WTC 2023 Work Space 6 Interesting Finds

Date: 30 Mar 2023 to 6 Apr 2023
Surnames/tags: wikitree_challenge challenges

Contents 1 Interesting Finds 1.1 Louis (Lucas) John Kress 1.2 Gabriel Loranz 1.3 Friedrich Eichhorn 1.4 Fredricka (Hogue) Schlittenhardt 1.5 Johann Leonhard Stumpf 1.6 Phillip Reichert 1.7 Karl Gräber 2 Not Yet Sorted 3 Connections to each other 4 More Notable Connections 5 Military

Interesting Finds

This is for Challenge 6 (Challenge 6 Space Page) ✅ ❌

Note earliest ancestor added by Dunja!!

Louis (Lucas) John Kress

1. William Aloysius Kelly (1893-1939) (4 degrees from Louis John Kress) was a pipefitter for Standard Oil. He traveled to Tampico, Mexico in 1920 to work for their subsidiary there. He was missing four fingers on his left hand and had previously worked as a printer.
2. Koreen Printz Goodman's research: I believe I may have discovered siblings to Louis "Lucas" Kress based upon birth registers. Waiting to hear back on any military draft records on this family which may shed more light. Some of the families who also settled in Newark may possibly be related, but more research needed. Newark NJ Volga German Immigrants "In 1887, about 50 families from Beideck and Schilling settled in Newark, New Jersey, where many of them worked in factories. The neighborhood was called "Ironbound" because it was between the railroad tracks of two major rail lines that came through the area."
3. ✅ Louis "Lucas" John Kress was one of our starting people and migrated from Russia to the United States. He was considered a hero by Conrad Wuerz who wrote:

   •     I am happy that you have finally arrived in America. Since you left I have thought much and often about you. My cordial greetings to you, your wife and your children. One does not soon forget people like you who have done so many good deeds. Recently I was in Schilling and there was talk of you among people who had gathered together that you had once saved from death. They reminded me that I should write to you and thank you for the love you have shown them, without which they would otherwise no longer be alive. You know well that when you served in the Commissariat (governing body of a Soviet--translator) you saved many lives. You also saved livestock for the people, though I had 2 horses, their harnesses and a carriage taken from me because all things were not within your power (to save), many other things were also taken from the village in spite of your efforts.

   • Coincidentally, Lucas is only 16 degrees from Samuel Langhorne Clemens ("Mark Twain") and 17 degrees from Daniel Boone, both considered to be American heroes.
4. ✅ Barbara (Hagel) Ehlis, mother-in-law of Gabriel Loranz's eldest son Lambert, had 13 children. She lost her husband Andrew (age 45) to heart failure on 5 July 1944 in North Dakota, and then lost her eldest son Mark (age 23) in the Normandy invasion on 1 August 1944 in France. Lowe-866 21:39, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Gabriel Loranz

1. ✅ Koreen Printz Goodman's research: Gabriel Loranz family research has been a question of Black Sea German vs. Volga German. DNA kits provided by family are not a match to the Black Sea German Ancestor project in GEDMATCH. This leads me to focus on the Volga region. Based upon mother's surname of Welder/Welter/Walter(s), looking into Catholic colony of Kamenka. Her DNA may not match to the Black Sea German GEDMATCH project, but family is connected to the Welder/Welter family who settled in Canada. Based upon DNA mother to Gabriel most likely born in Elsass, Kutschurgan, South Russia.
2. ✅ Clair Layman, 7 Degrees from Starting Profile Gabriel Loranz, is not only researcher Paul Smith's paternal 12th cousin, but he married his maternal 7th cousin Eslie Cantrell. Paul might never have known they existed were it not for this Challenge.

Friedrich Eichhorn

1. ✅ 3 degrees from Friedrich Eichhorn is Gary Neil Steer (1945-2018). Gary was an avid skier, who travelled around the world to play rugby with the Brits Lions and the Twilighters.

Fredricka (Hogue) Schlittenhardt

1. ✅ Peter Ketterling born in 1898 in South Dakota, United States is five degrees from Friederika Hogue (1863-abt.1905). Peter was a farmer and stood an impressive 6 feet 9 inches tall.
2. ✅ Freda (Woehl) Ketterling (1914-2017) is seven degrees from Friederika Hogue, a starting person. She survived a tornado that destroyed their farm in 1964. Freda lived to be 103!
3. Christina (Just) Thurn (1891-1923), 6 degrees from Friederika Hogue, lost all three of her young children in January and February 1923, with Christina passing away five days after her last child died.
4. Gerhardt Just (1925-1965), 5 degrees from Friederika Hogue, was a Sergeant First Class in the 125th Air Traffic Company (Army). He was killed during the Vietnam War when the plane he was in crashed.
5. ✅ One of the earliest ancestors found by a researcher, Dunja , was Peter Popp (abt.1570-). He is the 8th great-grandfather of Fredricka (Hogue) Schlittenhardt. Peter was born about 1570 and found in his son Peter's 1623 marriage record.
6. ✅ Another early ancestor was Johann Michael Schlittenhardt (1678-1757), the 4th great-grandfather of Fredricka's husband Johannes "John" Schlittenhardt. John Michael was born and died in Germany.

Johann Leonhard Stumpf

1. ✅ We added or connected 425 people to Leonard Stumpf's lines. This would not have been possible without the translations of the Warenburg census records by Dr. Brent Mai and Sharon L. (Mitchell) White. Dr. Mai is the grandson of Wilhelm Mai (1902-1989). Hopefully Sharon will join WikiTree so we can connect her family as well!

