Wartime Tragedies

There was another amazing find in my family history this week, but I didn't make it. My grandpa Fred called me on Sunday, saying he had a letter written in German that belonged to my 2nd-great-grandma, Mary Hoffman. I had no idea the letter even existed! He then asked if I'd like to have it. Um, YES!! He then offered to mail it to me the next day, I thanked him several times, and then had to wait three days for the letter to arrive.

During those three days, I tried to imagine what it could be - a letter from her relatives in Bohemia? Perhaps even information on the identity of my great-grandmother's father??? I tried not to let my imagination run wild, but it was exciting to guess what could be in the letter.

When the letter finally came, several things struck me about the envelope - its age was readily apparent. It was brown and worn, almost soft to the touch. The sides were marked with tape letting the recipient know that the letter was opened by the military as part of censorship practices. That got me wondering when the letter was written - sometime during World War II maybe? There were postmarks on the front, but nothing that had a date. The back had the sender's name and address, but I couldn't read it - I could tell it was German, but the script was unfamiliar. The sender's given name looked like Babetta, maybe a form of Barbara?

As I studied the front of the envelope, I noted the name of the addressee - Christopf Hofmann, which was my ancestor Mary Hoffman's husband (though he was always called Christ Hoffman by my family), and stepdad to my great-grandma Rosie and her sister Mary. I immediately realized this likely wasn't addressed to my ancestor, and probably had nothing to do with her family at all. But honestly, I didn't care - this was something OLD, from the Old World, in German and related to someone connected to my family. Something that had been held on to for decades and decades. With all the ancestors I have from foreign countries, nothing has been passed down in my family in a foreign language. I've got photocopies and scans of some documents in Norwegian (thanks to my cousin Delores Olson) and I've since found records in other languages on various websites. But I haven't held in my hands something from the Old Country in the original language of my ancestors - until this week. What a rush!!

I took it inside, gently opened it and extracted the letter. It was two pages, written in clear German script, but again in a variation of it that I found difficult to make out.

The date on the top looked like January 4, 1947 (or was it April 1? I don't know when Europe started using DDMMYY for their dates). I looked through it and saw 1945, and the name Babette again, but that's was about all I could make of it. I really wanted to know what it said, so I posted copies of the letter and the back of the envelope on the Genealogy Translations Facebook group I'm in, and asked for a translation. It only took a few hours before one of the volunteers kindly responded with a complete translation!

The return address on the back said "Frau Babette Schmidt, Furth, Bayern, Gartenstrasse N 22." So Babette was the sender, and perhaps a relative of Christ Hoffman. The text of the letter turned out to be extremely tragic. Here's the translation in full:

"Dear Godfather and Aunt,
After a long time we are finally allowed to write to you again. How are all of you? I hope you are well. I can't say the same about us. We were totally destroyed by an air raid and had to leave Nurnberg, Hintere Ledergasse No 28 second floor and had to go to Furth, because the house where we lived was totally destroyed on the 2nd of January 1945 during the great air raid on Nurnberg, and we were thankful to be alive. Thousands of people lost their lives. We only had the clothes we wore, all our possessions burned.
My husband Christopf has died and his brother. From fathers side, the wife burned to death. Our Anny's husband is a prisoner of war in Russia. And how are you uncle Christopf and your dear wife and children. Did your loved ones get home safe again? I hope so, here it looks very sad.
I will close this letter, sending you loving greetings
Frau Babette Schmidt and Anny.
How is Mrs. Schlek, is she still alive. My husband Christopf has died"

After reading the translation, my heart just broke for Babette. So much loss! Her husband, her home, all her belongings, her son-in-law's captivity, living in a strange new place. I know we did what we had to in order to win the war against Hitler and his Nazi regime, but this letter really puts a human face on the ordinary German people who suffered during the war and afterwards. It's a stark reminder that in war, there really are no victors in some ways - war results in loss for everyone involved.

