, calipers possibly, chisels, saws, boring tools, wooden tools or metal braces and planes to smooth rough surfaces. Adzes would have been used to rough cut the wood or strip the bark from the wood before the more refined tools were used to make furniture or possibly for the interior carpentry of a home. You can read more here.

• parcel shoemaker tools

Shoes are a universal necessity. The fact that Joseph has shoemaker’s tools suggests that he made the shoes for his own family. The above image is from 1658 in a shoemaker’s shop, and below, from the Maine State Museum.

By Billy Hathorn – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34037637

By Billy Hathorn – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34037637

Shoemaking is typically a specialized skill, where the shoemaker makes shoes for many people and families. Every land-owner was indeed a jack-of-all-trades and the master of at least one.

Shoemakers also made boots. Shoes at that time were not constructed for left and right feet. Shoes needed to be switched back and forth so the shoe was not deformed to fit one foot at which point they were considered “ruined.”. Shoes were also passed down in families and inherited.

• two old swords, pistol barrel

Old swords, so let’s suppose they were Joseph’s swords from when he was a young man, from about 1730 or so.

This Antique Arms gallery shows a wide variety of swords.

As I’ve discovered, there are multiple types of swords – two handed swords, one handed swords and sword styles varied in different places in the world.

This plate from The Expert Swords-man’s Companion by Donald McBane (1728) shows a Scottish fencing master holding a basket-hilted broadsword, but on the table beside him are shown broadswords and smallswords. On the wall behind him, we see flintlock pistols and a target. Joseph Rice may have had all of these things.

• 3 reaphooks, meal sifters

By David Jackson, CC BY-SA 2.0 uk, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9977808

A reaphook is also known as a sickle.

Google shows several early primitive grain sifters. A meal sifter might have been for flour.

• old baskets, wool, flax

Baskets were heavily used, so not many remain today from the 1700s. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation has a lovely basket-making article and slideshow on their website. Every family needed many baskets and white oak was preferred because it was the only tree in Virginia that would split thin and remain flexible enough to weave.

If you’ve never tried it, basketmaking is a long, tedious affair and makes your hands raw.

Wool and flax were both used to make thread to weave into cloth for clothes.

By D. Gordon E. Robertson – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10227304

The perennial flax plant has beautiful blue flowers. Rachel probably loved the blooms, reaching across the horizon in a sea of blue.

The flax plant, shown above, became linen, eventually, after much work. The seeds from the pods were harvested, also known as flaxseed which can be eaten, then ground into a meal or turned into linseed oil.

The soft, flexible fiber used to weave clothing is extracted from the bast beneath the surface of the stem of the flax plant is called roving and looks similar to blonde hair.

By Kozuch – Self-photographed, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8040921

The hackle or heckle tool is used to thresh flax and prepare it for weaving.

By Pymouss – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14770489

You can read more about flax production here.

• bed (2), bedstead, furniture, bag of feathers

Rachel and Joseph had 2 beds, possibly two bedsteads and furniture, along with a bag of feathers that would have been curated from the geese to stuff the bed or beds. Some beds were stuffed with straw, so feathers were a luxury. Do you have any idea how many feathers it takes for a feather bed? 90 pounds

This article shows beds and bedsteads from a wealthier non-frontier home, but the basics are the same. The difference would have been that cabins wouldn’t have had ornate hangings.

Wikipedia tells us that:

Feathers for a featherbed could be saved from geese or ducks being prepared for cooking. In England servant-girls were often allowed to keep feathers from poultry they’d plucked and could save them to make a featherbed or pillows for their future married life. Live birds might have their soft downy breast feathers harvested three or four times a year, as described in an account from 20th century Missouri. Some poultry feathers were undesirable for mattress-making, especially chicken feathers. The best featherbeds were filled with a high proportion of down; larger feathers needed to have their quills clipped.

