Saturday Night Fun–Probate Record Reveals

Edward James Leach, c. 1890

Genea-Musings prompted Saturday Night Genealogy Fun with the prompt: “Today’s challenge is to Share something you learned from a probate file or will that you wouldn’t have otherwise known about.”

I don’t normally post twice in one day, but I was intrigued by this prompt and it is not something I’ve written about. 

One of my brick walls is Henry Edward Leach (1834-1892), my great-great-grandfather who when he died, left my great-grandfather, Edward James Leach (1883-1919) an orphan. He emigrated to the US in 1860’s from England and I knew nothing about any of his family, only a wife he met and married in Michigan in 1882 and his one son. Even though he died in 1892, I couldn’t locate a Death Record. I wrote about Henry early on in January 2023 (My First Brick Wall).

After writing that blog I came across an index to Michigan, US, Wills and Probate Records, 1784-1980, Houghton through Ancestry. It’s only an index, but it directs you to where it is held. I wrote to the State Archives who directed me to Michiganology and a Request form for Probate Court Research ($10). They said that it would be about 1-2 weeks before I received it. It took 19 days, but it was well worth the wait!

Probate Record

The Probate Record was 82 pages long! I have learned that probate records can vary wildly in what they contain, which depends on the familial circumstances and financial holdings. Henry was not a rich man and didn’t own the home they were living in, but he had a comfortable existence as a bookkeeper for a Copper Mine. The probate record included information about his death (location and date), his executor, friends, will, and lots of purchases made for young Eddie! His personal estate was estimated at $2,300 which in today’s dollars is about $79,000. All of the men that are mentioned are all men Henry knew through his membership in  I.O.O.F(International Order of Odd Fellows), which provides camaraderie but also Life Insurance.

Will

The will was a standard will handwritten by his friend and executor of the estate, Charles Smith just a day before he died. Looking at his signature, he must have had a stroke or something that affected his writing ability because this was clearly not his normal signature. We have confirmation that his son is E.J. (Edward James) and Charles Smith is his guardian. No information about his parents or other family.

Fun Expenses

The fun things for me were all of the expenses that little Eddie had in the first couple of years. Clearly nice clothes for a growing boy were important because there were several receipts for new suits, over coat, cap and socks from local clothier L H Richardson’s and a receipt for a suit for Henry from Detroit’s men’s clothier R. H. Traver. (The building does still exist and was renovated for offices.)

There were school supplies listed, link ink and pen tips, paper supplies like toilet paper, and even receipts for oranges and milk.

Unexpected finds

There were 3 unexpected finds: 

1) evidence of ownership of land in Minnesota! I looked it up in the BLO website and it appears that a George Sigel was the original purchaser in 1869. I haven’t figured out when Henry Edward might have bought it (yet) or if it was sold before Edward was of age?

2) purchase agreement for 2 grave markers for he and his wife. This is interesting, but unfortunately any evidence of their gravestones is gone. They were originally resting in what was called Pioneer Cemetery originally owned by the Quincy Mining Company. In the 1970s there were announcements asking relatives if they would like to move their loved ones. I’m guessing by that time, they had no knowledge of living descendants for Henry and Flora, so their headstones were removed and their bodies remain there with a small park between the Catholic Church and Lutheran Church. Some names were recorded, but Henry and Flora don’t appear on any of them. I actually knew this before learning about the purchase of their headstones, which actually made me a little sadder.

3) A receipt from Charles Smith to the County Clerk’s office for copies of his death certificate! So there was one at one time! I was so excited to find this, I had proof that his death was recorded and where. In 2023, armed with this receipt, I went in person to the County Clerk’s office. I had been through the on-line death records numerous times and never found him, but it must be there. There’s an amazingly wonderful clerk there who helped me with finding my grandmother’s birth record and she was anxious to help me. With this death record, I might actually find out his parents’ names!!

But alas, she said that she searched through the whole book and never found him recorded. It was so disappointing, especially because I know that at some point they did have it recorded somewhere.