What made this letter even more tragic was the fact that Christ Hoffman had actually passed away on 24 June 1942, almost five years before this letter was even written. Due to the war (and apparently its aftermath), Babette had been out of contact with Christ Hoffman for so long, she didn't know he had died years before. I hope Christ's widow Mary wrote back to Babette and let her know.

Two other things really stood out about this letter. First, the U.S. military was still screening and censoring letters almost two years after World War II had ended. Did they do that for all incoming mail from overseas? Just for Germany? I would have thought such practices would have ended with the war, but apparently not.

The other thing that stood out was the name of Babette's late husband - Christopf Schmidt. When my great-grandma Rosie and her sister Mary applied for Social Security Numbers in 1943 (on the same day, it turns out) they both put Chris Schmidt as their father. It may be a coincidence, as Schmidt is a very common German surname, and Chris is a popular first name. I also know now that Rosie and Mary had different fathers, so even if one of them had a father named Chris Schmidt, both didn't. It may be just a coincidence, but it's a startling one.

I would love to somehow be able to identify Babette and Anny, and learn more about them. I did a quick search to see if I could find anything on them in Nurnberg, and found Christopf in a Nurnberg city directory for 1935:









The address matches Babette's letter exactly - hinter Ledergasse No. 28, second floor! Christopf's occupation was flaschner, which Google Translate tells me means plumber. If they appear in this record, I'm hopeful they'll appear in more. I would love to find out how exactly they connect to Christ Hoffman - Babette called him uncle, so maybe her mom was Christ's sister? Gonna have to find out! Babette and Anny's story deserves to be rediscovered and shared. They lost so much, and endured so much together. It puts my own trials and difficulties in a whole different perspective - I've never lost  a home, been forced to move as a refugee, suffered the death of a spouse, and waited anxiously to know whether a loved one was surviving in a foreign enemy's POW camp. And yet, she reached out to Christ and his family, asking about their welfare, and that of an apparent common friend. She didn't ask for anything - no money, no assistance. I think she just wanted to know someone out there still remembered and cared. I may be 70+ years too late to help Babette and Anny, but I can still remember and care.

Military Monday - One War, Two Freds

I've known most of my life that my grandpa, Fred J. Gibson, served in the Marines during World War II. I'm very proud of his service, and given the fact that he was technically 17 when he joined up, it blows my mind that someone so young could do something so courageous and selfless.

However, what I didn't know until today is that his father, Fred John Gibson (sometimes known as John Frederick Gibson), also registered for the draft for that same war!

In 1942, the US government instituted its fourth draft of the war, known as the "Old Man's Draft" of men born on or between 28 April 1877 and 16 February 1897. Thus my great-grandfather, though he was 58 years old at the time, was eligible to be drafted should the need arise. Thankfully, he was not needed and was able to remain home.

The best part of the document is in the lower right corner - his signature!

 
I love the way he writes his F, and my G and J are similar to his. Overall though, his handwriting is much neater than mine.

We often refer to the WWII generation as the "Greatest Generation". I wonder if we pay as much tribute to those who raised that generation, that instilled in them the work ethic, patriotism, and self-sacrifice that led them to become the heroes that they did. In his own way, Fred John Gibson was a part of that "Greatest Generation" for setting the example that his son followed through on, and passed on to his own children and grandchildren.

Military Monday - Don't mess with a soldier's mom

One of the great things about doing genealogy is finding stories about your relatives and the people they knew. Sometimes in researching an ancestor, something about a relative of theirs that I'm not directly related to will catch my eye for some reason, and I'll suddenly want to know all about that person. Such was the case last night.

