I am grateful for the Ancestors that Immigrated to America

This week's prompt for the weekly themes to write up something about was Immigration. This is my post about Immigration and my ancestors.

This is a Scrapbooking page I made for my Ancestors book. It lists the years they arrived here in America. I made this about 10 years ago. Now when I looked at it I think I should add the countries 

they came from. So let me list that now. 

Joseph Hartmann is from Germany, 1868.

Susanne Naef is from Germany, unknown.

Joseph Jirak is from Bohemia before 1884.

Katerina Holounova is from Chrtníč, 3 Havlička Brod, Vzsočna Kraj, Czechia. I just found her hometown 

last summer in July of 2023.

Fredrick and Anna Spahn  came as a couple with several children from Germany, before 1885. 

My grandmother was the only child born in America.

William Chaplin came from England and is the only Ancestor that came in through Ellis Island. 

Below their names are the many question I would like to ask them about their experience of coming to America.

A New Year a New Start

Here is hoping I do better than I did last year. 

Life is busy with two girls in the house, one a teen and the other a pre-teen and it is never boring.

One day on social media I saw a link to an interesting list of question about your life and memories so I decided to use that as a jumping off place to start doing my genealogy blog again. What caught my eye was the first question was so easy.  

Here is the link to the questions: 

First Question: What is your full name? 

Explain why your parents gave you that name.

My full name is Mary Elizabeth Hartmann-Bowden

I was named after both my grandmothers, Mary Jirak Hartmann and Minnie Elizabeth Spahn Chaplin.

This is my Dad's Mom Mary Jirak I have heard from a great uncle in a letter she was very jovial and a great cook of Bohemian and German dishes. My Dad did not speak about her a lot, he was not jovial. A good guy but had a lot of hard times in his life.

This is my Mother's Mom, Minnie Elizabeth Spahn, she didn't like her name Minnie, so I always think of her as Minnie Elizabeth. My aunt, her sister told me this was her graduation from nursing school photo. She was a suffragette and was very upset when she went to vote and wasn't able to because she was married to and alien, an English man. I have an image of when she applied for citizenship after her husband died. 

Hartmann is my family name and when I married Richard I didn't want to change my last name, so we compromised and I hyphenated my last name.

I never meet my grandmothers as they had all died before I was born. I wish I new more about them.

I hope they are proud of how I have lived my life and honored their names. One of my most sacred memories I have is when I did the temple work for Minnie Elizabeth. We are an eternal family.

Family History Pages

I haven't been able to do much research but I have been making some more Family History Scrapbook pages.  These are my Great Grandparents and some of their children.  They had 10 children my grandfather was the second oldest. 

 

This picture you saw in the Mystery Solved post.  The engagement picture of my great grandparents, Mary Ann Holmes and Walter Thomas Chaplin.

 

 

The gentleman in the middle is my great uncle Herbert Henry Chaplin.  This is in front of Buckingham Palace in 1952.

In the side car is my Great Uncle Walter Victor (Vic) Chaplin with some in-laws. Year unknown.

 

The picture below is the first picture I had seen of my maternal Great Grandmother.  My second cousin in England sent it to me about three years ago.  In the picture are children and their spouse and a couple of grandkids.

 

 

I am enjoying saving the pictures and the stories that go with them. 

Mystery Solved

Back in May of 2010 I wrote this post about a picture of an unknown couple.  One of my second cousins in England had sent it to me.  He thought it might be from the New York branch of the family.  The copy of the picture he had was in a cardboard folder with the name of a photography studio in Brooklyn, New York.  My Grandfather and a couple of his brothers from England lived in Brooklyn, New York.  I had hopes of it being my grandparents. 

 

Well time has passed and my second cousin found another cousin and went and meet her and they had a lovely visit.  This cousin is a granddaughter of the second youngest son of our Great Grandparents.  So she is a generation closer then we are.  She told us the picture was an engagement picture of our

Great Grandparents. 

 

My first reaction was this is right, I could see a younger version of my Great Grandparents in the faces.  But I had to raise the question of the Brooklyn folder.  My cousins went back and checked with the granddaughter and she confirmed it was a picture that was in her home as she grow up and it was of her grandparents on their engagement.  I am taking her word for it.   There must have been several copies of the picture.  Somehow one of them made it to New York and was placed in a folder from Brooklyn.  Maybe someone needed the frame it was in to put a new family picture and placed the old family picture in the folder.  Somehow that folder with the picture made it back to England.  The granddaughter confirmed that the sons in New York sent money back to their Mom when she became a widow.   

 

So here is the picture of

Mary Ann Holmes and Walter Thomas Chaplin

on their engagement.   

 

I wonder why her face is so serious.  Maybe it was the style of photography at that time. 

 

Here is the only other picture I have of my Great Grandparents together. 

 

 

 

 

More Family History Pages

On Friday and Saturday I managed to find some time to myself and I did some scrapbooking. 

