Tag Archives: Lovina (Schiele) Yegerlehner

Sunday’s Obituary – Samuel Albert Yegerlehner (1891-1944)

Obituary for Samuel Yegerlehner: Terre Haute Tribune, Wednesday May 3, 1944. p. 2

Samuel Albert Yegerlehner was my grandfather’s oldest brother. Samuel was the son of John Henry and his first wife Emma Harden. I don’t really know much about Emma Harden or why she died. She was the daughter of Henry and Melinda (Boleck) Harden. Emma and John Henry were married in Clay County on April 6, 1890. Samuel was born almost exactly one year later. Two years passed and then in 1893, at age 21, Emma died. I can only imagine the heartache experienced by my 26 year old great grandfather John Henry. Since John took over his father’s farm and his mother continued to live on the farm until she died, I can imagine that John had the support of his family to help take care of young Samuel. Three years following in 1896, John Henry remarried. John’s new wife, Lovina Schiele, by all accounts treated Samuel as one of her own. John and Lovina had six additional children, including my grandfather.

Samuel received an 8^th grade education in one of the small rural county schools. He was married on January 31, 1915 to Esther Zurcher. The Zurchers were another Swiss German family that lived in Harrison Township who were also members of St. Peters German Reformed Church. In 1917, Samuel signed up for the World War I draft. I don’t think he actually served during the war. According to the 1930 census, Samuel was not a veteran so he most likely did not. Samuel and Esther had three sons, the oldest of which died in infancy.

Biography of Samuel & his wife Esther, from the Centennial booklet of St. Peter’s Church, 1854-1954

Samuel was a farmer, like his father. He had his own farm nearby his father’s land. I do not know if this was land he purchased himself, or a parcel his father had given him, or even perhaps something he might have inherited from his maternal grandfather Henry Harden. Samuel’s family did not inherit the Yegerlehner farm which went to his brother Clarence and his descendants.

Samuel was also active in his church, serving as a Trustee, Deacon and an Elder. According to his biography in the Centennial booklet of St. Peter’s Church, Samuel also helped take care of the church property, due in part to its proximity to Samuel’s farm.

Samuel died suddenly in 1944 while my grandfather was stationed at the Great Lakes Naval Base. I have not read ahead in the letters of my grandparents during this time so it is possible that there is mention of Samuel’s death. In fact, as I look through the letters there seems to be a gap for this period. There is a letter postmarked May 2, 1944 (the date of Samuel’s death) and then nothing for almost a month. I feel like I am jumping ahead in the story, and I don’t want to disturb the narrative. To quote one of the sayings of a favorite science fiction character, she would at this point say “Spoilers!”

Samuel, his wife Esther, and two of their sons are buried at St. Peter’s Reformed Church Cemetery on the Owen county line.

_______________________________

: June 25, 1942 Envelope

: June 25, 1942, p. 1

: June 25, 1942, p. 2

Letter transcription:

Thur P.M. 1715 (postmarked June 25, 1942 8:30 PM)

Dear Mother,

Just got home and have had a chat with Mrs. E. Dr. Lentz didn’t bring me home-he called and informed me he had other arrangements. Don’t know what’s cookin. He got a telephone call Tue Eve. Don’t know which one it was from.

The mail enclosed will probably be the last maybe some tomorrow-That makes $18⁰⁰ that has gone thru the mail this week.

I got your letter last night (wed) Glad to hear you made it OK and in such good time. I have the duty tomorrow and may not get a chance to write. I could

(page 2) write OK but the mail isn’t taken from the base after 1500 so that makes it the same if I write the next day.

Guess I’ll have to eat at Pearl Harbor this Eve. because its too far to walk any farther and I don’t want to spend .20 to ride the cars to + from eating.

I got three telephone calls this P.M. and on each of the three I expected orders, but nothing happened. One was about the allotment. They had made a mistake and they couldn’t make corrections so had to fill out another card. After one or two of those calls one get the jitters wondering where he’s going to land.