I have gotten no further with finding his parents, but the Probate Records were still worth it!

 

The Mysteriously Appearing China

My grandparents, Roc and Dot Massey,
and my parents at my parents'
wedding reception, 1962

As care takers of the family heirlooms, Jim and I have an old house full of fun and interesting things. Much of it we know who it originally belonged to and how it came to be in our possession. It’s important, though, as we are blending so many families’ things that we catalog it for future generations. I listened to Lisa Louise Cooke podcasts sharing the importance of a genealogy will, in order to describe heirlooms and make sure that treasures get to the right people. If we don’t document the stories and provenance, it will be more likely that things end up being donated or even worse, in a dumpster.

Most of our treasures came from my mother’s mother’s mother’s side of the family, but some came from my father’s and husband’s families. My mom happens to be the only child of the youngest child (Elizabeth Leach) of the youngest child (Florence Stoddard). (Interestingly, I have no known family heirlooms from my mother’s father’s side, except for a few photos.) I’m not sure which is more important (birth order or gender) for the passing down of heirlooms but since I am the youngest and a daughter it was doubly certain we would receive many of the treasures! 

Our China Cabinets

This past summer, I spent time investigating and cataloging china that came from my father’s parents. My grandparents, Rockwell Joseph Massey (born Rocco Mazziotti) and Dorothy Sedlock, were married on the 9th of February 1934 (the 26th wedding anniversary date of his parents). Given that it was the midst of the depression and they were both 1st generation Americans, I’m not sure how prevalent it was to register for/choose a china pattern. (It seems widely accepted that the Chicago-based department store Marshall Field’s established the first bridal registry service in 1924, so it would have been possible in 1934.)

My Grandparents’ China

My father remembers china displayed in a built-in china cabinet in his childhood home in Ridgewood, NJ between 1940-1950. But when the family moved to Michigan (he was about 10 at the time), he never remembers it being used or even displayed. There apparently was no place in either of their homes in Dearborn, Michigan to display it, so it remained for over 40 years in “barrels” in their basement. My grandfather traveled for work (he became a Regional Manager for the GM Training Centers) and my grandmother didn’t entertain often once they  moved to Michigan so there wasn’t much need for using the china. I remember hearing about china in the basement as a kid visiting their house, but I don’t think I ever saw it.

In the 1990s, my grandparents passed away, my parents retired and downsized, and Jim and I were married, so in the late 1990s we became the caretakers for their china. In 2002, when we moved into our present house (built in 1896) we had an entire wall of built-in shelving in our dining room perfect for all of the china! It’s not a mystery how WE came to possess the china, but how it came to my grandparents is a mystery to my dad and me! 

Was it my grandparents' wedding china? Was it passed down from my grandmother’s parents’ wedding china…she was the youngest? Or was it just purchased at yard sales/resale shops up by my grandfather to fill the china cabinet in their Ridgewood house and really has no sentimental value? But if this was the case, then why wouldn’t they just have gotten rid of it when they didn’t have the room? Maybe some investigation into the actual china might help?

Beginning the Investigation

The interesting thing about all of my grandparents' china is there is not a complete set of anything! There are bits and bobs from 7 different sets. Some look fairly similar but others are very different. One set has 11 plates and a serving bowl, another is just 4 cups, 5 saucers and 6 lunch plates, another has 13 small plates, 11cups/12 saucers–you get the idea. As a kid, I had heard people (mostly my mom and grandfather) oohing and aahing about “Limoges” china. I really didn’t know what it meant until this summer. 

Limoges China

I had thought that Limoges was the name of a company that made china. No, it is the name of a town in France close to the abundant kaolin mines, out of which comes the special white clay used to make the hard paste-porcelain. “Porcelain Limoges is famous for its durability, whiteness, and ability to resist chipping” (limogesboutique.com) and you know it’s real if you can nearly see through it when you hold it up to the light. 

