James Lewis Jenkins- LaGrange Pioneer

This ancestors has proven to be one of the most elusive. I’m sure it is not because he chose to be secretive but rather that back in his days, there were few official records kept. I have never been able to find an actual birth date. The only data I have for his birth is that which was reported on censuses and that can be, at times, untrustworthy. Back in the 1800s when censuses were taken, the census taker was not required to get the information from the people who actually lived in the household. Imagine a census taker on horseback out in the countryside coming to a house and no one being available to give information. He could have gotten it from nearby neighbors who probably didn’t know an actual birth year or where their neighbors were actually born. Or the census taker may may gotten the information from an older child who happened to be at home and may not have been accurate. By getting the information in these ways, the census taker would not have to make another trip back to get the information…. no telephones remember! There were all kinds of problems with those earlier censuses, so genealogists do not generally use them as proof but as good clues. When that is all you have to go on, then that is what you must use until you can locate more substantial proof. So that is where I am with James. According to census information, he was born in about 1806 in Kentucky. I have more than one census that agrees with that, so I feel somewhat comfortable that its accuracy is pretty close.
    I have also not been able to determine just where in Kentucky he was born. At this point, I strongly feel it was Bullitt County. On the map of Kentucky, you can see Bullitt County just south of Louisville. I found a history of Lewis County that had some biographies. There were three short biographies of William N, James, and George W Jenkins. This was not the James who is the subject of this writing because this James had been born in 1849. All three of these men had been born in Nelson County, Kentucky. Nelson County, as you can see on the map, is right next to Bullitt County. All three of these men are the sons of George W Jenkins, Sr. who I believe was born in Bullitt County in 1809. This is purely conjecture at this point, but I am thinking that James Lewis Jenkins and George W Jenkins, Sr. were brothers. Their birth years of 1806 and 1809 strongly suggest that possibility. That would make the three Jenkins men who were in the Lewis County history book nephews of the subject of this writing. And it might explain why all three men came to Lewis County with their widowed mother, Martha Cravens Jenkins. As I mentioned, this is all supposition at this point until I can find some proof of the possible relationship between James L and George W Jenkins, Sr. And, I might add, this is the real fun in genealogy…….. trying to find this proof! It is especially challenging when you are dealing with a time in which few birth, death, and marriage records were kept by counties. Hopefully, I will be able to report some progress in this quest in the future.

Back to James and his life, at least, what I do know. I have a land patent for some land he bought in Marion County, Missouri, which is just south of Lewis County. This happened in 1833, so I know he is in Missouri by that time. He married Nancy A Tuley on 2 July 1835 in Lewis County. Their children were daughters Mary J, Francis P, and Nancy A. They had two sons, John W and James L. The daughter named Nancy A would become known as “Nannie” Jenkins and would eventually marry William Shepherd, the parents of my great grandfather, Robert E Shepherd. In an article in a newspaper after Nannie Jenkins Shepherd died, she said her father, James L Jenkins was a tanner by trade in LaGrange. He also operated a cooper shop and owned the only undertaking business in town. That’s quite a collections of trades! He built the first brick house in LaGrange at the corner of Third and Jackson Streets. The

town of LaGrange was officially organized in 1854 and James served on the first town council.

Another interesting sidelight about James was his “disappearance” in 1850. James was on the 1840 and 1860 census in LaGrange. However, he is not listed with his family on the 1850 census there. At first, I thought the obvious…that he had died, but this was before I had located the 1860 census and found him in LaGrange. So, where was he in 1850? I did some more searching and found a James S Jenkins in Grass Valley, California. What’s going on in California in 1850? ……  think Gold Rush! James is living in a household with two other miners and he is listed as a miner. Just because it says James S and not James L on this census, I strongly believe this is our James because he is the right age and it lists Kentucky as the birth place. And this would explain his absence on the 1850 census in LaGrange. I have searched for proof of James being there and have come up empty so far. I wrote to a library out in that area but they could find nothing. I also have found nothing in Quincy newspapers about people who may have gone out West at this time, but I’ll keep looking.

The 1860 census would be the last census in which James appears. He died in 1861 and, ironically, on the 1860 census, his profession is listed as undertaker!

