Ida Wolf Bushu in Colorado: Tale of the photos

PREAMBLE

A friend has been helping me clean up a few very old pictures so that the faces are clear enough to identify. This isn't as easy a task as you'd think, and it's complicated by the fact that we have so few photos of the Wolf family, and none of the faces in them are identified. My initial interest was in three family pictures, two taken in front of Mame (Mary) Wolf Walters Miller's home, and one, taken in an unknown spot, of most of the adult family (Rose is missing). Each of the photos raises interesting questions, but that is another essay.

In an effort to identify the faces in THESE photos, I consulted other old photos in my possession, and as is so often the case, in looking at something with a different goal in mind, I saw new stuff. So this little essay is about a small set of personal photos that were taken when Ida Wolf Bushu was out west trying to be cured of "consumption." 

The photos from her time in the west are immensely sad. There are three that appear to have been taken the same day, and feature great-grandmother Eva and her 3-year-old granddaughter Pauline, another of three adult women with child Pauline, and a final one of two women, one in a coat, greeting one another on a porch. The back of this one says “Aunt Betty Denver Col.” All three pictures are taken in the same place, what appears to be the front of a rustic cabin. There is a fourth photo, but its association, if any, with the rest is unknown. This one is of two women on a porch or balcony, though probably not the same porch as the other three (but possibly at the same building).

I should mention that these photos, all but the one of four women, have identifying names on the back, written in mother’s distinctive handwriting. The problem is that it isn’t clear when Pauline made the notes: before or after the onset of Alzheimers. I’m pretty sure there is at least one error; I doubt the photos were taken in Denver, as mom claimed. But is this mistake made because that’s what she was told, or was she disabled enough that she no longer remembered? Regardless, this one error leaves open the possibility that she misidentified the few people she named. Despite evidence that I shouldn’t, I’ve decided to believe mother’s identifications.

BACKGROUND

Ida Wolf Bushu's story is tragic. Born in 1880, she married a bit late for her era, in 1908 when she was 28. She had two children quickly, Pauline in September of 1909 and Herbert C. in 1910, but then fell ill with what we know was tuberculosis. I was told family stories about how Ida went to Colorado to be cured, about how she slept on a cold porch because it was believed the cold air and high altitude would be good for her. But Ida didn't stay in Colorado, and she wasn't cured. She went home and died in Mt. Carmel (her obituary says at her parents' home) in March of 1915. 

That is an awfully skeletal story for the woman who gave her daughter and me her rotten eyesight, so I have been trying to learn more. But mother didn't talk much, Grandfather not at all, and the civil records are pretty slim.  I have her baptismal record and her appearance in the 1900 census. She was too young for the 1880 census, and the 1890 census is gone. The 1910 census showed her married and still living in Mt. Carmel, and then she's gone. 

[A quick diversion. Ida is the third child of Frank and Eva to become ill, and the first to be sent elsewhere for treatment. Cousin Bill Wolf said he thought (and I stress the thought part, because as we all know, what we remember may have a very loose relationship with the facts) that one reason Ida's children didn't inherit anything when Eva, Ida's mother, died was because her father paid for her treatment out west. I've seen great grandfather's will and probate, and this is patently false; Pauline and Herb were in the will; they were to get the family home after Eva passed. Instead, mother got a picture. I don't know what Herbert got. Somehow part of the will's instructions didn't get followed. My bet is great grandfather paid for Ida’s treatment out west because he'd already lost two children to TB (Mayme and Henry), and he and Eva were frantic to break the family curse. And failed. They would lose another daughter, Rose, to the disease and a granddaughter, Amelia Walters, Mayme's child.]

THE SEARCH

Back to our story. I have really wanted to make this lovely woman real to me. I probably should have tried tracking down her school records (I’ve done some of that) and such, but instead, I went looking for her in Colorado. And, well, that's impossible; how does one find one sick woman temporarily living in a big state? So, as almost everyone knows, instead I've been chasing down Wolf ancestors (and had more success than I thought possible).

