Wolterman Genealogy - Week 30

James C. Duffy is my husband’s 2nd great-grandfather. He was born about 1833 in County Tipperary, Ireland to William and Johanna (Britton) Duffy. He emigrated from Ireland to Quebec, Canada around 1850. On 14 April 1856, he married Katherine (sometimes spelled Catherine) A. Gorman in Aylmer, Quebec. Their first 2 children were born in Alymer: William in 1860 and Catherine in 1862.

James and Katherine

Sometime after 1862 and before 1868, the family moved to Ishpeming, Marquette County, Michigan. The following children were born in Ishpeming: Margaret born 1868; Mary Ann born 1870; James F. born 1872; and Rachael born 1873. The 1870 census from Ishpeming indicates that James was a laborer.

After 1873 but before 1878, James moved his family to Renville County, Minnesota where son John was born in 1878. On the 1880 census James was listed as a farmer. The 1900 census indicated that 71-year-old James was a landlord in Renville. Between 1900 and 1910, James and Katherine moved to Yakima, Washington to live with their daughter Mary and her family.

James died at the age of 79 on 31 August 1912 in Yakima County, Washington. Katherine lived to be 86. She died 15 February 1922. They are both buried in Calvary Cemetery, which has served the Yakima Catholic community since 1903. It is interesting to note that the headstone show the name as Duffey. The marriage record of James and Katherine lists the name as Duffy. The stone also has the age of James at death incorrect. Inconsistencies are common in genealogy!

Duffy stone

Wolterman Genealogy - Week 29

Last week I wrote about Filomena Reichel. I know nothing about her family, other than the fact that her parents were Frank and Francina (Fidler) Reichel, so I have no more to add to the Reichel family story.

Alymer, Canada

Instead this week I will talk about my husband’s other great-grandmother Catherine Duffy, who was born 24 April 1862 in Alymer, Quebec, Canada. Alymer was incorporated in 1847 and is located on the north shore of the Ottawa River.

Notre Dame Cathedral

The daughter of James and Katherine (Gorman) Duffy, Catherine was baptized on 25 April 1862 by a priest from the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Ottawa. The cathedral was elevated to the status of a basilica by Pope Leo XIII in 1879.

When Catherine was about 6 years of age, her family moved to Ishpeming, Marquette County, Michigan, which is located in the Upper Peninsula. By the time she was 18, they had moved again, settling in Birch Coolie, Renville County, Minnesota. The 1885 Minnesota Territorial Census, taken on May 1st, indicates that 22-year-old Catherine was living with her family in Norfolk Township, Renville County, Minnesota. That same year she married Joseph C. Reger in Renville. Their life together was discussed in Week 24, which can be found here.

Catherine was 72 when she died in Minneapolis, Hennepin County, Minnesota on 15 June 1934.

Catherine Duffy Reger

Wolterman Genealogy - Week 25

John Reger (spelled Rieger in Germany), father of Joseph Reger about whom I wrote last week, was born 1 July 1832 in Huettlingen, Jagstkreis, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany. Johannes, as he was baptized, was the 7th of 8 children born to Joseph and Ursula (Strobel) Reger.

The 1910 census record indicates that John emigrated to the United States in 1853 when he was about 21 years old. I haven’t found immigration information on him, so I am not sure if he came over with his entire family or not. But his parents and surviving siblings did settle in the same area as him, which was Carroll Township, Cambria County, Pennsylvania.

In 1858, John married Josephine Fehrenbacher in Carrolltown, Cambria County. He was 26 and she was 19. They had the following 13 children: Anna born and died 1859; Katrina born 1862; Joseph born 1863; Bertha born 1864; Ellen born 1865; Rinehart born 1868; Phimemina born 1869; Josephine born 1871; Mary born 1873; Johanna born 1874; Ann born 1876; Emma born 1878; and Charles born 1879. The first 4 children were born in Pennsylvania, and the remainder in Norfolk, Renville County, Minnesota.

John made his living as a farmer, and the on the 1900 census he indicated that he owned his farm. Josephine died at the age of 61 on 3 August 1901 in Park Rapids, Hubbard County, Minnesota.  She was buried at Straight River Township Cemetery.

Josephine Fehrenbacher Reger's stone

John Reger;s stone

John later moved to North Dakota, where the 1910 census showed him to be living with his daughter Anna and her family in Ellsbury, which is located in Barnes County. He died at the age of 90 on 3 November 1922. He is buried in the Page Cemetery which is located in Cass County, North Dakota.

