Tombstone Tuesday: Gretchen Reis Pape and Leo John Pape

photo courtesy Amy Windler

photo courtesy Gast Monuments

Gretchen (Margaret Anna) Reis was born April 4, 1886, in Evanston, Illinois, the oldest of the seven children of Joseph A. Reis and Margaret Muno (who were both born in Illinois of German parents). She is listed as an artist in various Evanston city directories from 1909 through 1933 (although she continued painting after that), and in the 1974 edition of Who Was Who in American Art, 1564-1975: 400 Years of Artists in America.  She died on April 20, 1947, and is buried at St Henry's Cemetery in Chicago.

Leo (Lee) John Pape was born December 27, 1893, in Evanston, Illinois, the son of German immigrants John Pape and Gertrude Kramer (or Cramer). According to the 1940 Census, he completed four years of college.  He enlisted in the Navy on July 19, 1917, and was released from service on February 15, 1919.  He married Gretchen (Margaret) Anna Reis sometime between 1924 and 1927, and they lived in the same house in Wilmette, Illinois, from at least 1927 to the ends of their lives. They had no children.   At various times he worked as a building contractor (1929), garage door manufacturer's sales agent (1930 and 1933) and as a proprietor of a building business (1940). He died on April 2, 1979, and is buried at St. Henry Cemetery in Chicago (not at St. Boniface as indicated by his obituary).

I recently had 1893 - 1979 engraved on Uncle Lee's stone.

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