Mary Davis of "Pumpkinville"

I must admit that I know very little of my maternal great grandmother Mary E Davis Shepherd except from what I have been told. I was only about 4 years old when she died; so, unfortunately,  I have no personal memories of her. Mary was born on October 7, 1882 in Tompkinsville, Monroe County, Kentucky to parents Charles Perry Davis and Sarah Jane Percy. At one time we had been told that she was born in Pumpkinville, Kentucky. This always sounded somewhat suspicious to me. When I started digging into her genealogy, I found that she was from Tompkinsville, which to someone, may have sounded like Pumpkinville! Her obituary in the Quincy newspapers actually did say Pumpkinville!

Her family moved to Linneus, Linn  County, Missouri sometime between 1882 and 1886. I was told by Mary’s great nephew, Keith Jones, that they had moved from Kentucky to Missouri due to Charles getting a job with the railroad. They were in Gregory, Clark County, Missouri by 1888 where Mary’s brother Charles Lee was born. By 1899, the family was located in LaGrange, Lewis County, Missouri; this is where Mary’s sister, Lillie Belle, was born.

Mary’s siblings were Dan L. born December 11, 1880 in Tompkinsville; George William born January 11, 1886 in Linneus, Missouri; Charles Lee born February 22, 1888 in Gregory, Missouri; and Lillie Belle born February 15, 1899 in LaGrange, Missouri. Charles Lee only lived to age 2. 

Mary and Robert E Shepherd were married on August 27, 1902 in LaGrange, Missouri. They had a total of seven children. This came as a big surprise to my sister, Cindy, and me when we visited Marks Cemetery in LaGrange, Missouri. We were looking for the tombstones of Mary’s parents and her grandmother, Margaret Percy. We successfully found them, but we also found a tombstone nearby with four children’s names. They turned out to be children of Mary and Robert Shepherd who had all died very young. They were Norma Estelle (1909-1913), Mildred (1908), Robert Russell (1919), and Mary Elma (1920). I remember my grandma talking about Norma, but I had never heard of the other four. So, this was quite a find for us. 

In the picture below, from left to right, Mabel, Edna, Mary, Robert, and Charles

Mom had written down many remembrances of her Grandma Mary. Keith Jones also told me that he knew her as Aunt Molly which I had never heard before. She was a great cook; mom remembered her making noodles and they would be hanging all over the place to dry. She had a small pig when they lived on 22nd Street in Quincy; it would follow grandma around the yard like a pet. Grandma also had a pig collection that was handed down to my grandma and then mom. Unfortunately, it was lost in mom’s house fire in 1985. Grandma always had a big garden and she raised turkeys when they lived on Oak Street in Quincy. She had a grape arbor in the back yard and always made grape jelly. From the garden, she would sell some of the produce, but anything left over was canned. Mary and husband, Robert, had worked in a button factory in Muscatine, Iowa but I am not sure when that occurred. 

 In the picture below, from left to right, is Mary and children Mabel, Charles, and Edna

In LaGrange around 1920

My great grandparents were extremely kind and generous. They took in a foster child named Russell Mansperger during the time of the Great Depression. I am not certain when they took him in or why, but he was with them in the 1930 census at the age of 10. He continued to live with them until tragedy struck when Russell drowned in the municipal pool when he was 20.

One funny story I learned about great grandma was she always called her husband, Robert,  “Dad”. When asked why, she said she wasn’t sleeping with a grandpa! From the sounds of it, great grandma was quite the kidder! Mom said in her notes that great grandma “had a little bit of the devil dancing in those beautiful eyes”. One time when the grandkids were out playing, she called out to them and asked if they wanted some hot chocolate. Of course, they all said yes. When they came inside and finished the hot chocolate, grandma asked everyone if they liked it. “YES!” was the reply. Then she started laughing and told them she had made it with goat’s milk! I’m glad I wasn’t around!

After the tragedy of losing four children very young  and losing their foster child, she seems to have been a very strong person. It’s amazing to me that she was able to maintain such a wonderful sense of humor. I only wish I had been able to know her.

European Adventure- Part 4

Here is the final installment of my European adventure. We arrived back in Amsterdam on Sept. 16 for our flight home on Sept. 19. Therefore, we had some time to do some more exploring. The weather was kind of chilly and damp but that did not deter us. At the left is the Anne Frank home. You cannot truly appreciate the cramped conditions in which they lived unless you actually go through that upper floor. It was a very sobering experience. 

