Revised to add her father's immigration:
HER PARENTS: John Kellner (birth place eventually under Prussian nobles) and Anna (born in Iowa, as Anna Hilbert) were counted with their daughter Susan and their other children in the 1920 and 1930 US censuses. They lived in Riverdale Township, their area also known as St. Joe, due to a St. Joseph's Church there. His 1920 Census said he'd immigrated in 1881, pre-Ellis Island. He would have been about age 10, brought by his parents.
In the year of Susan's birth, the 1905 Iowa State Census showed their Post Office at Bode. Her father gave his age as 34. He said he was in Iowa for 23 years, precise, no round numbers, so in Iowa by 1882. His parents, thus, spent up to a year outside of Iowa.
Unlike later arrivals coming through Ellis Island in NYC, they maybe were not asked at arrival for the contacts expected to greet them. Many Germanics arrived at Baltimore or Philadelphia, sometimes another port, not just NYC. Accepting immigrants was left to local discretion, not yet required to enter at NYC's Ellis Island and be nationally approved.
HER KELLNER SIBLINGS: She was third eldest? Their family was like most in that day, large. They seemed lucky, no rash of child deaths, from whooping cough and other afflictions, as in the era prior, nor of young adults from the Spanish influenza, as seen around WW I, though deaths from accidents, both childhood and adult, were still much higher then, than now. Some German was still spoken in the home, English mainly outside, as housewives had less opportunity to learn a new language. One church service each weekend would have had the sermon and news announcements both in German, instead of English, "so the grandmothers can understand".
People with different ways and customs understood each other. Dialects varied, however, due to lots of "little Germanies". For her father, a huge part of future Germany was put under what eventually turned into Prussia, after a meeting in 1815, in Vienna, Austria. Re-arranging country boundaries and autocrats in charge, the meeting was held by what Norwegians would have called "the big men", no elections back then to see if "the little people" agreed. Their newly assigned nobility's control, as a consequence of 1815's re-division, went along the edge of old Denmark, took a chunk of old Poland, then went down to get what had been under Napoleon and , before him, the Spanish Hapsburgs, ending with Bavaria, taken from Austrian Hapsburgs, and including tri-lingual Cologne. If northern inside that broad region, closer to Scandinavia, Lutherans were common, while southward, closer to France and Italy, Catholics were common, scatterings of other religions found. The names pronounced as Anna in the north, Annie in the south, were both spelled Anne, usually with two more "forenames" before the surname common, so no one would confuse the many called Anne.
None of the Germanics made a "final e" silent, the British way, to signal a prior vowel should be long. Instead, they used marks over a vowel to signal a sound. Sometimes an O with two dots was translated as "oe" or "oer", then abbreviated some way later, as "or" or "er."
THEIR SURNAME. Was Kellner once Koellner? Kellner might sound like Gellner in dialects that did not make a hard G and a K sound very different. If the immigration record can be found, Kellner might or might not be what is written. John at age 10 would have arrived with a Germanic spelling, which might vary from Johannes (furthest south), to Johan, to Jan (furthest north).
In 1920, her father, John, had been in the States almost 20 years, more used to US ways than when his parents immigrated in 1881. His and Anna's children's names were shown as mainly Germanic, sometimes with the census-taker guessing a spelling, maybe other times catching what we'd think of as children's nicknames.
Their 1930 census and later news found them with names more standard Anglo and/or adult.
From oldest to youngest, with any Germanic name or nickname first, the seven surviving Kellner children were:
*Born by the 1920 Census--Mattie/Mathias (son, 11 in 1920, 21 in 1930), Kattie/Katherine (Catherine later), this Susan (aka "Suze"), Vinzen/Vincent, Mercillia/Mercilla (daughter, age 0 in 1920, 9 in 1930, used Marcella later),
*Born by the 1930-- Frances L. (miswritten as a "son", but, in reality, a daughter, 8 in 1930), and Rossella Clara (daughter, 3 in 1930, used Rosalia later). Note that, normally, Frances is a FEMALE spelling (Frances is short for Francesca, while its male version, Francis, is short for Franciscus.)