Lengthy preparation and good aftercare were essential. Before use, all feathers and down had to be aired outdoors in sun and breeze or stored indoors in a warm dry space; this would reduce smell and eliminate moisture. Even so, there could be what Harriet Beecher Stowe called “the strong odour of a new feather-bed and pillows”.

In other words, you could either smell the feathers or smell the stove. Apparently either or both was better than not sleeping on feathers.

• barrell with salt

According to “Salt in Virginia,” Virginia has plenty of salt on its eastern edges – not to mention that seawater could be boiled. Apparently, Joseph purchased salt by the barrel, given that it was necessary for the preservation of “bacon,” as all pork was called at that time. One thing is for sure, Joseph couldn’t produce salt on his plantation unless he owned a salt mine.

• 3 old chests and a box

This blanket chest from Virginia in the 1730s is probably very similar to the chests owned by Joseph and Rachel.

Additional photos of this beautiful primitive chest, which is for sale, can be seen here. Take a look at the closeup photos, especially of the beautiful joints. Be still my heart!

• Corn, cotton, tand leather

Crops and leather. Leather, of course, was used to make shoes, some coats, breeches and furnishings. Nothing that died went to waste, except for humans.

Believe it or not, the history of hides and tanning in Virginia was a political minefield. Virginians couldn’t obtain enough leather from England, and the English didn’t want the Virginians exporting hides to England and ruining their markets. You can read about leather workers in Virginia here.

Tanning isn’t a pleasant process. It stinks, literally, and was relegated to the edges of a community or a specific stream branch. Hence, in Halifax County, James Moore’s land included Tan Trough Branch. Probably as far as possible from any house because no one wanted to go there when things were “odiferous.”

A hide to be tanned must be removed from the body before the heat leaves the animal. It gets worse from there. Wikipedia tells us about the history of tanning:

Formerly, tanning was considered a noxious or “odoriferous trade” and relegated to the outskirts of town, amongst the poor. Indeed, tanning by ancient methods is so foul smelling, tanneries are still isolated from those towns today where the old methods are used. Skins typically arrived at the tannery dried stiff and dirty with soil and gore. First, the ancient tanners would soak the skins in water to clean and soften them. Then they would pound and scour the skin to remove any remaining flesh and fat. Next, the tanner needed to remove the hair from the skin. This was done by either soaking the skin in urine, painting it with an alkaline lime mixture, or simply allowing the skin to putrefy for several months then dipping it in a salt solution. After the hairs were loosened, the tanners scraped them off with a knife. Once the hair was removed, the tanners would “bate” (soften) the material by pounding dung into the skin or soaking the skin in a solution of animal brains. Bating was a fermentative process which relied on enzymes produced by bacteria found in the dung. Among the kinds of dung commonly used were those of dogs or pigeons.

One piece of trivia you never wanted to know. Each animal contains exactly the right about of brains to tan its own hide.

Parent: Why, I ought to tan your hide.

Sassy child: No need, I have enough brains to do it myself.

Here’s a tanner at work in Nuremberg in 1609. I guarantee you, no one but no one wanted this job.

• money scales

Colonia Williamsburg tells us that the colonists didn’t have paper money. Their only money was made of precious metal and there really wasn’t any standard. Therefore, when credit and barter weren’t used, coins were weighed on a scale. Coins were often cut into 8^ths, hence the saying, “pieces of 8.”

By Photographie personnelle User:Poussin jean – objet personnel User:Poussin jean, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1681347

This set of scales, complete with weights, is probably fancier than Joseph and Rachels, but it functions in exactly the same manner.

• ladle, fleshfork

A ladle is typically a large circular spoon. This one has a maker’s mark.

Both a ladle and a fleshfork would be used for cooking. A fleshfork is a long-handled typically two-pronged fork used to hold down meat while being carved. The ladle and fleshfork would probably have been part of a cooking set that hung on a fireplace.

