(Not-So-) Wordless Wednesday: Wolfe Girls with Mother and Grandparents

This is another picture sent to me by Mom's first cousin, Edith Carole.  The picture has their mothers, mutual grandmother, and mutual great-grandparents in it, and was taken about 1924 in Louisiana.

The gentleman in the back is my great-great-grandfather, Levi Marion Shelton (1863-1941).  Sarah Ann Spikes Shelton (1871-1935), his wife, is at the far left.  Next to her are three of her granddaughters:  my great aunts Neva Marie (always called Marie) Wolfe Ely (1912-1995) and Edith Elizabeth Wolfe Smith Murff Brown Gould Knox (1910-2006), and my maternal grandmother Sara Melzina Wolfe Guokas Archibald (1907-1997).  At the far right is my great-grandmother Addilee Tennessee Shelton Wolfe Odom Harris (1890-1977).

Marie looks to be about 12 here, so I'm guessing the photo was taken about 1924.  Edith would be 14 and Sara about 17.

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

Tombstone Tuesday: Sarah Ann Spikes Shelton, 1871-1935

photo courtesy Bob Taylor via FindAGrave.com

Sarah Ann (also known as Sarianne) Spikes Shelton is a great-great-grandmother on my mother's side.  She was born September 28, 1871, in Sardis, Winn Parish, Louisiana, the third of four children and only daughter of Levi Lewis Spikes (1805-1881) and his second wife, Leah Lucy Pickering (or Pickens) Barton (1835-1903).  She married Levi Marion Shelton (1863-1941) on December 30, 1884.  They had twelve children, although only nine survived to adulthood.  My great-grandmother, Addilee Tennessee Shelton Wolfe Odom Harris (1890-1977), was third-born, but is the oldest of the six girls and three boys who survived.  Sarah Shelton died April 9, 1935, in Montgomery, Grant Parish, Louisiana.  She is buried next to her husband in the Brown Cemetery (aka Brown-Swindle Cemetery) in Sardis, Winn Parish, Louisiana.

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

Black Sheep Sunday: Odom Family, ABT 1919

When my my mother's first cousin Edith Carole contacted me a few weeks ago about a photo of what turned out to be her grandparents/my great-grandparents, Louis Henry Wolfe and Addilee Tennessee Shelton Wolfe Odom Harris, she said she'd send me another photograph that is supposed to be of Addilee and her second husband, Hughes Calhoun Odom, with his family.  The story goes that during World War I, Addilee volunteered to roll bandages for the Red Cross, met a military man, and had abandoned her family to run off with him.  Her first marriage, to my great-grandfather, Louis Wolfe, occurred in 1905 when she was 15 and he was 33, and she had her first of four children at age 16.

The photo below was likely taken between July 1917 and April 1919, when Hughes was in the military, as he is wearing a uniform in the picture below.  I'm guessing 1919, since the youngest child in the picture (the little girl at the left), was born about 1916, and she looks to be about three in this picture.
Back row, from left:  Samuel Mosely Barnes (1891-1966), Maggie May Odom Barnes (1894-1965), Hughes Calhoun Odom (1894-1962), Addilee Tennessee Shelton Wolfe Odom Harris (1890-1977), Jesse Calhoun Odom (1866-1945), Leonora "Nora" Carroll Odom (1871-1928), Albert Carroll Odom (1900-1970), and William Thomas Odom (1897-1966).
Front row:  May L. Barnes (born  ABT 1916), William Lafayette Barnes (1913-2000), John S. Odom (born  ABT 1906), and Luther Edward Odom (1910-1967)

Edith Carole got this photo from her first cousin once removed, Lemora Thompson Stroud, in Louisiana.  She said it was in Addilee's things (when she passed away in Louisiana in 1977) and that Addilee had told her this was Hughes Odom's family.  Addilee is the woman in the light-colored dress in the center and the man in uniform next to her is supposed to be Hughes Odom.  Based on records found in Ancestry.com, Edith Carole made guesses as to who the other people are, and I agree with her. 

