Sunday's Obituary: Ada Gossau

In loving memory of Aunt Ada, here is the obituary of Ada B. Gossau from the Leola (Workman) Crapser's files.

 

Ada B. Gossau
Ada Blanche Gossau, 71, died Saturday, Nov. 28, 1987 at the Estelline Community Hospital.

Funeral services will be at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday at Sterling United Methodist Church, rural Brookings with the Rev. Penny Ritter officiating.  Burial will be at Sterling Methodist Cemetery.  Visitations may be made from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday at Rude's Funeral Home; the family will be in attendance.  Visitations also may be made preceding services Tuesday at the church.

Ada Blanche Gossau was born Sept. 10, 1916, in Sterling Township, Brookings County, to Jessie and Blanche (Heard) Workman.  She attended rural school in Sterling Township and graduated from Brookings High School.  She then moved to Chicago and spent several years there working in factories.  She also lived in California for a year.  She married Charles T. Gossau on June 2, 1947, in Pipestone, Minn., and the couple made Brookings their home.  She worked at various jobs in Brookings until retiring in 1980.  Mr Gossau died May 1, 1987, in Sioux Falls.  She enjoyed bowling, fishing and craft work.

Survivors include one daughter, Margaret Gossau of Brookings, and two sisters, Mrs. Sara (Raymond) Laganella of Philadelphia, Pa., and Mrs. Leola Crapser of Sioux Falls.  She was preceded in death by her husband and one brother.

Those Places Thursday - Postcards: Stock Exchange, Chicago, Illinois

In Grandma Leola's box of treasures, is a stack of postcards. Most of them were written on and sent to Leola or her parents by family and friends. There are a handful though that have no writing on them at all.



I remember picking up postcards on my adventures for souvenirs. In fact I have a shoebox full of postcards from places like Rapid City, Washington D.C., various places in Spain, and any zoo or tourist attraction that I visited as a child. None of mine have any writing either.


So curiosity strikes this genealogist again. What significance did the places on these postcards have for Grandma Leola?

This week's postcard place is the Stock Exchange in Chicago, Illinois:

I know that Grandma Leola's sister Ada lived in Chicago at one point.  But I'm not sure if Leola ever visited her in Chicago.

What significance might the Chicago Stock Exchange have in Leola's life?

Connecting Haktor T Wicks to Haktor H Wicks - Part 2

Continuing my search for the connection between Haktor T Wicks and Haktor H Wicks (Read Part 1 here):

I started by searching in Ancestry.com, but came up empty handed. Then I remembered Jessica had mentioned Hector was married in Lisbon, Illinois.  Having searched for Illinois marriages before, I headed straight for the Illinois Statewide Marriage Index.  I quickly found two marriages for Hector H Wicks.

Groom:  Wicks, Hector H
Bride: Torreson, Lucinda H
Date: 1891-12-06
Vol./Page: 001/0116
County: Kendall

Groom: Wicks, Hector H
Bride: Scott, Lena
Date: 1899-11-29
Vol./Page: 002/0013
License No.: 00002096
County: Kendall

Requesting copies of these marriage certificates could identify other relatives, who may have been witnesses to the marriage.  Unfortunately, I don't believe these will help us connect Haktor Torjulson Wicks and Haktor Haktorsen Wicks.  It did help me identify that Lisbon, Illinois was in Kendall County though.

The Kendall County, Illinois Rootsweb pages had some helpful references, including "Norwegian Emigrants from Illinois to Iowa" and "Norwegian Lutheran Church Records".  The Kendall County site also linked me over to the Norway Heritage site. There I was able to locate immigration information for Haktor and Guri in 1867 and Haktor and Madala in 1870.

Name: Haktor Haktorsen Vike
Age: 49
Sex: m
Remarks:  Residence Skaanevig
Passenger on: Ship Fredrik Petersen 1867, from Bergen May 6 to Quebec June 6

Name: Guri Vike
Age: 40
Sex: f
Remarks: wife - Residence Skaanevig
Passenger on: Ship Fredrik Petersen 1867, from Bergen May 6 to Quebec June 6
Source: NAC C-4522 list 32 - Transcribed by Paul Scheie - 2004

Name: Haktor Torjussen Vike
Age: 24
Sex: m
Additional: residence Skaanevig
Passenger on:  Ship Mercator 1870, from Bergen Apr. 28 to Quebec June 30

Name:  Madelle Torkildsatter Vike
Age: 23
Sex: f
Additional: residence Skaanevig
Passenger on: Ship Mercator 1870, from Bergen Apr. 28 to Quebec June 30
Source: NAC C4525 list 63 - Transcribed by Paul Scheie - 2005

No discovery of the ships they immigrated on would be complete without finding more information on the ships themselves, right?  I didn't think so!  Here are the links to the ship information for the Ship Fredrick Petersen and the Ship Mercator.