• parcel of old books

This one hurts me. I would love, LOVE, to know the names of those books, because they would tell us so much about their owners. Books were precious commodities and rare on the frontier. This also tells us that Joseph knew how to read, and it’s possible that Rachel did too. If Rachel had signed a deed, would have known for sure. It’s likely that these books were religious in nature, but one glaring omission in the inventory is a Bible.

• some bottles and old punchboles

Early bottles were all hand-blown glass and reused until they were broken.

I took these photos of a glassblower at the Jamestown Glass House in the authentically reproduced glass-blowing studio.

A punch bowl is interesting in that it suggests entertaining. A ladle would also be utilized with a punch bowl.

According to this article:

In the 18th century, drinking was the most popular of all tavern recreations…The kind of drink offered by an individual tavern was a factor in its location, the availability of supplies, and the economic status and aspirations of its tavern keeper. Drinking habits did not differ significantly from colony to colony, where the majority of the inhabitants were British. Rum was the most popular distilled liquor of the time. Punch was a combination of then luxurious ingredients. The drink was made using the rinds and juice of imported lemons, limes, and even oranges, commonly mixed with rum, and white or brown sugar. Lime punch was the most popular version of the drink…punch was served warm and sold in taverns by the bowl.  Toddy–rum mixed with sugar and water–and sangre–a mixture of wine or beer sweetened with sugar and flavored with nutmeg–were also dispensed by the bowl. Wine, imported from Spain and Germany, was also served in taverns, but was not widely available outside the cities. Madeira, served during the meal, was the most expensive and popular wine. The consumption of wine, like punch, was limited to the more affluent. Many colonials drank cheaper, fermented beverages made locally. Cider (hard cider) was sold by the jug. Beer was either imported from England or locally brewed. Brandy was usually imported, but native varieties were sold, made from peaches, apples, or cherries. Homemade liquors gained popularity during the Revolution when the importation of alcohol, beer, and wine was halted.

—Early American Taverns: For the Entertainment of Friends and Strangers, Kym S. Rice for Fraunces Tavern Museum [Regnery Gateway: Chicago] 1983 (p. 85-96)

This might explain the punchbowl, the jug and the cyder.

Beyond the home, colonials consumed food and drink within another social setting–the tavern. Ordinaries dotted the colonial landscape. Ferries and courthouses were prime locations. The numerous watercourses that interrupted overland travel in North Carolina often necessitated ferriage. While waiting for ferrymen and perhaps for favorable winds, travelers needed an opportunity to rest and refresh themselves. Ordinary keepers emanated chiefly from the middling ranks of society. Indeed, the occupation of ordinary keepers may have been a springboard to prominence, for the proprietors of public houses made many acquaintances…and maintained a creditor’s hold over many of their patrons. Dinner consisted of meat (sometimes two dishes), hot or cold, salted or fresh, with or without corn or wheat bread, and with or without small beer or cider. Supper and breakfast included a hot meat and small beer. Often breakfast consisted only of tea or coffee and wheat bread, hoe cake, or toast. A variety of alcoholic liquors was served in the provincial taverns. They were rated by the gallon, quart, pint, gill, and half-gill but often were sold by the bow, nip, or dram… Rum generally came from the West Indies or New England. Cider might be the ‘common Carolina’ variety or it might be imported from England or New England. It was sometimes designated as ‘summer’ and ‘winter’ cider and rated in quality from ‘good’ and best.’ Also popular were beer, brandy and wine. Varieties of beer included those form Europe [and} from the colonies. Ordinaries offered homemade peach and apple brandy as well as the imported drink. Mixed drinks, particularly punch, greatly appealed to the colonials. Punch, consisting of five ingredients, usually contained rum with ‘loaf’ or brown sugar. Another favorite was the toddy, made of rum, brandy, or whiskey…

—“The Colonial Tavern: A Gathering Place in the Albemarle [North Carolina],” Alan D. Watson, A Taste of the Past: Early Foodways of the Albemarle Region [North Carolina], James C. Jordan III guest exhibition curator [Museum of the Albemarle: Elizabeth City NC] 1991 (p. 36-41)

Joseph never applied to have an ordinary, but this sure makes me wonder, along with his location, if he didn’t have overnight travelers as guests from time to time – especially given that people would have traveled for significant distances to attend the meetings at his dissenters meeting house.