But then, Erich the photographer brought me cleaned up versions of those two old photos of the family, and I sat down with magnifying lens to see if I could figure out what these ancestors looked like. I wish I could say this process was easy, but it wasn't.  Eva and Frank Wolf produced children who look like, well, each other. I'm not great with faces, and so I've spent a lot of time poring over these photos, trying to tell everyone apart. 

To help with my task, I dug out other photos -- including those Colorado pictures -- read what was on the back, and tried to use that knowledge to put names to faces. The Colorado photos are both easy and hard. Easy because by the time Ida is there, Mame is dead, and Ottilia and Rose are married with children, narrowing down who the women in the pictures might be. Ida helped me; she posed with a distinctive cocked hip in the family pictures, and the woman in a black skirt is posed a bit like that. And the more I stare at her face in other pictures, the more the face in this one looks the same. So I think Black Skirt is Ida. 

Child Pauline is easy, as is grandmother Eva. So what about the other women? Not a clue. Both Elizabeth and Pauline were possible visitors, but the posing in the three-women-and-a-child photo is very odd. One woman is very much in the background.  And the picture of the woman in the coat and hat? It says “Aunt Betty,” so I have to assume Aunt Betts was in Colorado at this time.

Back to the photo of three women with child Pauline. I was pretty sure about Ida. But the other two?  I turned to another photo in the collection, one that is identified in mother's handwriting as Mary Wolf and Pauline Wolf "at Stratton Park." There’s no date with the photo, and so there’s no way to know if it’s taken at the same time as the other photos, but I sensed that it was. Setting, clothes and people suggest that. 

The date of that photo is important: was it taken around the time that Ida was taking the cure, or at some other time? In the photo, Pauline Wolf appears to be a young adult woman. Since she was born in 1893, I think it’s safe to assume this picture wasn’t taken before 1910 when she was 17, and probably later.

The other woman is identified as Mary Wolf, and if this is true, we have two candidates for her.  Mary (Mayme, Ida’s sister) was born in 1876, married in 1896, had two children and was widowed by 1901. She died of TB in 1911. Anything is possible, of course, but it’s hard to imagine that she went to Colorado as a widow with two kids. Given the age that Pauline appears to be, I think it’s likely that Mayme was dying or dead when this picture was taken.

The only other Mary Wolf is Frank Wolf's wife, Mary Grubb. They were married in November of 1912. To me it seems likely that the picture of Mary Wolf and Pauline Wolf was taken after 1910, perhaps after Nov. 1912. (Mother was inconsistent in her naming habits. Sometimes women who were single when a picture was taken were provided with their married names on the photos. But sometimes not. So the picture could have been taken before Frank and Mary were married or after.)

And it suddenly hit me that the Stratton Park thing might be a CLUE, so I headed back online, learned that Stratton Park is part of Colorado Springs, and that Colorado Springs was extremely popular for those trying to recover from "consumption."  

More traipsing around, this time googling the name Stratton. I found a story about William Stratton, gold miner, major philanthropist and founder of sanitoria in and around Colorado Springs. Okay, I say to myself. So Ida could well have been in Colorado Springs. How do I find out where? 

I read about the sanitoria of her day, and that didn't help. A couple were run by nuns, but I was reasonably sure Ida was in a cabin of some sort, and many of these places sounded more like hospitals. So I asked Jay how he felt about going to Colorado Springs, and he liked the idea until he asked why, and I told him, "um, maybe see if I can find records of my grandmother when she might have been living there temporarily sometime in 1913 . . . ."

So instead of going to Colorado Springs, I logged onto Ancestry.com and managed to work my way to the Colorado Springs City Directory lists. Finding that the directories stopped with 1912 was sobering. (As usual, that has changed; there’s now a directory for 1914 and some later ones, but they aren’t relevant here.) In the photos that include Pauline (born Sept, 1909), she looks about 3-4; I know Ida died in 1915. I feared 1912 was too early.

In order to put a city directory (or any book) on line, someone makes digital images (pictures) of each page, just as they are. Some books are searchable, meaning you can type in the name Bushu, and the program will look for that name.  But city directories aren't searchable, so it takes a while to find what you're looking for, if it's there. (At least they weren’t when I first located them; they are now, a scant two months later.)