Well, so long until tomorrow

Love Daddy

Surname Saturday – Schiele

6 Replies

My grandfather’s middle name was Schiele. It was a common custom in the past to saddle a child with the maiden name of its mother as a middle name. My grandfather was the “lucky” child in the family who got Schiele as his middle name. Have I mentioned that my grandfather hated his name and preferred to be called “Jake”? My grandparents continued the tradition and gave my grandmother’s maiden name to my uncle John, hence John Foster Yegerlehner. I hope my uncle didn’t dislike his middle name as much as his father detested his.

Regardless, Schiele was the surname of my grandfather’s maternal grandmother. Schiele is German. My family always pronounced the name Shē – lē. Two syllables, both with long e. I have seen it spelled phonetically as Sheely in old census records and on Michael’s naturalization papers. I don’t really know what the name means or where exactly my Schiele family comes from in Germany. I found one definition for Schiele that is quite funny (or tragic) “one who was crippled; one who squinted.”¹ I picture some near-sighted Germans wandering about the forest, running into stuff. If you can’t see very well, I am sure you could very easily cripple yourself, walking into things.

Naturalization paper for Michael Schiele, Clay county, Indiana, 1866

All humor aside, my great, great grandfather Michael Schiele is a bit of an enigma to me. In many ways, he is one of my earliest and most prolonged brick walls. Why? He is from Germany. His branch is one of the most recent branches of my family to land on North American soil and therefore, more difficult for me to trace. Until recently, there have not been many German records available to search, either in a library or online, and they are usually in German. I have always wished that I knew how to read German, especially when one wants to read old German records. Michael also did me the disservice of dying before 1900. So no death record! And so far, I haven’t been able to locate an obituary either. He did leave two biographies in Clay county history books which have provided me with a wealth of clues and some bread crumbs.

In The History of Clay County, Indiana by William Travis (1909), there is a very nice biographical sketch of Michael within the write up of his son, Reuben Jacob Schiele. In addition, the book’s section “Memoirs of leading and familiar home people” includes a separate biography just for Michael. These biographies are written after Michael’s death and they provide a lot of good information which I have mostly verified. Travis gives Michael’s birthplace as Wittenberg, Germany. Wittenberg is a city located in the Saxony area of Germany. The only problem is that other sources give Michael’s nativity as Württemberg which is located in the area now known as Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. These two cities are nowhere near one another and I have been told that there are also multiple locations that have used these names in the past. Some even better and more tantalizing clues are in Charles Blanchard’s Counties of Clay and Owen, Indiana (1884). This biography gives information on Michael’s parents. It opens with “MICHAEL SCHIELE, farmer and stock-raiser, was born, November 2, 1831, in Germany, and was the fourth child born to Michael and Mary (Smith) Schiele, both natives of Germany”. Oh woe is me! A SMITH!

I keep hoping someday that a database will come online with German birth and marriage records that will reveal more about my Schiele family (AND that I can read in English). I do know when Michael was born and I know the names of his parents. I know all the names of his children and grandchildren. For now, that is enough.

Notes:

Meaning of the surname Schiele from http://surnames.meaning-of-names.com/Schiele/

: June 24, 1942 Envelope

: June 24, 1942, p. 1

: June 24, 1942, p. 2

Wed (postmark June 24, 1942 8:30 PM)

Dear Mother-

Hope you are home all OK. We just got home and pretty tired, had a big day we had to shoot 22 platoons this A.M. and there are about 84 men to each platoon and besides that there was near 400 to examine.

I got real “writey” last night – wrote to Uncle Wes and Mom. Lentz was catching up on his writing so I thought I’d do the same.

It really got cold here last night – had to get under cover but it warmed considerable today-Didn’t get any mail from home today. Hope you stop that as soon as you get there because I don’t like to

(page 2) have to send it back.

