Time for Another Rescue
It’s heartening to know how many folks out there are kind enough to protect another family’s possessions and make the effort to get these possessions back into the right hands. Carol Hertensteiner of Missouri is just one of these generous people.

Carol wrote me about a daybook that would clearly be invaluable to a member of its family of origin. This remarkable homegrown book contains news clippings of obituaries, anniversaries, weddings, and the like spanning five generations. What I wouldn’t give to find something like that on my own family.

Of Chow Chow and Other Mysteries
Carol found this treasure—about 5.5 inches by 11.5 inches in size and brown in color—in an antiques store in St. Charles, Missouri, roughly five years ago and just couldn’t leave it sitting there, so she bought it. She wrote to me recently, sharing a number of details:

Places: mostly St. Louis, but also Nauvoo, Illinois, and Kansas City
Dates: many birth and death dates from 1812 to 1937
Names: Machenheimer, Nestle, Bauer, Schottler, Gengler, Mueller, Kraut, Curren, LeGendre, Wessler, Chenot, Wheeler, Weever, Hibberts, Pauley, Born, Walker, Hummel, Briley, and Ritter

In addition to all this information, Carol was able to briefly outline three generations of the family that featured most prominently in the assorted clippings:

Generation 1: George Nestle, married Machenheimer, b. 1846
Generation 2: Julia, 1866–1941, married Charles Bauer
Generation 3: Laura, b. 1887, married John Schottler

Mixed in with all these juicy family details were recipes for chow chow and chili sauce, medical advice such as “How to Prevent Consumption,” and handy tips on important topics, including “How to Dust One’s Clothes.” Other newsworthy items about clothing styles and notable people, such as one of the wives of Barnum’s clowns, were sprinkled throughout, as were poems and jokes that the owner probably liked.

After satisfying my curiosity about chow chow (I thought this was a kind of dog, but apparently it’s also a kind of hot pickle relish), I returned my focus to the family data. I realized that Carol had given me plenty to work with, so I was optimistic about being able to crack this case. Time to hit the Internet.

Starting with the Census
As is my habit, I started my search with online census records. This time, I opted to launch my search with the 1920 U.S. Federal Census and was rewarded in a nanosecond. There, living side by side in a pair of houses in St. Louis, were Elizabeth J. Nestle (age 73), Julia A. Bauer (age 54), and Laura E. Schottler (age 32). The very family outlined by Carol—daughter, mother, and grandmother—was conveniently assembled where I could easily find them and reassure myself that I was undoubtedly working with the right family. Very thoughtful of them.

Moving Forward
Laura, the youngest in the series, had two children of her own in the 1920 census, Beulah P. and Karl J., so I wanted to make sure they were still with her in 1930. And of course, I was hoping that Laura might have had a few more children.

Sure enough, I easily found Laura in 1930, still in St. Louis. Apparently, her grandmother had passed on by then, but she and her parents were now living together. Yes, Beulah and Karl were there, but, sadly, Laura had been widowed in the 1920s, so there were no additional children to seek out.

Which Child to Follow?
Should I try to find Beulah or Karl? I knew it was in the realm of the possible that I could find one or both of them alive, but when items stray from family hands like this, it’s almost always due to a death. Since such treasures are usually shepherded down maternal lines, I guessed that it had probably been Beulah who had passed away. Given this, plus the reality that women are harder to trace (due to those pesky surnames that often change at marriage) and the fact that she was about four years older than Karl, I decided to focus on him.

Karl Confusion
I knew that Karl Schottler was not the most common name, but still, I was startled at how few hits there were for his name at Ancestry.com. There wasn’t even a single listing in the Social Security Death Index. I guess I had misjudged how rare the name actually was.

But there was one result that intrigued me: a hit on the United States Obituary Collection. I clicked through and was taken to a 2003 obituary that included the name Karl Schottler. The obituary was for a woman who had died in Georgia, but it included a survivor named Karl Schottler.

Georgia? That didn’t fit. But there was a mention of St. Charles, Missouri. I did a little math—the deceased had been 90—and pondered a moment. Ah, now I could piece it together. This woman had been Karl’s widow and the Karl mentioned in her obituary was their son. Now it all made sense. So this was Karl Jr., and as a bonus, I also had the name of his sister, Karolyn.

Karl or Karolyn?
All things being equal, women are more apt to be interested in the family tree, so I decided to look for Karolyn. Besides, with that name, she was clearly a feminine Karl, so it seemed appropriate. Fortunately, the U.S. Public Records Index at Ancestry.com made this an easy search. Her contact information popped up in seconds.

I wrote to my initial contact, Carol Hertensteiner, and asked her to contact Karolyn to verify her identify. Carol wrote back initially saying that there was a birth announcement in the book for a Karolyn, so she was fairly sure we had found a likely candidate. That certainly was promising.

Contact
A couple of days later, I received a message from Carol:

I made the call. She is the right [Karolyn]. She was delighted and wondered how I had found her. I told her of our “meeting.” She had lived in St. Charles, Missouri for a while, and her mother and Aunt Pauline lived there until about 2001. I was so happy I could reunite the book with its rightful owner.

Aunt Pauline? Of course, Germans sometimes go by their middle names, don’t they? I remembered that Beulah’s middle initial had been P. And when I asked Carol to share a few images from the book, a remarkable article about four generations of this family confirmed that Beulah had indeed been Beulah Pauline. In fact, the article even showed her as a three-month-old. So Aunt Pauline. Maybe she had been the owner of this book for a few decades, as her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, had been. If so, I like to think they would all be happy to know that the book is now safely back in the hands of the next generation of their family.

More Orphans?
Thanks to the thoughtfulness of Carol Hertensteiner, Karolyn now has a book full of precious family bits and pieces.

If you have another family’s item that you’d like to return, please e-mail me at megan@honoringourancestors.com or go to www.honoringourancestors.com, click on the Submissions menu, and select Orphan Heirlooms. There you’ll find a form where you can share whatever details you have and attach images of the items. I can’t respond to every submission, but keep your eye on this column and your fingers crossed.

Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak is a writer and researcher and a regular contributor to Ancestry Magazine. Recently her genealogical prowess garnered national attention as she tracked down the true descendants of Ellis Island’s first immigrant, Annie Moore.