Eva Wilhelmina Strandt

 After last week's blog about William F. Strandt, I received a request wanting to know more about William's oldest daughter, Eva. This week's blog is what I've been able to piece together about Eva Wilhelmina Strandt. She also sorta fits the prompt for this week which is "War and Peace." 

Eva Wilhelmina Strandt was born April 20, 1899 in Allegan, Michigan to Mary and William Strandt. She lived with her parents on a farm belonging to her grandparents, Carl FT and Wilhelmina "Amena" Strandt in Allegan. Eva was soon joined by siblings Carl, Ruth and Howard. The family also moved from Michigan to Illinois and back to Michigan again. At the age of 18 Eva followed in her mother's footsteps and became a teacher in a rural school. She lived at home and taught school for many years. 

On January 11, 1923 she married Reed Hayes, an auto mechanic. They lived in Kalamazoo, Michigan. In 1929, or earlier, a daughter was born to them, Ruth Marilyn Hayes. Ruth was born after the death of Eva's sister, Ruth. My guess is that she named her daughter after her beloved sister. Ruth's early death seemed to bring great sadness to the Strandt family.

On January 20, 1934 Eva was granted a divorce from Reed Hayes. In the petition Eva cites extreme and repeated cruelty, and non support for reason for divorce. Reed didn't contest it. In talking to Eva's granddaughter, she relayed a story her grandmother told her about her first husband. Eva said that he had asked her to move to Florida with him so he could find work there. Eva refused, on the grounds that she wanted to stay and help her mother stay safe. Whatever the real reason was, after the divorce Reed did move to Florida where he remarried and had another child. Eva stayed in Kalamazoo with daughter Ruth.

The 1940 Federal Census finds Eva and Ruth living in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Eva supports herself and Ruth by teaching. Her income was $926, with no other source of income. 

On August 14, 1943 Eva married for a second time. She married Robert G. Kiser, who was originally from South Dakota. He worked in a local paper mill. Eva still worked as a teacher. In February 1948, daughter Ruth marries Jack Jones and moves out. A year later in 1949 her daughter Marilyn Eva is born. Eva is now a grandmother.

Eva and Robert live in Kalamazoo. Eva's daughter has moved to Orlando, Florida after the death of her husband in 1952. On one of her trips back home to visit family in December, daughter Ruth goes for a ride in a car with her cousin Charles Strandt, son of Howard. With them is Ruth's daughter Marilyn. While driving, a postal truck hits the car they are riding in. All 3 occupants are injured. Ruth dies later at the hospital, Charles survives, but with crippling injuries for life. Marilyn is severely injured but survives. Eva takes Marilyn in and helps raise her.

Marilyn remembers Eva as a kind woman. Eva never spoke to Marilyn about the conflict with her brother Carl. One day Eva drove Marilyn past the farm and told her her oldest brother Carl, his wife, and four children lived there, but no more was said about Carl. Eva also didn't mention any of the Strandt relatives in Chicago either. Eva and Howard did talk and associate, but I think there may have been a falling out with Howard after the tragic car accident. Marilyn does remember visiting William and Mary when they were older, and when they went to live in a nursing home before their deaths.

At some point after the deaths of William and Mary, Eva and Robert moved to Tampa, Florida. There they remained until their deaths. Robert passing away in 1967, and Eva passing away in 1980, at the age of 81.

Eva loved to teach and taught many children over the years. She also spent 5 years teaching children with Special Needs. She spoke both High and Low German, and drove a Model T in her younger days. Like her brother Howard, she supported the Republican party. 

Eva had a lot of trials and tribulations in her life, but she seemed to deal with everything with grace and dignity. Always trying to help others. Her granddaughter Marilyn had very fond memories of her. 

Mary, baby Eva, William Strandt.

Eva and 2 boys on horse. Perhaps Carl and Howard?

Ruth Marilyn Hayes, Eva's daughter

From the Tampa Tribune 1980

Transportation

 This week's prompt was "Transportation." I decided to write on the different means of transportation my ancestors used to get to Michigan. 

The first means of transportation used to get to Michigan is good old walking by foot. When Great Grandma Mildred Strand sat down and asked her grandfather, David Bellinger how he came to Michigan, he replied his father Oliver Bellinger was given a piece of land near Grand Rapids by the government. Oliver walked from near Cleveland, Ohio to Grand Rapids to claim it. The land proved to be too swampy to farm so he traded it to a man for an overcoat and moved further south. He found land near the Kalamazoo River and that's where he settled. 