There were many companies that used Limoges, but the most famous companies were Haviland & Co, Theodore Haviland, and Charles Haviland. The Haviland Company history began in 1840 with David Haviland who had a china shop in New York City and established an alliance with a manufacturer in France who would specifically make the pieces for America. In 1853, he established his own company and was the first to have artists on site to do the decorating. His sons went on to develop their own companies. Theodore Haviland was apparently known as an innovative marketer and his goal was to have “a set in every home” and in the 1920s, the Sears Catalog had 32-piece sets for $22.50 (about $412 in today’s money). (From History of Haviland).

“Our” China

Out of the 7 different sets, three are Haviland & Co. and two are Theodore Haviland brands (the 6th and 7th are Zeh Scherzer from Bavaria). I wondered if/how I might be able to identify the patterns and maybe narrow down the timing for when they were produced. I’ve written a couple blogs about some family heirlooms, like my great-great-grandfather’s gift of a pocket watch to my great-great-grandmother, my great-grandmother’s irises, Jim’s great-great grandfather’s trinket, and Jim’s father’s treasured toy car. In each of these cases, I learned a lot and found that there is a collector’s organization for nearly everything! Haviland China is no different!

There is a Haviland Collectors International Foundation (HCIF) dedicated to the study of porcelain and pottery produced by the Haviland companies. They have a newsletter and even an annual conference! They do also have an identification service, but I thought I would try my hand at it. The HCIF does have a very handy guide to Haviland Blank and Decorator Marks. 

What is a blank? That was new to me, too! The blank is what they call the porcelain item before it’s been fired and painted. Some blanks are plain, but others have a pattern and the size and shapes differ and help to determine the specific pattern. Looking at this photo, this blank is quite decorative, with the scalloped edges and it might be hard to tell, but that shadowed pattern is actually a raised pattern around the edge and into the plate to make it look like petals. 

There are two sets of marks (this was not a mistake!), there are marks that are made prior to glazing and then marks made by the decorator after the glazing. You can see here on this cup the green underglaze mark, which is Mark I that was used between 1894-1931 and the red decorator mark, which is Mark c, used 1876-1878/1889-1931. So we’ve narrowed to 1894-1931. Can the flower pattern help us at all in the identification?

Schleiger Numbers

It turns out that there are estimated to be over 30,000 different Haviland China patterns created by the 1930’s and most did not have a name and very few even had a number. According to the A Pattern Identification Guide for Haviland China: Volume Two by Gertrude Tatnall Jacobson (1979) only 725 of the patterns had a name. These 30,000, though, are just variations and combinations of blanks, flower patterns, and use of gold/silver trim. Because there was no easy way to catalog these, an amazing collector, Arlene Schleiger, decided to try to do it. She, with the help of her talented architect son, provided hand drawings and descriptions for nearly 11,000 of these patterns. She produced 6 volumes of these amazing books beginning in 1950 through 1991. One amazing benefit of working at a university is the library collection. It turns out that my university had the first 4 volumes of her books!! Unbelievable luck!

Using her guide, I was able to identify one of the 4 sets. It is a Theodore Haviland set BL 205 (blank #205) Pattern # 248, described “Small pale pink flowers touched with white. Some all white. Green leaves and stems. Gray shadows around flower groups.” (p. 48, Volume II) An additional investigation into the mark suggested S, 1903. (https://archive.org/details/havilandchinavol00gert/page/157/mode/2up?view=theater). 

Unfortunately, I couldn't find the other 3.

Replacement, Ltd.

I contemplated joining the HCIF, but thought I would try one other source recommended by the organization. Have you ever broken, chipped, or lost a piece of your everyday plates or your fine china or crystal or sterling and found that it was discontinued? But you really wanted to replace the piece? Well, there is an organization that began in 1981 called..you guessed it…Replacements, Ltd that went into business collecting and distributing replacement pieces. You need to know your manufacturer and then pattern name to really be successful, but once you do their search engine brings up a photo of your item. For example, our everyday plates we chose before our wedding in 1990 are the Poetry pattern from Pfaltzgraf. It was long-since discontinued but if we wanted to, we could replace all of them!

