RETURN TO OHIO PART II

Wednesday morning we met my cousin Jim at his hotel and spent a little time looking over pictures and catching up on the past 40 years or so before heading out to visit a few cemeteries to look for the burial sites of our ancestors.  We visited two cemeteries: St. John the Baptist in Landeck and St. John the Evangelist in Delphos. We found three couples who were our 2nd great grandparents:  Johann Wagner (1821-1895)  and his second wife Sophie; Nicholas (1832-1910) and Margaretha Mueller (1831-1892); and Hermann Frecker and his wife Bernadina Wrocklage:

 

 

We also found our great grandparents Charles and Susanna Mueller. 

 

In the afternoon, we spent time in the Delphos Public Library, looking for any information on our families that had once lived there.  Jim had been in the library the previous day, and was anxious to show me a binder full of information on the Wrocklage, Esch, Frecker and other families.  He recognized some of his father's letters and his handwriting on other documents, and realized that this binder contained much information that we thought had been lost in the flood at the Ottawa Library. Somehow this small piece of the 6 binders his father had donated to the Ottawa library had been either transferred or copied and sent to Delphos.  We were both thrilled and Jim convinced the librarian to copy the entire binder and send it to him for a fee.  (Jim also offered a generous donation to the library.)  After he receives the binder, he will make a second copy and send it to me.  So this first day of research was quite successful.

 

On the second day of research, we spent time at Gethsamani Cemetery in Lima.  Here we found the graves of all of our Schulien and Mueller relatives, including our grandparents, great grandparents, aunts and uncles, great aunts and great uncles.  Here are our Mueller grandparents' headstones:

 

  

We also found the resting places of our great grandparents, Joseph and Mary Schulien, and our aunt Marcie and Uncle Charlie, as well as Jim's mother and three brothers.

 

 

 Then I found the headstones of my Brennan grandparents and great grandparents, as well as my Brennan 2nd great grandparents, the immigrant couple, Ned and Mary Brennan, which I did not expect to find.

Their names (Ned and Mary) are not inscribed - only the Brennan surname and the dates of their deaths.  But these are the correct dates and so I am certain this is the correct headstone.

After a very successful, albeit sad walk through the cemetery, we went to the Allen County Historical Society Museum and I copied some records from a Brennan file they have there.  We also took pictures of exhibits in the museum and this one brought back memories:

When I was a little girl visiting my grandmother, I used to hear the horse-drawn milk cart coming down the street early in the morning.  I don't know when they switched to actual milk trucks, but this type of vehicle was still being used when I was a small girl. 

We met up with my cousin Tim in the museum and all piled in one car to drive around town and see the houses we remembered.  Many of them needed paint and were not in good condition, but it brought back many memories. 

Here's my Brennan grandparents' old house:

And my Grandma Bernie Mueller's house:

At Grandma Bernie's house, Jim and I rang the bell and Jim asked if we could come in and look around.  Though the owner of the house looked suspicious, she graciously granted our request.  It wasn't the same, of course, and the current owners had not done much to the inside or the outside to keep it in good condition, but nonetheless, it was quite an experience to be back in the house after nearly 50 years.  (My grandmother died in that house a little over 50 years ago, in 1963.)

Here's a picture of our mothers when they were little girls, sitting on the front porch with their uncle Rod:

And here are Jim and me, sitting on that same porch a few days ago:

Only the railing has changed.

We also drove past my Schulien great grandparents' house, as well as a brick mansion once owned by wealthy friends of the family. 

This house was in great shape, and Jim and I reminisced about the tunnel between the house and the four car garage.  The tunnel was put in so that the couple who helped maintain the house, and who lived in an apartment above the garage, would not have to walk in the snow to reach the main house. I suppose it was also handy for the two bachelor owners of the house when they parked their cars in the garage in the winter.   


We made a short visit to the house of my mother's cousin, Paul, who is 80 years old, and he told us some wonderful stories about the family, including the fact that my great grandmother, Mary Schulien, used to cook Sunday dinner for German prisoners of war who were living not far from Lima during WW II.  Apparently the prisoners worked in her son's foundry during the week, and she was asked to cook them a German meal on the weekend.  

Then it was time to say good-bye to both Jim and Tim, and spend a quiet evening trying to absorb all that we saw over the past two days.  The days of visiting with my mother's family, and gathering information about her ancestors had come to an end and the next days would be spent with my father's family, visiting and catching up with the Brennans on the years we've been apart. 

