Four Generation Friday - Grandma Wisner

Beatrice Marie (Hawver) Wisner (1901-1992)
Lawrence Wisner (1924-2013)
Raymond Wisner (b. 1948)
Sandee (Wisner) Broersma (b. 1975)

Dead Wisner Children

This fall, I came across a cache of pictures that I didn't know existed of my wife's family. So not only was it awesome to find pictures that I didn't know existed, but also within the pictures was some more info that I didn't have. Like pictures of children that had died young, and had the unfortunate timing of being born and dying in between the 10 year censuses, making it more difficult to find info on them. I know that child deaths were more common as you go back 100 years or more, but when you come across pictures of children that died, it makes them a little more real.

George Albert Wisner (1829-1905) and Julia Ann (Barto)(1843-1924) had 4 children that we know of: May Ellen, Lawrence Smith, Mattie Irene and Guy Clifford. Based on the dates when George and Julia's children were born, they may have had some other children that died. However it's the children that lived and their families that I have pictures of, and now have knowledge of previously unknown children.

So first, I know the most about the Lawrence Smith Wisner family (my wife's great great grandparents). Here is their portrait as I had come to know their family: Lawrence, Martha (Morey) and their son Raymond.


They had another son that I had discovered had died when he was 3 years old. In the box of pictures I found one of him and it may be the only one that exists. His name was Frank Morey Wisner and he died in 1906 at the age of 3. Here are the 2 brothers together:


Lawrence's older sister May Ellen Wisner married Andrew T Jackson. I knew that they had 3 children: George Elvin, Herbert Andrew and May, but on the back of this family portrait it shows the names of the children in the picture, but one I hadn't seen before: James M.


This photo was dated 1908. May was born around 1909. So James was born around 1904 and died between when this photo was taken in 1908 and 1910 when the census was. Here is another photo of James when he was a year old.


The younger sister of Lawrence and May was Mattie Irene Wisner. It looks like she was called Aunt Irene based on writing on photos. She married Charles Bonner Anderson and had 3 children: Florence, and twins Frank and Laura. Here is the portrait of the family that I have, and it's missing Florence:


Florence was born in 1898 and died in 1902. Here is a picture that I now have of her:


Now May, Lawrence and Irene had another brother named Guy, and he never married to my knowledge. Few pictures of him exist and so it was nice to find a couple with him in them. This is Lawrence and Guy together (Guy is standing):


So I guess the greater point that I discovered is the fact that the 3 families of Lawrence, May and Irene all lost 1 child in each of their families sometime during 1905-1910. Then add to that that their dad George Wisner died in 1905. That's just a whole lot of death happening in a few short years. No one is currently living who would remember these children, but if it wasn't for these few photos in a small box that were buried in a closet and forgotten, it's almost as if these children never existed.

As for Guy, he died in 1954 at the age of 74. My father in law remembers him, and I'm sure there are more his age and older that have memories too, but since Guy never married he didn't have a family legacy to pass down. I was thinking on that and realized that he is also almost like a child that died, with no descendants to pass on his name and no blood line to show that he existed. I haven't even been able to find were he was buried.

In the end though, will it matter if any of us have lived? After death will we remember life? I kinda think that in heaven, most things of earth won't matter and there will only be happiness.

Mystery Monday - Unidentified Wichers

This is a picture that my grandma has. It should be from Kansas, and most likely of some Wichers children. There were no names on the back, and everyone I've asked can't figure out who these children are. I think possibly it is from the late teens, early 20s based on the car. The older girl sitting down could be my great grandma Grace Gertrude Wichers. If it's her, the other children may be a mixture of her brothers and sisters and cousins.

I just like the look of it, with the barn and the old car and the horse drawn buggy in the background. I just wish I could figure out who these kids are. And also the people in the background.

Newspaper Record for Laas Broersma's Birth

I found a resource that I didn't know about that has scans of newspapers, and they are searchable! The website is http://kranten.kb.nl/. It also allows you to download images of the newspapers. I was able to find my great grandpa Lawrence Broersma's birth, which was pretty cool. He was born on 4 February 1901 in Piaam, in the Netherlands. He changed his name to Lawrence when he came to the USA, but before that his name was Laas. This clipping is from the Nieuw Advertentieblad on 13 February 1901. Happy 113th b-day!

Genealogy Highlights of 2013

This year, I made some good headway, genealogically speaking. On my wife's side I found a couple caches of pictures and documents that revealed new information. Unfortunately some of these discoveries were made as a result her grandparents passing away. I wish we had asked them just a few more questions about their history, before we were no longer able.