Walking is certainly one means, but it takes a long time. Another means of transportation to get to Michigan was horse and wagon. In a biographical sketch done on my great, great grandfather Orville Ashley,(grandfather to Lois Ashley Thompson) it states that he came to Michigan with his parents when he was 10 years old from New York. His parents, Joseph and Mary Ashley had a 2 horse wagon team. They came from New York via Ohio where they rested for 6 weeks, and bought a cow. Then, they and the cow continued on to Michigan where they settled in Allegan County. 

Of course, before you can walk or ride to Michigan you have to get to America. The only way to get to America before jet airplanes was boat. Karl and Wilhelmina Strandt, (grandparents to Carl Strandt,) and their 3 children boarded the Hansa ship in Hamburg and sailed to Hull, England. They were in Steerage. Something I found out recently, but makes sense, is that immigrants on board ship had to bring their own supply of food with them on their journey to America. They didn't have All You Can Eat Buffets on the ship. Immigrants would bring their own food and be allowed to fix it and eat it every day. So, they not only had to pack their clothes and belongings, but they also had to pack food and supplies to get them to America. 

When Carl and Ulrika Andersson, parents of Malvina Anderson Henrickson, left Sweden to sail to America, they sailed on a ship named Orlando to get to Hull, England. From Hull, immigrants would take a train, included in the price of the passenger ticket to Liverpool. At Liverpool they would board their final ship to America. 

Of course in later years I'm sure some ancestors came to Michigan via railway and automobile. I just haven't found any written records of that. When I read about ancestors walking to Michigan, or how long and arduous the journey by ship was across the Atlantic, I'm amazed we're here at all! Travel, no matter how frustrating today, is definitely easier than it was in the 19th century. 

Lela Mae Thompson

 In honor of Women's History Month I decided this month to write about some of the incredible women ancestors I've discovered in my research. The first up is my great grandaunt Lela Mae Thompson. She was sister to my great grandfather Frank Thompson.

Lela was born November 22, 1894 at her parent's home in Allegan, Michigan. She was the fourth of eight children. When she was 14 she heard a nurse talk about her work in China at church. Lela had always been interested in helping the sick and injured. After hearing this nurse talk, Lela decided that she, too, wanted to be a nurse. When she informed her parents, they were against this idea. They told her that if she wanted to be a nurse, no money would be given to her. She would have to earn it herself.

Lela worked as a nanny caring for the 2 small children of a couple, even moving to Grand Rapids with them when they moved. She also was able to take some classes in High School. She then went to work at the D.A. Blodgett boarding school for children. She helped care for 120 children aged from babies to 15. She worked there long enough to earn the $350 needed for 3 years of nursing school.

On September 22, 1919 she entered the Butterworth Hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan and began nursing school. Her parents were still opposed, and even the family doctor had tried to persuade her not to become a nurse. He did give her these words of advice though: "Since I see that you are determined to take up nursing, which is a wonderful profession, I hope that you will carry with you these ideals: Be courteous, sympathetic, thoughtful and kind with your patients. At all times be calm. Do not look for praise. Be interested in every patient."

Lela lived at the hospital with 2 other roommates. She gained practical experience from working in the hospital and took classes from the Junior College in Grand Rapids. After 3 years she graduated. Circumstances prevented her family from attending her graduation ceremony, but the family she had been a nanny to showed up and clapped for her when she received her diploma. She said she had never felt closer to anyone before.

On November 22, 1922, her birthday, she was appointed Pediatric Supervisor at Butterworth Hospital. She worked there for 3 years before accompanying a friend on a vacation to Orlando, Florida. 

When she came to Orlando, it was in the wintertime. She said she saw the city and the beautiful weather and decided that she didn't want to go back to Michigan. She interviewed for and was offered a job at Orange Memorial Hospital, known today as Orlando Regional Medical Center. She mailed her letter of resignation and only went back to collect her belongings.  She worked at Orange Memorial for the remainder of her nursing career. Her specialty was in the maternity ward where she delivered an estimated 40 thousand of babies. 

In January 1930 Lela married William Stokes but never had any children of her own. She retired from nursing in 1968.

In 1985 funds were raised to name the delivery unit's head nurse's office at the soon to be built Arnold Palmer Children's Hospital after Lela.

Great Aunt Lela appeared on the Fall 2018 cover of "Reflections" the quarterly magazine ;put out by the Historical Society of Central Florida on their issue of Orlando Health 100 years of caring. 

Lela Thompson Stokes is an inspiration.