*Born after the 1930-- a second Catherine, full name Marie Catherine, called Marie later by clerks not wanting to bother with two names, so different. Her married name would be Thill, while the elder daughter, the first Catherine, married a Bormann.
In 1936, for the wintertime drama of a double wedding for two younger sisters, Susan was already wed. The news reporter said the sisters' wedding party arrived by bobsled at the St Benedict Church (SOURCE for brides Frances and Rosella: "Kossuth County Press", article archived by a volunteer at GenealogyTrails.com).
SUSAN'S SPOUSE & CHILDREN: By her 1940 Census, the former Susan Kellner and spouse Michael A. Arndorfer were listed with five children at a Prairie Township address, so northeastish of where she had grown up. Their church was his home church, now St. Benedict. They would farm near his extended family, multiple generations, multiple in-laws. Many had been in the same part of Wisconsin, before coming to Iowa (Beaver Dam to Milwaukee).
From oldest to youngest, ages back then given for those now deceased, their children were:
*Born by the 1940 Census--June Adel (age 12, not to be confused with June Adel Studer or June Adel Kunz), Marjorie Ann (later married Gerald/Jerry Oxley), Arlene V. (V for Victoria, after Michael's mother), Eugene M., and Mary Agnes (age 1).
*Born after the 1940 Census--Thomas (born later that year)
With lots of cousins living nearby, there'd be family events and church-organized get-togethers. This writer's mother, Donna, fondly remembers visiting the house of "Aunt Suze" to play with her first cousins, especially after her mother died. Her father had to bribe her with a tricycle to get her to come home! She and Susan's daughter Marjorie Ann, aka "Mudge", a year apart, in age, would become best friends when riding the school bus together, to the public high school at Corwith, after Donna had finished grade eight at St. Benedict. (The St Benedict school went to grade nine, an advanced level in the years before busing took rural children to a larger town's high school for more. Marjorie was a year older, did the full nine years at St Benedict.)
The two liked roller skating events, had girl's basketball to play, in addition to their farm chores.
Jerry Oxley asked this writer's mother if he dared ask Marjorie for a date. Apparently, Marjorie said, "Yes"! Jerry is in a photo of the old St Benedict ball team circa WW II, lined up with Donna's older brothers, Henry and Robert Arndorfer, their team photo. View it at Henry Jr's grave page.
KELLNER, LIKELY IMMIGRATION INTO NY COUNTY, NY, Aug. 22, 1881, as Joh. Köllner/Koellner.
BEST RECORD, HANDWRITTEN FORM. Under Köllner surname, they arrived as a party of six, "New York Passenger List", Aug. 22, 1881 (on image 127 of 1079 images, archived at FamilySearch.org)
Listed by age, spellings below are as shown there, two parents, then four children, from "Germy":
"Math." , "Cath.", ages 40 and 39, he, a shoemaker.
"Magt.", "Joh.", "Eliz.", "Math.", ages 11, 10, 8 and 4.
Earlier images (117 &118, same source) show they came in on the "SS Rhynland", sailing out of Antwerp, a Belgian port. Their Belgian shipmaster, Wm. Geo. Randle, signed with arrival date of Aug. 22, 1881 (trip could take weeks).
TYPED SOURCE, JUST FOR HER FATHER, name different, as no double dots on US typewriters or typeset:
"Joh. Koellner", age 10, "child/youngster". Traveled in "steerage", birthplace "Germany". Ship name, departure from Antwerp, and arrival date matched the handwritten form. Only his surname spelling differed.
SOURCE: "United States Germans to America Index, 1850-1897," FamilySearch (FamilySearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KDQF-JHT : 27, Dec. 2014).
CONFIRMING IT'S THEM:
No destination of Iowa, no Iowa relative's name as a contact, no emergency contact with address "back home", was given on the bare-bones immigration record. To confirm it's them, US censuses of John with siblings and parents together should be checked, to be sure reasonably matching on survivor's birth order and names. Iowa had a State Census in 1885, when her father was about 15? (The 1890 US Census, when he would have been 20ish, burned in a fire.)