Although I could have paged through all of the Haviland patterns it would have taken weeks! Instead I ordered from Replacements, Ltd the book Haviland: A Pattern Identification Guide (no, our library didn’t have this one, so I invested in the book–I was hooked now). This 577-page book includes photos, pattern names for those that had names,  the Schleiger #s and Blank #s. After pouring over the china and the book for just 3 days, I was able to identify two of the other patterns! 

So, whose were they?

I am now asking myself, what did this GIANT rabbit hole (and huge investment of time and money) gain me? Am I any closer at figuring out whose they were and how they came to be with my grandparents?

Well, given the Theo Haviland patterns were around 1903 (based on the mark), I am pretty convinced that none of these were wedding china for my grandparents…and I have no idea whose they were…I’m leaning toward the theory that my grandfather just picked up them random places to make the china cabinet look pretty.

But…

Remember how I said that 5 patterns were Haviland and the 6th and 7th was Zeh Scherzer? Well, using my skills in porcelain developed through investigating the Haviland patterns, I think I figured out who these sets might have belonged to. 

Zeh Scherzer (Z S & Co) was a porcelain producing company located in Bavaria, Germany that began in 1880. Their marks changed over the years and the mark that we see on our china was used from 1899-1910. I haven’t found the exact patterns (there doesn’t seem to be a collector’s club for this china) but given the timing, I would say that this was perfect timing for my great-grandparents Alonzo Sedlock and Louisa Hillman who were married 18 May 1904. Louisa’s parents were both from German families, her father (Johann Willheim Hillman) immigrating in 1879 from Bremen, Germany and her mother (Emma Amanda Sackman) was born in Germania, Potter County, Pennsylvania but her older siblings were born in Hamburg, Germany (Emma was my last week’s post.). According to newspaper accounts of Louisa in the social columns, she was a socialite and it would not be surprising to me that they were given china for their wedding. 

So, I am going out on a limb and conjecture that the 11 plates and 4 cups/saucers and 6 small plates were gifts to Alonzo and Louisa Sedlock for their wedding.

We probably won’t ever know the real story of this mysteriously appearing china but for as long as we own our current house, it’s a beautiful addition to the shelves and I don’t mind using the china for entertaining. In fact, this past weekend, I used several platters for our DAR Special Tea!

Saturday Night Fun--My G-G-Grandmother Emma Amanda Sackmann

Emma Amanda Sackmann
Hillman Schmidt
(1862-1951)

Genea-Musings Blog posts prompts every Saturday encouraging followers to write in their own blogs. This week’s prompt, “Write a 100-word Life Sketch of your 2x Great-Grandparents."

I chose Emma Amanda Sackmann, my father’s maternal great-grandmother. One of the reasons I chose her is because my father knew her well and she was a beloved grandmother to my grandmother. Emma (Granny) actually lived with my father’s family for a period of time when he was young and she was the one who raised my grandmother after her parents divorced and my grandmother’s mother was committed and eventually died at Greystone Psychiatric Hospital in Morris Plains, NJ.

The Life Sketch of Emma Sackmann

We were encouraged to use AI to generate the sketches, so I am testing the waters. I gave ChatGPT three screenshots of my Ancestry Family tree timeline of my great-great-grandmother along with the prompt, “Using the following three images with text on them about Emma Amanda Sackmann, please write a 100-word life sketch about her.” This is what it came up with:

“Emma Amanda Sackmann was born on June 26, 1862, in Germania, Potter County, Pennsylvania, to John Heinrich Sackmann and Christina Dunker. She married Johannes Wilheim Hillmann in 1882, and they had two children, Herman and Louise. Emma lived primarily in New York City and Brooklyn, with occupations and residences changing over time, reflecting her role as a wife, mother, and, later, a widow. She experienced the deaths of many family members, including her husband in 1906 and her daughter in 1938. Emma eventually relocated to Brattleboro, Vermont, where she passed away on February 2, 1951, at age 88.”