In the top page has a picture of my great uncle Herbert.  His granddaughter in England is my Genealogy research buddy. We meet on Ancestry.com and we have really enjoyed each others friendship as we search for the stores of our family.

Herbert was a Vice President at Canada Dry Ginger Ale company back in the day.  This is his second wife Gertrude.  I have ship passenger lists with their names on the list.

 

 

These are also great a great uncle and great aunt.  They are on a tarmac ready to board a plan off to some great adventure.  I don't know a lot about them, other than they were first cousins that married but had no children.

My first cousin sent me these pictures.

 

 

 

Family Pages

Well I have been doing some scrapbooking, this time of my family and ancestors.  So that is why I am posting it here.

 

This lovely teenage girls is my Aunt Bea, my Mother's Sister.  I wanted to make her page very feminine. So I added pearls and sparkle glitter glue.  Her hair style is so fun!

 

Beatrice Ann Chaplin

 I purchased this paper with cars on it just for this picture.  I think my cousin told me this was my great uncle Vic and a friend but the more I look at this picture I think it is another brother.  Not sure but that is what I am going with.  My second cousin in England is going to visit a nephew of these great uncles and hopefully he will be able to tell us more.  I don't know the make or year the car.

 

Great Uncles and a car

 

Gratitude # 5

I am grateful for freedom, and for the people who fight for this freedom. Some close to me who have severed are my Mom, and Army nurse during WWII, and my son-in-law and nephew who were in Afghanistan.  I am especially grateful for those you gave their all for the freedoms we have.  As well as for their families that were robbed of a loved one.  As well as those who suffer many hardships because of their service to us and this country. 

I think we forget how important freedom is since we have never not had it in our life time. I did grow up in a time where I have seen people cross 90 miles of open water in a craft I wouldn't sit in if I was 10 feet from the coast line.  Why did they risk so much? To be free.  What are we willing to do to maintain this freedom? 

Grandma Minnie on the right

Here is a family story of my Maternal Grandmother from cousin.

Oh - I remember my Dad telling me this story about Minnie that you will appreciate - she campaigned for the women's vote, and participated in suffragette marches. When women finally got the right to vote and she went to the polls for the first time, she was told she couldn't vote because she was married to a non-citizen, thus was ineligible. She was furious, because SHE was born here! Now I never heard if that was simply the law at the time or if it was mix up, but I know that since hearing that story I can't miss voting because it makes feel guilty. Even if there isn't anyone to vote for, I gotta go because I feel like it honors her and all the work she and others who came first did for us.

I also vote in every election, I always think of it as my right and privilege for being a citizen. Now I know it was very important to my ancestors as well. My grandmother was the first one in her family to be born in this country. Her parents and all her siblings were born in Germany. 

 

Wordless Wednesday

My Great Uncle Vic

Walter Victor "Vic" Chaplin

Wordless Wednesday

Grandma Minnie Elizabeth Spahn Chaplin

With my Aunt Bea and Uncle Bill.

Wordless Wednesday

Minnie Elizabeth Spahn

 

Nursing School Graduation 1905

My Maternal Grandmother

Another new picture from my cousin.

Wordless Wednesday

William Thomas Chaplin



New picture of my Maternal Grandfather,

recently sent to me by my cousin.

Sunday Surprise

Well there has really been two surprises today.

Image from Ancestry.com

First this morning one of my second cousin in England emails me with a copy of my grandmother's Naturalization papers.  Now there is no way I would have looked for Naturalization papers on her, she was born in Jersey City, New Jersey.  As I looked at the papers and saw all the correct information.  Yes this is my grandmother but why is she filling out Naturalization papers. 

After a few minutes the light bulb came on and I remembered that my first cousin telling me.  That Grandma Minnie was very involved with the vote for women and she was very upset when she went to vote and she couldn't because her husband wasn't a citizen.  And I remembered that during certain years, women lost their citizenship if their husbands weren't citizens. 

Imagine from Ancestry.com

So Grandpa died in October of 1925 and by December 1925 she was sworn in the court as an American citizen again.  I am getting the impression that Grandma was a pretty sharp cookie and she didn't let any moss grow under feet.  I also think it was important to her to be an American. 

The second surprise came from another first cousin who sent me a 4 page document with more information about my grandpa's family.  This is the first time we have been in contact.  This was written by his Mom, my Aunt Bea back in 1988.  The names and dates I knew but she added more stories to the facts.  Some of them very interesting. 

It has been a Family History Fun day!!

Wordless Wednesday

My Maternal Great Grandparents,

Walter Thomas Chaplin & Mary Ann Holmes.

Wordless Wednesday

Elsie Louise Chaplin

My great aunt one of the pictures of cousin sent me.

My Ancestors Sailed on Some Interesting Ships

My grandfather William T. Chaplin sailed to America on this ship in 1906

Picture from http://www.searlecanada.org/volturno/volturno56.html

This is the ship my Grandfather sail on, according to the passenger list, his brother Bertram paid his fare, he was 23 years and had $10 in his wallet.  He was listed as a steerage passengers.  This links gives a lot of good drawings and pictures of steerage.