JB, last revised Nov., 2023
HER PARENTS: John Kellner (birth place eventually under Prussian nobles) and Anna (born in Iowa, as Anna Hilbert) were counted with their daughter Susan and their other children in the 1920 and 1930 US censuses. They lived in Riverdale Township, their area also known as St. Joe, due to a St. Joseph's Church there. His 1920 Census said he'd immigrated in 1881, pre-Ellis Island. He would have been about age 10, brought by his parents.
In the year of Susan's birth, the 1905 Iowa State Census showed their Post Office at Bode. Her father gave his age as 34. He said he was in Iowa for 23 years, precise, no round numbers, so in Iowa by 1882. His parents, thus, spent up to a year outside of Iowa.
Unlike later arrivals coming through Ellis Island in NYC, they maybe were not asked at arrival for the contacts expected to greet them. Many Germanics arrived at Baltimore or Philadelphia, sometimes another port, not just NYC. Accepting immigrants was left to local discretion, not yet required to enter at NYC's Ellis Island and be nationally approved.
HER KELLNER SIBLINGS: She was third eldest? Their family was like most in that day, large. They seemed lucky, no rash of child deaths, from whooping cough and other afflictions, as in the era prior, nor of young adults from the Spanish influenza, as seen around WW I, though deaths from accidents, both childhood and adult, were still much higher then, than now. Some German was still spoken in the home, English mainly outside, as housewives had less opportunity to learn a new language. One church service each weekend would have had the sermon and news announcements both in German, instead of English, "so the grandmothers can understand".
People with different ways and customs understood each other. Dialects varied, however, due to lots of "little Germanies". For her father, a huge part of future Germany was put under what eventually turned into Prussia, after a meeting in 1815, in Vienna, Austria. Re-arranging country boundaries and autocrats in charge, the meeting was held by what Norwegians would have called "the big men", no elections back then to see if "the little people" agreed. Their newly assigned nobility's control, as a consequence of 1815's re-division, went along the edge of old Denmark, took a chunk of old Poland, then went down to get what had been under Napoleon and , before him, the Spanish Hapsburgs, ending with Bavaria, taken from Austrian Hapsburgs, and including tri-lingual Cologne. If northern inside that broad region, closer to Scandinavia, Lutherans were common, while southward, closer to France and Italy, Catholics were common, scatterings of other religions found. The names pronounced as Anna in the north, Annie in the south, were both spelled Anne, usually with two more "forenames" before the surname common, so no one would confuse the many called Anne.
None of the Germanics made a "final e" silent, the British way, to signal a prior vowel should be long. Instead, they used marks over a vowel to signal a sound. Sometimes an O with two dots was translated as "oe" or "oer", then abbreviated some way later, as "or" or "er."
THEIR SURNAME. Was Kellner once Koellner? Kellner might sound like Gellner in dialects that did not make a hard G and a K sound very different. If the immigration record can be found, Kellner might or might not be what is written. John at age 10 would have arrived with a Germanic spelling, which might vary from Johannes (furthest south), to Johan, to Jan (furthest north).
In 1920, her father, John, had been in the States almost 20 years, more used to US ways than when his parents immigrated in 1881. His and Anna's children's names were shown as mainly Germanic, sometimes with the census-taker guessing a spelling, maybe other times catching what we'd think of as children's nicknames.
Their 1930 census and later news found them with names more standard Anglo and/or adult.
From oldest to youngest, with any Germanic name or nickname first, the seven surviving Kellner children were:
*Born by the 1920 Census--Mattie/Mathias (son, 11 in 1920, 21 in 1930), Kattie/Katherine (Catherine later), this Susan (aka "Suze"), Vinzen/Vincent, Mercillia/Mercilla (daughter, age 0 in 1920, 9 in 1930, used Marcella later),
*Born by the 1930-- Frances L. (miswritten as a "son", but, in reality, a daughter, 8 in 1930), and Rossella Clara (daughter, 3 in 1930, used Rosalia later). Note that, normally, Frances is a FEMALE spelling (Frances is short for Francesca, while its male version, Francis, is short for Franciscus.)