Lentz didn’t take my white suit-it was in a paper cover and we just missed it at least that is what he said. But he did take the raincoat.

We ate at the Famous Café last night the food was OK but the service was poor had to wait about one hour. Don’t know where we will go tonight. I just go along because I don’t do the driving.

I’m unusually hungry tonight so will ring off and get some eats-

Love Daddy

Emily Hogue (Lawhead) Foster

5 Replies

: Emma Foster, circa 1940s

: Emma with her grandson, John: February 28, 1932 in Terre Haute, Indiana

: Another picture taken the same day; Emma with her grandson John: February 28, 1932, in Terre Haute, Indiana

: Emma Foster with her grandson John, circa 1935-36

: June 5, 1942 Envelope

: June 5, 1942, p. 1

: June 5, 1942, p. 2

: June 5, 1942, p. 3

: June 5, 1942, p. 4

Today’s letter is very special. I believe it is the only letter I have in my collection by my great grandmother, Emma Foster. Chronologically, it falls right after my grandfather’s last letter. The two letters are postmarked the same day. Word is definitely getting around that my grandmother is heading to Norfolk. An added bonus (genealogically speaking) in the letter is that Emma ran into Uncle Wes and Aunt Jessie one night in Terre Haute. Uncle Wes is Silvester Schiele, my grandfather’s uncle. You may recall an earlier post I did on Silvester. His friends and family called him Wes for short. Wes and Jessie must have just come through Kentland on their way down to Clay City from Chicago.

My great grandmother’s story is one that I had to figure out mostly on my own. My grandmother gave me a little information to start with but the rest of the journey was all mine to uncover. Emma was a twin. Aunt Minerva, the one mentioned in the letter, was my great grandmother’s twin sister. One story that my grandmother did relay to me regarding her mother was the story of her naming. Emma Foster was born Emily Hogue Lawhead, daughter of James Henry Lawhead and his second wife, Margaret Allie Rea, on November 14, 1872. The twins were the second and third children of Margaret & James. Margaret was to have four more children, but none survived their infancy. Their oldest child was a boy, Jasper, who was born in 1869. When the twins were born, Margaret did not know what to name them. I suppose Margaret was out of the question as she already had an older step-daughter named Margaret. The story goes that Margaret named her daughters after the first two women who came to visit after the babies were born. I don’t know what Minerva’s middle name is so I haven’t been able to track down her namesake. There was a young woman named Emily Hogue who lived in the neighborhood so there does appear to be some validity to the story.

In 1894, when Emma was 22, she had a child out of wedlock. I have no idea who the father was. According to my Dad’s cousin Juanita, Emma talked about Jesse all the time but she didn’t know who he was. She assumed he was given away. On the 1900 census, Jesse was living with his grandparents, Emma’s parents. If he was given away, it wasn’t very far. Jesse lived with his grandparents and migrated with them to Arkansas. Jesse stayed in Arkansas after his grandmother died and his grandfather returned to Illinois. Another comment made by Juanita in one of her letters was that Emma had grandchildren but they were too far away. Jesse had three children: Alvin, Elwin and Francis. On his death certificate, Emma is named as his mother, but the line for his father is blank. Who knows what happened to this mysterious male in my great grandmother’s life? Was she raped? Did he run away? Why didn’t they marry? I have lots of questions and no solutions for solving this puzzle.

On February 29, 1896, Emma married James Edward “Ned” Foster in Hutsonville, Crawford, Illinois. I would love to say that he was a good man, and was able to accept Emma’s past. I don’t really have an answer to that. What I do know is that their marriage was a rocky one. James was an alcoholic. Over the years, Emma threw him out several times. I assume in the beginning that things were good, but I really don’t know. Love works in mysterious ways, plus it might just have been all about the sex. James and Emma had at least five children. The ones who grew to adulthood were Lydia Allie, Glenn Edward, James Laughead, and my grandmother, Gladys Ruth. Evidence suggests that there was another child Forrest that died young. I have a photograph of a large family grouping. On the back it written: James, Emma, Lydia, Glenn & Forrest. Emma is holding Glenn and a baby on her lap in the picture while Lydia is sitting by her feet . Lydia was born in 1897 and Glenn in September 1900. There is a jump in births before James was born in February 1904. The 1900 census records that Emma is the mother of two living children; this would be Jesse and Lydia as Glenn wasn’t born until after the enumeration. On the 1910 census, Emma is the mother of 6 children, 5 living. The five would include: Lydia, Glenn, James, Gladys and Jesse.

