Surname Saturday: PAPE Cousin Bait - Part 2

Martha Elisabeth Pape, 26 years old, about 1916 or 1917.
Photo by J. D. Toloff, Evanston, Ill.

Last Saturday, I started to share a letter written by my great aunt Martha Elisabeth Pape Bleidt (1890-1980), my paternal grandfather's older sister, in 1969.  She sent it to a distant cousin, Lawrence Pape, who'd found me through this blog.

The letter stated that "Grandfather Pape [Jacob Pape, and his wife Elisabeth Gierse] had 4 sons:
John - Joseph - Anton - Lawrence."

Martha had said, "We know nothing of Joseph as he lived in Germany and my father never told us anything about him."

Since 1969, though, we learned a little about second son Joseph, who I wrote about last week.

The second part of  the letter talks about Anton Pape, the third son, who was born September 28, 1854, in Boedefeld, Westphalia, Germany, and who arrived in Baltimore, Maryland, on April 5, 1883, on the Weser out of Bremen, Germany.  He was traveling with his son Hugo Aloysius Pape, then age 3, and a 22-year-old woman listed as Regina Pape, who I assumed to be Hugo's mother.

I was a little surprised to find a marriage certificate dated a little over five weeks later, on May 13, 1883, for the marriage of Anton and Regina Elisabeth Allers, by Father A. J. Thiele, rector at St. Henry Catholic Church at Devon and Ridge in Rose Hill (now part of Chicago's Far North Side).  I just assumed they were married again for some sort of legal reasons in the United States.  Aunt Martha's letter clarified that mystery - but left some other puzzles unsolved:

Transcription:  "Anton Pape had three wives.  The first wife and Uncle Anton had a son - Hugo.  When Hugo was a very little boy, his mother died.  Uncle Anton married a sister of Hugo's mother which was his second wife.  Of this union a daughter was born named Emma.  After a few years Emma's mother died.  After a few years Uncle Anton married a third time.  Her name was Katherine Hoffman and this is the only Aunt we knew.  No children were born of this marriage."

The new piece of information for me here was that Anton had THREE wives, and that Hugo and his sister Emma Genevieve Pape Childs were actually half-siblings, and also cousins, as their mothers were sisters!

I feel this provides more evidence for my assumption that Regina is Emma's mother, although I have found no proof of that yet.  I think this letter does confirm that Katherine "Kate" Regina Hoffman (1860-1927), is NOT Emma's mother, but is the stepmother who actually raised Emma.

It looks like Emma was born somewhere between 1883 and 1886 (based on censuses, birth records for her children, and her marriage record).   I believe I have found a record for the death of Regina, on the Illinois Statewide Death Index, Pre – 1916.  This Regina died March 15, 1887, in Cook County, at age 25, meaning she was born around 1862, which is about right (based on the April 1883 Baltimore passenger list, and her marriage certificate with Anton Pape).   Since Regina died when Emma was age one to four years old (approximately), and Anton married Katherine a little over a year later (May 8, 1888, at St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Evanston, Illinois), I think Katherine raised Emma and that is why Emma referred to her as her mother (and why Katherine was the only aunt that Martha, born in 1890, ever knew).

Aunt Martha went on to write, on page 2:

Transcription:  "Hugo and Emma were first cousins of your father.  Hugo was married to Josephine Didier.  Hugo had five children.  Hugo and his wife passed away about nine years ago.  Emma was married to August Childs.  They had 8 children.  Emma passed away in 1937.  I don't remember when August died."

The "your father" she refers to is Lawrence Pape's father, August Peter Pape.  The information for Hugo Pape (1879-1961), his wife Josephine Didier Pape (1880-1960), and their five children, match up.  Emma was married to August Solomon Childs (born 1882), and I did find records for seven children, although it appears only four lived to adulthood.  Emma's great-granddaughter told me Emma died in 1937 in Wisconsin, although I have no proof of that.  And unfortunately, no one seems to know when August died (although he was still alive in 1942).  Nor, for that matter, is there a date for Anton's death.  I believe he died about 1893, because at that point, Katherine is listed as a widow in the Evanston [Illinois] City Directory.

I'll post the third part of Aunt Martha's letter next Saturday.

© Amanda Pape - 2013 - click here to e-mail me.