Of course, guests would have meant more work for Rachel, and possibly a little extra income too. How I would love to step back in time and have a meal with Rachel.

• rifle, smooth bore gun belt, shot bagg

By Antique Military Rifles – originally posted to Flickr as Kentucky’s, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6369561

By Antique Military Rifles – originally posted to Flickr as Kentucky’s, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6369561

An absolutely beautiful smooth longbore flintlock antique rifle can be seen here and here’s something about the history of shot bags and powder horns. View a muzzleloader re-enactment here along with the history of the accoutrements.

• 2 smoothing irons, 2 candlesticks

A candlestick would have been the holder for a candle. The inventory doesn’t specify the material, but some would have been silver or brass and others perhaps pewter. It’s possible, but unlikely that they were wood. A few were blown glass candleholders and some were porcelain. I find it odd that there were only 2 for the entire house.

A smoothing iron is for ironing clothes, specifically linen. Truthfully, I never even thought about people on the frontier and ironing. I assumed (yes, my bad) that they wouldn’t have had any clothes “fancy enough” for ironing, nor would they have wanted them given the rigors of the lives they led. I was obviously wrong.

As it turns out, I have two smoothing irons, or parts of them.

These were children’s toy irons.

My mother told me that they were placed in the fire or on the stove, then used hot. When they cooled, they were put back in the fire to reheat. It was always best if you had two irons. That way, you could be using one while the other was heating. As we see below, Rachel had either one or two spares. I don’t know if the “iron” itself included one wedge or not.

• 2 iron wedges, parcel of old hoes and axes

You can see two types of iron wedges above.

Hoes were critically important for weeding which prevented damage to crops and increased production. Weeds sucked water and nutrients from plants. Iron implements were a scarce commodity and expensive, so anything like hoes and axes were sharpened and well cared for.

Colonial hoes shown above, thanks to Google.

Axes came in a large variety of shapes and sizes.

By Original uploader was Fir0002 at en.wikipedia – Originally from en.wikipedia; description page is/was here., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3199225

You can’t chop trees down and clear land without axes.

• parcel of pewter dishes

I would wager that the pewter dishes used by Rachel and family were utilitarian and not decorative. Some pewter plates were beautiful, armorial and inscribed.

Pewter was the social step above eating from wooden trenchers, but not as upper-crust as silver or porcelain. Pewter was the common man’s plate. I wish they had said how many were in a parcel. Often in estates, there aren’t enough plates for each family member to eat from one.

Pewter plates were relatively common, so lots of these are for sale today.

• parcel of cyder casks

Casks were a type of barrel which was made by a cooper.

This painting shows cider making in 1840. Those were not small barrels.

If Joseph and Rachel had cider, which fermented into hard cider, they obviously had apples, which implies an orchard. Rachel probably made apple pies and when apples were in season, apple everything including apple butter. Yum!

I can’t help but wonder if three are any old apples trees on Joseph’s land today. If so, that might be indicative of where his house was located.

• parcel of salt

How much is a parcel?

• 4 old saddles and horse harnesses

Leather would also have been used to make both saddles and harnesses. Colonial Williamsburg has a saddler shop with wonderful photos. Saddles came in various styles and sizes – including side-saddles for women – but those are often mentioned separately in estate inventories.

• 3 bee hives

Everybody loves sweet things – even our ancestors.

Some hives were boxes. I wonder if all 3 hives provided for their family, or if they sold to neighbors. I’d bet some of that honey went in the punchbowl to sweeten the rum punch.

• whip and cross cut saw

Whips varied widely by purpose. Riding whips served more as reminders to the horse, but the cat o’nine tails was a torture device. Since Joseph and Rachel, thankfully, did not own slaves, let’s assume it was for the horses and used sparingly.

