The Hyphen Family Lineage

Anna Schwantes has been something of a challenge to puzzle out, and I don't believe I have it quite right yet. The records for which I have some confidence are her birth record (which names her parents Friedrich and Louise Schwantes of Hubbard Dodge Cty, Wisconsin) and her marriage record (the indexed entry for which names her parents "Fred Schantes and Louise Luetka") in Horicon, Dodge Cty, Wisconsin. That indexed record names her husband the German-born Frank Richard Otto Schweder.

After that, things get a little confusing. Her father's obituary (in 1911) names his surviving daughters, and includes a "Mrs. Frank Schroeder." The obituary appears to name her residence as Neosho, Dodge Cty, Wisconsin. Just a year prior, though, there is a 1910 US Census record for a family in Fort Atkinson, Jefferson Cty, Wisconsin (about forty miles south-by-southeast from Neosho) that includes a German-born Frank Scweder, his Wisconsin-born wife Anna, and their two daughters, Ester and Ruth. As the census listing seems to be part of another household (as it reads on the index), it may well be that Frank was working as a hand on another family's farm in the first years of their marriage, with the family moving back to Dodge Cty by the time of his father-in-law's death nearly a year later (assuming my interpretation of the obituary is correct). This would assume, as well, that the surname given to Anna in her father's obituary is a phonetic mistake - which seems likely, as her younger sister Minnie's obituary from 1966 names her Anna Schweder and gives her as preceding Minnie in death.

There is a listing (with a photo) on the FIndaGrave.com website for Anna Schweder, b. 1881, d. 1916, in Oakhill Cemetery, Horicon, Dodge Cty, Wisconsin. The photo shows the dates quite clearly, so there appears to be no error on the listing.

The records after that get a bit more confusing. Frank's WWI draft card (dated 12 Sep 1918) was filed in Markesan, Green Lake Cty, Wisconsin (about forty-five miles northwest of Neosho), and names his contact as Eva Schweder. Eva appears to be four years younger than Anna was, and according to the census records I can find was, like Frank, German-born. Frank and Eva are listed in the 1920 US Census as living in Mackford, Green Lake Cty, Wisconsin, along with Frank's daughters Ester and Ruth and seven other younger children, ranging in age from eleven (one year younger than Ruth) to one. All the children in the listing are given the Schweder surname.

My assumption at this point was that Frank must have remarried sometime after Anna's death but before he registered for the draft in 1918, and given the ages of some of the children I guessed that some were his from his previous marriage to Anna Schwantes, while the youngest would almost certainly be his children with Eva. I also assumed that Eva might have been a widow, and some of the middle children might well have been from her previous marriage, but I wasn't sure and wanted to establish which children belonged to which marriage.

The only 1930 US Census record I've found for the family at all is a listing for Ester (this time spelled Esther) as a lodger in the household of the Zanto family in Markesan; I've found no record for her after that, nor any at all for her sister Ruth (after the 1920 US Census listing for their father's household). The 1940 US Census lists Frank and Eva's family in Markesan, with six children ranging in ages from twenty-one down to twelve. I began looking for death records, burials, and obituaries for some of these other children, in the hopes of determining Eva's previous name(s) as well as narrowing down when Frank and Eva may have married.

The first inclination I had that Frank's first marriage might not have ended with Anna's death was a clipping posted on the newspapers.com website, from the Oshkosh Daily Northwestern (22 Jul 1933, p8) for the marriage announcement for Olive Schweder (b. 1913) and Jacob Embs. In it, Olive was named as the daughter of "Mr. and Mrs. Frank Schweder" of Markesan, which implies Frank and Eva (and not Frank and Anna) are her parents. It seemed possible that this implied parentage was simply a nicety or an oversight, but I began to wonder if Frank and Anna had divorced prior to her death.

The next information I found was the obituary for Elaine Margaret (Schweder) Wilde, posted to the FindaGrave.com website. Elaine's parents are given as Frank and Eva (Malitzka) Schweder, with Elaine's date of birth listed as 20 Oct 1921 in Markesan. Her obituary names two surviving siblings and twelve siblings - five sisters and seven brothers - who preceded her in death. Esther and Ruth are named amongs the deceased sisters, while the the first two brothers (named in birth order) bear the surname of Schulz (which may be misspelled from "Schultz") with the younger five brothers named Schweder. Those oldest two brothers, Henry and Howard, would have been born about 1909 and 1911, respectively, while the first Schweder brother (Palmer) was born in 1914.

Anna would have been the first death in the Schwantes family following her father; her obituary may shed some light on her family situation at the time of her death. At this point, I've now assumed that Frank and Anna must have divorced, and Frank remarried (to the widowed or divorced Eva) prior to Anna's death. Ruth appears to have been married with a son by 1930, was widowed in 1936, and died in 1946. Esther seems to have married William Weiland around 1931, had an eight-year-old daughter by 1932, and then died in 1955. Both Ruth and Esther's obituaries are likely to provide some possible insight, as well.

ADDENDUM: There is a 1905 Wisconsin State Census record for a German-born Frank Schweder (age twenty-four), occupation "beer bottler," living in Milwaukee, Milwaukee Cty, Wisconsin with his twenty-two-year-old Wisconsin-born wife Annie and a one-year-old daughter Viola. Both parents give their parents' birthplaces as Germany, so this record may apply to the Anna (Schwante) Schweder in our family tree.