(Not So) Wordless Wednesday: John Pape, age 88, 17 July 1939

This photograph of my great-grandfather John Pape was taken at a "lake front park at the foot of Church Street in Evanston," Illinois, which I believe is today's Dawes Park. He looks rather dapper for age 88, don't you think? And he lived for almost six more years.

At one time I thought I didn't have a lot of ancestral relatives on the Pape side in the United States. My grandfather Paul Pape had five children, his sister Martha had two, and his sister Rhea had one. I knew that one of John's brothers, Anton, had also come to the United States, but I have only found one child for him (Hugo, later an alderman in Evanston). Anton lived about a block down Sherman Avenue from John in Evanston from at least 1889 through 1892, but apparently passed away that year or in 1893.

I have since learned that John provided housing for his youngest brother, Lorenz, and at least six of his eight children when they immigrated to the United States in 1909 and 1913. But, that's another post for another time. There are a lot of Papes in this country, and apparently I am related to more of them than I thought.

© Amanda Pape - 2010