A Rose Between Two Thorns
Lydia Kroll (Packhiser) in 1925
Copyright (C) 2014 Frederick Walton, Family Historian
January 23,2014- Ancestry.com recently added seven new New York collections to their site. Since all four of my grandparents lived in NY for most of their lives and raised their families there, I thought they might help me solve some unanswered questions. I eagerly investigated these new resources but, unfortunately, most of them are just beyond the date ranges that would be useful to me. However it did prompt me to search a little harder for my maternal grandparents, whom I had not spent as much time on in the past.
Lydia H. Kroll- Ami
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Theresa Kruger, Lydia Kroll and Margaret Kroll,
somewhere in New York, exact location unknown.
Lydia wrote on this photo: “Wall nuts!! 1925” and “a Rose between two thorns!”
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I called my maternal grandmother “Ami” when I was a baby because I couldn’t say “Oma”, the German word for grandmother. Being the first grandchild, Lydia became Ami for all the rest of her seven grandchildren.
I started my search with the 1925 New York State Census. Lydia Kroll (b.1904) would have been a young adult and I expected her to pop up instantly. Kroll is not exactly a common name so there shouldn’t be thousands of results to search through. She was not there. Where are you Ami?
1925 New York Census.
According to Ancestry, the New York state censuses were taken every ten years from 1825-1875, in 1892, and then again from 1905-1925. State censuses like the 1925 census are useful because they fall in between Federal census years and provide an interim look at a population.
Of course I was searching for Lydia Kroll not Ami. I did find her parents and a couple of siblings (Conrad- 15 and Dorethea- 5) still living at the family farm, but the older siblings had gotten on with their lives and moved out, including, apparently, the 20 year old Lydia.
My mother, Jeanne, told me that Ami had moved out when she was about 14 (1918) and boarded with a family in Middletown, N. Y. as a Nanny to their young children. Meanwhile her older sister, Elsie, had been sent to college at New Paltz to become a teacher. Lydia felt cheated out of an education and a chance to be a career woman but was determined to do so on her own. She saved enough money to buy a typewriter and enrolled in secretarial school. Misfortune struck when her typewriter was stolen and she had to drop out. She ended up working as a “sales lady” in a high end woman's clothing store called L. Stern Co. Apparently she never got over this disappointment. As a child I could sense a certain tension between the sisters, as close as they usually where. (I always thought Aunt Elsie, was jealous of Ami! Elsie never married and I thought she was jealous of her sister for her husband, children and grandchildren.)
Although not found in the 1925 New York Census, Lydia was listed in the 1920 Federal Census (taken on January 21, 1920). Lydia H. Kroll, age 15, is living with her parents and 9 siblings on Chester Road in Blooming Grove, NY. She is listed as born in NY, although some of her siblings were born in Germany or Illinois. Her father. Julius, is listed as a dairy farmer and the farm they live on is rented. Her older siblings, aged 19-25, hold a variety of jobs while sister Elsie, age 16, Lydia, and her younger siblings are listed as attending school. Its not clear from this single record how the nanny story fits in.
I decided to dig deeper using the Middletown City directories. When did Ami show up in Middletown?
I searched the Middletown City Directory from 1918-1930. No Kroll’s were listed from 1918 through 1925, but I did find Ami starting in 1926 where she was listed as:
Kroll Lydia clk 11 North r 36 1/2 Albert
meaning she was a clerk at 11 North street and resided at 36 1/2 Albert street.
I looked up the street address for 11-15 North street and found a listing for the Stern’s Building and the store: Stern L Co. , Cloaks and suits. That address is now a vacant lot, and, ironically, the building was next to where my Father managed an HFC office in the 1960s and 70s. I passed it regularly without knowing this is where my grandmother once worked.
This eight word directory listing confirms several things my Mom told me about her Mother. She did work as a clerk (or sales-lady per the 1930 census) at Stern’s which was located at 11 North Street. She lived in Middletown, at least after 1926 and Her residence was 36 1/2 Albert Street.
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Circa 1880 two-family home at 36 1/2 Albert st. , Middletown, N. Y.
where Ami Lived in 1926. |
The only other Kroll listed in the 1926 Middletown City Directory is her older sister, Margaret, residing at 42 East Ave.
Albert street is off Wickham Avenue/West Main Street. This was a road I drove, probably, thousands of times when going from my childhood house to Ami’s house, to church, to college or practically anywhere else in Middletown. Until today, I never knew Ami had lived there. This area used be known as little Italy, when I was a teen. Chances are that I drove by where she once lived at least once in my travels.