Crosscut saws cut across the wood grain and are used by 2 men to fell trees. Ironically vintage saws are rare on the market today because they are coveted for their high quality over contemporary models.

• 6 iron potts, a grinstone, pan

You can see a collection of old iron cooking pots here. Iron pots would have hung over the fire in the fireplace.

It’s hard to say whether the grindstone was one that was used manually or one used in milling. Since it’s combined with pots and pans, I’d wager that it was a kitchen manual grindstone, similar to what the Indians used to grind their corn and grains. We used to find these in the fields at home, generally with their stone remaining in the groove.

• loom and slay

A weaver in Nurnburg in 1425. Weaving didn’t change until the industrial revolution in the 1800s.

You can read about and see examples of colonial weaving, spinning and dyeing here. I’m not a weaver and I don’t exactly understand the purpose and function of a slay, so I found a YouTube video where a weaver explains and shows this process. The slay is an integral part of the weaving process. Weaving seems to have a language of its own.

If Rachel had flax, wool and a weaving loom, you can rest assured she was dyeing the textiles too, probably in the tub and pails listed next on the inventory. It seems as if the men taking the inventory were listing things as they walked around the house.

• washing tub, water pails

Bathing wasn’t common or popular and might have happened once a year in the late spring. Today we would turn up our noses, but then, everyone simply smelled the same way.

• wollen wheal

A woolen wheel was used for spinning the wool into thread before weaving, of course.

CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=308364

Spinning wool at the Conner Prairie living history museum loom house.

• 2 tables, parcel of chairs

It’s interesting that they have 2 tables to go with that parcel of chairs. This might imply that their house was larger than the typical cabin which was about 16 by 18 or sometimes smaller. Their tables were likely made in Prince Edward County with Joseph’s carpentry tools, not hauled overland in their wagon.

• shears, iron skillet, pickler bottle, bridle bitt

What the heck is a pickler bottle? Google failed me.

By Cstaffa – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2974607

Given the wool, shears could have meant shears to shear sheep, above, or scissors. Or maybe one item was used for both activities.

Cast iron skillets would rust if left wet or neglected, but given that most kitchens only had one or two pots or kettles and maybe one skillet, it was in use every single day. Rachel had 6 pots, probably of different sizes, but only one skillet.

• 3 beds, furniture

I wonder why these 3 beds were inventoried separately from the other 2. I’m guessing that perhaps these were located in the loft and were of a different quality. Note there are no bedsteads.

• 3 cattle hides, knives, forks

At that time, sometimes families didn’t have enough utensils for all family members, so they shared or ate with their fingers, or both. Some families didn’t have enough chairs either, so sometimes benches were used or people sat on the floor or outside. I seldom see benches listed separately. They were considered very utilitarian, roughhewn and slapped together, while chairs were considered luxuries and furniture.

By Reptonix free Creative Commons licensed photos – http://reptonix.awardspace.co.uk/photos/2012-03-18.htm, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18925667

This English dinner setting from about 1750 shows the silverware of the timeframe. Spoons weren’t used, and often people ate directly off of the knives.

Dishes weren’t washed as we know it today. They were wiped off and used again.

• parcel of wax and talon

I think this may be tallow, not talon. Women made tallow candles using cotton or linen wicks, another use for that flax. Tallow candles were smelly, given that they were made from animal fat, but they could be kept for extended periods. Wax candles were not unpleasant, but wax was less plentiful. Tallow was used by poorer people. Some people used candle molds, but wicks could also be dipped into tallow to form candles for those too poor to afford molds.

Maybe Rachel used wax candles for company and tallow for everyday when no one else was around – although there are no candle molds listed.

Beeswax would have been made into candles too. You can read about the various methods of candlemaking here.

If you want to try making tallow candles, here’s how.