But I didn't let this scare me off. I accessed the 1912 directory, located the index, figured out about where the residents' pages would begin, and started looking at the pages at 144. Ooh, way too early. Try 160.  Nope, still the As. But finally, page 194, I find her.

"Bushu, Herbert A. (Mrs. Ida K.) r. Camp Stratton."

I am unable to believe that this is anyone other than grandmother; the name, the place, the year? For there to be two Ida Bushus, married to Herbert A. Bushu, boggles the mind. (I will seek corroborating evidence.) So in 1912 she's living at Camp Stratton, which sounds a lot like a rustic place where one might be trying to get well. Her baby boy (born in December of 1910) is at home, I think, with his Bushu relatives. Mom is with Ida, though I don't know if it's temporary or permanent. Ida is sick enough to need, and be willing take, the cure, and it's a pretty rough one. And, of course, it doesn't work.

In the fall of 2014, Susan and I went to Colorado Springs in an effort to get more information about Camp Stratton. That was a failure; whatever Camp Stratton was, it isn’t there now and there don’t appear to be any historical references to it. It’s a real place; at least 25 people were living there in 1912. But it isn’t listed in the 1912 city directory as a street, a hotel, rooming house, boarding house, furnished rooms, hotel, hospital, or sanitarium.  There’s a Myron Stratton Home but it’s for the poor and destitute. There’s a Stratton Park, and in the 1914 directory, Camp Stratton (a street) ends near there. But Camp Stratton? Not a clue. But we did discover that there was at least one other Wolf with Ida: her sister Elizabeth. And it’s possible that Frank, Ida and Elizabeth’s father, was there as well. It’s reassuring to know that people who loved Ida were there, helping her in her quest to get well.

So there we have it. Here are the pictures. In the photo of the three woman, I think we have Ida on the left, Pauline Wolf on the right, and either Elizabeth Wolf or Mary Grubb Wolf (Frank's wife), in the rear. They're at Camp Stratton, Colorado Springs, Colorado. Comparing the photo I have of Mary Grubb Wolf to this one tells me that she is the woman in the background.

And why might Mary be there? Well, this is wild speculation but: Frank G. and Mary Grubb were married in November of 1912. I have a wonderful picture of them on horseback in what looks like the Rockies, exchanging a precarious kiss. I think they were there in Colorado, and Mary may have chosen to visit her new sister-in-law. 

SUMMING UP

I'm not sure why working all this out is so satisfying. We have a lot of public records, enough to piece together our family story in a fair amount of factual detail.  We all knew that Ida spent time in Colorado, so determining where shouldn't be that momentous.

And yet for me it is, I think, because the census and other records show the public face of our lives, and Ida's time in Colorado, trying to get well so she can raise her children and love her husband, is personal. The farther back in time we go, the fuzzier our picture will become. And the farther we advance into the future, the harder it will become to make these ancestors flesh and blood.  Giving substance and life to the people of our past is the genealogist’s gift to the future.

Why I do genealogy

I made a decision a few days ago that Maria Ana Muller, daughter of Johanes Muller and Anna Herholzer, was almost surely the Mary Ann Miller that married great-great grandfather Morand Bushu in 1838.  That decision prompted me to begin a search for the Herholzers; they could be ancestors.

The good news is the name is unusual enough that I don't get a bazillion hits when I run searches. There are, of course, several ways to spell it; in America, those several ways become many ways.  But for the moment, I'm just interested in seeing what's out there.

And the bad news is: Not much. Geneanet has too many hits for me to determine if someone is working on this family, but the ones I've traced are in the wrong place. I'll need to find a way to narrow down the search, probably by date. Ancestry has two public trees that include Joseph and his wife. Neither tree provides any information about Joseph or Helena's families (and there seem to be many errors although I don't know all the dynamics yet, so I could be wrong). And there are just two German records to be found for Joseph, and one of them isn't about our guy.

