Truth in families. I think being truthful and not ashamed of history is part of today's culture. But back in the 1880s and into the 1940s and 50s, re-inventing yourself seemed to be the mainstay of the entire culture of America. I've been trying to track family genealogy for years, and I get bits and pieces, here and there, of actual facts.
My maternal Grandfather, William Pape, immigrated in 1882. It took lots of research, but I finally found where he arrived in NY in April 1882, with his sister. I was always looking for Anna, but she is logged in as Emma. The first thing that makes me go hmmmmm.
Grand Forks is listed as their destination, and obviously arrived at some point, since the family farm is just outside of Grand Forks on the Minnesota side. From there, things get really sketchy. My first check was Census records, and while William was somewhere in 1885, 1890 and 1895, I haven't located him until 1900. He is listed with a wife, Adue, but no marriage records are found for him, either. The names listed on the census by the census taker are amusing, I'm certain spelling wasn't his best subject in school.
Ida is listed is Adue
Minnie is Mine
Frederick is Fradrik
Mary and Anna he got right
and Rodman is Wrodmen
Makes it a little difficult to go searching for folks when sometimes all you have to go on is a single name! hmmmmm
But William was really Wilhelm, and it was 'Americanized' when he arrived here, I'm assuming. But with no records to balance things up, it's really difficult to analyze history. The 1900 census lists his wife "Adue" as being age 31, making her birth year 1869. However, her death certificate lists her birthdate as 1875. Which makes her only 16 when her first child was born. Hmmmm.
Family stories being what they are, Ida's maiden name is Gringland, or Grenlin, or something along those lines. But her death certificate put her name as Pearson, with parents Markus Pearson and Carrie Olof. Again, no trace found for those names either, that connect to Ida. Hmmmmm
The only thing that points to anything other than living on a farm from 1900-1941, is a listing where my grandfather, William, being on a ship that arrived in NY Sep 1904. The ship manifest states it was from Cuxhaven, Germany. As I understand it, Cuxhaven is part of Lower Saxony, Germany. On the 1920 Census it lists his mother as being from Saxony, Germany. Did he travel back to Germany to make arrangements on a death? his parents, perhaps? hmmmmm
Of course, then there's the question, who stayed with the children during his trip, he would have been gone through the spring/summer which is harvest time for farmers. His wife, Ida? Alone? Hmmmmm
Then there's the whole mental institution of Fergus Falls State Hospital. Ida was a resident there for many years, and died there as well. When I started getting into genealogy, I wrote to them asking for information and found that files had been shredded just a couple of years prior to my inquiry. Ida was a patient of Minnesota State Hospital, now known as the Regional State Hospital, in Fergus Falls, Minnesota. Upon checking for her records, they only have on file her last admittance date of 2/24/1915. She died at the facility and is buried there. Call the Office at 218-739-7247 to arrange time to visit her grave site. Her death certificate does not give any indication to the name of Gringland or Grenlen. Her death certificate also states "Cause: Manic depressive psychosis-known 35 Coronary thrombosis due to coronary sclerosis. There was an autopsy." There was no Name of spouse listed on her Death Certificate, and it causes me to wonder, was there no record of this? or is data obsolete. As a further note, Minnesota only keeps 30 years history now. Unfortunately, the rest of her records have been destroyed. An assumption on my part is that she was released from time to time to go home to her family. And while circumstances with her must have created havoc in the home, it also must have been difficult for a husband to put his wife into a facility; I like to think he cared enough about her to try to bring her home to his family, as I was told that she was in and out on several different occasions. Her parents were listed as Markus Pearson and Carrie Olof. Hmmmmm
Now that I've pieced together more parts of the puzzle, was she left at home with 5 children (Ages 13-5) during the summer harvest months while he was away dealing with something back in Germany? And did that create enough of some sort of rift between them that things became unbearable and he had her committed? Hmmmmm
All these different questions that make me go hmmmm. And I have to wonder if life back then was more complicated than it seemed. People came to America and re-invented themselves with a new name, background stories that don't always add up, all to make a "better" life. Perhaps in some circumstances it made things more difficult. I can see wanting to start a new life, but as we get older, we seem to need to gravitate back toward home - wherever that may be - or to what's familiar.
In my own case, I was living in Ohio, moved there to do the same: start a different life, new location, different people to interact with. After 10 years, I was moving back to the west coast because I needed to be closer to family.
When all is said and done, there are only so many friends we can depend on, and we learn we need family most of all. Maybe immigrants paid a higher price than were willing to admit by the need or want to start over, start fresh, make a better life by leaving family and home behind. In some ways, I'm thankful they did ... it brought me to my own place in life.