Given only 100 words (well 98, in this case) there isn’t a whole lot you can say about someone, I guess this provides a very appropriate (if not bland) life sketch.

Extension of Her Life Sketch

Some of the things that were not highlighted in this brief sketch is that she was the first of her parents’ five children to be born in the United States. They emigrated from Germany in July 1856 on the ship John Herman from Hamburg as a group of 9. Her parents, Johann and Christina (Dunker) and her three older siblings Louise (4 years), Carl (2 years), and Pauline (2 months), and 4 other family members, Anna (18 year–unknown relationship), Johann (15 years–unknown relationship), and Heinrich and Catherine (possibly brother and wife). When they arrived in the US they lived in Brooklyn but then invested in the Pennsylvania (German) Land Association and moved to Germania (Abbott), Potters County, Pennsylvania to be among a small community of German immigrants. Both Emma and her younger brother were born there. 

I visited Abbott/Germania a couple of years ago and it is a beautiful country with rolling hills and in some places steeply sloping land. The immigrants were intending to farm the land but it was not going to be easy. Emma’s father died around 1870 which probably prompted the family to move back to Brooklyn. 

Emma married Johann Hillmann as a 19 year old. He was recorded being a salesman and a “liquor dealer” and owned a bar at one point. At 43 years old in 1906, she was widowed and lived alone in 1910. She married Otto Fred Schmidt between 1910 and 1915 and in the 1915 NY Census they have her granddaughters living with them. Otto died in 1924 leaving her a widow, again, but still raised her granddaughters until they were out on their own. In her later years, she resided in Vermont mostly with Ruth, her granddaughter who was not married at the time.

My perspective might be influenced by my father’s memories of her, but in researching her life I have come across several facts/observations which suggest to me that she was a very welcoming and nurturing person. Beside taking in her granddaughters and raising them into adulthood, I found in 1892 in addition to her two children, her niece Lulu Steinem is living with them and in 1900 a different niece Vera Henno is living with them and you can see in this photo Vera is reclining back and draping her arm over Emma’s knee. I’m guessing she was a beloved aunt as well as grandmother!

When I think about all she endured and experienced in her 88 years from 1862 to 1951, I am inspired by the fortitude she must have had. Maybe it was the model she saw in her own mother who was widowed at the same age with 5 children? Regardless, reflecting on Emma's life helps put my own challenges in perspective and allows me to appreciate what I do have to make my life easier…like, this computer and internet, for example!

Treasured Toy Car

Bill Breyfogle, c. 1938
color enhanced by myHeritage

My father-in-law (Bill) recently shared some of his boyhood treasures with my husband. This week as I was unpacking one of the boxes, I came across this well worn toy car. Not having any idea about its provenance, I asked my husband. He said that this was a toy car that his dad had been given when he was a little boy from a “cousin”.

I uploaded one of the photos and using Google Lens found an eBay result below that helped identify at least a manufacturer and era for it. I was curious to hear a little more about the story, so I called my father-in-law.

He was delighted that I was interested and shared with me that he remembered meeting the person who was the original owner and he thought he was about the age of his 1st cousins, Joe and JC DeBoer (so born around 1919) and he also knew the sad fact that this man served in WW2 but didn’t return. He wasn’t sure how he was related and it might even have been cousins of his cousins and it might have been his cousin’s mother’s side. In answering questions, he shared with me that the car is pretty much as he remembers receiving it, without the back license plate or spare tire and the painting of the silver was done before he received it.

The Original Owner

I love a good mystery, so I spent some time delving into my father-in-law’s family tree looking for a man who would have been a boy in the 1920s, who would have been able to enjoy a toy car like this around 1927 and served and died in WW2. At first I thought this was going to be easy, how many people could this be?

