Ahnentafel

On this day in 1887, my first cousin 3 times removed, Jacob Emil Schmidt, was born in Butten, Alsace-Lorraine. He was one of eleven children born to Christian and Sophie (Stock) Schmidt. Christian’s younger sister Christine was the second wife of our immigrant ancestor Jacob Hoffmann. It appears that Christine was the only one of her siblings to emigrate to America, though a number of the children of the next generation (including Jacob Schmidt) did choose to leave Alsace-Lorraine for the U.S., most of them settling in Illinois.

Jacob emigrated around 1911-1914, and on 30 June 1916 he married Louise Mae Rocke in Peoria. Jacob’s World War I draft registration notes that he had started the process of becoming a U.S. citizen and was currently employed as a plasterer in Cissna Park, Illinois. He had also served 2 years in the military in Germany (Alsace-Lorraine belonged to Germany from 1871-1920). He was described as of medium height and build, slightly balding with brown hair and eyes.

In the 1920 census Jacob and Louise were enumerated in Pigeon Grove Township, Iroquois County, Illinois. Jacob was continuing his work as a plasterer. By 1930 the family was in Cissna Park proper (or perhaps the boundaries had changed), and Jacob and Louise had been joined by three children: Oliver, 9; Iva Jean, 6; and Betty Mae, 1. This census notes that Jacob is now a naturalized citizen, though his official naturalization papers include a date of 25 June 1921. Not much had changed for the family by 1940; they were still in Cissna Park, with “Jake Schmidt” working as a masonry contractor, and with all three children still at home.

In 1948 Iva Jean was given in marriage by Jacob to Richard Krug at the Schmidt home. Betty and Oliver were the only attendants. There were 40 guests at the ceremony and one hundred at the reception afterward. The following year Louise died at the age of 58, having been ill for several weeks.

The year after that Jacob was enumerated in the 1950 census, a lodger with the Wayne Seigle family in Cissna Park. On 22 December of that same year, Jacob died in Lake View Hospital in Danville, Illinois. His obituary provides some interesting details about the end of Jacob’s life, though confusingly it refers to him as a “native of Cissna Park” while later noting that he was born 20 October 1887 in Alsace-Lorraine.

One would think that with Louise dying in 1949 and Jacob in 1950, his final year might have been a quiet one. But Jacob’s obituary states that he had retired a year prior to his death and gone back to his home in France. He had only returned to Illinois on 30 September 1950 but was in the process of building a new home for himself. Some four weeks before his death he became ill, eventually dying of coronary thrombosis. He was buried in the Apostolic Christian Cemetery in Cissna Park alongside Louise. Jacob’s three children were still living at that time, but of his 10 brothers and sisters, only three sisters survived him, and two of those were still living in France. One hopes he was able to visit with both in that final trip to his native land.