The 1920 Census shows Addilee and Hughes living in Fort Worth.  The marriage (if there ever was one) didn't last too much longer, as Addilee married Charles Harris on January 7, 1922.  She is listed as Addie Odom on that marriage license.  Charlie Harris (1887-1959) was the love of her life, and she insisted on moving back to Louisiana (from Texas, where she'd been living near her children) shortly before her death in 1977, so she could be buried next to him.

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

Friday's Faces from the Past: Aunt Betty in Nursing School, 1947

In the same 1947 Loyolan yearbook from Loyola University of Chicago where I found my dad and his third cousin, I also found Dad's sister, my Aunt Betty, on page 71.  She was a junior in the St. Francis School of Nursing.  Here's an enlargement of part of the picture of her class.  Aunt Betty is seated in the second row from the bottom, on the far left.

There was also some information on the same page about the school and the university:

Sister M. Gertrudis Yonker, below left, of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration, was the director of the nursing program from 1927 to 1956.  She then became administrator of St. Francis Hospital, serving in that capacity until her retirement in 1966.  As with Aunt Betty's other United State Cadet Nurse Corps membership card, Sister Gertrudis also signed the one pictured below right.  It also indicates that Aunt Betty graduated from nursing school on July 31, 1948.

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

Wordless Wednesday: Dad at Loyola University, 1947

Dad (Fred Pape) is in the middle of the row in front.  From page 54, 1947 Loyolan yearbook, Loyola University, Chicago

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

Tombstone Tuesday: August Peter Pape and Frances A. Demuth Pape

August Peter Pape was born August 28, 1893, in Dusseldorf, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany. He was the fourth of six children of Lorenz Pape (1862-1932) and Maria Henrietta Kamp Pape (who died in Germany between 1896 and 1899). He immigrated to Boston, Massachusetts on May 27, 1913, aboard the ship Marquette out of Antwerp, Belgium, along with his father and older brother Karl. They went to Evanston, Illinois, to join Lorenz's older brother John Pape. By 1917, he, his father, and siblings were living in Wilmette, Illinois. August married Rose Anna Alles on September 19, 1919, in Wilmette; they had a daughter and a son. He was naturalized on March 28, 1922. After the death of Rose in 1929, he married Frances A. Demuth on August 7, 1933; they had a daughter and a son. August was a self-employed painter/decorator. He died March 29, 1947, and is buried at All Saints Cemetery in Des Plaines, Illinois.

photo courtesy Amy Windler

Frances A. Demuth Pape was born March 3, 1902, in Saarbrücken, Saarland, Germany. She arrived in New York, New York, on the ship Arabic out of Antwerp, Belgium, on June 25, 1928. She worked as a maid in Wilmette and Winnetka, Illinois, in 1929 and 1931. On August 7, 1933, she married widower August Peter Pape in Wilmette; they had one daughter and one son. In 1937 and 1939, she operated Frances' Day Nursery in Wilmette. She was also a hospice nurse in the mid-1940s.  She was naturalized on January 28, 1947. She died in September 1967, possibly in Seattle, Washington, and is buried next to her husband at All Saints Cemetery in Des Plaines, Illinois.

photo courtesy Amy Windler

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

Military Monday: Dolores Pape's US Cadet Nurse Corps Membership Cards

Dolores Mary Pape, senior picture, from
1947 Loyola University-Chicago yearbook

 Like my Aunt Betty, her third cousin, Dolores Mary Pape (1926-1995), was a member of the United State Cadet Nurse Corps.  This was a program created during World War II to address an anticipated shortage of nurses.  Candidates would receive "subsidization of nursing school tuition, associated expenses, and a shorter training period. In exchange, applicants pledged to actively serve in essential civilian or other federal government services for the duration of the war." (Wikipedia).

