Confirmation of Anna Guy's Movements in the 1920s - 1930s

Sorry for the delay in this but have been busy with 4th cousin genealogy that seems to have solved a question I have held for a number of years and which I will get to in a subsequent posting on Osterndorff-Heddendorf connection.


Confirmed locations are dated in bold with my research of the location state in ( ).  This is assumes Anna Guy Selye wrote these locations in chronological order as she only wrote the location not the associated date.  ...Not sure what is up with the font

191?  Binghamton (New York)

191?  Belmont (Massachusetts)

1920  Lynnfield C. (Massachusetts)

1921  Touisett (Rhode Island)

1922  “Pack Sture” (possibly Park Circle, Florida, but that was 1930s so maybe not)

1923  “Ten Acre” farm

1924  Avon – Bank St. (possibly Connecticut for Avon; Bank St is NYC)

1925  Charleton St., NY

1926  Sauderstown T.I. (or L.I. but the only place that comes up is Rhode Island)

1927  Bank St. (New York City, New York)

1928  Quaker Neck (Maryland)

1929  Dallas, (Texas)

1930  Charleston, (possibly South Carolina)

1931  Bank (this is 61 Bank St, New York, NY)

1932  Norwood (Massachusetts)

1933  Bank – Boston (New York City, New York and Massachusetts)

1931/2  65^th (New York; usually 135 East 65th St.)

1933  Farm Montgomery

1934  79^th (New York; and 1937)

1935/6  Litchfield, (Conneticut)

1938  Manchester (Vermont)
2 – R. H.

Not listed are the following:
1914  210 East Ave, Rochester, NY (possibly 1913 or even 1915)
1933  Miami, Florida
08 Jan 1937  225 East 79th St, New York City, NY
16 Apr 1938  225 East 79th St, New York City, NY
1939  New York, NY
13 Feb 1940  Reid Hallow Colony, Brattleboro, VT (also noted as Halifax, VT in 1941)
10-14 July 1940  225 East 79th St, New York City, NY (also noted for Sept 1940)
14 Oct 1940  Reid Hallow, West Brattleboro, VT (also noted for Aug 1940)
06 Mar 1941  225 East 79th St, New York City, NY
18 Aug 1941  Reid Hallow, Brattleboro, VT (also noted for Jul 1941)
10 Jan 1942  Reisman Farm, West Brattleboro, VT
14 May 1942  Farmington, CT (c/o Mrs. F. T. Day)
13-14 July 1942  The Stratfield Hotel, Bridgeport, Connecticut
1946  Cross River, NY (Box 38)
1947 225East 79th St Apt 16D, New York City, NY (also noted for 1945)
1948  New York 21, NY

Take That Brick Wall!

Working from the back forward always has its benefits when the good stuff is at the end and it is even better when that good stuff resolves a few unanswered questions!

So I know I have not reached writing about Anna Guy Selye, aka "Mother-Mother", but this bit from her notes is just too good to not mention.  Quick backstory: after Anna received confirmation about the death of her wayward, fortune seeking husband, leaving her penniless, it has been rather difficult to track her in the historical records, making only two appearances after 1915.  One of those records was her 1931 divorce papers and the other was the 1940 US Federal Census (USFC).  She could not be located in the 1920 or 1930 USFC, despite checking all the known haunts for the family, though her married daughter was found.  It is understandable that perhaps Anna did not want to be found by the census or perhaps the family member who answered the door forgot to include her in the list of members.  Mayhaps she was traveling at the time.

This latter reason is quite probably given the recent information that has just surfaced.  Working backward through her notes, in what is quiet the undertaking to transcribe all of her papers, I came across a page in which she recounts that the past 18 years has seen the family residing in "twenty different places, not to mention boarding schools and camps."  Anna adds that, "It would seem strange to the children not to move, at least once a year...", where the children she is referring to are her four grandchildren by her only daughter Harriet Selye Campbell.  Sadly this page, like most of the pages, is not dated but given the contents of this particular writing, one can deduce that it is anywhere between the late 1920s to 1930s, as her grandson Billy is still playing with his toys, "this jangling of metal!"  ...Then again, it could have been written as late as the early 1940s based on some of the locations and the fact that boys & men of all ages still enjoy their "toys"!