• spectacles, razor, hone

Spectacles! Either Joseph or Rachel needed these, or maybe both and they shared them. Spectacles would have been considered a luxury and probably only utilized by someone who was trying to read. If Joseph Rice built a dissenting meeting house in 1759, it’s certainly possible he was the one reading and preaching on Sundays in his meeting house. Unless of course there was a traveling preacher who would have stayed with him, probably enjoyed some punch, and then preached up a storm on Sunday!

This person has a collection of 1700s spectacles on Pinterest.

And another one here.

Glassblowers in the 1700s tried to blow lenses of various thicknesses based on a cursory examination. This causes me to wonder how Joseph acquired his spectacles. I don’t know if there were glassblowers in Amelia or Prince Edward County, but I’m guessing not. That means that either Joseph went back east or somehow the spectacles made their way, perhaps with peddlers, to his plantation.

A razor at that time would have been a straightrazor.

By Dr. K. – I (Dr. K.) created this work entirely by myself., CC BY 3.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52832072

I have to tell you, the thought of running one of these implements over my neck, right by my juggler vein, makes me shudder.

By Dr.K. – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19529904

A hone is a stone used to sharpen the razor..

These instructions from the 1840s provide instructions for how to shave with a straightrazor.

• paper, some bottles, old file

If Joseph Rice had paper, someone was writing, and it was most likely him. Paper was being made in America by 1690, but that “paper” was made out of old clothes, cotton and linen, rags and scraps, pulverized into mush and formed into somewhat of a parchment. Before 1816, all paper was made by hand.

This example of “paper” currency wasn’t really paper as we know it today, meaning created from wood pulp.

Glass bottles were blown and were never thrown away.

Early bottles like these ones from the Jamestown Glasshouse were seldom clear. Green and blue were the most common colors.

• pair bullet moles

This would be bullet molds, not moles, although that could be the pronunciation at the time.

Early firearms were not made to any particular standard, so neither was the ammunition. Every person had to make their own bullets using a bullet mold which looks something like a pliers that formed the musketball shape. Ironically, these early musket balls were cast from lead which was superior to iron and able to be cast using a ladle over a wood fire. Iron required much higher temperatures.

Of course, today we know that lead is a poisonous, toxic metal.

Firearms were often sold with the bullet mold, customized for the bore and chamber of that particular gun.

• 3/4 of a hoggshead crop tobacco

From other estate inventories, I’ve noted that a hogshead of tobacco was about 1300 pounds. Others are recorded as holding 1000 pounds.

Either Joseph’s land didn’t produce much tobacco, or this is what was remaining to be sold upon his death. I notice that Joseph’s estate didn’t list any wagons which would have been required for tobacco farming. Maybe one of his sons had already purchased his wagon.

Tobacco was the primary cash crop in colonial Virginia and extremely labor intensive. I wrote about tobacco production, here.

Without slaves, the work fell entirely to family members and paid laborers, that is, if Joseph could find any.

The absence of slaves speaks volumes. Clearly Joseph and Rachel could have afforded slaves, so the fact that they never owned slaves can only be a reflection of their convictions.

It would be an interesting study in Prince Edward County to inventory who did and did not own slaves based on tax lists and see if a common thread can be determined as to religion or even perhaps migration patterns. That might help identify Rachel’s family too.

The Undiscovered Gem

We have a list of what “Joseph” owned when he died, including things like plates, silverware, pots, pans, looms and other items that would have belonged more to Rachel than Joseph.

But there’s one thing of value that Joseph and Rachel probably didn’t know that they owned. An undiscovered treasure that remained dormant for the next 200 years or so.

When I write these 52 Ancestor articles, I research the county in which the ancestor lived, their neighbors, tax lists, deeds, history and anything else I can find. In this case, the estate inventory was especially enlightening, especially in terms of Rachel since we have so few documents that tell us anything about her life.

Knowing that Joseph and Rachel had a barrel of salt along with an additional parcel of salt, I was curious as to where the closest salt mine was located, so I googled salt mines in Prince Edward County, Virginia.

