Bitter realities
Six times.
Six times in fifteen years.
On the 28th of January 1892.
On the 22nd of August 1893.
On the 5th of March 1896.
On the 26th of February 1898.
On the 12th of December 1904.
And, 107 years ago yesterday, on the 30th of January 1907.
Those six times in those 15 years, Carsten Hinrich Wilhelm Nuckel and his wife Juliane Margarethe (Smidt) Nuckel — The Legal Genealogist‘s great grandparents — went to the cemetery together.
The losses are staggering — the mortality rate simply unimaginable to 21st century minds.
The Nuckels were both from Bremen, Germany,1 and married there around 1888. They had six children that I’m absolutely sure of:
• Son Carsten Hinrich Wilhelm (I), born in March 1889. He was two years and nine months old when he died 24 January 1892. He was buried 28 January 1892 at Reichsburg Cemetery in Bremen.2
• Daughter Marie Margarethe, born 9 February 1891, my grandmother.3
• Son Carsten Hinrich Wilhelm (II), born 1 July 1892. He was one year and 20 days old when he died 19 August 1893. He was buried 22 August 1893 at Bunthenthor Cemetery.4
• Daughter Henrietta Johanna, born around 14 September 1895. She was five months and 16 days old when she died 1 March 1896. She was buried 5 March 1896 at Bunthenthor Cemetery.5
• Johann Friedrich Wilhelm, born around 10 May 1897. He was 11 months and 12 days old when he died 22 April 1898. He was buried 26 April 1898 at Walle Cemetery.6
• A daughter, stillborn on 10 December 1904, and buried 12 December 1904 at Walle Cemetery.7
There were three more than I’m fairly sure of — daughters Adelheid and Gretel and son Gerd — but German privacy laws have thus far stumped me in figuring out how to obtain documentary proof of those three, so getting their full names and birthdates is still on the “to-do” list.
They’re the survivors you see in the photograph here. Adelheid married Heinrich Thoms and had a daughter Henni; Gretel married Amko Lauterbach and had a daughter Erna; Gerd married Sophie and had children Wilma and Friedel.8
So the first trip my great grandparents made to the cemetery was to bury their first-born in 1892.
The second was to bury his namesake, their second born son, in 1893.
The third, to bury Henrietta in 1896.
The fourth, to bury their next son Johann Friedrich in 1898.
The fifth, to bury their stillborn daughter in 1904.
And the sixth… oh, the sixth… that last and final trip together to the cemetery in 1907.
That one was different.
Not because of the kind of burial. It was a fourth class burial — with the hearse drawn by two horses draped with black, eight black-clad attendants wearing triangular hats, the coffin draped in black,9 but some of those earlier burials had been fourth class as well.
Not because of where it was — Buntenthor was one of the cemeteries used by the family before.
But because, on that cold day in January 1907, my great grandparents did not come home together.
That was the day when Carsten Hinrich Wilhelm Nuckel came home from the cemetery alone.
Leaving behind Juliane Margarethe (Smidt) Nuckel, aged 42, mother of as many as nine children and probably four surviving, in her own grave at Bunthenthor Cemetery.10
The losses are staggering — the mortality rate simply unimaginable to 21st century minds.
And the only comfort that can be offered by this American descendant to her Bremen ancestors is the knowledge that, after the family arrived in America, there have been no more losses of this kind.
We have never buried a child.
We have never buried an adult in her prime.
We are so very fortunate.
And your experience teaches us to treasure every minute of our good fortune.
