We keep returning to family history to work on a new question or a blank to be filled in; so I thought I would share a little.  Inspired by my brother who has done a lot of work on our family, and by Chris’s cousin Charles who is invaluable for the Switzerland background, we have worked on Chris’s family.  She only had one grandparent growing up, Grandma Louise, who of course left a big impression on her.  Grandma Louise was proudly Swiss and imprinted that on Chris and Marie.  But like most of us they never asked questions of Grandma about the past. So when we cleaned out the family house we found lots of old pictures that had many unknowns to us. 

Chris had known her Grandmother came to the US with Chris’s great grandfather in the early 1900’s, and that Chris’s Dad was born in Little Rock Arkansas.  After getting to travel to Einsiedein Switzerland to her Grandmother’s birthplace a couple of times our thirst for more information grew.  Thirst fed by spending time with Cousin Charles who is a wealth of knowledge.  The relationship is really Chris’s great grandfather and Charles great grandmother were siblings.  With help from my brother,  Chris did a lot of searching of Ellis Island records and found her Grandmother Louise, brother Adelrich, and great grandfather Franz came to the US in 1908 arriving in Ellis Island 7/22/1908 on the ship Gothland out of Antwerp.  That left some questions as Chris knew there was another brother and sister, and that they were going from Ellis Island to Louisville Kentucky (Swiss showing up in the US and going to Louisville??).

Start with why Louisville.  Great Grandfather Franz had a sister and brother in law who were already in Louisville.  And recent findings show that from the 1800’s on, 2000 to 3000 Swiss from Einsiedein migrated to Louisville area (if you build it they will come?).  This month there is an official contingent from Louisville visiting Einsiedein to share information and celebrate the connection.  Searching the Louisville, northern Kentucky, southern Ohio, Cincinnati areas today still comes up with a plethora of Kaelins in the records.  When you visit Einsiedein it seems harder to find someone NOT named Kaelin than to find one!   Trying to find the correct Kaelin in early 1900 records feels the same.  But it fills in a big question. 

Chris had also found in the Ellis Island records that 2 of Louise’s siblings came to the US in 1910.  Franz Moritz then 16 and sister Theresa then 14, came 2 years after their older siblings came with their father.  Louise was probably 18 and Adelrich 17 when they came.   Note over the years Louise and Adelrich changed their birthdates which clouded  the searches.   Louise wanted to be younger and Adelrich older!  There was also another son who died a month after birth and a daughter who lived a year.

More facts were filled in by Charles that Chris and Marie had never known.   Louise’s mother had died after having children quickly one after another.  AND  Franz had remarried after her death to a much younger woman and again had child after child until the second wife also died.  These children were left behind in Switzerland to be raised by relatives.  Katherine who was left behind had a tough life until she met her husband Jean and married in 1922.  She led a full life of service after that.

In April of 1910 Louise married Christian Biegel in Louisville.   How they met is unknown, the guess is the large German contingent near Louisville and the Swiss intermingled.  The local directory showed that after they were married they lived very close to father Franz so that may have been the connection also.  The 1911 directory showed Christian as a machinist for American Machinery and Adelrich was a butcher for Anton Straus (WW1 Adelrich draft registration still shows him as a butcher in Louisville).   1911 brought the birth of Chris’s dad Frank.   At that point Christian was a machinist for the railroad and they were in Little Rock Arkansas.  From looking at the Little Rock directory they lived in a property that is still listed to a large railroad and could it have been railroad housing?  Side note Chris and Marie remember an Uncle Vogel who visited from Chicago and they did not know the relation. When Christian and Louise lived in Louisville Vogel lived a few doors away and when they went to Little Rock he again lived a few doors away.  They were obviously friends and took the job together.

1923 still showed Christian, Louise and Frank in Little Rock.   Frank had told his daughters he could remember a cross being burned in a neighbor’s yard by the KKK and they left not long after.  By 1926 they are in Milwaukee directory and Christian is shown as Sec/Treasurer for Crown Machine at 809 Winnebago St.   Initially they are listed as living at a house that could be in the same building, and this address is in a neighborhood lost to Freeway expansion, basically next to the Pabst complex.  Also interesting that in Christian’s WW2 draft registration in 1940 he is a machinist for Miller Brewing.  Not long after moving to Milwaukee they are shown living on 8^th Street.  Frank grew up here and in 1928 is listed as a salesman for Diamond Market!  At this address we believe was Adelrich and his wife Anita; and Adelrich was a butcher who now ran his own grocery store there.  Note that Frank was a butcher the rest of his life. 

Louise’s brother Franz Moritz married Lucille and they stayed in the Louisville area.   Chris doesn’t believe that there was a lot of contact with them and her parents.   Franz and Lucille had 2 girls that we have not yet been able to follow.  We did find Franz and Lucille’s gravestones in Kentucky and a possible one on one of the daughters.  Adelrich and Anita had 2 children, Geraldine and Adelrich.  Geraldine married Rudy Pechacek we still keep in touch with their daughter Jackie in Florida.  Adelrich married Isabelle and they had several children including Brian, who you may have heard of by his nickname Kato Kaelin and a friend to OJ!  Louise’s sister Theresa married Paul Kehrli.  Theresa had moved to Milwaukee and met Paul and they lived there until 1958 and then moved to Wintergarden Florida.  Father Franz also moved to Milwaukee and lived with son Adelrich until he passed away in October 1932.

It has been a fun challenge to keep filling in the blanks and more to do.   Made more fun because it helps keep up the contacts with extended family.  When I went along to Switzerland we had tour guides Charles and his wife Annemarie, Charles brother and wife, Walter and Yolanda, and Charles sister Rosie. Also another cousin Emil who had lived in Milwaukee and worked for Gehl dairy.  He had a great memory and could still list off the members of the early Braves teams.  He had gone back to Switzerland to marry Bertha and raise their family.  Unfortunately we lost Emil this year. Charles sister Rosie we met in Switzerland and here in the states, and unfortunately she has passed.  Charles sister Elizabeth came to the states, to start in Milwaukee, then worked for the airlines.  She has great stories of her life and lives in Ocala Florida.   Charles had worked for Swiss Air in New York and uses his perks to try and visit Elizabeth when he can. 

So even if you have kids or grandkids that don’t seem to care about the past, we recommend writing down all you can for them now.  Someday it might help, although the suspense of the hunt is good too.