Wolterman Genealogy - Week 24

Joseph C. Reger, my husband’s maternal great-grandfather, was born 12 August 1863 in Carroll Township, Cambria County, Pennsylvania. He was the 3rd of 13 children born to John and Josephine (Fehrenbacher) Reger.

Carroll township is located north of the center part of Cambria County, which is about 80 miles east of Pittsburgh. In 1880 the township had a population of 1,295. The main town in the township is Carrollton, and when the Reger family lived in the area it was surrounded by many prosperous farms. There were also saw mills, horse breeders, a couple of flour mills, a blacksmith who also manufactured buggies and wagons, and many livestock operations.

When Joseph was about 2 years old, his family moved to Norfolk Township, Renville County, Minnesota. By the 1880 census, 18-year-old Joseph was working on the farm of Michael Nell in Elk River Township, Sherburne County, Minnesota. This was about 120 miles from where his dad farmed, which makes one wonder why he left the area. As the oldest son, it would seem his father would need his help on the family farm.

While I have not located a marriage record for Joseph, the 1900 census indicates he married Catherine Duffy in 1885. The Duffy family also farmed in Renville County, but in neighboring Birch Cooley Township. Joseph and Catherine had the following children: Mary Francis born 1886; James Patrick born 1890; Alfred Clement born 1891; John Edward born 1893; Christina Agnes born 1895; Catherine Regina born 1897; Joseph Lawrence born 1898; Gertrude Helen born 1900; and William Francis born 1902.

By the 1930 census, Joseph, Catherine and Gertrude owned a home at 3005 Queen Avenue in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Joseph was employed as a watchman at a garbage plant. Looking at Google maps, it appears that their house as well as a couple of others, was torn down to make way for new houses. By 1940, only Joseph and Gertrude were living in a home owned by Joseph at 3009 Queen Avenue. He indicated that they had lived there in 1935 as well. This house has also been torn down.

Catherine died 15 June 1934 in Minneapolis. She was 72 years old. Joseph was 91 when he passed on 27 May 1955 in Hennepin County, Minnesota.

Wolterman Genealogy - Week 23

This week I am shifting over to Christina Agnes Reger, who was my husband’s maternal grandmother, and I’ll work my way back through the Reger side of the family. Christina was born 13 October 1895 in Birch Cooley, a township in Renville County, Minnesota. She was the 5th of 9 children born to Joseph C and Catherine (Duffy) Reger.

Alfred Reger's
stone

When Christina was 22, her brother Alfred died of pneumonia in Meuse-Argonne, France while serving in WWI. Christina lived with her parents and siblings until she was 25 years old. At that time she met and married Joseph John Pfeffer. Their life together was covered in a previous post, which can be found here.

She was 82 when Joseph died in 1977, and 89 when she passed on 9 November 1984 in Fairfax, Renville County, Minnesota.

Pfeffer family in Fairfax 1947, Christina in 1984, and Christina's stone

Wolterman Genealogy - Week 21

Mathias John Pfeffer, my husband’s great-grandfather, was born 3 January of 1864 to Martin and Rosalia (Madl) Pfeffer. He was baptized in the Catholic church on 4 January 1865 in Szentandras, Moson, Hungary. This area was later called Mosonszentandras, and is now part of Austria.

According to information he provided on U.S. census records, Mathias emigrated to the United States in 1886, making his way immediately to Minnesota. He would have been 21 years old. At some point he met Filomena (sometimes spelled Philomena) Riechel and they got married. Though I have found no record, it would have been after 1892 when Filomena entered the U.S. and before 1895.

Mathias and Filomena on their wedding day

They had the following children: Annie born 1895; Rosella born 1898; Joseph born 1900; Philomena born 1902; Mary born 1904; Katherine born 1907; Frances born 1909; Martin born 1913; and Edward born 1916.

photo on left about 1898 and the one on the right about 1920

In the 1910 census for Wellington Township in Renville, the family was living on a farm which they rented. By 1920, they were renting a farm in nearby Cairo Township, a township with an area of 34.2 square miles.

Mathias Pfeffer stone

 Mathias died at the age of 64 on 3 November 1929. The cause of death was listed as toxemia resulting from chronic myocarditis, which is an inflammation of the heart muscle. He was buried in Saint Andrew’s Catholic Cemetery in Fairfax, Minnesota.

*Note that his stone indicates a birth year of 1865. I chose to go with the birth year 1864 as that is the what the Catholic church in Hungary recorded as the birth year. If records have conflicting dates, it is customary to use the date on the record closest to the event in question, in this case, Mathias birth year.