*Born after the 1930-- a second Catherine, full name Marie Catherine, called Marie later by clerks not wanting to bother with two names, so different. Her married name would be Thill, while the elder daughter, the first Catherine, married a Bormann.
In 1936, for the wintertime drama of a double wedding for two younger sisters, Susan was already wed. The news reporter said the sisters' wedding party arrived by bobsled at the St Benedict Church (SOURCE for brides Frances and Rosella: "Kossuth County Press", article archived by a volunteer at GenealogyTrails.com).
SUSAN'S SPOUSE & CHILDREN: By her 1940 Census, the former Susan Kellner and spouse Michael A. Arndorfer were listed with five children at a Prairie Township address, so northeastish of where she had grown up. Their church was his home church, now St. Benedict. They would farm near his extended family, multiple generations, multiple in-laws. Many had been in the same part of Wisconsin, before coming to Iowa (Beaver Dam to Milwaukee).
From oldest to youngest, ages back then given for those now deceased, their children were:
*Born by the 1940 Census--June Adel (age 12, not to be confused with June Adel Studer or June Adel Kunz), Marjorie Ann (later married Gerald/Jerry Oxley), Arlene V. (V for Victoria, after Michael's mother), Eugene M., and Mary Agnes (age 1).
*Born after the 1940 Census--Thomas (born later that year)
With lots of cousins living nearby, there'd be family events and church-organized get-togethers. This writer's mother, Donna, fondly remembers visiting the house of "Aunt Suze" to play with her first cousins, especially after her mother died. Her father had to bribe her with a tricycle to get her to come home! She and Susan's daughter Marjorie Ann, aka "Mudge", a year apart, in age, would become best friends when riding the school bus together, to the public high school at Corwith, after Donna had finished grade eight at St. Benedict. (The St Benedict school went to grade nine, an advanced level in the years before busing took rural children to a larger town's high school for more. Marjorie was a year older, did the full nine years at St Benedict.)
The two liked roller skating events, had girl's basketball to play, in addition to their farm chores.
Jerry Oxley asked this writer's mother if he dared ask Marjorie for a date. Apparently, Marjorie said, "Yes"! Jerry is in a photo of the old St Benedict ball team circa WW II, lined up with Donna's older brothers, Henry and Robert Arndorfer, their team photo. View it at Henry Jr's grave page.
KELLNER, LIKELY IMMIGRATION INTO NY COUNTY, NY, Aug. 22, 1881, as Joh. Köllner/Koellner.
BEST RECORD, HANDWRITTEN FORM. Under Köllner surname, they arrived as a party of six, "New York Passenger List", Aug. 22, 1881 (on image 127 of 1079 images, archived at FamilySearch.org)
Listed by age, spellings below are as shown there, two parents, then four children, from "Germy":
"Math." , "Cath.", ages 40 and 39, he, a shoemaker.
"Magt.", "Joh.", "Eliz.", "Math.", ages 11, 10, 8 and 4.
Earlier images (117 &118, same source) show they came in on the "SS Rhynland", sailing out of Antwerp, a Belgian port. Their Belgian shipmaster, Wm. Geo. Randle, signed with arrival date of Aug. 22, 1881 (trip could take weeks).
TYPED SOURCE, JUST FOR HER FATHER, name different, as no double dots on US typewriters or typeset:
"Joh. Koellner", age 10, "child/youngster". Traveled in "steerage", birthplace "Germany". Ship name, departure from Antwerp, and arrival date matched the handwritten form. Only his surname spelling differed.
SOURCE: "United States Germans to America Index, 1850-1897," FamilySearch (FamilySearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KDQF-JHT : 27, Dec. 2014).
CONFIRMING IT'S THEM:
No destination of Iowa, no Iowa relative's name as a contact, no emergency contact with address "back home", was given on the bare-bones immigration record. To confirm it's them, US censuses of John with siblings and parents together should be checked, to be sure reasonably matching on survivor's birth order and names. Iowa had a State Census in 1885, when her father was about 15? (The 1890 US Census, when he would have been 20ish, burned in a fire.)