But one is: Joseph Herholzer married Helena Rheinhart on 16 Apr., 1798 in Birndorf, Waldshut, Baden. He is 24. There is no information other than the fact they were Catholic. (Earlier I obtained baptism records for some of their children, so there's enough official note of them that we know they're real.)

But the Herholzers arrived and planted themselves in the social fabric of their new world; the Herholzers in America made their mark. They were mentioned lots in the Catholic records of Perry County as they and their relatives and friends were baptized and married (and died). Something about them made their neighbors like them enough to have them as sponsors of kids. I like these people, from the little I know of them, and that has not been my universal experience when meeting ancestors. (Some of them are not nice; I accept that one doesn't choose ancestors, but bumping into ones you like is pretty fortunate.) But I'm disappointed that there is so little evidence of others researching the family (although there's a man in California, a descendant of Elizabeth Herholzer Rudy, who has gathered material about her).

And this brings me to the point of this short blog:

One purpose of doing genealogy, at least for me, is to honor family. If you're famous, or have famous relatives/ancestors, there's lots of information about you. But if you're Joseph Herholzer, who could only afford 15 acres when he brought his family (wife and 5 children) to the US in 1817 or so, whether anyone cares now who you were is a crapshoot. Not exactly a profound observation, probably not at all unique. But I think a lot of people wonder why genealogy is so popular.

Maybe it's just to keep ordinary people from being forgotten.

Bushu: Johannes Müller's will

This is my transcription of the German text and my translation. At the end is another translation by a German in 1899. 

Im Namen des Herr ! Amen

Ich Johannes Müller gebohren in der Stadt Göppingen, im Würtemberg Europa ??? den 9ten Januar 1797, ein Sohn von Johan Leonhardt Müller und dessen wert……??? Ehefrau Eva Maria, eine gebohrene Otter, und erzogen durch Herrn Ludwig Schäfer, Gerichts Verwalter, wohnhaft in besagter Stadt Gözzingen, durch dessen Verwilligung Ich im Jahr 1817 Im Monat März nach Nord-Amerika auswanderte, der ich gegenwärtig am Leibe sehr Schwach und Elend bin, danoch aber mit meinem Verstandt und Gedächnis mich gesund und Wie ein gesunder Mensch befriede, dem Herrn say es gedankt. Mache hiermit meinen letzten Willen und Testament, auf folgende Weise nehmlich.

​Erstens ist es mein Wille, dass man meinen entseelten Leichnahm auf eine ordentliche Weise, des Christlichen Kirche gemäss der kühlen Ruhestätte übergebe.

​Zweitens ist es mein Wille und letztes Testament, dass mein einziges Kind nehmlich Maria-Ana welches meinen Schwieger-Eltern, bis auf ihre älte??? verbunden ist , nehmlich Joseph Hierholzer und Frau Helena alle meine Hinterlassenschaft in … fuvoza ??? zum Eigenthum werden soll. Besagte Hinterlassenschaft ist eine Pflegshaft die von obben…??? Herrn Ludwig
Schäffer in Besitz hat und von meinem Vater herkomt.

​Drittens und leztens bestime ich hierdurch Herrn Georg Bauman und Herrn Andréeas Chantal, als meine gesetzmässigen Executoren.

Unterzeichnet, versiegelt und erklärt mein letzter Wille und Testament zu saÿn
Diesen 3ten Tag September im Jahr unsers Herrn 1822.

In der Gegenwart von Bernhard Bauman Peter Baumann Johannes Müller

[end]

I am the son of Johann Leonardt (or Bernardt or Leopold) Müller and Eva Maria Otter/Oller/Aller, born in Göppingen, Wurtemberg, Europe, on the 9th of January, 1797, and brought up by Ludwig Schafer in Göppingen in Wurtemberg, Europe. During the destruction? of Göppingen, I emigrated to North America. At present I am very weak and miserable but healthy in mind and body, satisfying the men who attest such and I thank them [that last bit is taking liberties]. And now I make my last will and testament.

