This is a terrible photo of the gravestone of Carl and Minna Freicke Massmann in section 28, lot 20, grave 2 of Memorial Park Cemetery, Skokie, Illinois. It was taken on a snowy day in January, 2000.
Carl Massmann was born May 22, 1847, in Hanover, Germany. He married Minna Freicke in Hanover on January 4, 1870. They had eight children, the first three being daughters who all died before age 5. He emigrated to New York City in October or November, 1884 on the Elbe out of Bremen. He became a citizen in Chicago on October 17, 1891. He was an upholsterer and lived in Chicago for 45 years. He died from uremia and chronic interstitial nephritis on February 7, 1929, a few days after my father, his great-grandson, was born, both in Evanston, Illinois.
Minna Freicke Massmann was born February 10, 1847 in Germany. She emigrated to the United States around 1885, and lived in Chicago for 32 years. She died there from diabetes on March 14, 1917.
© Amanda Pape - 2010
"Terrible" or not, it's a photo of Carl and Minna's stone. Many don't have any photo at all of an ancestor's tombstone (if it can even be found).
ReplyDeleteHow sad that Minna died so many years before Carl, and that your grandparents' joy on the birth of your father was followed so soon by Carl's death.