Here are Dolores' senior photo and her two Corps membership cards.  Also like my Aunt Betty, Dolores participated in the program through St. Francis Hospital's School of Nursing in Evanston, Illinois.  The nursing program was affiliated with Loyola University in Chicago.

Dolores was the oldest daughter of August Peter Pape (1893-1947) and his first wife, Rose Anna Alles (1893-1929).


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

Sentimental Sunday: "Christmas Cousins" Update

A little over a year ago, I first posted this picture in my blog, minus the annotations with the names.  I called it the "Christmas Cousins" picture, because it was obviously taken at Christmas time, and because it's of a bunch of Pape first cousins - the seven children of John and Gertrude Kramer Pape, my great-grandparents, and the six children of John's brother Lorenz (or Laurenz) and his first wife Maria Henrietta Kamp Pape.

Pape cousins at Christmas, probably sometime between 1913 and 1917 inclusive.
Original photo courtesy Mary Kay Schmidt; initial annotations courtesy Lawrence Pape.

Recently, I was contacted by yet another relative who found my blog, Lawrence Pape.  He is the youngest son of Lorenz's son August Peter Pape (1893-1947) and his second wife, Frances A. Demuth (1902-1967).  He sent me the image with the annotations for August and Joseph (and Lee), reversing my (and another cousin's) earlier guess that had August and Joseph the other way around.

I decided to go ahead and add annotations with the names of the other cousins.  As I said earlier, my dad and I are absolutely positive about Clara, Paul, Rhea, and Lee.  Cousin Mary Kay and her mom are absolutely positive about Nellie and Maria.  Martha is the only girl left, so we are pretty sure that is her in front, but its underexposure makes it hard to be sure.  We were kind of guessing on the rest of the guys based on their relative ages, so it's really helpful to have Lawrence's positive identification of his father.

Lawrence also sent a family tree with some additional information.  I've been spending my free time the last few days updating my family tree, and doing a little more research, in order to create a descendants chart for Jacob Pape, my great-great-grandfather and our ancestor in common, so I can send it out to these various cousins for review, corrections, and input.  So far there are 426 people in the chart (which includes spouses of Jacob's direct descendants, but no stepchildren), and I know that's not everybody!  (I also know of at least two more additions coming in the next two months, grandchildren of two of my first cousins.)

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

Wordless Wednesday - Happy Valentines Day (tomorrow)

Breathless and me, probably January or February, 1982

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

Sentimental Sunday / Mystery Monday: Louis Henry Wolfe over the Years

Recently I was contacted by my mother's first cousin Edith Carole about a post I did about a year ago where I thought a photograph of a well-dressed couple that included my maternal great-grandmother,
Addilee Tennessee Shelton Wolfe Harris (1890-1977), also included her second husband, Hughes Calhoun Odom.

She told me she thought the man in the picture was actually my great-grandfather, her grandfather, Louis Henry Wolfe (1872-1929), and she sent me another picture that included Louis (posted last week) that was taken only six years after my great-grandparents' wedding (which was July 9, 1905).

I decided to take all* the pictures I had of Louis Henry Wolfe and line them up next to each other, in chronological order.  I don't have a good guess for the date of the picture on the far right, but based on facial features (the face being a little heavier) and similarity of clothing, I think it is 1921 to 1929.  Take a look, and tell me if you think this is the same man:

Unfortunately, the 1905 photo is torn right through the face.  I think Edith Carole is right, though, that this is the same man.  The hairline, shape of his face, and mustache (in the first three pictures) seem to match.

I decided to put the picture (taken before 1945) of Hughes Calhoun Odom (1894-1962) up against the photos of Louis from 1905 and 1911 to compare.  While there are some similarities, the hairline in particular appears to be different.

Hughes Calhoun Odom (before 1945) at left, Louis Henry Wolfe in 1911 at right - who is in the middle photo?

