Strong Roots, Beautiful Leaves

Louisa AKA Minnie was my 3x great grandma. She was born November 23, 1863 in Indiana. She married Wilhelm Frederick Kuhlenschmidt on September 4, 1880 at Zoar Evangelical Church in Elberfeld, Warrick County, Indiana. Wilhelm later 'Americanized' his name to William. They had 12 children, only one not surviving to reach adulthood. Minnie died suddenly on June 15, 1927 from a cerebral hemorrhage in Campbell, Warrick County, Indiana. She is buried at Zoar Evangelical Church Cemetery in Elberfeld. "This is the story of Louisa Kuhlenschmidt's death, based on the recollections of the stories told by Edgar and Raymond Kuhlenschmidt. When her son William's wife was due to give birth to a new grandchild, Louisa went to his home. According to Edgar, Louisa had some skill as a midwife and was called upon to help with the births of grandchildren. When Doris June was born, Louisa came out of the bedroom, asked for her pills, sat down, and died immediately." I have tried th...

 After a post I copied from a genealogy Facebook page talking about "accidentally telling grandma she was adopted", it got me wanting to post about a very surprising and frustrating find while doing my research. My great grandma's maiden name was Kuhlenschmidt. She loved being a Kuhlenschmidt! She loved our large family, how we seem to be related in one way or another to anybody (mostly because of the large German population of Evansville), and she loved our German ancestry. After my research (which I will explain), I had the hard task of informing grandma that we aren't even blood Kuhlenschmidt, and we are, in a sense, 'adopted' into the name. She took it surprisingly well, and seemed to be in as much shock as I was when I first found out! It's easier to tell the story from the beginning of the genealogy line... Hans Kuhlenschmidt was born March 10, 1771 in Langenholzhausen, Lippe, Germany. He first married Anna on April 22, 1792. Anna was born in 1765. A...

Friederich "Fritz" Simon Kuhlenschmidt definitely lived an eventful life. Fritz was born April 29, 1820 in Langenholzhausen, Lippe, Germany (actually Prussia at the time). He was baptized May 7, 1820 at Evangelisch, Langenholzhausen, Lippe, Germany. His wife, Amalia Wilhelmina Bodemeier, was also born here on March 7, 1819. The couple married August 13, 1843. Their first two children, Friederich Charles and Friederich Ernst, were also born in Germany. Fritz trained as a brew master in Berlin, Germany. By 1848, the family decided to move to America. During this time period, more than a million German citizens came to America to escape economic hardships and political unrest, riots, rebellions, and a revolution that broke out in 1848.  This must have been a hard decision to move across the world to an unfamiliar land with two small children while Amalia was also pregnant. It must have been heartbreaking for the family to see the outbreak of the Civil War so close to their arriv...