Sunday, June 13, 2010

Tombstone edition


Well, June started quickly and now is half way done! So I thought I had better post something before the month totally disappeared. I am still working on the information I mentioned in my last post. I was going to spend today doing more lookups but other things have come up. After this posting, I hope to get a little bit done.

Let's look at a tombstone today. Some of my favorites are in the East Holland Cemetery. I especially love the three large ones that mark Aaltje Hellenthal, her husband Jan J and one of their daughters, Cornelia. The picture above is for Aaltje. Not only do I love the size of this stone, but there is a lot of information. It gives her maiden name and her husband's along with her birth and death dates. We also know that her husband died before her and since everything is in Dutch, that shows her heritage as well!

Additionally, I know that Aaltje was my Great-Great Grandmother. She was born in Fillmore Township, Michigan in 1854, married Johannes Naber in 1876 and died in 1919 at the age of 64. She had 6 children. Her oldest Anna died at the age of 22, within a year of giving birth to her first child. Her 2nd child, Johannes lived into adulthood but I don't have an exact date for him. He is not buried in the East Holland Cemetery where most of the others are located. Gertrude is the 3rd child and again, I don't have a lot of information on her. I know that she had three children. The 4th & 5th children were both named Cornelia. The 1st Cornelia died when she was only 2 years old. The second Cornelia died at the age of 19. She is buried next to her parents. The youngest child was Walter, my great-grandfather. Walter lived to the ripe old age of 79 and ran the family farm, which passed to two of his sons.

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