All this is really neat information, but still nothing definitively connects Jessica's Haktor H Wicks and my Haktor T Wicks. 

A little browsing around and I found a link to the Norwegian Census, but I'll save that for Part 3.

Connecting Haktor T Wicks to Haktor H Wicks - Part 1

Recently, I was chatting with a co-worker, Jessica, about family tree books.  She was considering creating a book and I offered to show her the Waage Family Tree book that I created in 2005.  I brought the book in and as she flipped through the first couple pages she noticed the name "Wicks" in the book.  Then she began recognizing town names as the same ones her family had inhabited.

My Wicks relatives listed in the book were Haktor and Madala (Wicks) Wicks, parents to Ida Wicks who was the wife of John Waage.  And no, that isn't a typo Madala's maiden name was Wicks too.    Ironically, Jessica's Wicks connection was Hector and his father's name was Haktor Haktorsen Wicks.

Are we related?  Could this be just a coincidence?

Here are the details I knew about my Haktor:

• Haktor Torjulson Wicks
• was from Aaker, Skanevik, Norway
• married Madala Wicks on April 3, 1870
• immigrated to America with Madala in 1870
• settled in Lisbon, Illinois
• three children were born in Illinois
• moved to Iowa, northeast of Roland around 1875
• seven more children were born in the Roland area

Jessica initially shared the following details:

•  Haktor Haktorsen Vike
• married Guri
• Guri was a sister to Thomas T Scott, born in Skanevik, Norway in 1847
• obituary of Thomas T Scott
• son was Hector Wicks
• was from Skanevik, Norway
• settled in Lisbon, Illinois

While discussing I remembered a little section of the Wicks family tree created by Irene Jacobsen back in the early 1980s. Irene noted that Wicks was the interpreted version of "Vik", which in Norwegian means little harbor.  She wrote:

The word "vik" means "little harbor" in the Norwegian language.  Wicks is the English interpretation of this word.  Norway's rugged coast line is full of fiords, islands, and "little harbors."  In some instances a family name was taken from where they lived.  There are many families that immigrated from "little harbors" so there are many unrelated Wicks families in this country.

Even with the "Wicks is a common name" theory, Jessica and I decided that the names and places were all too similar be purely coincidental.  Now we just need some evidence to prove a connection.

... More to come ...  Part 2

Mappy Monday: Waage Family Migration Map

In 2005 I put together a book for the descendants of John and Ida Waage.  While creating the book, I found myself wondering where all the homes were located.   In an effort to document that, I pinpointed all the named locations on a Google map.  Below is the result.



View Waage family emigration in a larger map


Locations pinpointed on the map include

• Haugesund, Rogaland, Norway
• Skanevik, Hordaland, Norway
• Lisbon, IL
• Roland, Story, IA
• McCallsburg, Story, IA
• Fulton, Hansen, SD
• Volga, Brookings, SD
• Lake Sinai, Brookings, SD
• Arlington, Brookings, SD
• White, Brookings, SD
• Lake Campbell, Brookings, SD
• Fremont Township, Moody, SD
  

Searching for Melbourn Crapser

As promised on Thursday, here is the story of how I discovered the Marriage License for Melbourn Crapser and Libbie Walker:

When I started researching Great-Great Grandpa Melbourn Crapser, I knew the following:

• He was born in New York in 1858.
• His father's name was Timothy.
• He married Teolina Kjolseth, my Great-Great Grandma. Teolina was born in 1878.
• Melbourn and Teolina had seven sons between 1900 and 1915 in South Dakota. The seven sons were Lawrence, Cecil, Harold, Oral (my Great-Grandpa), Lyle, Ray, and Marvin.

So I started my search for Melbourn in New York.  In the 1880 U.S. Census records I found a record of Melbourn, Minerva and Percy Crapser in Catskill, Green County, New York.

I discovered the Greene County History and Genealogy site and learned of many interesting leads to the Crapser line.   I found a biography for Melbourn, baptismal record, and cemetery records.

From the Mini Bios for the Men of the Town of Catskill:

Melbourn W. Crapser was born at Kiskatom, Catskill, April 29th 1858, and married Minerva Lewis. They have two children: Percy L., born August 18th 1878, died December 11th 1881; and Charles M., born July 12th 1880.

 From the Kiskatom Reformed Church Baptisms 1843-1930:

Infant baptisms by Rev. Geo. J. Van Neste

Jan 27, 1885 Charles M., b. Jun 13, 1881, Nathan L., b. Jul 18, 1883, Melvin W. Crapser, Minerva Lewis, at Nathan Lewis'

And from the Round Top Cemetery records:

127. CRAPSER
Percy L. Crapser b. Oct. 18, 1878 d. Dec. 11, 1861*
Charles M. Crasper b. Jan. 13, 1880 d. Mar.23, 1905
blank
Nathan L. Crasper b. July 18, 1883 d. Mar. 27, 1905

*Transcription error.  Based on Melbourn's biography in the Mini Bios listed above, Percy's death date should be 1881.