I didn’t find a salt mine, but I found something else much more interesting.

Amethyst.

Yes, amethyst.

Discovered in 2 locations in Rice, Virginia.

The village of Rice, of course, is Joseph Rice’s plantation.

Pretty amazing!

This specimen was listed with several photos.

Amethyst is a crystal, so this stone has not been cut or faceted.

One location, a farm, was identified, but is no longer owned by the person who owned it at the time of discovery. Yes, I’m very tempted to have a look at the deed books and track his land backwards in time.

One farm is noted as half a mile east of Rice, and the other as a mile north. Clearly a vein runs under this land.

Depending on the actual location, at least one of these discovery locations could have been on Joseph’s original land and the second on the Atwood land Joseph purchased.

In other words, this beautiful purple crystalline stone peppered the lands of and near Joseph Rice. It probably extended to the lands of James Moore and Matthew Rice too, and of course, Rachel lived there until her death. She is probably buried with amethysts in the soil surrounding her grave.

These specimens were discovered topside, meaning no digging or mining was involved. I wonder if Rachel’s kids used to bring in “pretty rocks” found on the farmland or in the streams. Maybe after plowing revealed treasure buried for eons.

A rock collector died in 2013, and as luck would have it, the large photo above shows the specimen from his collection. It was for sale, but not anymore.

I bought it.

I’ve always loved purple, and amethyst has a long and storied history. Greeks believed Amethyst prevented intoxication. Medieval European soldiers wore amethyst amulets for protection in battle with the belief that amethysts healed people and kept them cool-headed. Amethyst beads have been unearthed in Anglo-Saxon graves in England and Anglican bishops wear an episcopal ring often set with an amethyst, an allusion to the description of the Apostles as “not drunk.” Tibetans consider amethyst sacred to the Buddha. It seems that many cultures appreciate the beauty of amethyst and have woven it into their folklore.

In the Old World, amethyst was considered one of the Cardinal gems, meaning one of the 5 gemstones precious above all others. That lasted until amethyst was discovered in large quantities in Brazil in the 1800s. Between 1746 and 1766, when Joseph owned this land, Amethyst was as valuable as diamonds, sapphires, emeralds and rubies. Indeed, amethyst, if discovered then, would have been more valuable than everything else in the estate put together, including the land.

Just think, Joseph’s sons and son-in-law, James Moore sold this land away, not realizing what they had at the time.

In the Middle Ages, Amethyst was considered royal and used to decorate English regalia including the Crown Jewels.

On the Royal “Head of Sovereign’s Sceptre with Cross,” shown above, used during coronations, above the pear-shaped diamond is a huge amethyst surmounted by a cross pattée encrusted with an emerald and small diamonds. To give perspective, that huge diamond is 530.2 carats, so that amethyst must be at least 100 carats if not more. That would probably be about 2 inches across. The diamond is 10 cM long, which is just slightly less than 4 inches long and 2.5 inches wide.

Rachel’s Amethyst

Rachel, you would have been rich beyond your wildest dreams with the precious Amethyst discovered on your land. It would have been like winning the colonial lottery. You could have had enough beds and plates for every family member and a fire tongs too!

Yes, I know this amethyst isn’t of the highest quality, but it’s certainly precious to me. I feel this stone has been waiting for me to find it, thanks to Rachel, since 2013 when the original collector died. My own crown jewel!

Perhaps it was always making its way to me:)

This stone is about 1x1x1.5 inches and I am ordering a special pendant so that I can wear it as a memento and tribute to Rachel Rice.

I name my stones, and Rachel is also the name of my daughter who passed away, so I have a special affinity for this gift from Rachel’s land. I’ve never before had an actual physical gift from the beyond.

Rachel, thank you. This stone is dedicated to you!

This amethyst is purple, of course, but from time to time the sun glints blue, as you can see in the photo below, reminiscent of the beautiful flax blooms on Rachel’s land.

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