Putting the Sad Facts Together

I have known little of my great-great-grandfather Klaas F. Reimer #3719 (1812-1874). He was born and died in Russia and not much seems to have come down about him in our families. But I have gleaned some facts about him.

1. He married his first wife Katharina Friesen in 1836, and they had thirteen children, including my great-grandfather Heinrich F. Reimer.

2. His first wife Katharina died in 1864, and he remarried to Maria Bartel (1843-1921) four months later. A quick remarriage was common at the time, especially since he had young children in the household. He was 52 years old, and she was 22, so there was a big age difference. Such an age difference was relatively rare, but he was wealthy, so it wasn't too unusual.

3. Klaas F. Reimer died in 1874, apparently as they were preparing to emigrate to America. The rest of the family postponed the trip and left in 1875 for Jansen, Nebraska.

4. In the 1880 census in Jansen, Nebraska, the widowed second wife Maria was living with her married step-daughter and unmarried stepson. But none of her four children, who ranged in age from 6 to 14 years old, were living with her. And in the census it was recorded that she could not read or write. You might think that she couldn't read or write English, but all the other Mennonites on that page were recorded as being able to read and write, so it must have been that she couldn't read or write at all.  When I found this census several years ago, I concluded that something was badly wrong, but I didn't know what.

5. My grandmother, Margaretha H. Reimer #321744 (1895-1993) told my mom that both her maternal grandmother Katharina Barkman and paternal step-grandmother Maria (Bartel) Reimer had lived with them when she was a child. She said that the two grandmothers would argue so fiercely that her father Heinrich F. Reimer had to come in from the field to settle things between them. I haven't found a census where both of them were living in the Heinrich Reimer household, but I don't doubt the story.

For a long time, this was all I knew. But then I found a couple more facts in the Abraham F. Reimer diary, who was the brother of my great-great-grandfather Klaas F. Reimer. They must have been quite close because the two of them visited each other frequently, even though Abraham lived in Borosenko colony in Russia and Klaas lived in Molotschna. But now I have found a couple more facts in Abraham's diary.

6.  Brother Klaas started living in Heubuden in Borosenko colony in October 1871, according to Abraham's diary. Abraham didn't explain why, and it puzzled me. Klaas was wealthy and only 59, so it seemed unlikely that he would have retired from farming so young. And if he had retired, surely he would have continued living with his family in Tiege, Molotschna, instead of moving to another colony without them.

7. Then in July 1872, Abraham recorded, "Brother Klaas Reimer from Heubuden was here for faspa. He was sad and complained about the ways of his wife. He denounced [absagt] the church."

8. Then I noticed in Grandma that there was a gap in children being born at this time. In the 6 years ending in November 1871, 5 children had been born. So they were having children frequently. But then a gap of nearly two years between children, until August 1873, during this very time, before the next child was born. In fact, he was already living separately by October 1871, and their fifth child was born in November 1871. While a gap of two years is quite normal in most families, it coincided with a time when they were living separately and not getting along.

What to conclude? My guess is that Maria Bartel, the second wife, was intellectually limited since she couldn't read or write or take care of her small children in 1880. And she seems to have been difficult to get along with, based on what my grandmother said, although perhaps one shouldn't read too much into the fact that two elderly grandmothers couldn't get along when living in the same household. And it clearly affected my great-great-grandfather Klaas F. Reimer so much that he moved away and lived separately for a while. Was he also responsible? Again, we don't know the details at this remove, but I think it's fair to say that both spouses are usually at least a little bit responsible when a marriage goes bad. And it's pretty awful that he had moved out of the family about a month before his child was born, regardless of how bad the circumstances were. But then it seems that they reconciled because they had one more child born to their marriage in August 1873.

It's a sad story, and we'll never know all the details. But we're all human and make mistakes and have difficult relationships at times. It helps me to understand my great-great-grandfather Klaas F. Reimer better. And it helps me understand the family that his son, my great-grandfather Heinrich F. Reimer, grew up in.

Sorting Land Transactions by Date

When I go to a courthouse to do land research, I make spreadsheet of the land transactions that I find for each couple to summarize the information that I find.  Here's the link to a sample spreadsheet.  I feel it's important to sort the transactions by effective date - sometimes you see connections between transactions this way.

(Note that the effective date, the date that the document was signed, may differ significantly from the recording or filing date.  Occasionally someone delayed taking the deed to the courthouse for a long time.  The effective date is when the transfer of ownership and money actually happened - not the date when it was recorded in the courthouse to inform the public.)

When my great-grandfather Heinrich Reimer #317342 (1856-1923) moved from Jansen, Nebr., to Meade, Kans., in September 1908, he sold his land in Nebraska and bought land in Kansas.  Some of the transactions line up neatly.  For example:

• He sold 80 acres in Nebraska for $5000 on 27 May 1908.  
• Then he proceeded to buy 160 acres in Kansas for $4500 on 22 August 1908
• And he bought another 80 acres in Kansas on 20 October 1908 for $2000.  