Phillip Reichert

1. ✅ Three degrees from starting person Phillip Reichert is Anna "Annie" Wasinger Bahl. She had three young boys, ages 5, 6 and 7 that followed her husband on a short trip to view ice to fill a store house on 23 Feb 1906. He was not aware the children had followed him, until the youngest ran up to him to let him know that his brother had fallen through the ice. By the time he got there his other son had also fallen through the ice while trying to save his brother. Both sons died.
2. ✅ Phillip Reichert's son Isidore was the third husband of Agatha (Wasinger) Reichert. Isidore's first wife died when their youngest was just one year old. All three of his daughters were put into foster care. Two of them, Emma and Mary, moved in with Isidore, his second wife Agatha, and her five children in a dugout that was built like a basement with a cover and roof over it (1913). They had two children together, bringing the total to nine children in the dugout. They also took in others, making it a blessing when they were able to buy a home in 1919.
3. ✅ D. Raymond Schmidt (1934-2007) was a Trappest Monk in Colorado. 4 degrees from Phillip Reichert (1844-).
4. ✅ Aloysius Steinbock (1871-1911) was married twice. He migrated from Russia to the United States in 1905. His first wife Elizabeth (Geta) Steinbock (1867-1906) died twelve days after giving birth to triplets, with one dying as an infant. 17 degrees from him was Joseph Cushman. He was one of two surviving triplets. Joseph's ancestors were in the New England colonies as early as 1621, arriving from England aboard the Fortune.
5. Peter Steinbock (1903-) was the son of the above couple. He arrived in the US in January 1906. He was noted to be in good health, but blind in his left eye. Family tradition states that he died in Russia and it is assumed that he was sent back immediately due to multiple health issues. That would mean that a child less than 3 years of age was sent back alone to Russia. It is true that he does not appear with the family in the 1910 Census. Hopefully he was also adopted out and not sent back to Russia alone.

Karl Gräber

1. ✅ 3 degrees from Karl Graber we found this touching article
   • The story of the love affair of Mrs. Nonnenacher would make a good foundation for a novel. She and Gottlieb Wiesner were sweethearts a way back in the ‘80s, when she was a slip of a girl. Then Gottlieb joined the Russian army and went away from home. He married and emigrated to Canada where he has been living for more than 25 years. Johanna also married. The spouses of each having died, the sweethearts of long ago have decided to finish the long trail together. Their marriage will take place soon at Steinbach, where Mr. Wiesner is farming.

Not Yet Sorted

done

Connections to each other

• ✅ Gabriel Loranz (1890-1973) is 17 degrees from Karl Gräber (abt.1856-1921) and 21 degrees from Phillip Reichert (1844-)
• ✅ Friedrich Eichhorn (abt.1885-1906) is 23 degrees from Phillip Reichert (1844-)
• ✅ Friederika Hogue (1863-abt.1905) is 18 degrees from Gabriel Loranz (1890-1973) and 19 degrees from Karl Gräber (abt.1856-1921)

More Notable Connections

1. ✅ Eugene Field Kugler (1911-1989) was a jack of all trades, who owned the Kugler Tire Company in the mid 1950s. He is 19 degrees from Ransom Eli Olds (1864-1950), whom the Oldsmobile and REO brands were named for, and 22 degrees from Horace Elgin Dodge (1868-1920), who invented one of the first all-steel cars in America with his brother John Francis Dodge (1864-1920).

Military

UNITED KINGDOM MILITARY

• Wilfred Steer (1877-1948), 2nd husband of Friedrich Eichhorn's widow, served in the Queen's Yorkshire Yeomanry in South Africa in 1901.

WORLD WAR I

• Wilfred Parker Steer (1894- 3 Jul 1916) died from his wounds in France. He is 5 degrees from Freidrich Eichhorn

WORLD WAR II ✅

• George Louis Kress (abt.1918-1993) served in the United States Army in World War II.
• Aloysius Herman Haas (abt.1924-2004) served in the United States Army in World War II earning a Purple Heart. (unsourced) He later became a Senior District Judge in Colorado, United States.
• Leonard Anton Froehlich (1922-1990) served in the United States Army in World War II serving as an aircraft mechanic, bomb loader, and turret gunnery sergeant on a B-17. He later became an electrician.
• Mark A. Ehlis, brother of Gabriel Loranz's daughter-in-law, served in the United States Army during World War II. He was killed in action on 1 August 1944 in the Normandy invasion.
• Clarence Melvin Bergum (1910-1996), served in the US Army during World War II. I'll leave this here, but he is 8 degrees out from Loranz-707.
• John George Ketterling (1924-1997), served as a Private in the United States Army towards the end of World War II.
• Brothers, PFC Lawrence Kuhn and PFC Albert Kuhn were both killed in action during World War II. Lawrence was a POW aboard a Japanese POW freighter when it was torpedoed and sank late in 1944. About 3 months later his brother, Albert, was killed in action in the Philippines. Neither body was returned home to Kansas, but the family erected a memorial in their honor in their local cemetery. More than 1,700 POWs were lost when the freighter sank. 4 degrees from Phillip Reichert.
• Brothers, Melvin Arnst and Milton Arnst served in the United States Army during World War II.

UNITED STATES MILTARY

• Elmer John Just (1926-1987) served in the United States Army as a Private for two years following World War II.

• Leo Walter Just (1934-1973) served in the United States Navy.

VIETNAM WAR

• Gerhardt Just (1924-1965) was a Sergeant First Class in the 125th Air Traffic Company (Army). He was killed during the Vietnam War when the plane he was in crashed.