Wolterman Genealogy - Week 20

For Week 20 I am switching over to my husband’s maternal grandparents. His grandfather was Joseph John Pfeffer, who was the first son born to Mathias John and Filomena (Reichel) Pfeffer on 19 March 1900 in Cairo Township, Renville County, Minnesota. The family lived on a farm in Renville County.

When he was 18, Joseph registered for the World War I draft. He indicated that his occupation was farming, and that he was employed by Mathias Pfeffer in Cairo. He stated that he was of medium height and build, with brown eyes and brown hair. There is no indication that Joseph served in the military.

Joseph and Christine's wedding day

On 19 September 1921, Joseph married Christina Agnes Reger in nearby Fairfax, Minnesota. He was 21 and she was an older woman of 25. The couple had the following children: John born 1922; Bernadine born 1923; Joseph born 1925; and Lorraine born 1930.

Joseph and Christinal Marriage Certificate

The 1930 census showed the family residing in Cairo, and Christina’s 37-year-old brother John was living with them as was Joseph’s 16-year-old brother Martin (this was likely because their father Mathias Pfeffer had died in 1929.) John worked on road construction and Martin as a farm laborer.

Joseph, Christina and their children

By the time the 1940 census was taken, Joseph, Christina and their children were living in the town of Fairfax. The census further indicated that they lived in the same house, which they owned, in 1935 as well. Joseph was employed as a government worker.

On 14 February 1942, Joseph registered for the WWII draft. He gave his weight as 165 pounds, height as 5’9”, listed his complexion as light, indicated he had brown hair and brown eyes, and worked for the WPA. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was an employment program created by President Roosevelt in 1935 during the depression. The program lasted for 8 years, and put around 8.5 million Americans to work.

Nearby projects of the WPA included the erection of Morton rainbow granite buildings and restoration of the original fort commissary at Fort Ridgely State Park in Ridgely Township, construction of several stone structures in Flandrau State Park in New Ulm, and installation of hiking trails, stairs, and seven new buildings at Minneopa State Park in Mankato.

Joseph died on 22 November 1977 in Fairfax at the age of 77, a mere 4 years after the death of his son Joseph. The cause of death for the senior Joseph was listed as massive gangrene of the small and large bowel due to thrombosis of the superior and inferior mesenteric arteries. He was buried in St. Andrew’s Catholic Cemetery in Fairfax.

Joseph Pfeffer's stone

Wolterman Genealogy - Week 7

In my last post, I took the Wolterman male line back as far as I can at this point. This week I will begin with Theresa Kathryn Determan, my husband’s paternal grandmother, and work back through the Determan side of the family.

Theresa was born 17 May 1903 in Mount Carmel, Carroll County, Iowa to Johann August and Mary Anna (Luchtel) Determan. She joined older siblings Caroline born in 1891, Mary born in 1892, Frank born in 1894, Laura born in 1896, Elizabeth born in 1897, Edward born in 1899 and Clement born in 1901. Two additional children were born after Theresa: Martha in 1905 and Joseph in 1907. All of the children were born in Mount Carmel, Iowa, where they lived on a farm.

The Determan family traveled by train to Butte, Nebraska in 1908 when Theresa was 5 years old. Johann (who went by his middle name August), established a farm in Butte. Two years later August died at the age of 42. Mary was only 37, but she continued to hold onto the farm with the help of her children and hired hands until 1917. At that point, so the family story goes, 68-year-old Bernard Clemens Schulte came from Breda, Iowa to visit Mary in Butte. His wife, Marie Elizabeth Determan, had died in 1913. Marie was the older sister of August Determan. She and Bernard had 12 children, and she was 51 when she died.

Clem Schulte farm

Bernard proposed to Mary, and she moved back to Breda with the following children: Clement, Theresa, Martha, and Joseph. (August and Mary’s son Edward had died in 1900.) Her son Frank remained on the farm, and her daughters Carolyn, Mary, Laura, and Elizabeth had all married and stayed in Nebraska.

On 14 November 1917, Bernard and Mary married in Breda, Iowa. Mary was 44 years old at the time of her second marriage. At least 4 of Bernard’s children would have still been at home at this time.

Theresa was in 9th grade when they relocated to the Schulte farm in Iowa. She later said that she and her siblings were happy to have a shorter walk to school in Iowa. In Nebraska it was 3 miles from the farm to their school.

Theresa worked in a dry goods store. I've been corrected since my post about Frank Conrad Wolterman regarding how she met her future husband. She and Frank met at a dance, not a shower. They married on 6 June 1922 at St. Bernard Church in Breda, Iowa. From this union came 11 children, and as I explained in my first post, I am not listing the birth years of the children because some of them are living and I want to respect their privacy.