First it is my will that my body be laid to rest in peace with a Christian church service

Second, it is my will and last testament that my only child, namely Maria Ana
form an alliance with my parents-in-law Joseph Hierholzer and Helena until her adulthood. Said legacy is a guardianship of my inheritance from my father and managed by Ludwig Schafer.

Third and finally, I decide hereby Mr. George Bauman and Mr. Andreas
Chantal, as my lawful executors.

Signed, Sealed and explained my last will and testament to Being
This 3rd day of September in the year of our Lord 1822nd.

In the presence of Bernard Bauman, Peter Baumann, Johannes Müller


But let's just add to the muddle. After I was given Johannes' will by Sue Saylor in Perry County and laboriously translated it, this turned up: an 1899 translation of Johannes' will in the Perry County OGS newsletter. It was submitted by Sue Saylor. Herr Kubach's translation is close to mine. Note that Herr Kubach's understanding of Maria Ann's inheritance is quite specific and different from my very naive view. If in fact, Johannes' legacy was for him in his lifetime, presumably his daughter would get nothing. His inheritance would revert to his siblings or whomever.

From the newsletter of Perry County OGS. 

Agatha Burkey Bushu's Bible

Recently I met with Martha Burtschi Cavanaugh, daughter of Eloise Thorpe Burtschi who is the daughter of Myrtle Bushu Thorpe, the sister of my grandfather, Herbert Bushu. Two years ago, Fr. Blaine Burkey mentioned to me in an email that he heard Agatha Burkey had a bible, and he thought one of her daughters's children had it.

Agatha Burkey Bushu had two daughters who were candidates as bible-holders: Ellen Etta and Myrtle. I contacted the names Fr. Burkey supplied and eventually determined that Myrtle had taken possession of her mom's bible, and it was now in the hands of her daughter, Martha. I contacted Martha, who married James Cavanaugh, who said that upon her mother's death, one of Martha's son's had claimed the bible. She said she would try to get it back so I could see it.

A year passed and then I got a voicemail message from Martha saying she had the bible. We made arrangements for me to visit her in Decatur, IL  to photograph the bible.

Of course I made that trip. The bible itself is a stunner, massive with serious metal latches that don't quite keep it closed any longer but are lovely to behold. The bible, with a substantial embossed cross on its cover, is personalized with the names of Francis and Agatha Bushu and the section between the Old and New Testaments contains family records. I took photos of everything and Martha gave me a handwritten note listing persons and dates.

This bible was printed after 1878, when Pope Pious XIII was elected Pope, so the entries for sacraments before that date are not contemporaneous. There was no indication of when the bible  purchased. However, the first eight births listed appear to have been written with the same pen at the same time. But the last birth, that of John in 1888, while with the same hand, seems to be written with a different pen. I'm guessing the bible was purchased between 1885, the date of the last of the similar entries, and 1888, the year of John's birth. But that's a big guess.

At present, Martha's daughter, Judith Cavanaugh Clark, is keeping the bible for her brother. But I took photos of the recorded sacraments and of the bible itself. It was quite humbling yet satisfying to touch the pages that Agatha had written in 140 or so years ago. She bore 9 children, seven of whom survived. And she watched, as we mothers do, as her own children suffered huge losses: Otho's sight, Herbert's wife, Melvin himself. I have no sense of Agatha, but in the bible itself were a ribbon, a receipt for a donation for a memorial to Sr. Bernadine (Gertrude, Francis's sister) and what looks like a "holy card."

Now to me, holy cards (mass cards) were issued when someone died. But this card is smaller than the Mass card I know, and its inscription is in German and French. On the back, in pencil, someone has written "Herbert." I have no idea what it is or what it means. Did they commemorate baptisms with cards? Is this card associated with some sacrament of our grandfather? Or is this a random piece of paper on which someone wrote "Herbert?" Who knows?

I like to imagine Francis and Agatha, the children of immigrants, ordering this bible and, upon its arrival, Agatha carefully inscribing the pages with the important moments of their lives. And I see Agatha sliding into the pages these small remnants of lives lived, people who mattered. Those small acts -- probably incidental in her challenging world -- resonate with me; I don't know her, but I think I'm pleased we share genes.