So here is the list of locations - cities, towns and some house/farm names - Anna wrote (and that which I can make out) with my internet sleuthing to track down the states these locations might be.  Sadly she did not put any dates with these locations! But thankfully some of her letters and correspondence still survives so some of the locations can pinned down in time and I hope to be able to tell you in a subsequent post.

Binghamton (New York)

Belmont (Massachusetts)

Lynnfield C. (Massachusetts)

Touisett (Rhode Island)

“Pack Sture” (possibly Park Circle, Florida, but that was 1930s so maybe not)

“Ten Acre” farm

Avon – Bank St. (possibly Connecticut)

Charleton St. NY

Sauderstown T.I. (or L.I. but the only place that comes up is Rhode Island)

Bank St.

Quaker Neck, (either Virginia or North Carolina)

Dallas, (Texas)

Charleston, (possibly South Carolina)

Bank

Norwood (Massachusetts)

Bank – Boston (Massachusetts)

65^th (New York)

Farm Montgomery

79^th (New York)

Litchfield, (Conneticut)

Manchester (New Hampshire)
2 – R. H.

Still a lot more work to be done with the transcriptions but slow and steady wins the race!

A Case for Syphilis? ...I hope not!

Syphilis - the bacteria, venereal disease you do not want to get if: a) you were born before penicillin; b) wanted or building a family; or c) do not have access to a sanitary environment or hygiene.  (Then again, even if you have penicillin, you still do not want this.)  Unfortunately for Eben William Osterndorff, he lived in a time with such conditions and may have had syphilis.  Since we do not have access to his remains nor a time machine, let us review the evidence.

The Father

The cause of death listed for Eben W. Osterndorff is paralysis with the date of death being 19 November 1891, aged 49 years, 10 months and 23 days.  Before the 20th (or even the 21st) Century, syphilis was rarely listed as a cause of death, usually due to the negative connotation associated with the disease and stigma to the family, but cannot be ruled out as a possible cause.  No other contributing causes are noted on the certificate of death.  Paralysis could have also resulted from botulism, multiple sclerosis, vitamin B12 deficiency, cervical spondylosis or motor neuron disease.  Without further historical medical records, oral or written family history, it is not possible to rule these others causes leading to paralysis either.  But what else do we know about the family?

For the majority of his adult life Eben was a coal dealer, a liquor dealer during the Civil War, a grocer and possibly a post master.  There have been no indications of poor health as would be noted on the US Federal Census (USFC): no blindness, deaf and dumbness, idiocy nor insanity.  There is also no notice of time being spent in a sanitarium or hospital but there is also no indication that he did not have a problem with alcohol, at least not one that was on public display.  Indeed, his life seems to be quite the opposite, being a member of a number of charity organizations and Episcopalian church groups.  His occupation allowed him to marry in his mid-twenties and almost immediately have two daughters, spaced two years apart.  In fact the coal and liquor businesses seem to do well enough to support three generations under one roof in a nice area of Manhattan just a stone's throw from Central Park. 

The Known Children

Unfortunately for us, Eben and his wife Margaret have their children in the early 1870s and the 1875 New York State Census for New York county is missing.  This means that when we catch up with Eben and his family in 1880, it is not possibly to ascertain whether they had more children who died young or were unable to have more children.  The only other option is to check if the baptismal records for the Episcopalian St. Michael's church still exist for the 1870s and whether they are accessible to the public, as this was the church in which Eben and Margaret married and where Eben had his funeral services.  Currently no record has been found, as of yet.  What we do know is that another daughter appears as a young adult with her unmarried sister in the 1900 USFC; the 1890 USFC being destroyed in a fire.  No New York State Census was taken in 1885, nor is there a microfilm copy of the 1892 OR the 1905 New York State Census for New York county, though there were taken originally.  The estimated year of birth for this third daughter is 1883, nearly 12 years after the second daughter!  If this third daughter is indeed a daughter of Eben and Margaret, why did they have more than a decade of hiatus between the daughters?  If we can rule out bad finances (see previous post on Eben W. Osterndorff), perhaps we can rule in a medical/biological cause.

