52 Ancestors #8: Family Heirloom

The first photo is of a sampler made by Henriette Quast, my great great grandmother. She was born 27 Nov 1832 in Leopoldsfahrt bei Landsberg am Warte, Prussia. On 5 Nov 1861, she married my great great grandfather, Gustav Wilhelm August (Robert) Alexander Schwarz. In late 1862, they emigrated to the U.S.

The sampler has '1850' stitched into the center, along with her initials, "H Q'. She would have been about 17 years old when she made it. Perhaps she was required to make it as a school project or perhaps she made it for her 'hope chest.'

I found the sampler amongst the items left to me by my great aunt Edna. It was wrapped in a sheet of old German newspaper which I quickly removed and saved. Unfortunately, I can't locate it just now. I'd like to know what the date of the newspaper is and what town it was published in, information that never seemed all that important until I decided to write about the sampler. There is a family story that says that a ship they were on was beset by a storm, the mast broken and in an effort to save the ship, all cargo lashed on the deck was pushed overboard. The trunk containing all of Robert and Henriette's possessions was among those lost. How did the sampler survive? Did Henriette carry it with her or was it sent from Germany later on after they had safely arrived? Since that story has been recounted to me, the ship they travelled to the U.S. on in 1862/3 has been identified as the Senator Iken. I have found no mention of such a storm in the history of that ship so wonder if they travelled to Bremen on another ship before boarding the Senator Iken. I'd like to see if the newspaper holds a clue, but I guess I will have to wait and hope it resurfaces.

The second photo is of a sampler made by my great grandmother, Ottilie Augusta (Della) Schwarz, youngest daughter of Robert and Henriette. She was born at Ft. Vancouver, Washington Territory on 4 Jul 1871 and would have been only 11 or 12 years old when she made the sampler. It's interesting to see that she used the same patterns as her mother, but the placement and interpretation is entirely different and while Henriette bordered hers with the alphabet and numbers, Della chose a garland of flowers. The two samplers were also made using different techniques. I believe the first is called cross-stitch and the second is needlepoint. Della's sampler is in the possession of a granddaughter, Gloria Van Horn James.

Update as of 25 Feb 2018: I have located the old newspaper that the sampler was wrapped in. After closer inspection, I don't believe it's a newspaper at all. There is no information as to where the item might have been published, but both pages bear a page number, 174 or 175 and the heading "Erste Kammer. Sechzehnte Sitzung am 27. Januar 1852". When translated, this is "First Cabinet (or Chamber). Sixteenth Hearing on 27. January 1852". It is definitely the report of a discussion that would be fascinating to decipher on a rainy day. The paper has been cut down to match the size of the sampler and it appears that the sampler was actually sewn to the paper at some point. There are needle holes on all four sides of the paper and a bit of thread is still in one of them. Perhaps it had been framed. For now though, I'm really no closer to learning how the sampler survived.

52 Ancestors #7: Valentine?

Somewhere I have at least one of those frilly old valentines, but that will have to wait until next year. Or longer. I had no idea whether there were any Valentine's Day weddings in my family. Turns out there was only one, a many greats granduncle. Altogether, I found 105 people in my tree that were married in February. That's right, 105. My great great grandfather, Michael McDonnell married both of his wives in February. Then I discovered that there were 190 birthdays in February. Only three were on the 14th and the closest turned out to be a 1c3r. I started thinking about close family. My great grandmother Bridget was born on February 8th, my brother and one of his nieces on  the 9th, great grandmother Bessie on the 11th. My mother was born on February 12th, my sister-in-law on the 13th, my grandmother Laura on the 19th, and great aunt Edna on the 20th. Looks like we have a theme going on here, but no Valentine's Day births. When my mom was born, my grandmother was definitely not thinking of Valentine’s Day. She considered giving my mother the middle name “Lincoln.” I wish she had. In the end, she didn’t give her one at all.

It occurred to me that perhaps I should look to see how many births there were in November, the possible result of the previous Valentine's Day, but that's for another post. Maybe...