 

RETURN TO OHIO

It had been 37 years since I was last in lima, Ohio, the place of my parents' birth as well as mine.  All of my ancestors from the last several generations lived in Ohio, and many immigrated directly there from either Ireland or Germany or Belgium.  The last time I was in Lima, my aunts Marcie and Kay were still alive and well, and my Brennan grandparents were thriving.  Now, they are all gone, along with my uncles Al and Bill, and my cousins Mark, Steve, and Greg. So it was a different Lima to which I returned.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

My trip actually began on Saturday, May 18, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I visited my 3rd cousin on my dad's side of the family, Kathy Brennan.  I've only known Kathy for a few years, having heard about her from my parents who met her several years before they died.  I had never actually met her, however, but as we share many interests, are both Brennans, and love Ireland, I was anxious to spend some time with her.  We only had one day together, but it was a great one - sharing stories and pictures, dreaming about returning to Ireland, and having a wonderful tour of Ann Arbor.  We ate at Zingerman's famous deli, and walked around the Arboretum, where a large peony garden (800 plants) was just getting ready to bloom.  How I wished we could have seen it just two weeks later. 

I was also thrilled to see all the lilacs in bloom, and when I looked down, I saw carpets of Lilies of the Valley.

Here's a picture of me and Kathy and my husband, Tony in front of the peony garden.

It was a wonderful visit, but a short one, because the next day we were headed to Toledo for a reunion with my Mueller cousins at the home of my Schulien cousin, Tim (all on my mom's side of the family). Tim had prepared a wonderful German meal for us and showed us around his beautiful home, full of antiques and family memorabilia.  We shared stories and pictures while we waited for Pat and Fran to arrive and when they did, we had more catching up to do. 

Tim is my second cousin, and he shares my interest in genealogy, as does my first cousin, Jim, who will appear in a later blog. (Tim is also a great cook and musician.) Pat, on the left, and Fran, standing behind me, are sisters, the two daughters of my uncle Al Mueller.  Fran is named after my mother.  It was great to see all of them. And just behind Tim is the wedding portrait of our great grandparents, Joseph and Mary Schulien, or as everyone called them, "Mawmaw" and "Pawpaw."

We stayed at a 125 year old Victorian inn in Toledo, thanks to my cousin Tim who works there. 

The next day, Tim, Tony and I headed for Bowling Green University to do some genealogy research.  BGU has the records from the Catholic Churches at Delphos, Landeck, and Lima, where most of my relatives lived at one time.  We hunched over the microfilm reader for hours, and found many interesting records, including all the baptismal records of the children of Ned and Mary Brennan, my immigrant great great grandparents. Dinner that evening was at a Lebanese restaurant - yum!

The next morning, after breakfast with Tim, we were off to our final destination: Lima.  We arrived around noon at my aunt Sheila's house, visited for a time, and then left to check in at our hotel.  Later that evening Sheila, her husband Joe, Tony and I went to dinner at Milano's, a favorite of my parents whenever they visited Lima.

The next two days would be spent with my cousin Jim, doing genealogy research, then the final three days with my Brennan relatives.  I'll write about that, and offer some final thoughts about the trip, in the coming days. 

SUCCESS!

Well, the Croatian family reunion was yesterday and it was a phenomenal success.  We had close to 120 people there, enough to fill two rooms of the San Antonio Winery in Los Angeles.  A few of us who planned the event got there early:

First, everyone had to check in and get their name tag:

Then it was on to the buffet line to choose a meal from one of 2 dozen selections.   While everyone was eating, we were entertained by Tamburitza musicians, many of whom are members of the family:

Over their heads, you can see a screen where we had an ongoing slide show of pictures of family members, living and deceased.  It was one of the big hits of the day. 

Then the family introductions began.  At 90 years of age, here's the oldest family member present - Kuzma Domancich:

 

Here's one of several lively octogenarians: Annie, one of my favorite people.  In a number of ways, she reminds me of my mother. 

There was a family comedian who gave us an amusing lesson in Croatian, then told many stories from his "Croatian" childhood.  It was hard to hear him, though, as everyone wanted to talk with everyone else.  So while he continued, people watched, some listened, but many just wanted to visit.

Here's my husband, Tony, with his sister, Stephany, his mother, Phyllis (88 years old) and his nephew Jay.

Here's my nephew Ben and my son Jeff (with the beard):

 

Here are the Silmans:

And the Sherers:

Here's my granddaughters standing in front of some of the family posters:

 

 

And my son-in-law and grandson, who is preparing to take pictures:

After the introductions and presentations, the band returned and the Kolo dancing began:

 

 

And it continued:

Two grandnieces of ours, Savannah and Stephany, tried to entice their cousin Mason to join in the dancing, but he was having none of it:

Finally, after door prizes and a final good-bye, a group stayed for a winery tour and we packed up to leave. 

It was a wonderful, exhausting day, one I'm sure everyone will remember for a long time.