Back on the horse

It's been a while since I've made the time to sit down and write anything so while I'm killing time at work, I thought I'd see what I can come up with.

I always thought it was great to hear stories about the house my maternal grandparents lived in. They built it, and started out in what we now use as the garage. As many times as I've heard the stories and seen the garage, I still have a hard time picturing it. When we found a picture of the garage house in their belongings after they passed away, I still had a hard time placing the house on the property in my minds eye. It was so strange to see the garage without the rest of the house as I knew it.

As their family grew, they added on a living room which eventually became the breezeway. They had so many children and so little room that as the story goes, two kids would be put to bed in my grandparents bed and then moved to the living room when my grandparents were ready for bed every night. Eventually, they built the house I grew up visiting. The runing joke was always that it was still never finished even after they had lived there for many years. In fact, I don't remember the full story, but the upstairs bathroom was never in working order when I was a kid. Finally when I was in high school I think it got finished. And I don't think the trim ever got totally finished.

As a kid, I always wanted to live in the house when I grew up.

That's what I had time for. More later.

Family History Writing Challenge: Day 6 - Memories of Up North

My biggest challenge the past two days is being to exhausted to sit down and write by the time I actually have time in my day. Yesterday I'll be honest I didn't even think about the fact that I didn't write anything.

Today, I blame the lack of nap on my son's part. I'd have had an hour to write if he'd have slept like he usually does. Oh well... Here I sit, ignoring my poor husband downstairs, trying to get my 250 words done as fast as possible so I can end my day.

When in doubt, write about what you know, right? Well, here goes.

I love thinking back on my family's time up north. Spending summers up north where we didn't have running water or electricity were the best of times for me. I probably enjoyed the fact that we didn't have to shower everyday a little more than I should have, or than I should admit to publicly. My mom referred to our set up as "a step above camping." And she would know, because she grew up camping in a huge tent with her parents and 8 brothers and sisters. With that many kids, it was the only kind of vacation they could afford.

My brother and I had it a little better. We camped the first year after my parents bought the 80, but we didn't use the property all that much. It wasn't long before my parents had contacted a builder and the 24 x 40 pole barn with heavy duty rafters went up. The builder needed sand to level out the area my parents had picked for the barn, so the building of the barn led to "the sand pit" out off of the go-cart loop. That provided hours upon hours of entertainment for my brother, cousins and me over the years.

The barn had to have the heavy duty rafters because the top of the barn would be used as a loft. This is where we slept and played games and constructed puzzles on rainy days. My dad built bunk beds modeled after Mom's Uncle Bob's set-up which she slept on for many years and are still in use at his cabin today, some (I don't even know how long) years later.

Somewhere, my parents found some huge "walls" that we set up as a changing room so people would have some privacy in the large open communal bedroom. I'll never forget the paining those walls. My brother had a friend up with us and when my parents were in the process of painting the walls, one blew over and fell on my brother's friend. We had to take him to urgent care to have his ankle checked out as it was pretty swollen. Luckily, he turned out to be okay.

After a little while, maybe a few years, my dad and Uncle Joe converted the kitchen out of an RV to be suitable for use in the barn. In the bottom of the garage, they walled off the last 16 feet and that served as our kitchen until Mom and Dad bought the place on the lake. We had one light that ran off the car battery if it was parked out back and hooked up. That was the only light aside from flashlights and Coleman lanterns. The tiny RV oven ran off a propane tank (the size you would use for a barbecue grill) and cooked many a Stauffer's lasagna to feed our crowd. The water tank had to be filled regularly from the trash of hose water we brought up from the neighbor's house until my parents finally put in a well after we'd had the place a good fifteen years or so. The shower consisted of a ring with a showerhead mounted on the underside of the stairs. We connected a rubber hose to the "kitchen" sink and that was the water source. Our bathtub, half a blue barrel that normally one might fill with ice to keep a keg of beer cold. Oh, and about now, you’re probably wondering about the toilet part of the bathroom. That was down the trail a bit. An outhouse. Pretty fancy if you ask us, a two-hole-r (take a friend) complete with a moon in the door. I remember pre-building the outhouse at Aunt Louise and Uncle Bob's place. We have some great pictures which Mom now proudly displays in the bathroom at the lake house.

For some unknown reason, the house we lived in downstate when my parents bought the place up north had a wood burning stove in it so that got moved up to the 80 and heats the barn in the winter. There were a few winter nights Dad would over fill the stove and you might be in three layers of clothes when you went to bed, but would undoubtedly be down to a few pieces of clothing as possible because he'd have it over 90 in the middle of the night.