JB, last revised Nov., 2023
Revised to add her father's immigration:
HER PARENTS: John Kellner (birth place eventually under Prussian nobles) and Anna (born in Iowa, as Anna Hilbert) were counted with their daughter Susan and their other children in the 1920 and 1930 US censuses. They lived in Riverdale Township, their area also known as St. Joe, due to a St. Joseph's Church there. His 1920 Census said he'd immigrated in 1881, pre-Ellis Island. He would have been about age 10, brought by his parents.
In the year of Susan's birth, the 1905 Iowa State Census showed their Post Office at Bode. Her father gave his age as 34. He said he was in Iowa for 23 years, precise, no round numbers, so in Iowa by 1882. His parents, thus, spent up to a year outside of Iowa.
Unlike later arrivals coming through Ellis Island in NYC, they maybe were not asked at arrival for the contacts expected to greet them. Many Germanics arrived at Baltimore or Philadelphia, sometimes another port, not just NYC. Accepting immigrants was left to local discretion, not yet required to enter at NYC's Ellis Island and be nationally approved.
HER KELLNER SIBLINGS: She was third eldest? Their family was like most in that day, large. They seemed lucky, no rash of child deaths, from whooping cough and other afflictions, as in the era prior, nor of young adults from the Spanish influenza, as seen around WW I, though deaths from accidents, both childhood and adult, were still much higher then, than now. Some German was still spoken in the home, English mainly outside, as housewives had less opportunity to learn a new language. One church service each weekend would have had the sermon and news announcements both in German, instead of English, "so the grandmothers can understand".
People with different ways and customs understood each other. Dialects varied, however, due to lots of "little Germanies". For her father, a huge part of future Germany was put under what eventually turned into Prussia, after a meeting in 1815, in Vienna, Austria. Re-arranging country boundaries and autocrats in charge, the meeting was held by what Norwegians would have called "the big men", no elections back then to see if "the little people" agreed. Their newly assigned nobility's control, as a consequence of 1815's re-division, went along the edge of old Denmark, took a chunk of old Poland, then went down to get what had been under Napoleon and , before him, the Spanish Hapsburgs, ending with Bavaria, taken from Austrian Hapsburgs, and including tri-lingual Cologne. If northern inside that broad region, closer to Scandinavia, Lutherans were common, while southward, closer to France and Italy, Catholics were common, scatterings of other religions found. The names pronounced as Anna in the north, Annie in the south, were both spelled Anne, usually with two more "forenames" before the surname common, so no one would confuse the many called Anne.
None of the Germanics made a "final e" silent, the British way, to signal a prior vowel should be long. Instead, they used marks over a vowel to signal a sound. Sometimes an O with two dots was translated as "oe" or "oer", then abbreviated some way later, as "or" or "er."
THEIR SURNAME. Was Kellner once Koellner? Kellner might sound like Gellner in dialects that did not make a hard G and a K sound very different. If the immigration record can be found, Kellner might or might not be what is written. John at age 10 would have arrived with a Germanic spelling, which might vary from Johannes (furthest south), to Johan, to Jan (furthest north).
In 1920, her father, John, had been in the States almost 20 years, more used to US ways than when his parents immigrated in 1881. His and Anna's children's names were shown as mainly Germanic, sometimes with the census-taker guessing a spelling, maybe other times catching what we'd think of as children's nicknames.
Their 1930 census and later news found them with names more standard Anglo and/or adult.
From oldest to youngest, with any Germanic name or nickname first, the seven surviving Kellner children were:
*Born by the 1920 Census--Mattie/Mathias (son, 11 in 1920, 21 in 1930), Kattie/Katherine (Catherine later), this Susan (aka "Suze"), Vinzen/Vincent, Mercillia/Mercilla (daughter, age 0 in 1920, 9 in 1930, used Marcella later),
*Born by the 1930-- Frances L. (miswritten as a "son", but, in reality, a daughter, 8 in 1930), and Rossella Clara (daughter, 3 in 1930, used Rosalia later). Note that, normally, Frances is a FEMALE spelling (Frances is short for Francesca, while its male version, Francis, is short for Franciscus.)