I was going through another email from MyHeritage, sorting through the latest batch of record matches. Most of these were for Robert George Seadin, the first husband of Elsie Craddock, my great-grandmother Edna Craddock's sister. One of the records was the obituary of Elta (Hanifen) Wenger. Elta was the daughter of Daniel Hanifen and Mildred Seadin, Robert's older sister. That would make her Elsie's niece by marriage. The obituary listed a large number of family members as her survivors - her husband, Private First Class Merle Wenger, her parents, her brother and his family, her mother-in-law Mrs. Silvio Castiglioni, grandmother Mrs. Seadin, the names of her aunts and uncles (including Mr. and Mrs. Robert Seadin), her husband's father (listed at the bottom of the list, whereas his ex-wife was at the top), and all of her husband's siblings and their families. Family was obviously a very big deal for this family.

It struck me that Merle's parents were listed so far apart in the obituary, and that his mom was only mentioned (as was usual for the time) as Mrs. Silvio Castiglioni. I wanted to find out her first name, if only to complete Merle's immediate family in my records, so I went hunting. I soon found out that his mom, Irene Lucile Gibson (no relation to yours truly) was married four times! Her first marriage was to Fritz Wenger, and he was apparently the father of all her children. They divorced around 1941, and Irene married Jack Morello. They were married for less than two years when Jack died in March 1942 of endocarditis. Irene married again in December of that year, to Silvio Castiglioni. I also found another marriage record for Irene, in 1947 to a Robert Lomas. In it, her previous marriages were listed as "divorced (1) widowed (2)". I couldn't tell if that meant her first marriage was the divorce and her second ended with her being widowed (which meant she was leaving out a marriage, which I've seen happen several times), or that she was divorced once and widowed twice. I also wanted to find out what became of Silvio, so I went searching. What I found startled me.

I found a death certificate for Silvio, giving his date of death as 2 January 1945. So it seemed her marriage info to Robert Lomas did indeed mean she was divorced once (Fritz Wenger) and widowed twice (Jack Morello and Silvio). But what startled me was the cause of death - "inquest pending - due to shock and hemorrhage". The death was also labeled a homicide. Having Bertha Beilstein's story still fresh in my mind, I wanted to find out exactly what happened. I went to MyHeritage, as their newspaper collection is awesome and easily searchable. I soon found out what led to Silvio's death.

Merle was serving in the US Army at the time, but was home on an extended furlough to get some medical attention. While he was home, he received a phone call from his mother, saying her husband Silvio was beating her, that he had left the house and she was afraid to be alone. He went over to check on her, and then left to get his wife and car. When they returned to his mom's house, the door was locked. Merle shook the knob and asked who was there. Silvio came to the door with a pistol, and pointed it at Merle. Merle went for the gun, and the two fought over it, destroying windows and furniture in the process. The gun fired twice, one bullet hitting Merle in the right foot. Merle was able to get the gun from Silvio, and yelled for his wife and mother to get out of the house. While he checked to make sure they were safe, Silvio ran to his bedroom and came back - with a shotgun. How Merle had the nerve and courage to do this I don't know, but he stood his ground, firing once over Silvio's head, and told him to drop the shotgun. Silvio refused, and started shouting and waving the shotgun wildly. Merle shot Silvio in the side, stopping him. Merle stayed there until police and an ambulance came, and explained to the officers what had happened. Silvio was taken to a hospital, where he died a few hours later. The incident was still pending the inquest when the death certificate was issued, though I'm surprised no one updated it a few days later when the matter was resolved. A coroner's jury (who knew there was such a thing?) exonerated Merle of blame for the shooting.

I have to say I was very impressed by and proud of Merle for his heroism and bravery. He stepped right in to help his mother, and when a gun was pointed at his face, he didn't back down. He fought on despite personal injury (and he may have still been recovering from whatever malady prompted the extended furlough to begin with), and did what had to be done to protect his family. I don't know anything about his military service and what he did in the army. But I bet the last thing on his mind during his furlough was a life-and-death struggle with his stepfather when he was supposed to be resting and recovering. They say the World War II generation is the "greatest generation", and when I read of stories like this, it proves to me why they have that name - they earned it over and over again.