 

My favorite pastime in Amsterdam was strolling along the canals. There are so many neat little shops and cafes along the way. I can't help but wonder how many cars they have to fish out of these canals! There isn't always a guard rail to stop you. There are flowers everywhere- on the bridges and in window boxes. 

I took this picture to show how some buildings are settling. You can see where one of the buildings is leaning forward. There were many places where either the left side or the right side is higher than its opposite. That probably makes opening a window alittle difficult!  

 The above picture is the Rijksmuseum which is the Netherlands' national museum. You could easily spend a day going through the exhibits. The highlight is the painting "Night Watch" by Rembrandt. I'm not a real artsy person, but you cannot help but be impressed by seeing  the actual  works of art that previously you had  seen only in pictures, videos, and history books.  One interesting sidelight of the museum is that entrance you can see in the picture. The two middle entrances are actually bike lanes that pass through the building. Apparently, the museum director attempted to have those lanes closed to bikes, but the bike "lobby" is so powerful in Amsterdam, it was kept open to bikes. If you could only see how many bikes there are, you could readily understand the power of the bike lobby! The city has a population of 800,000 people and there are 880,000 bikes! Yikes!

This last picture below was an amusing "find" for us. If you cannot read what is inscribed at the top of this structure, I repeated it in the picture's caption. The Latin phrase means "Wise men do not pee into the wind". Why does it say that, you may ask? This was a commercial building project in Amsterdam. The developer was having a lot of difficulties with the permit process. So, he submitted this phrase to the city fathers, who apparently, didn't pay much attention to what it meant and approved it! This was a way for the developer to get back at the city for making the process so difficult!

Homo Sapiens Non Urinat in Ventum

Well, the 19th came about and it was time to leave. We took a taxi out to Schiphol International Airport and it was soon off to Chicago on a nine hour flight. We arrived in Chicago around 1 PM and were to have a couple of hours before the connecting flight to Iowa. We got coffee and a newspaper to catch up on the news. I happened to look at the display of flights and noticed that our flight had been canceled along with many others. I will not get into the nitty, gritty of what transpired after that, but I was not a happy camper! My travel partner got to see an irritated side of me that he didn't know existed! We spent from about 2 PM until 8 PM that evening trying to figure out  connecting flights and getting accomodations for the night. The next morning, we were on a shuttle from our hotel in Schaumburg, IL back to the airport at 6:30 AM. Got to got through security again.....fun! Finally after a short delay because the flight crew was late in arriving, we were off to  the Cedar Rapids airport and the end of a truly amazing trip.

European Adventure- Part 3

 

In the map to the left, the green colored area is the state in which Erfweiler is located. In the map above, you can see where Erfweiler is in relation to Frankfurt and Stuttgart.

Inmy last post, we were in the Schell ancestral village of Erfweiler in Germany. We had enjoyed a great meal at a local eatery called the Jägerhof. The next morning, we were invited to Gerhard and Bärbel Zwick’s home for a typical German breakfast consisting of a variety of cheeses, thin-sliced meats, rolls, and coffee. After breakfast, Gerhard and Friedbert took us on a walking tour of Erfweiler. They pointed out some of the buildings and homes that would have been around when our ancestors plied the streets of Erfweiler back in the 18th and 19th centuries. They showed us the old school that Johann Schehl would have attended and the site of the old Catholic church that the family would have attended. We also got a little insight into Erfweiler during WWII. Since the town is very close to the French border, the Nazis ordered all villagers to evacuate for seven months after the war began in September of 1939. Near the end of the war when the Americans occupied the area, all the villagers in the upper old town had to evacuate so the Americans could set up camp there. Gerhard had a relative in Erfweiler who was killed after the villagers moved back in. He, unfortunately, came into contact with a grenade that had been left behind. Gerhard also had a relative who was killed during the D-Day invasion and another who was killed when German paratroopers tried to invade the island of Crete. We visited a town

Honoring town's war dead- there were two more plaques

cemetery with little hope of finding any tombstones of my ancestors. They do it a “little” differently in Germany. You lease a plot for between 15-25 years. After the lease is up and if no family member renews the lease, the plot can be re-used! What happens to the remains that were there, you say? Well, there are not many remains as they do not place coffins inside a liner. But if there are remains, they are just buried deeper! The headstone is removed and a new one is put in place. They even recycle the headstones. So, there are no headstones remaining for the dearly departed from long ago! We did find a Schehl gravesite but it was from a different line.