*Born after the 1930-- a second Catherine, full name Marie Catherine, called Marie later by clerks not wanting to bother with two names, so different. Her married name would be Thill, while the elder daughter, the first Catherine, married a Bormann.
In 1936, for the wintertime drama of a double wedding for two younger sisters, Susan was already wed. The news reporter said the sisters' wedding party arrived by bobsled at the St Benedict Church (SOURCE for brides Frances and Rosella: "Kossuth County Press", article archived by a volunteer at GenealogyTrails.com).
SUSAN'S SPOUSE & CHILDREN: By her 1940 Census, the former Susan Kellner and spouse Michael A. Arndorfer were listed with five children at a Prairie Township address, so northeastish of where she had grown up. Their church was his home church, now St. Benedict. They would farm near his extended family, multiple generations, multiple in-laws. Many had been in the same part of Wisconsin, before coming to Iowa (Beaver Dam to Milwaukee).
From oldest to youngest, ages back then given for those now deceased, their children were:
*Born by the 1940 Census--June Adel (age 12, not to be confused with June Adel Studer or June Adel Kunz), Marjorie Ann (later married Gerald/Jerry Oxley), Arlene V. (V for Victoria, after Michael's mother), Eugene M., and Mary Agnes (age 1).
*Born after the 1940 Census--Thomas (born later that year)
With lots of cousins living nearby, there'd be family events and church-organized get-togethers. This writer's mother, Donna, fondly remembers visiting the house of "Aunt Suze" to play with her first cousins, especially after her mother died. Her father had to bribe her with a tricycle to get her to come home! She and Susan's daughter Marjorie Ann, aka "Mudge", a year apart, in age, would become best friends when riding the school bus together, to the public high school at Corwith, after Donna had finished grade eight at St. Benedict. (The St Benedict school went to grade nine, an advanced level in the years before busing took rural children to a larger town's high school for more. Marjorie was a year older, did the full nine years at St Benedict.)
The two liked roller skating events, had girl's basketball to play, in addition to their farm chores.
Jerry Oxley asked this writer's mother if he dared ask Marjorie for a date. Apparently, Marjorie said, "Yes"! Jerry is in a photo of the old St Benedict ball team circa WW II, lined up with Donna's older brothers, Henry and Robert Arndorfer, their team photo. View it at Henry Jr's grave page.
KELLNER, LIKELY IMMIGRATION INTO NY COUNTY, NY, Aug. 22, 1881, as Joh. Köllner/Koellner.
BEST RECORD, HANDWRITTEN FORM. Under Köllner surname, they arrived as a party of six, "New York Passenger List", Aug. 22, 1881 (on image 127 of 1079 images, archived at FamilySearch.org)
Listed by age, spellings below are as shown there, two parents, then four children, from "Germy":
"Math." , "Cath.", ages 40 and 39, he, a shoemaker.
"Magt.", "Joh.", "Eliz.", "Math.", ages 11, 10, 8 and 4.
Earlier images (117 &118, same source) show they came in on the "SS Rhynland", sailing out of Antwerp, a Belgian port. Their Belgian shipmaster, Wm. Geo. Randle, signed with arrival date of Aug. 22, 1881 (trip could take weeks).
TYPED SOURCE, JUST FOR HER FATHER, name different, as no double dots on US typewriters or typeset:
"Joh. Koellner", age 10, "child/youngster". Traveled in "steerage", birthplace "Germany". Ship name, departure from Antwerp, and arrival date matched the handwritten form. Only his surname spelling differed.
SOURCE: "United States Germans to America Index, 1850-1897," FamilySearch (FamilySearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KDQF-JHT : 27, Dec. 2014).
CONFIRMING IT'S THEM:
No destination of Iowa, no Iowa relative's name as a contact, no emergency contact with address "back home", was given on the bare-bones immigration record. To confirm it's them, US censuses of John with siblings and parents together should be checked, to be sure reasonably matching on survivor's birth order and names. Iowa had a State Census in 1885, when her father was about 15? (The 1890 US Census, when he would have been 20ish, burned in a fire.)