The Mother
Let us consider Margaret Blohm Osterndorff, the mother, and her death.  Margaret's certificate of death reports that she died on 30 Jan 1898, at the age of 47 years, 11 months and 4 days, the chief cause being "asthenia - remittent malarial fever", with contributing cause being "malnutrition - extreme emaciation as result".  The fever is reported to have lasted 3-4 days and the asthenia to have lasted several weeks.  If Margaret had caught syphilis during her childbearing years, perhaps she passed it on through some of her pregnancies and survived when the infection went into its latent phase.  The latent phase may last up to decades and beyond the first years of this stage the illness is no longer transmissible, which means that healthy, non-infected children can be born.  Catching malaria may have prevented Margaret from progressing to the tertiary phase and possibly death, or maybe she was already in the final stage but the symptoms were not recorded when she contracted malaria.

Final resting place of Eben William Osterndorff,
Lot 14949, Green-Wood Cemetery.
Photo by Bob Collins,
published 31 Oct 2010 on FindAGrave.com

Possible Children
So here is an interesting bit!  Both certificates of death for Eben and Margaret list their final resting place as Green-Wood Cemetary, Brooklyn, NY.  This cemetery is large enough that one can perform an online burial search using variations of the surname: Ostendorff, Osterndorf, Osten, etc.  What we find with such a search is that Eben and his family are listed under Ostendorff, with family including Eben, Margaret, Emma, May/Mary, Eben's step-motherVeronica, his sister Dora and mother Maria (probably).  Thanks to the wonder of the internet and volunteer's with quirky interests, FindAGrave.com reports there are no headstones for the Osterndorffs buried in lot 14949, section 157.  What is important to note is that there are two unaccounted for Osterndorff women in this section: Maggie, buried 04 November 1875, and Henrietta, buried 26 July 1878.  Without headstones, it is not possible to immediately know how old any of these individuals were when they past; it remains to find the death certificates and/or orbituaries to determine more.  Could Maggie and Henrietta be syphilitic children born to Eben and Margaret?  Is the Dora listed in the burial list (buried 30 July 1883) actually Eben's sister or could she be a daughter with the same name?  Eben has been the only individual found with an obituary.

Conclusion
Given the evidence thus available, no resolution about the presence or absence of syphilis in Eben William Osterndorff's family can be made.  What has been found are more avenues of research to pursue and travel down.  A genealogical road map!  Then again, if The Doctor was available, we wouldn't have this or any other genealogical problems, brick walls, quandaries, concerns, etc.

But what is your take?  Did Eben contract syphilis and pass it on to his family?  Are there avenues (or even back streets/alleys) of research I have not considered?  Ones that a person with limited monetary resources could get to?  Feel free to leave a comment or questions below!

Happy Hunting!

Sources:

The Doctor, Time Lord, version 10

Green-Wood Cemetery Services.

Hall LA. ‘The Great Scourge’: Syphilis as a medical problem and moral metaphor, 1880-1916. Paper presented at the Courtaud Institute Symposium, 23 May 1998.

Mandal A. Syphilis Symptoms.

Osterndorff EW. State of New York Certificate of Death. 1891.

Osterndorff MB. State of New York Certificate of Death. 1898.

Paralysis Cause Possibilities

Rudy's List of Archaic Medical Terms

US Federal Census 1870-1880, 1900, All Manhattan

Eben W. Osterndorff

'Building the American Dream' might be an apt subtitle for Eben William Osterndorff.

...But we should really begin at the beginning.  Eben began his life on 27 January 1842 in Hanover, Niedersachsen, Germany as the son of a peasant.  Little is known about Eben's early life in Germany except that he was originally called Eibehenni and was last living in Dorum when he left his home land at the age of 10 with his family in the late summer of 1853.  The sea voyage would carry his father H.W., 42, his mother Maria, 37, sister Friderica, 15, and sister Maria Dorthea, 6, across the Atlantic for six weeks on the 'Itzstein and Welker', departing from Bremen on ~17 July 1853 and arriving in New York's first immigration area - Castle Garden - on 30 August 1853.  If there were more individuals in the family, they either did not survive the journey or stayed behind; neither case has any substantial support/evidence.

Photo from CastleGarden.org

Roughly the next ten years are a bit obscured but it is enough time for Eben to grow into a young man, learn some English and a bit of business in the area of 110th St and Broadway.  Eben will remain in a ten block area surrounding this location for the majority of his life in New York.  The amount of formal education Eben or any of his siblings receive is unknown, as is whether the Osterndorff family met with any close relations upon their arrival.