The picture at left is the only other one I have of my great-grandfather, this one from probably around 1922 (possibly as early as 1920) to 1926.  This is as big and clear as I can get it, but you can definitely see the mustache.

Edith Carole is going to send me another photograph that is supposed to be of Addilee  and Hughes with Hughes' family - it will be interesting to compare further.

ETA:  One more picture to add, at right.  Could this also be Louis Henry Wolfe?  I thought it might be Louis' father, Joseph William Wolfe, 1845-1918, because his clothing looks like a military uniform, and Joseph served in the Civil War.   However, Louis was in the military too - he was in the Army, a private in Company C of the 6th Infantry, May 4 to October 28, 1898 and then again from January 11, 1901 to January 11, 1904.

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

(Not-so-) Wordless Wednesday: Freddie Taking Notice, 1930

I believe all three of these pictures were taken the same day, probably in 1930, maybe around the time my dad Fred Pape turned 1 on February 4, and probably outside the family home at 2093 West Lunt Avenue in Chicago.  The picture on the far right includes Dad's older brother Bob (Paul Robert Pape Jr., 1926-2008) and his mother, Elizabeth Florence Massmann Pape (1902-2000).

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

Military Monday: Happy Birthday, Dad!

My Dad, Frederick Henry Pape, is 84 today!

The photo was probably taken in Korea in late 1952 or early 1953.

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

Sentimental Sunday: Louis Henry Wolfe family, about 1911

This photograph is of my maternal great-grandfather, Louis Henry Wolfe (1872-1929), and my maternal great-grandmother, Addilee Tennessee Shelton Wolfe Odom Harris (1890-1977), and the three oldest of their four children.  Lloyd L. Wolfe (1906-1993) is at the far left; my grandmother, Sara Melzina Wolfe Guokas Archibald (1907-1997), is standing; and the baby is Edith Elizabeth Wolfe Smith Murff Brown Gould Knox (1910-2006).  Edith was born in December, so the photograph was probably taken in 1911.

On the 1910 census, the family was living in Shreveport, Louisiana, and Edith was born in Louisiana.  However, Louis Wolfe appears in the Morrison & Fourmy Directory of The City of Houston for 1912, and given that listings seem to run about a year behind, they probably moved to Houston in 1911.  The family is wearing beach clothing, so it's likely the photo was taken in a coastal city, probably Galveston because of the seawall in the background.  I think that is a painted backdrop behind the family, however, as the waves don't look real, nor does the ship nor the building on the piers over the water.

The building might be painted to look like the Breakers Bath House.  The 1906 original was destroyed in the 1909 hurricane, but rebuilt in 1909.  I found some similar images online of real photo postcards that are stamped "Taken at Galveston Beach at the Breakers Bath Houses* by L. Tobler, Photographer" *Some images instead said the Murdoch Bath House, originally constructed in 1901 and also destroyed in the 1909 storm.  Murdoch's was rebuilt in 1911. Both bathhouses, as well as the Surf (built 1908 and only damaged in 1909), were lost in the 1915 Storm. Murdoch’s reappeared once again in 1916, was severely damaged in Hurricane Carla (1961), demolished, rebuilt, destroyed again by Hurricane Ike in 2008, and rebuilt again in 2009.  Murdoch's is at 2215 Seawall Boulevard, while Breakers was at 2315 Seawall, basically next door, so the photographer could have easily worked at both locations.

The photographer Louis Tobler was born in Russia in July 1866, and immigrated to the United States in 1879, according to Catching Shadows: A Directory of 19th-Century Texas Photographers by David Haynes (page 111).  I found a listing for him in the 1911 Galveston City Directory:  "photographer Breakers bath house;" in the 1921 directory, his photography address is Murdoch's bath house.  The 1945 Galveston City Directory shows him as a photographer at 2215 Seawall Blvd (Murdoch's); although he died August 8, 1944.

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