So we've acquired four more relatives (and a possible 5th - "blank" headstone pleads for answers) and identified Catskill, Greene County, NY as an early home. Then I realized Melbourn was still missing for 15 years. He was in New York in 1885 and didn't reappear until 1900 in South Dakota. Where was Melbourn for these 15 years?

I started digging through census records for New York and South Dakota, trying to locate him in either Greene County, NY or Brookings County, SD. A vast majority of the census records for 1890 were lost in a fire and South Dakota and New York were amongst those lost.  I did find him in the 1900 census for South Dakota with Grandma Teolina.

Hold on here though ...  The 1900 census also lists four children, Minnie, Delbert, Laura and Lewis. These four children were born in 1888, 1894, 1896, and 1898 respectively. But Melbourn and Teolina only had seven sons and only one son that was born in 1900.  Who are these children? 

A closer look at the census record indicated that Melbourn and Teolina had been married 0 years and Teolina had 0 children!  (View the census image)   Who is the mother of these four children? And where is she?

Then because the census record indicated the children were born in Illinois, I searched the online Illinois archives.I started by searching for birth certificates for Minnie, Delbert, Laura and Lewis.  I was unable to find Illinois birth records at the time, though it wouldn't hurt to try again.

While searching for other Crapser birth certificates in the South Dakota records, I did find a delayed birth record for an Adelbert Timothy Crapser.  This record wasn't filed until July 1942, but lists his birth date as June 17, 1894 and the parents as M W Crapser and Elizabeth Crapser.  I'm assuming this is our Delbert.

Then I began thinking ... For what reasons would a mom "leave" her children?  On another side of my family a mom left home to care for an ailing relative. Death was another possibility.  The youngest child, Lewis, is less than two years old in 1900 (born in June 1898) and Melbourn remarried a little over a year after Lewis' birth (August 1899).  Did the mother die during childbirth?

So South Dakota death records were searched.  I found Melbourn's death record for August 6th 1938, but nothing for an Elizabeth, Libbie, Lizzie, "E", or "L". 

Returning to the Illinois Archives, I finally found a marriage record for Melbourn Crapser and Libbie Walker in Chicago, Illinois!  I was able to identify which marriage record to request and sent a letter off to the Illinois Regional Archives.  A couple weeks later, I received three copies of the marriage license in varying copy settings from lightened to darked (AWESOME! I wouldn't have thought to do that, but all three show slightly different detail!)

And, of course, the marriage license led to the new discoveries of Boone County and Cook Country in Illinois, which led to more research in Illinois.  I also found burial records for Great-Great-Great Grandpa Timothy and a Robert Crapser, who is listed as the son of MW&E.

Round Prairie (aka Coynes) Cemetery, LeRoy Twp, Boone Co, Il.

Last FirstName BirthDate DeathDate Notes-Row
Crapser Robert H 17 Jan 1894 s/o MW&E; 2y 1m 24d 1/43a

Crasper Timothy 27 May 1825 23 Jun 1895 1/43b
*The link to the site I found this on no longer works, but it was a Boone County Cemetery page on Rootsweb/USGenweb.

But, the story doesn't end here.  Melbourn and Teolina divorced on July 8th 1919 and Melbourn disappears again!  He's missing from the 1920 census, which was taken in January. His children from Libbie have been adopted or married and Teolina remarried in March 1920 (and then had 2 more children - daughters this time!).  He is also missing from the 1930 census, the last available census record that can be viewed by the general public. As previously mentioned, Melbourn died on August 6,1938 in Brookings County. 

So one final mystery remains, where was Melbourn W Crapser between July 1919 and August 1938?

Treasure Chest Thursday: Marriage License for Melbourn Crapser and Libbie Walker

Today's treasure is the marriage license for my Great-Great Grandfather Melbourn W. Crapser and his second wife Elizabeth ("Libbie" or "Lizzie") Walker.

From Penny's Genes

The Marriage License reads:

To any person legally authorized to solomnize marriage greeting:


Marriage may be celebrated between Mr Melbourn W Crapser of Popler Grove in the County of Boon in the State of Illinois of the age of 28 years and Ms Libbie Walker of Popler Grove of the County of Boon in the State of Illinois of the age of 26 years.


Witness: M.W. Ryan, clerk of the County Court of said Cook country and the seal ____ of my office in Chicago this 28 day of September A.D. 1886.
M.W. Ryan, Clerk of the County Court


I, Lee M. Heilman, a minister of Gospel hereby certify that Mr. Melbourne W. Crapser and Miss Libbie Walker were united in marriage by me at Chicago in the County of Cook and State of Illinois on the twenty eighth day of Sept 1886.
Lee M. Heilman, Pastor Grace Luth Ch


Witness: Miss Laura Walker.

More to come ... (There is a story about how I found this one!)