Here is a view of Broadway just as Eben was probably getting his feet wet in the business world.

Stereoscopic view of Broadway, New York City, c 1860. Photographer: E H Anthony
(c) National Media Museum/Science & Society Picture Library

By 1862 Eibehenni has changed his name to Eben William, usually abbreviating it E.W., and appears in the tax records from 1862-1866 as a retail liquor dealer in Manhattan, New York.  By the end of 1866 Eben's business income equals $500.00 with a $25.00 tax and he had entered his application for citizenship to the Common Pleas Court of New York county.  There is some question as to whether this extra money was enough to temporarily establish himself elsewhere as the Post Master General of the new Bloomingdale (Essex county, New York) post office the following year.  What is strange about this is that the subsequent year, 1868, a 26 year old Eben marries an 18 year old Margaret Blohm on 02 June in St. Michael's Church (99th St and Amsterdam Ave, Manhattan, New York), an Episcopal Church that has been in continual service since 1807 and is located near his same place of residence he has maintained since 1862.  (Broadway being one street west of Amsterdam Ave and 99th - 110th St in the area currently referred to as the Upper West Side!)  But the question as to why he was in Bloomingdale, if indeed it is Eben Osterndorff, remains a mystery.

Their first daughter, Ida Margaret, is born in February 1869 and surrounded by extended family in her first year of life.  Indeed the 1870 US Federal Census (USFC) shows that Eben resides with his burgeoning family in Manhattan with his parents Henry and Mary, and much younger brother Harry.  Given that Harry is nearly 20 years Eben's junior, it is quite possible that Eben's mother Maria died young (possibly at 48 years old in 1864) and his father remarried a woman named Veronica Mary Schmults, as noted in Eben's marriage (and death) certificate.  Puzzling out this bit of history will have to remain until another post.

The Americanized Osterndorff family follow up this first daughter with a second in September 1871 to the name of Emma Mary.  Due to unavailability of state census records for New York county, the last time the Osterndorff family is found together in the records is the 1880 USFC.  At this time the patriarch of the family, Henry, has passed away and there are no more recorded children for Eben and Margaret.  Perhaps they did have other children who died young or were temporarily unable to have children.  Again due to lack of preserved records for the county of New York, the Osterndorff children are not encountered again until the 1900 USFC, when a new child enters the picture.  A one May E Osterndorff was said to have been born in Aug 1883, making for a 12 year gap between her and her sister Emma.  There is a small hint that there may have been two more daughters, if not perhaps more pregnancies.  Speculations as to possible cause(s) for the possible lack children in the intervening decade will be expounded upon in the ensuing post.  Having a majority of female children may not have come as a surprise to Eben's wife Margaret, though, as she was one of five daughters!

The church as it would have appeared in Eben's life.

In the decade leading up to Eben's death, 1880-1891, the city directories indicate that Eben hardly moved, remained in the coal business and even got his brother Henry into the deal for a while.  His life seemed also to be filled with at least four charity service works, not limited to the Charity Council No. 878, A.L. of H., Banner Council No. 48 and O.C.F. all of which seem to deal with social reform and support of poor families.

Sadly Eben William Osterndorff's ends at the rather young age of 49 years, 10 months and 23 days, with the primary cause of death being paralysis on the 19 November 1891 at 5 PM.  Funeral services were held at St. Michael's Church, with members of his charities groups invited to attend.  His burial was then received in Green-Wood Cemetery (Brooklyn, New York) on 22 November 1891, in the same lot and section number as some of his relations.

Note: Any comments, questions or points of error are welcome in the space provided below.

Sources:
Green-Wood Cemetery Services

Osterndorff EW. Certificate of Death. State of New York. 20 November 1891.

Osterndorff EW. Obituary. New York Herald. Sunday, 22 November 1891. Issue 326, pp. 24.

Osterndorff EW. Post Master. New York Herald-Tribune. 23 July 1867.

St.Michael's Church photos and building information at daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com

Trow's New York City Directory. 1883-1903.

US Federal Census 1870-1880, 1900. All Manhattan.