Church Record Sunday: Baptism and Death Records for John Pape's First Family

My great-grandfather, John Pape (1851-1945), was married before he married my great-grandmother, Gertrude Cramer (1859-1919), in late 1888.  I was aware of John's first wife from the probate for his youngest child, my great uncle Walter Pape, who died intestate in late December, 1975.  The 1910 Census also indicates John had this first marriage, and the 1930 Census indicates he was 28 when it occurred, which would have been about 1879.  Finally, my great aunt Martha Pape Bleidt told a distant cousin in 1969 that "John Pape and his first wife had 2 daughters.  The mother and the two children passed away."

Martha either didn't know or didn't share the name of this first wife or the two daughters, nor when they died.  However, some searching and browsing through early Catholic Church records for the Archdiocese of Chicago that are available on FamilySearch gave me some answers.

A search in the record set for deaths with the surname Pape between 1880 (the earliest date I've found in other records for John's arrival in the United States) and 1889 (when the oldest child from John's and Gertrude's marriage was born) produced the following results:

When I clicked on the first one to view the image, it brought up both of the records, for Martha Pape, age 4, who died October 13, 1887, and Elisabetha Pape, age illegible years and 7 months, whe died less than two weeks later, on October 25, 1887.

Interestingly, these records are from Angel Guardian Orphanage in Chicago.  The orphanage was established in 1865 by the five German Roman Catholic parishes in the city at that time:  St. Peter, St. Joseph, St. Michael, St. Francis ot Assisi, and St. Boniface.  Interestingly, St. Henry Catholic Church, established in 1863 (although the parish dates back to 1851) and adjacent to the orphanage, was not part of this group, because it was originally outside of the Chicago city limits. 

Could these be John's daughters?  It's important to note that almost all “orphans” in nineteenth-century Chicago orphanages had one parent living.  John obviously lived, so this indicated to me that his first wife died before the daughters.  However, I wasn't finding anyone likely to be her in any of the Chicago Archdiocese Catholic Church records indexed at that point.

Since John and Gertrude (and four of their children) are buried at St. Henry's Cemetery (adjacent to the 1904 church building), and since these two girls were at Angel Guardian, I guessed that John was a member of St. Henry's when he first came to Chicago.  St. Nicholas in Evanston, closer to his home, was not established until 1887, and it would be likely that John would have been a member of a nearby German-speaking parish like St. Henry.

Early records (1863-1927, not all inclusive for all sacraments) have been digitized and are available at FamilySearch, but all have not been indexed, so you must browse to find things.  Figuring that John's first wife probably became ill or died before his daughters, I worked backwards in death records starting in 1888, and found this:




Note the 1886 on page 330, on the lower left in the image above.  On the right side, on page 331, death #13 of that year is of an Elisabetha Pape, age 38, who died August 28.




Next I went to the baptisms section, looking for little Martha and Elisabetha.  I found Martha first in the combination book of records beginning in 1883, although she was born not that year (as I thought, with her death record indicating she was age 4 in October 1887), but on page 6, the 16th baptism in 1884:




She was born on February 22, 1884, and the baptism record states that her parents were John Pape and Elisabetha Dameris.  Godparents were Antonius (Anton) Pape, John's brother, and Catharina Wahle (no apparent relation, although she was also the godmother for Walter Pape in August 1900 and lived next door, at 1045 Sherman Avenue, to John Pape for many years).

Finding little Elisabeth took a little longer, since it was hard to read her age on the death record.  The indexer interpreted the smudge as 8 years, but that would put her birth in March 1879 (March is seven months before October).  In this case, a search in all records in FamilySearch for someone with the last name of Pape whose mother had the last name of Dameris produced these results:

And here is Elise [Elisabetha] Theresia Pape's birth record (on Family History Library film number 1287770, image number 368).  Note that the record indicates little Elise was the SECOND child of her mother!  Apparently there was an older child, for whom so far I've been unable to find any record.  Perhaps this child was born and died in Germany before John and Eluse Dameris Pape emigrated.

I now had enough information to find her baptism record at St. Henry's, on page 90, the 21st baptism in 1882.

The birth date matches up, and this record also states Elisabetha Dameris is her mother.  Interestingly, the godparents are listed as Josephus Pape and Anna Kreling.  John had a brother named Joseph, but supposedly he stayed in Germany.  Perhaps he was the godfather in absentia?  Anna Kreling is no apparent relation to us.

There's also a record of little Elisabeth's 1887 death in the Illinois Statewide Death Index:

So the death record at Angel Guardian Orphanage must read age 5 years (not 8) and 7 months.

I don't have a date of birth for Elisabetha/Elise Dameris Pape, although there are three possibilities in the Germany Births and Baptisms index in FamilySearch, all born between 1852 and 1856 in Schmallenberg, Westphalia, which is only 18 kilometers from John Pape's hometown of Bodefeld.  I haven't found a marriage record yet, nor either John nor Elisabetha/Elise on a passenger list - but now I know that both arrived before March 2, 1882.

© Amanda Pape - 2019 - e-mail me!