Here is some history on the ship.

R.M.S. Carmania (I)

Like many of Cunard's liners, Carmania was built by John Brown & Co., of Glasgow. She was launched on 21 February, 1905 and made her maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York on 2 December of the same year.

In October 1913, Carmania distinguished herself by being one of nine ships to rescue a total of 521 (out of 654) people onboard the burning Canadian Northern ship Volturno.

In August 1914, Carmania was requisitioned as an armed merchant cruiser; in that capacity, she sank Hamburg Sud Amerika's Cap Trafalgar (disguised as Carmania herself) off Trinidad in September 1914. Carmania was returned to Cunard's Liverpool-New York service on November 1916 and remained on that route until 1923, except for a few months' service out of Southampton in 1921-22.

After a 1923 refitting that included conversion to oil, Carmania remained in Cunard's service until 1931, used at various times on the Liverpool-Canada, Liverpool-New York and London-New York routes, as well as for winter cruising between New York and Havana. Her final sailing was from London to New York in July 1931. She was then laid up off Sheerness and went to the shipbreakers in 1932.

http://www.searlecanada.org/volturno/volturno56.html This site give more history on the ship. 

My great uncles sailed on the Lusitania, here is an earlier post I wrote about them.  It is really interesting to read about these old ships. 

Wordless Wednesday

William T Chaplin

 

This is a picture my cousin recently sent me of our grandfather. I like it!  Year taken unknown. Place Brooklyn, New York.

Two More New Fun Pages

This is how I did the page for the year my Mother, Edith was born. I printed a scan copy of the youngest picture photo I have of her.  I used colored card stock and added a couple of cute things in the plain corners.  I did a punch design on the top and bottom borders and placed some color paper behind it. 

I like it!

For my parent's wedding day I used  

paper with a design.  Again I printed a copy of a scan photo I had.  I had a hard time deciding what color paper to use.

I did these two pages this way since I didn't want to totally rearrange the completed pages .

Find A Grave Update

Well my email inbox had another little email on Thursday that read Find A Grave Photo Request: Success!
The first few lines read,

Find A Grave contributor, JP has fulfilled your photo request for Minnie Chaplin. To see the new photo(s), visit Minnie Chaplin's online memorial by clicking on the link below:This gave me such a feeling of joy!  This is my maternal Grandmother, and we share the same middle name of Elizabeth.


http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=68941389



When I clicked on the link I was surprised to see three names on the grave stone.  William T is my grandfather and Herbert H is my great uncle.  William and Herbert were brothers. 

I am guessing but I think the other Chaplin brothers pitched in to buy the plot for my grandfather, he was a motor man and died at 41.  There were four brothers here in the States at one time, they all came from England.  One of the uncles, Vic was better off as I inherited some money he left to my mother.  He died back in England but had been in the States and he had even taken my Aunt Em out on dates.  She is my Dad's sister.  I am not sure how Herbert ended up here or what happened to his wife.

Wordless Wednesday

William & Beatrice Chaplin

William & Beatrice Chaplin

These are my Uncle Bill & Aunt Bea my Mother Edith's older sister and brother.  Bea was born in 1909 & Bill in 1911. 

Find A Grave Update

On Tuesday I took a PTO day so I could take a sewing machine class but I used the morning to work on some genealogy.  I decided it was a good day to call back East to different Cemeteries and find the plot locations for my mother, my Dad, my Second-Mom and my grandparents. 

I had just finished placing all my requests and was checking them and one was already claimed. 

I sure was excited.  Well today I was even more excited when I checked my email and had a message that a picture was posted. 

I am not sure what the correct protocol is on re-posting these pictures to my blog, so I am going to play it save and place a link back to the Find a Grave site.  

Hartmann, Edith, Mary & George

Cristina the volunteer sent a note that Edith's name is not engraved on the stone.  I was really disappointed to hear that little fact.  I did see the grave when I was about 11 before we moved to Florida, my Dad took me.  I have no recollection of it.  I like to think that he was going to add her name later and then we moved to Florida and it never happened.  I am guessing that it is a family plot. 

The nice thing is Cristina went the extra mile and took pictures of the other names engraved on the stone, down at the bottom.  Why would you engrave names at the bottom?  Thee is plenty or room up higher.  They would be my Dad's parents. 

Now because stories always make things more interesting.  Here is a little story.  The way the story goes is my grandparents didn't like my mother, she was a divorced women and in the 40's well you know.  According to her marriage registration to my Dad, her first marriage was annulled.  My parents waited until after my grandparents died to marry.  Of course my question is why did they wait almost three years after my grandparents died to marry.  Inquiring minds want to know but Dad was never a talker about this stuff, so I won't know.  Oh Dad you had such a way of putting spin on things.

One small step for me and my ancestors!

PS I just went and looked at the plot information again and it Grave 81 to 85.  That would include my grandparents, Dad & Edith & I bet Dad's sister Emma, since she was still single.