Frank and Theresa's wedding day

During their marriage, Theresa and Frank lived in Maple River, Iowa, Breda, Iowa, Fonda, Iowa (on Moore's farm and later the Lampe farm, moving into the town of Fonda after a tornado damaged the house and 22 buildings on the Lampe farm), and their final move was in 1950 to a farm west of Fairfax, Minnesota.

Frank died in 1964, and Theresa lived with her son Stanley on the farm for a while. Later she lived in a mobile home before moving to an apartment. Her last year was spent in a nursing home in Mapleton, Blue Earth, Minnesota. Theresa died in Mapleton on 28 January 1988 at the age of 84.

So as not to be redundant, you can read more about the life of Theresa and Frank by going to my first post, which can be found here.

Theresa on the right, with her
mother Mary before 1955

My 2019 Genealogy Writing Challenge

Having been unsuccessful in searching for a new genealogy writing challenge for this year, I decided to come up with one of my own. Each week I will be writing about the family I married into 40 years ago. As they say, you can choose your spouse, but you don’t get to choose the family that comes along with him or her. I’ve been blessed in both my husband and his extended family, who have always treated me as one of their own. This year I’m going to work my way backwards through the Wolterman clan, and in respect to the living, I will begin with my husband’s grandfather. Initially I will be focusing on the Wolterman men, and when I've gone back as far as my information allows, I'll switch to the females in the family tree.

George & Catherine Wolterman Family ~1915

Frank Conrad Wolterman was born 4 November 1899 in Wheatland Township, Carroll County, Iowa, the 10th of 13 children born to Gerhard (George) and Catherine (Woerdehoff) Wolterman. Frank’s siblings were: Margaret born in 1883, John born in 1885, Anna born in 1886, Gertrude born in 1888, Catherine born in 1889, Gerhard (George) born in 1891, Bernadine born in 1893, Peter born in 1895, Leonilla born in 1898, Clara born in 1901, Edmund born in 1903, and Albin born in 1907. All of the children were born in Carroll County, Iowa and grew up on the farm owned by their father.

Breda, Iowa ~1910

The nearest town was Breda, which was formed in 1877 when the Maple branch of the Chicago and Northwestern railroad was built through the territory. The town was named after the Dutch city of Breda. Many of the first settlers, however, came to the area from Galena, IL in 1869.

By 1899 there were 425 residents, mostly of German descent who spoke in their own native language. There were also 19 residents who spoke English and 11 who spoke Dutch. The vast majority of the community members were Catholic, and they attended church in Mt. Carmel. Tired of trudging the 5.5 miles on foot, by horseback or wagon, they petitioned the Catholic Church to construct one in their own town. By 1880 they had built the original wood frame St. Bernard Church in Breda. In 1888 a brick church was completed to handle the growing church population.

St. Bernard Church ~1910

When he was 18, Frank filled out a registration card for the World War 1 draft at the Local Board for the County of Carroll, State of Iowa. It was dated 12 September 1918. On it, he indicated that he was medium height, medium build, with blue eyes and black hair. It was very lucky for him that the war ended 11 November 1918.

Frank & Theresa's wedding day

Just a few short years later, it was at St. Bernard Church that Frank married Theresa Kathryn Determan on 6 June 1922.  He was 22 years old. Theresa, the daughter of Johann August and Mary Anna (Luchtel) Determan, was 19. The couple met at a shower for her stepsister, and they attended dances together. Theresa wore a wedding gown that had been sewn by her sister, Martha. Frank and Theresa had 11 children: Clarice, Rosemary, Duane, Gerald, Jeanette, Marilyn, Shirley, Stanley, Maribeth, Muriel, and Joleen.

Frank, like his father, was a farmer. They first farmed by Wall Lake in Sac County, Iowa, then in Maple River Township. The 1930 census from Maple River Township in Carroll County indicates that he was renting the property. Sometime between 1930 and 1935 the family moved to the Fonda, Iowa area. On the 1940 census Frank listed that they were renting a farm in Williams Township, Calhoun County, Iowa, and that the family had been in the same house in 1935. Williams Township is just south of Fonda. In 1950 they moved one final time to Fairfax, Minnesota, with Frank and his sons driving the combine and tractors all the way from Iowa to Minnesota. What a sight that must have been!

Frank & Theresa Wolterman family ~1945

On 9 October 1964 Frank died at the age of 64. He and Theresa had been married for 42 years. Theresa lived another 24 years, and was 84 when she died on 28 January 1988. Frank and Theresa are both buried in Saint Andrews Catholic Cemetery in Fairfax.

Wolterman graves