JB, last revised Nov., 2023
HER PARENTS: John Kellner (birth place eventually under Prussian nobles) and Anna (born in Iowa, as Anna Hilbert) were counted with their daughter Susan and their other children in the 1920 and 1930 US censuses. They lived in Riverdale Township, their area also known as St. Joe, due to a St. Joseph's Church there. His 1920 Census said he'd immigrated in 1881, pre-Ellis Island. He would have been about age 10, brought by his parents.
In the year of Susan's birth, the 1905 Iowa State Census showed their Post Office at Bode. Her father gave his age as 34. He said he was in Iowa for 23 years, precise, no round numbers, so in Iowa by 1882. His parents, thus, spent up to a year outside of Iowa.
Unlike later arrivals coming through Ellis Island in NYC, they maybe were not asked at arrival for the contacts expected to greet them. Many Germanics arrived at Baltimore or Philadelphia, sometimes another port, not just NYC. Accepting immigrants was left to local discretion, not yet required to enter at NYC's Ellis Island and be nationally approved.
HER KELLNER SIBLINGS: She was third eldest? Their family was like most in that day, large. They seemed lucky, no rash of child deaths, from whooping cough and other afflictions, as in the era prior, nor of young adults from the Spanish influenza, as seen around WW I, though deaths from accidents, both childhood and adult, were still much higher then, than now. Some German was still spoken in the home, English mainly outside, as housewives had less opportunity to learn a new language. One church service each weekend would have had the sermon and news announcements both in German, instead of English, "so the grandmothers can understand".
People with different ways and customs understood each other. Dialects varied, however, due to lots of "little Germanies". For her father, a huge part of future Germany was put under what eventually turned into Prussia, after a meeting in 1815, in Vienna, Austria. Re-arranging country boundaries and autocrats in charge, the meeting was held by what Norwegians would have called "the big men", no elections back then to see if "the little people" agreed. Their newly assigned nobility's control, as a consequence of 1815's re-division, went along the edge of old Denmark, took a chunk of old Poland, then went down to get what had been under Napoleon and , before him, the Spanish Hapsburgs, ending with Bavaria, taken from Austrian Hapsburgs, and including tri-lingual Cologne. If northern inside that broad region, closer to Scandinavia, Lutherans were common, while southward, closer to France and Italy, Catholics were common, scatterings of other religions found. The names pronounced as Anna in the north, Annie in the south, were both spelled Anne, usually with two more "forenames" before the surname common, so no one would confuse the many called Anne.
None of the Germanics made a "final e" silent, the British way, to signal a prior vowel should be long. Instead, they used marks over a vowel to signal a sound. Sometimes an O with two dots was translated as "oe" or "oer", then abbreviated some way later, as "or" or "er."
THEIR SURNAME. Was Kellner once Koellner? Kellner might sound like Gellner in dialects that did not make a hard G and a K sound very different. If the immigration record can be found, Kellner might or might not be what is written. John at age 10 would have arrived with a Germanic spelling, which might vary from Johannes (furthest south), to Johan, to Jan (furthest north).
In 1920, her father, John, had been in the States almost 20 years, more used to US ways than when his parents immigrated in 1881. His and Anna's children's names were shown as mainly Germanic, sometimes with the census-taker guessing a spelling, maybe other times catching what we'd think of as children's nicknames.
Their 1930 census and later news found them with names more standard Anglo and/or adult.
From oldest to youngest, with any Germanic name or nickname first, the seven surviving Kellner children were:
*Born by the 1920 Census--Mattie/Mathias (son, 11 in 1920, 21 in 1930), Kattie/Katherine (Catherine later), this Susan (aka "Suze"), Vinzen/Vincent, Mercillia/Mercilla (daughter, age 0 in 1920, 9 in 1930, used Marcella later),
*Born by the 1930-- Frances L. (miswritten as a "son", but, in reality, a daughter, 8 in 1930), and Rossella Clara (daughter, 3 in 1930, used Rosalia later). Note that, normally, Frances is a FEMALE spelling (Frances is short for Francesca, while its male version, Francis, is short for Franciscus.)