SOURCES
- For Carsten, see Bremen Standesamt, Zivilstandsregister 1811-1875 (Bremen city registry office, civil status registers 1811-1875), Geburten (births) 1860, Reg. Nr. 1931 (13 Nov 1860), p. 973; FHL microfilm 1344170, Family History Library, Salt Lake City. For Juliane, see ibid., Geburten 1864, Reg. Nr. 2367 (15 Nov 1864), p.1177; FHL Film 1344173. ↩
- “Die Leichenbücher der Stadtgemeinde Bremen von 1875 – 1939” (The Funerary Records of the City of Bremen, 1875-1939), book 1892, page 59; online database, Die Maus – Family History and Genealogical Society of Bremen (http://www.die-maus-bremen.de/index.php : accessed 30 Jan 2015). ↩
- Bremen birth certificate, attached to visa application, Form 255, 4 December 1924, Marie Geissler; photocopy received 2004 via FOIA request by Judy G. Russell from U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (now U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services). ↩
- Bremen Funerary Records, book 1893, page 451. ↩
- Ibid., book 1896, page 117. ↩
- Ibid., book 1898, page 234. ↩
- Ibid., book 1904, page 871. ↩
- The names and marriage information were written on the back of the photograph you see here. The annotation is in my father’s handwriting; the caption heading is “Mom’s Folks Bremen 1932.” If you’re a descendant of one of them, please contact me! ↩
- “Die Leichenbücher der Stadtgemeinde Bremen von 1875 – 1939: Vierte Klasse” (The Funerary Records of the City of Bremen, 1875-1939: Fourth Class), Die Maus – Family History and Genealogical Society of Bremen (http://www.die-maus-bremen.de/index.php : accessed 30 Jan 2015). ↩
- Bremen Funerary Records, book 1907, page 99. ↩
My grandfather buried 13 significant others in 8 years: both his parents, two sisters, his grandmother, 6 aunts and uncles, a cousin, and a nephew, all between the time he was 10 and 18 (1903-1911). His parents died within five months of one another. One of my grandfather’s uncles died in my grandfather’s house, where he had been staying while attending an aunt’s funeral. With the exception of his grandmother, almost all of the deceased were under the age of 65. Life (and death) was brutal.
It certainly was a different world than we have to deal with today — thank heavens!
I couldn’t imagine how hard life was back then.
And I’m awfully grateful that we don’t have to do more than try to imagine it.
It certainly is staggering. My 2nd great-grandparents had 1 boy followed by 12 girls. Of the girls they buried 7 before they reached their 6th birthdays, 3 in 4 days from scarlet fever. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like to go through that.
Oh Rachel… that’s heartbreaking. Just heartbreaking.
The children all died in the winter. Have you looked into the causes?
Death records are on order. (German privacy laws only changed in 2009, so much of this information wasn’t available even five years ago.)
I know children were lost to both my grandparents, the Modisett and Baker families. 2 baby girls that lived only 2 or 3 days, one daughter of 16 to my grandmother Modisett. Baker grandmother lost 2 baby girls not long after birth. As a parent I prayed that we would never lose one of our children. Terrible losses our grandparents suffered through in the early 18 and 1900’s.
Makes me grateful for the times we live in.
My grandparents lost children as well, Stan: my paternal grandparents lost their first-born, my aunt Marie, at the age of four months; my maternal grandparents lost their first-born, my aunt Ruth, at age six months, and my uncle Donald at age 2 from smallpox.
My grandmother had nineteen children that we know of, but likely at least two more. One set of quadruplets, two sets of triplets, two sets of twins and at least 3 single births – all born more that a hundred before fertility drugs! The quadruplets and one set of triplets did not survive more than a few days, one set of triplets thrived, at least for awhile. This is the saddest part of the story: my mother was born prematurely, weighing less that 2 pounds at birth and not expected to survive. The nurse midwife that was caring for my grandmother and her other children had her hands full. The surviving set of triplets were just a year old, almost to the day. In the confusion of that night, the midwife gave the triplets bottles that were too hot and scalded the throats of all 3. They all died within a day or two. Can you imagine how my grandmother must have felt: giving birth to a premature baby that had little chance of surviving and losing her precious triplets in the same night. Life WAS brutal and the people were tough. The good news: my mother did survive, or else I would not be writing this!
Oh Connie… that’s so very sad. Just astonishing.
Oh, how painful.
Heart wrenching. Oh, how painful. Thank you for sharing this, Judy. You truly are an excellent writer.
Thanks for the kind words!
As I fill in the details of my ancestors, I see gaps in births, and know that more than likely it meant a lost baby or young child. Often there is only a guess, as for generations most of my family lived in frontier areas. Some of the babies were named if they survived birth, some were buried without names (this was the custom). It surprises me when I go back and find a family with surviving children and no gaps longer than 3 years. Even then, often there were deaths before adulthood. My great-grandmother died giving birth to her last child, who died two days later, and was tucked unceremoniously into the coffin on his mother’s burial day. Her daughter, my grandmother, born in 1889 and ten years old when her mother died, had ten children: two died at birth, one died a toddler. My father was born 2 months early on a homestead in backwoods Idaho and survived, truly a miracle. The July heat no doubt helped. My grandmother carried him in a sling tucked inside her dress. Twelve years later, he nearly died of typhoid fever. One of his brothers was presumed dead in his late teens after going missing while job-hunting, though his family never gave up hope he would return. Then at age 39, my grandmother was widowed, with her five youngest children still at home.