I don’t know where or when baby Forrest died or where he is buried. The family moved back and forth between Crawford and Clark counties in Illinois and Terre Haute during these years. James was a laborer and he moved to where the work was. They were probably pretty poor and couldn’t afford a stone for Forrest’s grave. Both my grandmother and Uncle Jim were born in Terre Haute. After that, I think the family pretty much stayed in Terre Haute. Sometime before 1920, Emma kicked James out for his drinking for good. On the 1920 census, James is not enumerated with the family. Emma’s profession was a pie baker for a Baking company. Cousin Juanita also mentioned in one of her letters that Emma did this along with Aunt Cora. Cora Miller was one of James’ sisters. Apparently at one time, they all lived in the same building (but not on the 1920 census). A couple of the Terre Haute directories after 1920 record James and Emma living together but I think this might have been a smoke screen. Emma and James never divorced. Even on Emma’s death certificate, my grandmother reported that Emma was married.

Emma had a decent life but it was filled with hardship over the years. Any of these events would have broken a weaker person: an illegitimate child, an alcoholic husband, the death of a baby, being a single working mom, her beloved oldest daughter dying young, her grandson being killed in an accident. Her life could be measured by these tragedies but I would rather think of her as my grandmother’s mother, the woman who came to Kentland to help my grandmother while her husband was away at war, during the time after she had the baby (my father). I like to look at her pictures and her elusive smile. Yes, she does look old for her age in most of the pictures, but I look and I see a little part of me looking back at me, and it makes me proud to be her great granddaughter.

In school, Emma achieved a sixth grade education according to the 1940 census. While transcribing her letter I struggled between trying to make the letter readable and making an accurate transcription. If you want to see the actual letter, click on the pictures above.

This letter also mentions that Gladys’ mother-in-law, Lovina Yegerlehner, has not been feeling well lately and that Ruth has been home helping her mother while she was sick. Paired with yesterday’s letter from Roscoe which also mentions his mother not feeling well, that’s a nice bit of documentation from two corroborating sources.

Letter transcription:

6.8.42

Dear children + grandson

Receive your letter this morning. I had to go up to town yesterday afternoon + was walking along + seen a group of folks? standing in front of a restaurant first like that had their dinner, said to myself that look like uncle Wes + stop + look + sure among it was aunt Jessie, Mary Sheperman + some more I didn’t know so stoped + talked to them a litter whin? + they said that they stop at your house + seen you + the boy + that

(page 2) you was going to see Jake next week. Said that they would tell you that way seen me. I have had a letter from James + he never said anythins about seeing Jake yet James has got his insinmet[assignment] + will be there six month or a year he said I sure am glad that Ruth is at home with her mother this week it will help her as much as the medison[medicine]. I thought that I would get down there this week but it has been so hot here it seems to take all of the pep out of me your aunt Minerva is looking for me to come over there + stay

(page 3) a few day but can’t pick up the nerve to go. I am writing you some of her tales of woe. when I got up yesterday morning I felt like going back to bed + giving up the strnge[strength?] + say here lord take me I have a little more pep today. I don’t feel sick + can eat good but is seems like it don’t do my any good hade plenty to eat this is my tail of wo[e] I said to my self this sond like aunt Minera letter.

