The Story behind the Picture
(C) 2018 Frederick Walton
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| September 23, 1943 at the Kroll Farm in Chester, N. Y. |
On Thursday evening, September 23, 1943, members of the Kroll family gathered at the family farm house in Chester, N.Y., to celebrate the golden anniversary of Julius Kroll and his wife of 50 years, Ottilie [née Herzke]. We know the date and who was present by the photograph (above) and the information written on the back (below), allowing me to label the attendees. I got my copy of this photo from my Aunt Dee who was present at the dinner as a little girl (bottom left foreground), but I am aware that several other copies exist amongst other family members.
A related picture is this happy couple sitting together while their family celebrates nearby. Fifty years of wedded bliss! We know it is the same night because of the clothes they are wearing.
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| Ottilie and Julius Kroll on their 50th Wedding Anniversary |
Historical documents, family oral history, and these photos tell us a lot about this celebration.
Ottilie Herzke and Julius Kroll where married in Blue Island, Illinois on September 23,1893 at the First Evangelical Lutheran church, sometime called the “German Lutheran Church”. (see “The Union of Ottilie Herzke and Julius Kroll” for more info)
Between 1894 and 1919, the Kroll’s spent their first 25 years making babies! One of those babies was my grandmother, Lydia, and part of the reason why I’m here! She had ten siblings, lets meet them all:
- Daughter Anne Helena was born on June 25, 1894, in Illinois. She married William Clyde Rion and lived in Tennessee. They had one son, William Clyde Rion, Jr. Anne Died in 1981. She was unable to attend the Anniversary Party.
- Son Alfred J was born on July 18, 1895, in Illinois. He Married Forence Case. They had 5 Children. Alfred died in 1974. They attended the anniversary party with 3 of their children.
- Daughter Johanna T was born on July 10, 1896. I knew her as “Nonnie Jo”. She never married and devoted her life as a caregiver. She lived between Florida and Squirrel Island Maine. She died in 1983 and is buried next to her parents. She was unable to attend the Anniversary Party.
- Son Arthur Paul was born on July 14, 1898, in Germany. He married Grace E. Heller and they had one son. They lived in Tuxedo, Orange County, New York and he retired to Pennsylvania where he died in 1963 and is buried. He attended the Anniversary Party with his wife.
- Son Eric Charles was born on July 30, 1899, in Germany. He lived near Chester. He Never married. Eventually he moved to Tennesee and lived near sister Anne Rion. He died in 1986. He attended the anniversary party.
- Son Henry Julius was born on November 14, 1900, in Germany. He married Harriet Terwilliger who was known as Hattie. They had 4 children. They live in Blooming Grove, New York. They attended the anniversary party with 3 of their children. He died in 1967.
- Daughter Margaret was born on February 17, 1902, in Germany. She never Married. Family Oral history identifies her as quite a daredevil. As a young adult she went sky-diving and her parachute failed causing her traumatic injuries resulting in her residence at the Middletown State Homeopathic Hospital (a Psychiatric hospital) in Middletown, New York. I knew Aunt Margaret when I was a child and remember her as a smiling, shy, kind soul who barely said a word. She would often visit her sister, aunt Elsie, who lived a couple of blocks away from the hospital. She did not attend her parents anniversary party. She died in 1978 and is buried with her Parents.
- Daughter Elsie A. was born on February 20, 1903, in Chester, New York. She never married and had a successful career as a legal secretary, working in Middletown, New York City and Goshen. She attended the anniversary party. She later lived with her Widowed mother and died in 1990.
- Daughter Lydia Hedwig Kroll was born on September 6, 1904, in Blooming Grove, New York. She Married Erwin Packhiser and had two Daughters. The family attended the anniversary party. Lydia Lived in Middletown, New York and died in 1995
- Son Conrad A. was born on July 8, 1909, in New York. He called his wife, Gladys (Garman), "Gay" and they had five children. The family attended the anniversary party. He worked on the family Farm with his father. He died in 2003.
- Daughter Dorothea K. was born on October 28, 1919, in New York. She married William Fisher and lived in Ashland , Pa. She was unable to attend the Anniversary party. She died in Ashland in 2004 and is buried there.
Are one of these siblings your ancestor? If you have additional information or photos you'd like to share, please let me know.
A newly discovered 1943 newspaper clipping from the Middletown Times Herald, found by my sisters while cleaning out my mothers house after their recent move, has revealed some new and important facts about this party and our German ancestry. I had already known or concluded some of the information, but some of it is new and revolutionary!
We know that some of the children were born in the United States (3 in Illinois and 4 in New York) and four were born in Germany. We know they went to Germany around 1897 and returned in 1902 because we have some of the immigration records. But now this fact is confirmed by yet another source, the newspaper article!
The article also gives us detailed information about Julius, that official records have not specified…his work history. My mom told me that her grandfather could do anything…Make furniture, repair shoes or broken dolls, invent tools to help on the farm, and keep the house and barns in good repair. Apparently this wasn’t just hollow pride from a granddaughter. Just look at his resume: Steel worker with Illinois Steel company, Railroad firemen for Northern Pacific Railroad, Carpenter and farmer. In fact, in 1943, at age 78 he “is still an active farmer. Daily, morning and night, he joins his son Conrad, in the barns, to do his bit of the milking and during the day assumes those tasks that his strength will allow.”
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| Julius Kroll on his Farm in Chester with his wife and her 3 sisters (Circa 1930s) |
I had guessed that Ottilie and Julius probably knew each other from the old country, because they married only 4 months after she arrived in May 1893. But now I know for sure, because the newspaper article says so! It describes that she met and fell in love with Julius in her native Germany and “Three years after he had come to his adopted home to make good he sent for his prospective bride”.This also confirms that Julius arrived around 1890, as stated in various U.S.Federal Census forms, although I have been unable to locate his specific passenger immigration information.
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| Julius and Otillie, young and in love! |
We know the very interesting story of how two brothers, Frederick and Julius Kroll, married two sisters. Older brother Frederick married older sister Anna Marie Herzke and Julius married Ottilie Herzke. What has been somewhat elusive are whether or not there are other Kroll siblings. Although the article doesn’t mention Frederick, who died in 1927, It mentions two sisters, one in Germany “from whom he has not heard from in a long time” and one in Flint, Michigan. Unfortunately the sister from Germany remains unnamed.
Guess who contacted me last year from Flint, Michigan? The descendant of Julius Kroll’s sister! Our DNA matches and we are cousins. She contacted me through ancestry.com DNA. Julius sisters name was Anna Louise Kroll (1877-1960). She Married Reinholt Draheim…but thats another story!
I sure wish a cousin descended from the sister in Germany would contact me, There a lot of questions they could help me answer.
Ottilie Herzke had nine siblings, but only those four still living are mentioned in the article.
The photo not only shows the family, but it gives us a rare look inside the Kroll home. They must have has a massive dining room to accommodate over two dozen guests at a sit down dinner. The room was, in fact, a ball room, according to my mother and occupies most of the front first floor on the right of the photo of the family house below.
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| Kroll family farm, Chester, N.Y. |
One has to conclude that the reporter talked to the couple, or maybe their children, since Ottilie and Julius were older and spoke broken english with heavy German accents, but the information is clearly either first or second hand and can be considered reliable.
What an interesting article, about a milestone for my great-grandparents. Even more remarkable is that I was able to review this photo with my mom and aunt who were there!
This article answered questions they had both long forgotten and helps us move forward to document the Herzke/Kroll family tree.
One mystery is the German phrase written on the back of the photo. Who wrote it? My Grandmother? and what does it say? Can anyone translate?