Now I know where she was in 1926…so where was she in 1925? Maybe If I could find her landlord, I could find him in the 1925 census and see if Lydia is listed as a boarder under a butchered or illegible name.
I looked up the 36 1/2 Albert Street in the back section of 1926 city directory, and found William B. Wolfe listed at 36 Albert, and W. [Warren] Leigh Adams listed at 36 1/2. When looking up these names in the front section of the 1926 directory I found:
William B & Rose M. Wolfe. Condr O&M h 36 Albert
Adams, Warren L (Florence S.) barber 354 North 36 1/2 Albert
Note: r means the person listed resides at the address listed and h means the person listed is the home owner. Therefore Warren Adams was the home owner and Ami’s land lord and the Wolfes were her neighbors in 1926.
Back to the 1925 Census. I tried to find the landlord- Warren L or Florence Adams in the 1925 census thinking that Lydia may be listed as a boarder. I could not find them. Next I looked up Wolfe to see if this would get me back to the Albert Street address in 1925. The census is written in a a ledger type bound notebook and the addresses are, for the most part, written in order. William Wolfe (52) lived with his wife, Rose (50) and his step daughter Nora E Lyons (26) at 36 Albert Street. Nora lists her occupation as Saleslady. I wondered if she worked at Stern’s? maybe this is how Ami ended up finding a place at this address. I looked her up in the 1925 directory but she is only listed as clk without the work address listed.
The next Census entry, 361/2 Albert is occupied by Stanley Cox (23) an auto machinist and his wife Alice E. (19). Neither the Adam’s or Lydia Kroll are listed there in 1925.
So where are they? I decided to look up Warren at his 354 North Street Barber shop.
I found 354 North street in the 1925 Census but no mention of a barber shop or Adams, or Lydia Kroll. The residents were the Dibble and Abdoo families.
In the 1925 City directory the street address for 354 North has 3 entries, the barber shop, Dibble and Abdoo. The Barber shop is listed under W. L. Adams, Barber, shop at 354 North Street. Still no mention of Lydia Kroll.
In the 1925 City directory, in the names section, Adams is listed as:
Adams Warren L. barber 354 North h 3741/2 do
This means his business is at 354 North street but he owns a home (h) at 374 1/2 North Street. I looked this street address up in the Directory and, oddly, it lists 3 names, none of which is Warren Adams.
Back to the 1925 Census, I manually searched page by page for 374 1/2 North street and finally found it in ED 1, Ward 2. There are fourteen residents listed including a boarder named Lee Adams, Female!, age 32 who lists his occupation as a barber. no wonder I couldn’t find him when searching for Warren or Leigh. It looks like he is not yet married since there is no sign of Florence or Lydia.
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Lydia Kroll in Middletown, N.Y. 1928
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Perhaps this all boils down to a a timing issue since I don’t really know when the City Directory data was gathered or when it was published.
For my final search. I entered only the name Lydia, and the location Middletown, NY in the 1925 Census which yielded over 100 names to search. I scanned through them looking for obvious transcription errors, like Krill or Roll. I found a Lydia Roe, but her whole family was named Roe, so that was not Ami. Like wise a Lydia Cole turned out to be …a Cole!
I repeated this search on the name Margaret with similar results.
I tried the same search in the 1925 Middletown city directory which returned 24 Lydias. None of which were remotely close to being my Ami.
In summary, I found Ami, in Middletown, from 1926 to 1930 at several addresses. I did NOT find her in Middletown between 1918 and 1925, either listed by her name, or at any of the later addresses or with any of the landlords from her later addresses.
We know she was working at Sterns from 1926 to 1930, but I am unable to determine when she started. Sterns is long out of business. If she was in Middletown, working at Sterns, or attending typing school, Then she may simply have not been at home when the census taker visited and was therefore overlooked.
I don’t know where she was when the 1925 census was taken, but she doesn’t seem to have been counted by the state of New York. If you locate her…please let me know!
Citations available upon request
Dad drove me over to the Cemetery during my visit and Mom came along. The cemetery looks small from the road, but once you enter and drive up the road and over the hill, the Cemetery spreads out before you in a sea of headstones, some old and leaning as if tired by their long existence, some new and shiny granite, standing squat and solid in the grassy meadow.