It seems very likely that his sale of land in Nebraska for $5000 funded a large part of his purchase of land in Kansas for $6500.  He didn't buy all of his Kansas land with the proceeds from sales in Nebraska, but there are several tracts that he bought this way.  Since I sorted the transactions by date (instead of grouping the Nebraska and Kansas transactions separately), it's easy to see which transactions occurred close together.

In another example, my great-grandfather Jacob Suderman #319370 (1856-1906) and his family moved from Buhler, Kans., to Fairchilds, Tex., in 1898.

• In preparation for the move, he bought 334 acres in Texas for $3343 on 1 December 1897, using a lien from the seller for the purchase.  
• But he paid that lien in full by 18 August 1898.  
• Then he sold his Kansas land three weeks later on 8 September 1898 for $5700.  

Obviously, he didn't need the proceeds from his Kansas sale to pay the lien on his newly-purchased Texas land.  Based on this sequence of events and on other things (property tax records and his obituary), it is clear that he was a moderately wealthy man.  But I might have missed this small but significant detail if I hadn't sorted the land transactions by date.

Deeds of Sale May Give More Information

Sometimes when you are doing land research in the courthouse, you may run across a deed with your ancestor's name but you're not sure if this is your ancestor or a person of the same name.  This situation usually occurs when you are searching the grantor-grantee (or direct-indirect) indices and find a tract of land that you didn't know that your ancestor owned.

Here is an example.  I found a tract of land in Jefferson County, Nebr., where my great-grandfather Heinrich F. Reimer #317342 lived.  It was purchased by "Henry Reimer," but this piece of land was several miles from where he lived, so I wasn't sure if it was he or another Henry Reimer.  Here is a scan of the grantor-grantee information:

Warranty Deed, Sarah J. & Abr. F. Rempel to Henry & Katharina Reimer, 6 June 1903, Jefferson County, Nebraska, Deed Book 29:636, Register of Deeds, County Courthouse, Fairbury.

But if I check the tract index at the courthouse, I can find where "Henry Reimer" sold this piece of land.  In many, if not all, states, the sales deed shows the wife's name as well as the husband's.  This is because in most states a married couple owned property jointly if it was acquired while they were married.  So the wife would need to agree to sell her interest as well.  Here is the sales deed:

Warranty Deed, Henry & Katharina Reimer to Frank L. Rain, 27 May 1908, Jefferson County, Nebraska, Deed Book 37:431, Register of Deeds, County Courthouse, Fairbury.

The same tract of land was next sold by "Henry Reimer and Katharina Reimer, husband and wife."  BINGO!  My great-grandmother's name was Katharina, so the sales deed shows that the purchase is his.  For some reason, he bought eighty acres of land some distance from his farm and home.

Another time, I found a tract of land purchased by Katharina Fast in McPherson Co., Kans.  I knew that my great-grandmother Katharina (Penner) Fast #86813 (1852-1940) had actually lived in that section, so without question I believed it was she.  But many years later when I decided to go back to the county courthouse, I found that that tract was sold in the 1950s by a Katharina Fast living in California.  Since my great-grandmother died in 1940 and never lived in California, I realized that she was not the seller and therefore not the buyer and that I had made a faulty assumption.  Then I found a deed where her daughter Minnie Fast, my great-aunt, actually bought a nearby tract of land in that section.  So my great-grandmother never actually owned land there.  But again it was the sales deed that gave me the clue I needed.

Getting Out of the Doldrums

I've been in the genealogical doldrums lately.  I had an enjoyable time working on my Fast 1776 census project that I summarized here.  I made of lot of progress on other Fast families that so far are not connected to my own, but it also wore me out.  Thus, I haven't posted for quite a while.

I decided the best way to get out of my genealogical doldrums would be to do a fun project that would likely yield some good results.  I haven't researched my Reimer family (maternal grandmother's family), who lived at Jansen, Nebr., so I decided to make a trip to the Jefferson County courthouse.  And it proved to be just what I needed.

Just seeing the beautiful and unique Jefferson County courthouse would be enough to get any person out of the doldrums.

Source:  Wikipedia

I decided to focus on land and probate records because my great-grandfather Heinrich F. Reimer #317342 (1856-1923) had gone from being a simple farmer who owned 120 acres of farmland in 1900 (per 1900 Jefferson County plat map) to a man who gave two quarters of farmland to each of his eight children (2560 acres total) by the time he died in 1923.  Clearly there is an interesting story here.

I also wanted to find the probate for my great-great-grandfather Johann Barkmann #317873 (1827-1879).  He died of typhoid fever in Jefferson County, Nebr., only a year after arriving from Russia.   I knew very little about what he did after he arrived in America, so I thought that his probate file might answer some of those questions.

I'll share the results of my trip in following posts.