(page 4)I would like to hear John play at the resite[recital] hope that he comes out first it sure is hot today I hope that you do go + see Jake + get to see James it will cheer him up to see you if I had a place for the boys to sleep they could come + stay with me. I see so many dresses in the window up to down. I told Mrs. Welsere I was going to write + tell you about their that is the seersucker only haha will sign off

Mother love

Wednesday’s Child – Wesley Foster McCammon (1916-1927)

4 Replies

: Emma Foster with her grandchildren, Juanita and Wesley McCammon, circa 1917-1918

: Gladys Foster with her neice and nephew, 1918

: Gravestone for Wesley McCammon and his mother Lydia Allie (Foster) McCammon; Little Flock Cemetery, Shelburn, Sullivan, Indiana, USA

: June 5, 1942 Envelope

: June 5, 1942, p. 1

: June 5, 1942, p. 2

: June 5, 1942, p. 3

: June 5, 1942, p. 4

Wesley was the son of Jesse and Lydia Allie (Foster) McCammon. He died when he fell off the back of a wagon and was trampled to death. His short life was also filled with tragedy. When he was almost three, his mother died. He spent the rest of his life moving back and forth between grandparents’ homes and his father’s house. Jesse McCammon remarried in 1921, and quickly started a new family with his new wife.

My grandmother Gladys was Wesley’s aunt. Part of the time, Wesley lived with my grandmother, great uncle Jim and my great grandmother Emma in Terre Haute. In one of the letters I exchanged with Wesley’s sister Juanita in the 1990s, she talked about how my great grandmother’s sister Minerva wanted to adopt the two of them after Allie died. My great grandmother would not let her. Emma wanted her grandchildren close to her, not over in Illinois where Aunt Minerva lived. It made me wonder, if Minerva had adopted the children, would Wesley have lived? (FindAGrave)

Letter transcription:

Fri.

Dear Mother-

Guess you’ll miss a letter one day because I was on duty and didn’t get a chance to write until about 2300 and that would do no good because no mail leaves the base after that time.

When we are on duty we have to inspect the mess. That is we have to see that things are clean and then we get our own meals there. They serve us meals in a special officer’s mess. They have several colored persons who are in the navy but are training them to be mess boys. Last night at one of the tables across a guy was pouring some ice water to an officer and th a chunk of ice went out with the water and

(page 2) you should have seen the colored boy make a pass for it. The other colored mess boys get tickled and it was a little to break the stiff silence. They really have some service. Meet you at the door-take your cap, pull your chair back and then serve in courses with a finger bowl etc.

The X card won’t do any good because they are calling in all of those already issued and it is doubtful if the Drs. unless they have no other way will g be able to get a card. We had an officer notice to that affect a day or two ago.

So far as I can tell I’d still like you to come down and if you can get here one week from Sat. I’ll

(page 3)have duty on Fri nite before and will be off on Sat. Just like I am this P.M. You had better take a pulman from Cincinatta. And you have to get off the train at Newport News. Rather than Norfolk as I thought. At Cincinatta there are separate gates for pulman and coach passengers so be sure and inquire – they have a man stationed at every gate-And don’t burden yourself with many clothes because there aren’t any places to go without a car. You’ll understand when you get here. I think . Should I get you a room in a hotel or do you want to stay here I’d rather stay in a hotel. If not we would have no time to ourselves. It’s just like pulling teeth to get to

(page 4) our room now. Mrs. Evans has to talk. Has told me about the death of her husband several times etc. Think it over.

I’m going down town to get another shirt or two seems of as if laundry is very slow. And this one is smelling rather badly.

Got a letter from Mom today, said she was up and around some. Well, I’ll wait until this PM. mail maybe there will be something to answer.

I called Jim but couldn’t get him on the phone. So I wrote to him. But I’ve found a way by which I can call him now, going to try to get him to come to town Sat. nite if he can get off.

Just got your Tue letter. The one you started Tue + finished Wed. Guess I have all the questions covered. Will try to keep a letter coming each day.

Love Daddy