 

Word count: 730. I guess that makes up for not writting anything yesterday.   Total FHWC word count: 2423.

Family History Writing Challenge: Day 4

I really didn't feel like writing this evening and procrastinated by taking care of other computer related business for about 2 hours before I finally forced myself to get writing. My thoughts are not very clear tonight as I am tired, but I still managed to get 320 words down on paper. That brings my total after only four days of the challenge up to 1393 words.

Just like my treadmill this morning, I'm glad I sat down and wrote even though I really didn't feel like doing it.

~Morgan

Who came over on the boat? Bloink Edition

Word Count: 403 Today, 1373 Total

Who came over on the boat? Ahhh, the question that started it all. That was exactly what I wanted to know when I began this journey of family history research. Well, okay, that AND does my family have in its possession any of the trunks that came on the ships with my immigrant ancestors. I've long had a fascination with those trunks in which our immigrant ancestors packed their entire lives and most prized possessions to make the trip from the homeland to America. Oh, the stories those trunks and the artifacts could tell. Stories of the journey, yes. But also of who and what had to be left behind.

So far, I've yet to unearth a trunk in my family lines. My mother has never seen or heard of one. My grandparents never mentioned one, and being the pack rat family that we are, if one were around on that side, I'm reasonably sure we'd have found it by now. On my father's side, well, I haven't done as much research, but if one is around, it's likely that it was passed down through another branch of the family. We just don't seem to be as sentimental about things on that side of the family.

On to the ancestors for this post. Who immigrated on my maternal grandmother's side? (See the chart included below which shows the relationships)

As I was answering this question for my cousin recently, I was delighted to find that in my early days of researching and grabbing as many documents as I could reasonably assume were my relatives during my Ancestry.com trial I nabbed a passenger list that includes Franz and Katerina (Schmitz) Klaes with their 8 month old son, Heinrich. From that document, I know they left from Bremen, Germany and arrived in New York on 31 October 1884. Check out lines 50-52 on the passenger list below! How cool!

The next ancestor on this branch of the tree I assume immigrated is Catherine Bloink. I know her to have been born in Prussia in 1810 and found her in the 1860 census in the township of Hamtramck, Michigan. The census lists her living with who I assume is her son, John. He is listed as 13 years old. Check out the 1860 census below. Catherine and John are on lines 33 and 34.

This branch of the family has yet to reveal any other immigrants.

List of ancestors shown in the chart below: Conrad Joseph Rebandt (1926-2003), Margaret Ann Bloink (1929-2009), Frederick William Bloink (1881-1955), Anna Klaes (1896-1950), John Bloink (1846-1914), Maria Jacobs (1848-1918), Franz Klaes (1863-1946), Katherina Schmitz (1863-1926), Catherine Bloink (1810-?), Johann J Klaes (1833-?), Anna Marie Schneider (1831-?), Johann Schmitz, Christina Pitzen

Who came over on the boat? Rebandt edition

Word Count: 248 Today, 970 Total.

The question of which of my ancestors came to America from another country is the whole reason I got into family history research in the first place. Recently, a cousin asked me the same question. Since I have my notes handy from answering him, I thought I'd share the news with the rest of you as well. The chart pictured below shows the ancestors I'm referring to and how they are related to my more recent ancestors.

According to the 1900 US Census, Joseph Conrad Rebandt (b. 1850 d. 1910) arrived in 1874. In 1900 he was in Detroit, Michigan with his wife, Albertina. The two owned a dry goods store there which they later passed down to their son, Adam Boniface Rebandt (b. 1893 d. 1980). Albertina arrived in 1875 according to the same census. Joseph and Albertina were wed in 1880. Joseph and Albertina's great grand daughter recalls her father (their grandson) telling her the name of the store was "Mrs. A Rebandt's Dry Goods, Ladies & Gents Furnishings" on Junction and Buchanan in Detroit. Google map's panorama shows only one building remaining on this corner when searching the address of the store. Check it out here: https://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF-8&layer=c&z=17&iwloc=A&sll=42.335144,-83.114613&cbp=13,102.8,0,0,0&cbll=42.335144,-83.114614&q=Junction+and+Buchanan,+Detroit,+Michigan&ei=vzFlUpbgIcbl4AP-oYGYAw&ved=0CCoQxB0wAA. 

Per the 1910 census, Joseph or George Girsch (b. 1873 d. 1966) arrived in 1880. In 1910 he was in Detroit, Michigan also. He married Mary Bosman (b. 1877 d. 1931).