Also this year I got to connect with a long sort-of-lost relative on my wife's side. She is my wife's grandma's cousin, and we didn't know who she was, or that she lived 25 minutes from our house! Not only that but she has been doing genealogy for many years and has lots of great info.


Also this year we got to celebrate my wife's great aunt's 90th birthday. She is still going strong. We have been able to visit with her a few times this year and also as a result have came across a treasure trove of old pictures that we had never seen before, and that revealed new information.


One big highlight for my side of the family was being able to visit the Netherlands with my dad. We drove through just about every town we could that we had ancestors from.


In one of those towns, in the church tower, was a dedication to a Broersma that laid the first brick. We haven't been able to connect this Broersma to our direct line yet, but it certainly was exciting to see the possibility since our family live in the area.


Also while visiting the Netherlands, I got to visit with relatives and get more family stories and pictures to bring back with us. One of the visits was with our cousin that is one of the only living people in the world that has met my great great grandpa Broersma, and had some stories of him and what he was like.


With some new information that he gave us, we were able to drive to another town and find the exact spot where a picture of my great great grandpa Broersma was taken.


Overall it's been a great year that's has expanded our knowledge of our family. I hope to have more great finds in 2014.

Luitske van Gunst Heirlooms

When visiting relatives in the Netherlands, me and my dad discovered that my Great Great Grandma Luitske van Gunst (Broersma) had made a cross stitch sampler when she was 12. I don't know if she made a lot of them, but 1 still existed and it was given to one of my aunts. When we got home my dad called her and asked if she still had it, and she did. She said we could have it, and also something else.


It says: Luitsche van Gunst, 12 years old, 1882. We hope to have it framed. I've seen some of these come up on Antiques Roadshow and can be worth a lot, but those are really old and have a lot of detail. I like this one though because it's from my family.

Included with the sampler was a church book that also belonged to Luitske.


This church song book almost everyone would have from that congregation, and would bring it each Sunday to church. Most of it is songs, but it also has the New Testament and catechisms. This one was printed in 1881. Another cool thing with this book is that is says it belonged to Luitske.


It says: Churchbook of Luitske Thijses van Gunst, born in Piaam the 11th day of October 1869. Luitske would go on to marry Jetze Broersma in 1890.

Where is Forest, Washington?

I found some postcards from my wife's side of the family that were from 1909. They were to Martha (Morey) Wisner, wife of Lawrence S Wisner. They were living in Waukegan, Illinois from 1900 till about 1910 when they were in Stockton, California. But then I saw this postcard and it was sent to the town of Forest, Washington.


So this was postmarked August of 1909, and it looks like they were living in the town of Forest in Washington, but where is that? There is not much of an address, just the town. Then I saw it again in another postcard from December of 1909.


So since there were there for at least a few months, they had to be living there. I tried to look up Forest, Washington on Google Maps and came up with like a thousand hits. They have a few trees in that state. So I found the fact that they were living in Washington for at least a few months, maybe up to a year, significant because I thought they went straight from Illinois to California.

So I searched some more and couldn't find anything. I figured it was a small town that probably changed it's name. I went on Ancestry.com and went to the 1900 census and started looking at the available districts for Washington. I went county by county until I found one that said Forest, and I found it in Lewis County!

Lewis county rang a bell in my mind. Someone else from the family had been there I thought. So I looked up the other towns in the county and the ones that caught my eye were Napavine and Chehalis. Napavine is where Lawrence S Wisner's father George Wisner had died. George had left Illinois sometime after 1901 and in 1905 he died in Napavine. Lawrence was still in Illinois in 1906, so I wonder if he moved to Forest because it was near where his father was working.

I wanted to find out where Forest was on a map. After searching for a while I found out about 2 sentences on the history of that town, from "The Origin of Washington Place Names" written in 1923 by Edmund Meany:

FOREST, a postoffice in Lewis County, was established and named by W. R. Monroe in March, 1897. On October 1, 1897, it was moved a mile and a half southeast to its present location by the postmaster, Joseph Grenner. The place is usually called Newaukum Prairie.

So I kept searching and finally found an old map of Lewis County. And I got lucky because it happened to be from 1909, when the postcards were written.


It may be hard to see, but Forest is under the L in Chehalis. And just to the southwest of Forest is Napavine! So Lawrence did move to the area where his father was. My guess would be because he knew work would be there. Mystery solved, at least the mystery of where Forest is.

Update: As I was going through some more photos I came across this one that says it was the school that Ray C Wisner went to in Washington. I'm assuming that this is near Forest.