Since Bill said it wasn’t a 1st cousin (he actually only has 2 on the DeBoer side–Joe and JC) and thought it was related to their mother’s side, I looked into her. Since she married into the family, I hadn’t done much work on her line and it was all new. She was born Johanna “Anna” Smith on 5 June 1894 to

Anna and Joseph DeBoer
c. 1915

Earl Kyse Smith (1865-1900) and Grietje Hermans “Maggie” Van Bloois (1869-1951). Earl was married before Maggie, his first wife died shortly after the birth of their first child. Anna’s father, Earl, died when she was around 6 and with 4 children under 10, and Earl’s one just a little bit older it was not surprising that her mother, Maggie remarried quickly. She married John Stouten (1869-1950) and they had 2 more children together and he brought 5 children into the marriage from his first wife who also died. Not knowing if the original owner of the toy car might be a step-sibling, I felt I needed to investigate all 11 possibilities, which meant finding all of their spouses and children. After an exhaustive search, I found 1 man who died in Pearl Harbor, James Stouten (1901-1941), the son of John Stouten and his first wife. This didn’t seem right because he wasn't a child in 1927 and didn’t match being born in the 1919 timeframe. I looked for a son of James, but couldn’t find any indication he had children.

William and Eva Van Dam DeBoer Family
c. 1911

William and twin Martin
DeBoer c. 1880

So on to the possibility of 2nd cousins, which means investigating the families of siblings of Bill’s grandparents. His grandfather was William Joost (Joseph) DeBoer, a twin with Marinus (Martin) DeBoer born on 5 Oct 1871 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and they were #4 and 5 of 11 children. Whew! That’s a lot of kids to check out, but fortunately most of them I had already researched. This exhaustive research brought no possibilities! 

On to Bill’s grandmother, Aafke (Eva) Van Dam born 24 September 1871, also in Grand Rapids, Michigan. (Unsurprisingly, they attended the same Dutch Reformed Church in Grand Rapids). Eva was the 2nd of 10 children! Let’s hope that each child didn’t have 10 children! Again, I had researched many of her siblings, so it didn’t take me long to find a likely candidate. The 5th child, Harmon Van Dam (1881-1954) and his wife Dorothy Froman (1893-1965) had 6 children (3 boys and 3 girls). The youngest of these boys was Peter Charles Van Dam born 1922 and served as a Tordepoman’s Mate Second Class aboard the submarine, the SS Kete. According to the

Naval History and Heritage Command, the Kete departed “Guam on 1 March 1945 headed for her second patrol in the vicinity of Nansei Shoto. In addition to performing a normal patrol, Kete had orders to submit special weather reports, and to carry out rescue service during an air strike by carrier based planes.” After firing some of their torpedoes on a small enemy cable laying vessel, they were directed to depart the area on 20 March and proceed to Pearl Harbor. They sent their last update on 20 March. They should have arrived to Midway (a refueling stop) by the 31st of March but never made it.

Here is the Obituary of Peter C. Van Dam published in the Grand Rapids Press on April 13, 1946. I am fairly certain that Peter was the original owner, or at least the boy who passed it along to my father-in-law, Bill.

More about the Toy Car

We don’t know exactly when Peter handed down his toy car, but it would have been well before he left for the Navy, since little Billy would have enjoyed it in the late 1930’s, when Peter was in high school. 

I did some more investigation on the car, which led me to the Antique Toy Collectors of America. (Are you surprised there is a club for this? I am no longer surprised since it seems like there is a club for everything!) Their website provides a plethora of information including the 1926 and 1931 catalogs for the Kingsbury Manufacturing Co. Another website called Pressed Steel & Metal Toys of the 1920s & 1930s provided some added photos and background of the Kingsbury toy company (but none of the exact car). Little Billy’s car does not appear in 1926 catalog but a version of it appears for sale in 1931 for $3. (Adjusted for inflation that would be $69.72 in today’s money).

The No. 340 Cabriolet is advertised as “A perfect reproduction of the artistic models seen on Fifth Ave. Finished blue with orange striping and wheels. Rubber tires and motor.” I’m thinking that earlier models were in green but the orange striping, rubber tires, and a wind up motor are still present. 

There appears to be a market for these antique toy cars (it is nearly 100 years old!), but my husband has no desire to give it up, especially now knowing its provenance!