After the tour, it was time to return to Gerhard’s home for lunch. They had said the night before that we were going to have a “special” lunch on Sunday and then they started chuckling. That was of some concern to me; why the chuckling without explanation? Well, we got to the lunch after our tour. There was a large platter of sausages and brats, bread and rolls, a large bowl of sauerkraut (which was of special concern to me), and then a large sausage-like piece of meat on a large plate. It was probably about 4-5 inches round and maybe about a foot long. They said it was somewhat unique to this Pfälz region of Germany and it was called saumagen, which didn’t mean much to me. So, they sliced it and gave each of us a piece. I dug in and it was quite delicious. It was only after that that they explained that saumagen meant “sow’s stomach”! It seems that they stuff a sow’s stomach with a mixture of pork, potatoes, and seasonings; it resembles a meatloaf. The sow’s stomach is merely the casing for this large sausage. It really was quite good, but I don’t think that’s one thing I will soon try to make at home for (what should be) obvious reasons. After lunch, Gerhard and Bärbel took

Climbing around Alt Dahn ruins

From highest tower of Alt Dahn

to us to the neighboring town of Dahn. High on a hill overlooking the entire valley is an old castle called Alt Dahn. It is now a state park. It’s a pretty good hike up to the remains of the old castle from the parking lot. It was kind of misty that afternoon but you could see for a long way up there. After returning to Erfweiler, it was time to head back to Stuttgart with Friedbert and Gudrun. They dropped us off at our hotel and said they would come by in the morning and take us to the main train station downtown.

The next morning, we said our goodbyes and left for Amsterdam for our last German rail experience. Everything went well, except we had not made reservations so we wound up standing (with others) for part of the trip until many disembarked along the way. In Köln (Cologne) I had another encounter with German culture that I’m not used to. We had a little time to wait in Köln while waiting for our connection. I went downstairs to use the restroom. I was not expecting a couple of older women to be in there cleaning urinals while the area was being used! So, I just pretended to be German and went about my business “seemingly” unperplexed! Our connection to Amsterdam soon arrived and we were off to our final European destination before heading home. The next post will cover our last couple of days in Amsterdam and our unexpected confusion at Chicago’s O”Hare!

Have a Wonderful Thanksgiving!

European Adventure- Part 2

Fabian, Gudrun, & Friedbert Schehl

When I left off last time, we were enroute by Eurail from Nürnberg back to Stuttgart. Upon arrival in Stuttgart, we headed back to the Hansa Hotel which is the same place we had stayed at the first time in Stuttgart. It’s not far from the train station, it’s in a quiet neighborhood, and it’s inexpensive! I called our cousin, Friedbert Schehl, who lives only eight blocks from our hotel. I had found Friedbert in my genealogy search and this would be our first face-to-face meeting. By the way, he is our seventh cousin. Our common ancestor is a sixth great grandfather. We were to go to Friedbert’s apartment for dinner that evening. He came and picked us up and I have to say, his English was not bad! At least, we were able to pretty much understand him. His English is a lot better than any German I knew. He had invited his son, Fabian, over to join us and act as translator, if needed. His wife, Gudrun, was preparing kasespätzle for dinner. It’s like a cheese and noodle casserole and was very good. Friedbert and my travel partner hit it off very good; both are big Bob Dylan fans! After a lot of talk and filling in details of our lives, it was time to head back to the Hansa. Tomorrow would be VERY exciting. Friedbert and Gudrun were going to drive us two hours to the west to Erfweiler, the Schell/Schehl ancestral village.

Schloss Solitude

We left midday for Erfweiler. Just outside of Stuttgart is a place called Schloss Solitude; it was a palace built by a noble as his hunting lodge. Some lodge, huh? Next it was on to one of those famous autobahns. We were traveling along at about 85 mph and cars were zipping by us. After crossing the Rhine, we entered an area that had many vineyards. We actually took a little side trip and crossed the French border to the town of Wissembourg. It’s another very charming medieval-style village. Gudrun went into a bakery and got a loaf of French bread and we just walked around town looking at the sites while tearing off pieces of bread! After spending about an hour, it was time to head off to Erfweiler, a mere fifteen minutes away.

