Leigh, Nebraska...a family reunion of sorts.

My great-great grandfather's name was Joechim Rolfs. He and Able Huch had 5 children: Jochin, Claus, Christian, Peter Louis and an only sister Wilhemina. My paternal grandfather, Louis Peter, was the 5th born child to Peter Louis, who was also the youngest. My great great grandmother died 3 weeks after his birth of blood poisoning. This was in the year of 1900. Normally, a local aunt would've taken my grandpa to raise him. But, the closest aunt (Wilhemina) had a bad year in 1888. Three and 1/2year old Mina died, so did Dora-2 1/2, 9 month old Maggie. In 1885 she lost 1 yr. old Louis T., and in 1897 six month old Bennie died. So, having lost 5 children to that point, she was VERY heistant to take little Louis Peter. So, that's how my grandpa ended up 70 miles away in the town we're from now...Elkhorn, Nebraska. The story doesn't end there though for my great great aunt Wilhemina. She and her husband Peter N. Glandt lost their 8 1/2 yr. old Peter J. in 1901 and 5 1/2 yr. old Chris B. in 1906. BUT, they'd produced 14 children SO! There were 7 surviving children. I'm sorry for the crazy writing here but, you're lucky you don't have to have a conversation with me. That's even worse. Now I'm curious and need to do sort of a table on births and deaths here to really SEE the difficulty that they had.
Wilhemina born 1860 married to Peter N. Glandt who was born 1859
Born to them were:
1883 Christina born (d. 1933)
1884 Mina born
1885 Dora born
1887Maggie born
1888 Lena born, (d.1973) &Mina, Dora, Maggie die@ 3 1/2, 2 1/2 & 9mo
1889Elsie born (d. 1941)
1891 William born(d. 1962)
1893 Peter J. born (d. 1901@ 8 1/2)
1894 Louis T. born
1895 Louis T. dies@ 1 yr.
1896 Alvina born (d.1987)
1897 Bennie born and dies at 6 months.
1898 Josephine born (d. 1977)
1901 Chris born.
1902 Florence born (d. 1995)
1906 Chris dies@ 5 1/2 yrs.

So, what's the big deal? Well, this family reunion that we went to that was called "Rolfs-Glandt" Reunion...it only had Glandt decendents. Only people who descended from the one sister, Wilhemina, were there! My sister, niece and I were the only Rolfs there...at least anyone descended from any of the brothers. It was SO much fun there and I was amazed...with our love for geneaology we were able to give them some good information. We assemble again in 2 years. My job is to make a visual family tree...which will be fun. God willing my Dad will be with us then. He had every intention of going but, found out out of the blue that he'd had a heart attack at some time or another in the past couple weeks and needed a quadruple bypass...which was today! He's doing really well as of this writing.
After the Reunion, we went to the local graveyard in Leigh and walked up and down the rows. Yes, we're fans of the cemetary...any old graveyard around and you'll see us stopping there. So, here's a couple of photos! These are taken in the Lutheran Cemetary in Leigh Nebraska.



This is a unique marker of a child's grave.



His Name is August, he died June 11, 1888 att he age of 1 yr. 10wks. 6 days


Little representations of child's shoes and stockings on the top.




Here's a picture of us below...taken at the reunion. My sister is on the left, my niece Alex and then me on the right. One of the ladies there was teasing us when we first arrived. I was questioning...how are WE related as everyone there had the name Glandt somewhere in their family tree. She said, "oh! Are you here under false pretenses?". We laughed and laughed. Later whe she saw me she inquired again if I'd figured it out and I said, "I think that my sister, niece and I are the only Rolfs here...that we're the only ones descended from a brother". And again this funny woman turned to me and said, "we try not to let too many of them in". Her name was Nadine and was in her late 70's and hilarious. I'll never forget her and look forward to the year 2011 to meet again. Meanwhile, we have each other's e mails!
Forgive my kookoo blog today but, I'm pooped from spending the day at the hospital.