The Hyphen Family Lineage

[Obituary for John Nagel, from the Loyal Tribune, 30 Mar 1916; posted online to the wiclarkcountyhistory.org website.]

John Nagel died at the home of his son William in the town of Unity, Clark County, Wis., March 28, 1916 at 11:45 a.m. He was born Oct. 14, 1837 in Gross Kranckow, Germany. 53 years ago he married Miss Dorothea Nehls and to them were born five children, William of the town of Beaver, Clark County, Wis., Mrs. August Pieper of the town of Beaver, and Ernest of Hustiford, Dodge Co., and two died in infancy. In 1882 they moved to America, landing at Watertown and then moved to Hustiford, Dodge Co., Wis., and lived there until 17 years ago, when they moved to Loyal, Clark County, with their son William, where they lived until their deaths, Mrs. Dorothea Nagel having passed away in Feb. of last year. The funeral will be held in the Lutheran Church at Loyal on Friday, Rev. Kemena officiating, and the remains laid to rest in the Union Cemetery.

Note: The children of John and Dorothy (Nehls) Nagel

The initial list I had for the children of John and his wife Dorothea had come from notes provided by Elizabeth Kaiz, which did not include sources or much detail. That list read:

Anna, b. 1857
Ernst, b. 1866
Wilhelm, b. 1867
Maria, b. 1867.

The obituaries for John and Dorothy specify slightly different lists and counts - John's says five children were born, with two dying in infancy, while Dorothy's obituary a year prior says six were born, with two dying in infancy. Both name sons Ernst and William, and daughter "Mrs. August Pieper" of Beaver, Clark Cty, Wisconsin, while Dorothy's also names a "Mrs. Reinhard," resident in Beaver.

The immigration records available indicate that a Nagel family of five arrived in New York in November of 1882, with ages that line up with the parents, along with three children (Ernst, Wilhelm, and Wilhelmina). The obituary for Wilhelm gives that he immigrated to America with a brother and a sister.

The family was documented in the Mecklenburg-Schwerin census in early December 1867, and along with parents Johann and Dorothea were counted children Anna (b. 1857), Ernst (b. 1865), Wilhelm and Marie (both given as born in October 1867).

Ernst (later called Ernest) I have documented fairly thoroughly, being my wife's paternal great-grandfather; he was the oldest of the children to emigrate with the family, and on leaving his father's household he married, settled, and farmed in Dodge Cty, Wisconsin, until his death in 1944.

Wilhelm (also called William) was well-documented in records and publications in Clark Cty, Wisconsin, including numerous clippings from the local newspapers and an article in the Clark County Centennial booklet.

Finding "Mrs. August Pieper" was the next step, and that woman appears to have been commonly called Minna or Minnie. The various census records for August Pieper's household shows that Minnie was German-born, and immigrated about 1882 or later. Birth records for at least two of their children give her name as Minnie Nagel. The shared headstone in Loyal Lutheran Cemetery in Loyal, Clark Cty, Wisconsin gives her vital dates as b. 1872, d. 1939, while one of the US Census records indicates she was born in April of 1872. The bulk of the detailed information I have for her is from her obituary in 1939 which does name surviving brother Ernest and William.

Anna was more of a mystery; she does not appear to have come with her parents and siblings when they immigrated. She does appear in the Mecklenburg-Schwerin census in her parents' household in December of 1867, and her birth year is clearly written as 1857 - which agrees with the information from Elizabeth Kaiz. If that birth year is accurate, she would have been in her twenties when the rest of the family left for America, and at that age she was likely married and possibly had a family of her own.

The initial published mention or reference (as Mrs. Reinhard) I had found was the obituary for mother Dorothy in 1915, mentioned above. In the 1920 US Census listing for August Pieper's household is a sister-in-law, Anna Newman, age 62, born in Germany. The age and birth location would both be about right to be Anna Nagel, suggesting that she was married previously (possibly in Germany) to a man with the surname Reinhard, and married again sometime after her mother's death but before 1920 to a Newman (or similar), and likely widowed by 1920. This led to a search amongst the listed obituaries on the Clark County History website (wiclarkcountyhistory.org), turning up an obituary for an August Neuman and his first wife, Marie Ernestine. Marie died in 1914, and August married "Mrs. Anna Reinhardt" in 1916, who would survive him after his death in 1919.

At this point my assumption is that Anna married before her family left for America; there does not seem to have been any Reinhardt on the Cimbria in 1882, when the rest of the family left Europe. Whether she and her presumed Reinhardt husband had any children is unknown, nor is it known when she came to America and whether with her husband or as a widow - her date of immigration is unknown, and I have found no other likely record of her residence in the US beyond the 1920 US Census listing for her sister's household. I have also not found death or burial records for her, though it seems likely that she was the first of the four siblings to pass away. Sister Minna's obituary in 1939 mentions the two surviving brothers but does not mention Anna as a surviving sibling, indicating that she may likely have died prior to 1939. The obituaries for both Ernst (1944) and William (1945) mention no siblings who preceded them in death, which would presumably have included Anna.

The next challenge in establishing Anna's parentage is her age in comparison to John and Dorothy's marriage date - Anna would have been about seven years old when John and Dorothy married. It is worth noting, though, that Dorothy was a few years older than John and was nearly thirty by the time they were married. If we assume, then, that Anna was perhaps a product of an earlier marriage of Dorothy's, and that Dorothy was a young widowed mother at the time of her marriage to John, then Anna's age and her mention in only her mother's obituary makes more sense. As I cannot establish Anna's actual parentage - since it is possibly that she was adopted by the family and was not a biological child of either parent - and because of the gross lack of detail, I have not included her in the tree. Instead, I have retained record of her in these notes for future reference.

Having accounted for all the grown children mentioned in the obituaries (Ernst, William, Minna, and even Anna), that leaves accounting for only the two infant deaths mentioned. The first of those was Maria (named in the notes from Elizabeth Kaiz), William's twin sister. Maria was counted in the 1867 census as an infant, and then was recorded as buried in Mecklenburg-Schwerin in late 1870 at the age of three. The other death was that of Sophia Wilhelmine, born in 1875 in Mecklenburg-Schwerin and died less than three weeks later.