House in Wissembourg

Wissembourg

Erfweiler is a very small village of about 1,200 people. I would call it a bedroom community as most people work outside of town. There are only small businesses in town. We went directly to the home of Gerhard and Bärbel Zwick. Gerhard is the first person I was able to contact in Erfweiler over the internet. And it so happens that he was a boyhood friend of Friedbert’s. They had grown up together in Erfweiler. It was Gerhard who put me in contact with Friedbert.

Gerhard & Bärbel Zwick

Gerhard has a doctorate in chemistry and actually works in Karlsruhe, about an hour away. They live there during the week and are in Erfweiler for weekends. Gerhard speaks very good English because his job takes him all over the world and English is a common language for businessmen in Europe. We weren’t at the house very long before Friedbert and Gerhard took me on a hike through forests and up to the top of some rock formations that overlook Erfweiler. These forests had been their playground in childhood. The next day when we took a walking tour of Erfweiler and, today, on the forest hike, it was an indescribable feeling walking the same streets, hiking the same roads, and seeing some of the same buildings that my ancestors had seen. This would definitely be the highlight of my trip. Once we got back to Gerhard’s house, we had a little rest...a glass of beer and

Friedbert & Me above Erfweiler

Forest going to overlook

Gerhard showed me some of the photos of the town that he had on his computer. After about an hour, it was getting to be dinner time. Steve M had gone to our guest room located down on the main street in town. We all walked down town to get him and then go the a wonderful little German restaurant in town called the Jägerhof. I decided to get adventurous again and have something I had only heard of but had never had....sauerbraten. I was not disappointed! I decided this is something I would attempt to make back home (and I did!) That evening was so much fun. It was fun sitting back and

Jägerhof Restaurant

listening to the two families chat back and forth in German. I had no idea what they were saying but it was so much fun just listening. And they were so kind as to stop ever so often and include us in some English conversation. We wound up being there very late.....actually the waitress had left for the night and the proprietor (a friend of Gerhard’s) allowed us to stick around. There were more drinks to be had and I had the chance to experience something else for the first time.....I had never had schnapps! Finally, it was time to head back to the guest room and get some much needed sleep. Tomorrow would be Sunday and time to head back to Stuttgart before making our final train trip back to Amsterdam and our flight home. That will be in my next post.

European Adventure- Part 1

At my house just before leaving

As I mentioned in my last post, I had made a trip to the Netherlands and Germany. I traveled with a friend with whom I had taught at East High in Waterloo. Steve Moravec was also in the history department there and is an experienced traveler to Europe. He is working on his family’s genealogy and had always been after me to make the journey and visit some of my ancestral “homes”. He finally convinced me to go when he offered to be a “travel guide”. That sold me on the idea! 

We left from Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on September 3 and arrived in Amsterdam about 9 hours later.

Bikes, bikes, bikes and more bikes!

We stayed in Amsterdam for three days. What a city it is! I simply could not believe the number of bicycles! They are everywhere and at all hours. The picture above is a three-level parking area for bikes. My favorite pastime  was walking along the canals. I did not realize how many they have. You can find so many quaint little shops and cafes along them.

On Saturday, September 7 it was time to use our first Eurail pass trip to go to Stuttgart. Our Eurail pass was good for five trips and we used every one of them. What a system! On all five of our trips, we got to our destination on the minute we were supposed to have arrived! I got my first introduction to German food at an outdoor restaurant in Stuttgart. It was time to experiment, so I chose an entree called schweinebraten and it was simply delicious. It was so good that I looked for a recipe and made it when I returned home! It was terrific again if I may say so!
On Monday, September 9, we headed out to an old medieval town called Rothenburg ob der Tauber. For a couple of old history teachers, this was quite the place. As you can see in these pictures, it has maintained its medieval charm quite well. Being medieval, the town was surrounded by a high protective wall. You can walk atop it nearly the entire length around the town- it’s about a 2-mile walk and this picture below shows the covered walkway on

Atop the wall

 top of the wall. More good food here-- I chose some schnitzel this time!

