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Uncovering
Our Feige Roots
This “Uncovering Our Roots” section for each
family explains how my father (Leonard H. Hellmers, Sr.) and I discovered
the home community of each immigrant ancestor in the Hellmers-Neff
family.
Norman D. Hellmers
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When
my Dad and I started looking into the German origins of Caroline Feige
Landwehr, we had a great advantage. Caroline lived until 1928 and in
the last years of her life, she lived with her daughter and son-in-law,
Dad's great-aunt Della and her husband, Jacob Bauer. When Dad
was growing up, the Bauers lived in the next block from the Hellmers
family on France Street, and after the death of his father in 1932, my
Dad seemed to look upon Uncle Jake as a second father.
In their later life, the Bauers lived on Pass Road in Biloxi and we
visited them often. It was somewhat rural then and I always thought of their place as
being in the "country." Aunt Della and Uncle Jake were always accommodating.
When we asked them about Aunt Della's mother, Caroline, they shared
with us everything they could remember, along with a number of photographs
and several documents.
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One
document they loaned to us was the will of Caroline's father,
Johann Heinrich Feige. He died in Bentheim in January 1899. The will
included a list of all of his children who were alive at the time. In
his will, he specifically mentioned Caroline: “All my personal
property shall be sold at auction to the highest bidder, and my
daughter Caroline in America shall get her fair share.” Since Caroline
was included, she received her own copy of the executed will. (The
whereabouts of the original
of this document is no longer known, but we have a photocopy and
a transcription and translation.)
A page from the will.
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The
will
also included the fact that Johann Heinrich Feige was the retired court
clerk or bailiff in Bentheim, Germany. Having this place name was what
was needed to begin research on the Feige roots in Germany. On 15 December 1977, I sent a letter to the
church in Bentheim, asking for information on Caroline Feige, who I assumed was born there. In February 1978, I
received a response from Herr Hein Schlüter, who was the volunteer
"ehrenamtlicher Kirchenbuchforscher der ev. ref. Kirchengemeinde in
Bentheim," that is, the official churchbook researcher for the
Evangelical Reformed Church in Bentheim. We
learned from Hein Schlüter that Caroline was in fact not born in
Bentheim, but that both her parents had died there. We were sent the
death records for both. The exciting news was that the record for
Caroline's mother indicated that her father was a "Forstaufseher"
(forest overseer) in Escherode (Münden). This gave us another location to search for information on the Feige family.
On 26 March 1978, I wrote to the church in Escherode, but did not
receive a response. I later wrote to the Niedersächsisches
Staatsarchiv in Wolfenbüttel inquiring about the Escherode
churchbooks. They did not have them. I then wrote to the
Genealogisch-Heraldische Gesellschaft in Göttingen,
asking for their assistance. I received a response from Herr Max
Christoph Naumann, outlining his charges (20 Deutschmarks per hour for searching
in the church records and 50 Pfennig per kilometer for driving) and
saying that he could make a research trip to Escherode, which was 40
kilometers from his home in Göttingen. We were happy to take him up on his offer.
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Max
Naumann responded on 21 March 1979, reporting that he had been to
Escherode and had great success, since many of
Caroline's ancestors had been in that area for hundreds of years.
He
sent us baptism records for five of the Feige children, including Caroline, and pedigree
charts taking Caroline's ancestors back several generations into the
1600s.
One of three pedigree charts from Max Naumann
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Once we had information about Caroline's ancestors, we turned back to the
Feige family in Bentheim. I sent Hein Schlüter a letter dated 16
April 1979 seeking information on the younger Feige children who were
likely born there, since they were not born in Escherode. Hein soon provided
this information and offered to help further. In July 1979, I advised
Hein that Dad and I would be visiting Germany in September and October
and I asked whether he would be available to help us review the
churchbooks and visit the church. He was ready to help us in any way he
could.
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On Monday, 1 October 1979, Dad and I visited the
church in Escherode and were assisted personally by Pastor
Hans-Herrmann Achilles, who served the church from 1969 to 1990. Pastor
Achilles gave us access to the church office and let us search the
records and make photocopies as we wished.
Leonard and Norman Hellmers in the Escherode church office
Photo by Pastor Hans-Herrmann Achilles
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On
Thursday, 4 October, we arrived in Bentheim and telephoned Hein
Schlüter. We drove to his home and met his wife Friedlinde and their new daughter, Jelske.
During our visit in Bentheim, Hein showed us the inside and
outside of the church, helped
us look up records in the churchbooks, and took us on a tour of
Bentheim's primary attraction, the 1000-year-old castle that overlooks
the city.
Norman Hellmers and Hein Schlüter, October 1979,
searching in the original churchbooks in Bentheim.
Photo by Leonard H. Hellmers, Sr.
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Leonard H. Hellmers, Sr.
at the Evangelical Reformed Church in Bentheim.
Photo by Norman Hellmers |
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Most of Caroline's
siblings eventually moved from Bentheim, so we sent letters to other
churches (Clausthal, Salzbergen, and Lingen/Ems)
regarding the Habich family and inquiries were sent to the
Niedersächsischen Staatsarchiv in Osnabrück regarding the
Beckmann, Brüggemann, and Heinrich Feige families.
The descendants of Johann Heinrich Feige moved around a great deal
within Germany. Some moved close to Bremen, so in 1983 we
contacted Walter Sassenberg of Bremen (who had done research for us on
our
Hellmers family) and asked if he could help us find out what became of
those Feige families in Germany. He had some success and put us in
touch with
Karl-Ernst Kaiser, a descendant of Caroline Feige's sister Sophie. As a
young boy, Karl-Ernst had written letters for his family after World
War II to the
Bauer-Landwehr family in New Orleans, but the families had lost contact
over the years. Karl-Ernst was delighted to be reconnected
with his American cousins.
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In addition to providing information on his
family, Karl-Ernst Kaiser mailed us a package of about 75 historic photographs of
the Feige family in Germany, and pictures from New Orleans that
Caroline had sent to her sister in Germany. Thankfully the family had
preserved these photographs through both World Wars and several moves.
The pictures included many like this one of Heinrich Landwehr (Henry
Landwehr, Jr.), the oldest child of Heinrich and Caroline Feige
Landwehr. Caroline corresponded with her sister Sophie and shared
photos from special events, such as confirmations and weddings. Without
the generosity of Karl-Ernst, the family in New Orleans would never
have seen these photographs.
Henry Landwehr, Jr. later married Anna Louise Neff.
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In
April 2008, with my wife Pat and son Jeffrey, I was able to
visit Karl-Ernst and Gertrud Kaiser in their home in a
suburb of Bremen, including their son Herbert and
his wife Bärbel, and their granddaughter Stephanie. In August of 2008,
Karl-Ernst and Gertrud celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary.
| Karl-Ernst Kaiser and Gertrud in 2008 |
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| Daddy had memories
of his great-grandmother Caroline Feige Landwehr from his boyhood and
seemed especially attached to this branch of his family. He was
delighted that we were able to visit both Escherode (the birthplace of
Caroline Feige) and Bentheim (the place from which she emigrated as a
young woman). Through research and our trips to Germany, we now know a great
deal about the Feige family. None of this would have been possible
without the
assistance of Max Christoph Naumann, Hein Schlüter, and cousin
Karl-Ernst Kaiser. |