Mary Bosman's parents, Rudolph Bosman (b. 1842 d. 1919) and Josefina Albertina Balk (b. 1852 d. 1915) arrived in 1870 according to the 1900 census. They were married in 1870. There is some discrepancy on the actual date that Rudolph arrived however. The 1910 census lists him as arriving in 1865. Obviously I have more research to do.

Truly, there is plenty more research to do on all of these ancestors and their families.

~Morgan

List of ancestors in the chart: Conrad Joseph Rebandt (1926-2003), Margaret Ann Bloink (1929-2009), Bernard J. Rebandt (1882-?), Adam Boniface Rebandt (1893-1980), Helen Cecilia Girsch (1905-1966), Joseph Conrad Rebandt (1850-1910), Albertina Bosman (1855-?), Joseph or George Girsch (1873-1932), Mary Bosman (1877-1931), John Bosman, Dorothyea Bosman, Mary Girsch (1824-?), Rudolph Bosman (1842-1919), Josefina Albertina Balk (1852-1915)

Family History Writing Challenge: Day 1

Word count: 726

Had a good writing session today. I'm rusty for sure with this writting business and creative writing wasn't my strong suit in school so I feel challenged. The hardest part is puting my memories onto paper in words that create the picture as I see it in my minds' eye. My memories are so precious to me that I find it hard to do them justice on the page.

Practice, practice, practice. Practice makes perfect. Practice, and editing! Ha.

Today I wrote about cherrished memories of attending church with the Rebandts at Our Lady of the Woods in Woodhaven, Michigan.

I hesitate to share, but why not, thats what this challenge is about, isn't it? Leave feedback, or share your memories too!

Building Faith through Family  2/1/2013

After my family moved away from the downriver area and stopped attending Our Lady of the Woods in Woodhaven, church was never quite the same and our attendance fell off dramatically. My grandparents, Conrad and Marge (Bloink) Rebandt and their family helped establish the church. In fact, Conrad’s brother, Ralph also started the Baptist church right next door. There is a family story that says the Baptist church still owns part of Guddith road because Ralph was stubborn and refused to sign the land over to the city when they put the road through.

Growing up, most Sunday mornings followed a similar routine. My mother would get us up if we weren’t already and make sure we picked out “church clothes” to wear. That phrase continued to indicate nice clothes throughout my life. Whenever I had an occasion to pick an outfit for, I’d ask, “does it have to be ‘church clothes?’”

Once we got to church, we always sat in the same spot. We’d dip our hand in the holy water by the door and the head down the left side of the church to the pew just behind the longest pew in the church. I remember feeling that it was as if the church members knew that that pew was where the Rebandts sit. It was like they reserved it for us. There was another family that would sit at the end of our pew on the side closer to the middle aisle, but the rest of the pew was always ours. And we usually filled it. One of the benefits of having such a close family was that we got to see each other often, and only two of Conrad and Marge’s nine children moved out of state. So, our family would gather, there in “our” pew and listen to the word of the Lord.

Once church was over, we’d head to the vestibule to chat with family members, greet the priest and see other church members as well. I remember it was in the church vestibule where my cousin Michael, got to announce to the family that he would soon be a big brother. Family news was often passed along this way, in the church vestibule. Many times, my cousins would play while the adults chatted. On sunny days, we’d head outside and then we cousins had lots more fun. Playing in front of the statue of the Mother Mary was a favorite pass time, as was climbing on the surrounding walls in typical childlike fashion until one of the adults noticed what we were doing and hollered at us to get down.

Many Sundays after church, the family would head over to Millie’s restaurant which was around the corner from church, just past Grandma and Grandpa’s house on the north side of West Road. Millie’s had a few names over the years, most of them I can’t remember any more, but the inside never seemed to change; nor did our Sunday morning routine.  Most of the time, there was a large round table up in the back of the restaurant that could accommodate our group of 10 to 15. If that table was already taken, the wait staff would drag tables together for us and we’d sit down to share breakfast. Most of us anyways, Becky never wanted breakfast. She would always order spaghetti. And she’d devour a full plate and sometimes want a more. I’ve never seen a small child consume so much spaghetti!

Once in a while, we’d head back to Grandma and Grandpa’s house after breakfast, or we’d go to their house and cook breakfast instead of going to the restaurant. Playing in the yard at Grandma and Grandpa’s was always the best. There were plenty of cousins to play with and trouble to be made. We loved the old swing set that was so big it had to have come from an old park. It was always scary when you got swinging high enough to make the front legs come up off the ground. Thank goodness we never tipped it over. There were many a time I thought we might.

The glidder on the back porch also holds many special memories. More often we got to spend quiet moments with Grandma and Grandpa here as they watched the rest of the cousins play.

 

~Morgan