This was a part of life during those times of expansion and hardship on the American frontier right through the 30s, and still is in places of poverty. That has not changed. We are lucky indeed, but things have not changed for a great many people, even here in America. We just are blind to it.
Things are certainly hard for many Americans … but for very few of us, I think, as bad as our ancestors had it.
My Missouri ancestors lost 7-8 family members to consumption in the 1880s and 1890s…one after another.
Unimaginable. Just unimaginable.
23 Aug 1864 my G-Grandparents lost 3 children in one day! A 2 year old son and twins either stillborn or who died the same day they were born.
I have been writing a narrative of my G-Grandmother’s life and can’t even imagine what a hard life she had, and the losses.
That’s just so incredibly sad, Linda.
My husband’s great grandparents lost two children a year apart in 1866 and 1867 — they were either stillborn or died within hours of birth. 3 yrs later they had a daughter, Pearl and 2 yrs after that a son, James. James died of scarlet fever on 15 March 1876, the day after his cousin, Bessie, died of the same thing. Pearl died 6 days later, again of scarlet fever. It was 5 yrs later before their 5th child, Harold was born, and 8 yrs after that, their last child, Theo came along. They both survived to adulthood. Such a sad story…I have the mourning locket that great-grandmother had made to carry the children’s photo and locks of their hair for the rest of her life.
It’s just amazing what our ancestors endured in terms of these losses.
Three thoughts about 19th century mortality rates: First: the high infant mortality rate resulted in parents being hesitant to engage in the tight emotional bonding with their newborn children that we feel is so important and natural today. While I’ve seen this discussed by 19th century authors as an unfortunate necessity, I have not seen more recent speculations about how this impacted 19th century childhood psychological and emotional development. Second: many of the 19th century town records in Massachusetts list the cause of death; while childhood infections are common, the high frequency of trauma (including burns, falls and drowning) as a cause of childhood death is startling. Third, during the 19th century, the most common cause of death (all ages) was tuberculosis. It is estimated that a billion individuals died of TB in the 19th century worldwide, with the large majority of deaths occurring during childhood and in working age adults; it was the most devastating pandemic in recorded human history. The impact of TB on family life, marriage, education and career choice, personal finances, travel and migration was pervasive and yet it is rarely mentioned by European and American historians and genealogists.
I think the one billion estimated TB deaths is for more than one century, no?
The total TB mortality during the nineteenth century can only be estimated. It is commonly quoted as causing one billion deaths in “the last two centuries”, but the bulk of that toll was in the 19th century alone. The peak mortality rate varied by country, but tended to be in the mid-19th century in most of Europe and the U.S. By the late 19th century, the mortality rates were clearly declining. Though TB has been found in Egyptian mummies from several thousand years ago it was seen at relatively low levels for most of recorded history and the mortality rate did not begin to rise from that baseline until the mid 18th century. Thus the bulk of the mortality from the pandemic was in fact during the 19th century, and the estimate of one billion deaths between 1800 and 1900 is probably close to the truth despite being astounding. It is interesting that the cause of the pandemic is still poorly understood, and the declining mortality which occurred many decades prior to the invention of anti-tuberculous drug therapy is also not well understood. I published a brief comment on the subject in the Journal of the Cape Cod Genealogical Society, Spring 2011, “The Seabury Family of Orleans and Chatham: 19th Century Tuberculosis on Cape Cod”. My interest was to what extent TB was a motivation in the 19th century for migration out of New England, as one branch of my family in Boston suffered an inordinate rate of TB deaths during the early-mid 19th century. The disease however was not understood to be infectious for most of the century and individuals thus did not understand how to avoid or escape it. While it did lead to many individuals to move to a “healthier climate”, it probably was not a significant factor in 19th century population shifts. Yet I think the impact of the disease on family history remains underestimated.
Certainly it impacted individual families, no matter what role it did or didn’t play in group migration.
For the 21st century balance, I’ve been trying for a couple of days to retrieve the quotation I want – but can’t find it. For some school exam material that I was teaching maybe five or six years ago, the opening line was something like: “Last year no girls aged eight died in Sweden.” It was making the point of the dramatic improvement in infectious disease mortality brought about by immunisation. What a fantastic change for the better!
And all that progress is being risked by those who misunderstand the value, and risk, of immunizations…
Anyone who is old enough to remember the days before the polio vaccine knows very well the value of vaccinations.
That should be so true… I still remember the classmate who ended up in an iron lung…