*Born after the 1930-- a second Catherine, full name Marie Catherine, called Marie later by clerks not wanting to bother with two names, so different. Her married name would be Thill, while the elder daughter, the first Catherine, married a Bormann.
In 1936, for the wintertime drama of a double wedding for two younger sisters, Susan was already wed. The news reporter said the sisters' wedding party arrived by bobsled at the St Benedict Church (SOURCE for brides Frances and Rosella: "Kossuth County Press", article archived by a volunteer at GenealogyTrails.com).
SUSAN'S SPOUSE & CHILDREN: By her 1940 Census, the former Susan Kellner and spouse Michael A. Arndorfer were listed with five children at a Prairie Township address, so northeastish of where she had grown up. Their church was his home church, now St. Benedict. They would farm near his extended family, multiple generations, multiple in-laws. Many had been in the same part of Wisconsin, before coming to Iowa (Beaver Dam to Milwaukee).
From oldest to youngest, ages back then given for those now deceased, their children were:
*Born by the 1940 Census--June Adel (age 12, not to be confused with June Adel Studer or June Adel Kunz), Marjorie Ann (later married Gerald/Jerry Oxley), Arlene V. (V for Victoria, after Michael's mother), Eugene M., and Mary Agnes (age 1).
*Born after the 1940 Census--Thomas (born later that year)
With lots of cousins living nearby, there'd be family events and church-organized get-togethers. This writer's mother, Donna, fondly remembers visiting the house of "Aunt Suze" to play with her first cousins, especially after her mother died. Her father had to bribe her with a tricycle to get her to come home! She and Susan's daughter Marjorie Ann, aka "Mudge", a year apart, in age, would become best friends when riding the school bus together, to the public high school at Corwith, after Donna had finished grade eight at St. Benedict. (The St Benedict school went to grade nine, an advanced level in the years before busing took rural children to a larger town's high school for more. Marjorie was a year older, did the full nine years at St Benedict.)
The two liked roller skating events, had girl's basketball to play, in addition to their farm chores.
Jerry Oxley asked this writer's mother if he dared ask Marjorie for a date. Apparently, Marjorie said, "Yes"! Jerry is in a photo of the old St Benedict ball team circa WW II, lined up with Donna's older brothers, Henry and Robert Arndorfer, their team photo. View it at Henry Jr's grave page.
KELLNER, LIKELY IMMIGRATION INTO NY COUNTY, NY, Aug. 22, 1881, as Joh. Köllner/Koellner.
BEST RECORD, HANDWRITTEN FORM. Under Köllner surname, they arrived as a party of six, "New York Passenger List", Aug. 22, 1881 (on image 127 of 1079 images, archived at FamilySearch.org)
Listed by age, spellings below are as shown there, two parents, then four children, from "Germy":
"Math." , "Cath.", ages 40 and 39, he, a shoemaker.
"Magt.", "Joh.", "Eliz.", "Math.", ages 11, 10, 8 and 4.
Earlier images (117 &118, same source) show they came in on the "SS Rhynland", sailing out of Antwerp, a Belgian port. Their Belgian shipmaster, Wm. Geo. Randle, signed with arrival date of Aug. 22, 1881 (trip could take weeks).
TYPED SOURCE, JUST FOR HER FATHER, name different, as no double dots on US typewriters or typeset:
"Joh. Koellner", age 10, "child/youngster". Traveled in "steerage", birthplace "Germany". Ship name, departure from Antwerp, and arrival date matched the handwritten form. Only his surname spelling differed.
SOURCE: "United States Germans to America Index, 1850-1897," FamilySearch (FamilySearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KDQF-JHT : 27, Dec. 2014).
CONFIRMING IT'S THEM:
No destination of Iowa, no Iowa relative's name as a contact, no emergency contact with address "back home", was given on the bare-bones immigration record. To confirm it's them, US censuses of John with siblings and parents together should be checked, to be sure reasonably matching on survivor's birth order and names. Iowa had a State Census in 1885, when her father was about 15? (The 1890 US Census, when he would have been 20ish, burned in a fire.)
JB, last revised Nov., 2023
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