When Wednesday rolled around, it was time to board the train to Nürnberg, or Nuremberg as we know it. After finding a hotel, we took a stroll around the old part of town and came upon a Pizza Hut. That really sounded good so we ducked in and had some Italian for a change. The next day we toured the Nazi Documentation Center; they have done an excellent job in telling the story of the rise of the Nazi Party without pushing any agenda. The stories and displays pretty much lead you to the obvious conclusions. It’s good to have this kind of place lest we forget; as a matter of fact, there were several German army personnel taking the tour at the time we were there. I wonder if it is a requirement? We were able to walk

Zeppelin Field

over to Zeppelin Field where the large Nazi rallies were held and you can actually walk up to the reviewing platform that Hitler would have stood upon while reviewing the thousands of troops lined up before him. It was really a somewhat eerie feeling to be there. Again, a couple of old history teachers just really ate it up! We also visited the Albrecht Dürer museum which happens to be the home in which he lived in Nürnberg. He was a famous artist.

Dürer home

On Friday, September 13, we left for Stuttgart on our third Eurail trip-- two to go! I’ll continue the trip in the next post. If you happen to follow my other blog “Schell Seekers”, you will find this exact same posting there.

Frederick Happekotte- Adventurer

Before I get to Frederick’s story, I just wanted to mention that I took a little “sabbatical” from posting in September. I was on a trip to the Netherlands and Germany where I got to meet an eighth cousin on the Schell side in Stuttgart, Germany. He and his wife then took us to visit the Schell ancestral home of Erfweiler, Germany. I will have a post about that trip later.

I am skipping the generation with Bernard “Barney” Happekotte and will return to him in the near future. Some new information has recently come to light about Frederick Happekotte, who was Bernard’s father. And this is very exciting news in deed! Frederick Happekotte is my third great grandfather. He was born in Germany on 12 Aug 1821. There may be some question at this point as to where in Germany he was born, but it seems to have been in the Essen area. On May 17/18, 1847, Frederick left Germany and was a part of a German colony in Guatemala. The colony was started in the early 1840s. I do know exactly when Frederick entered the United States. That happened on June 4, 1850 when he, wife Christina, nee Kreitz, and their infant son, John Frederick, entered the port of New Orleans on the ship John Bell. From there, they made their way up the Mississippi to Quincy, IL. Their infant son died in Quincy on 28 Jun 1850. So, this Happekotte family arrived in Quincy sometime between  the 4th and 28th of June. Another son, Mathias, was born about 14 Aug 1850 but only survived until the August 31, 1850.

Here is the exciting development. I was contacted by Jóse Francisco Monterroso back in early August of this year. He had come across this blog and saw the Kreitz connection. He is a direct descendant of Petrus (Pedro) Kreitz who was the brother of Christina Kreitz and was also in Guatemala.  It seems as though Christina was previously married to a Carl Stütggen. This was new information for me. He drowned in Guatemala trying to cross a swollen river on horseback. Then, Christina married my third great grandfather, Frederick Happekotte in Guatemala on May 2, 1848. This was another really exciting piece of the puzzle to obtain. I am indebted to Mr. Monterroso who supplied me with a marriage document for Christina and Frederick. Christina and Frederick went on to have four other children in Quincy: Fidel in 1852, Isabel in 1853, Bernard Frederick in 1854, and Maria Catherine Isabella in 1856. Only Bernard Frederick, my second great grandfather survived. None of the other children seemed to have survived past one year of age. Maria Catherine Isabella is a question because I have no death date for her. I can only imagine the pain that Christina felt in her life. She lost her first husband and, at least,  four of her six children in infancy.

I am also very indebted to Christine Cano who wrote a book about the Kreitz family. Most of the information on the Kreitz family in Guatemala came from her source. She has also painstakingly reconstructed a timeline for the Kreitz family and their Guatemalan experience based upon the new information provided by Mr. Monterroso. This is an ongoing research project as we search for more corroborating evidence. Somethings may never be proven, but Ms. Cano has put together a very convincing and likely story for the Kreitz family in Guatemala which includes our Frederick and Christina Happekotte. 

I am also indebted to Mike Happekotte for providing much of the early Happekotte history. He had obtained information from Frank Habekotte who lives in the Netherlands. Some of that early history now must be substantiated with some documentation. That will be an ongoing quest. 

 

Pictured: Frederick and Christina Kreitz Happekotte (seated), standing are Miss Bergsneider (family friend) and Bernard (son)