We're halfway through the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge! The topic of week 26 is Identity. My dad never met his paternal grandfather, Stanley Turner, and his paternal grandmother, Emilie, died in 1955 when my father was five. He saw her maybe a handful of times and didn’t remember her. Though he knew little about these grandparents, he was clear on one fuzzy point. His grandmother, Emilie, was adopted. She was either born a Wolf and adopted by Wagners or born a Wagner and adopted by Wolfs. He didn’t know which and knew nothing about her birth family or adopted family, other than the obvious fact that both were German. The only other nugget of information my dad was able to offer up was Emilie’s birthplace, which he believed was Boston.
Working backwards, I started with what I knew for a fact – that she married my great-grandfather, Stanley Turner. I was able to locate their marriage license which gave me a bunch of information. They applied for their marriage license on May 26, 1905, and were married in Boston on June 14, 1905. Stanley, age 29, was listed as a grocer. Emilie C. Wolf, age 32, was listed as a clerk. Her address was given as Adams Street in Boston. Her parents were Ferdinand Wolf and Caroline Steltz, but I still didn’t know whether they were her biological parents or her adopted parents.
I found her Boston birth record, which confirmed the names of her birth parents and provided some additional useful information about them. Emilie was born Amelia Caroline Wolf on July 16, 1872, to parents Ferdinand and Caroline Wolf. Ferdinand, a designer, was born in Brooklyn, New York, and Caroline was born in New Jersey. Now I was on the hunt to gather whatever information I could find about this family and try to uncover the names of Emilie’s adoptive parents.
My Wolf family was on the 1880 census in Brooklyn, New York. Ferdinand was again listed as a designer. He was 40 years old, born about 1840 in New York, and both of his parents were born in Germany. Caroline, listed as Carrie in the census, was 26 years old, born about 1854 in New Jersey, and like Ferdinand, both of her parents were German immigrants. In addition to Emilie/Amelia, their children were Minnie (5), Ida (3), and Dora (2). All of their children, with the exception of Dora who was born in Illinois, were born in Massachusetts, and I was able to locate their Massachusetts birth records. The family was likely in Boston from Emilie’s birth in 1872 to Ida’s birth in 1876. From there they spent at least some time in Illinois before moving to Brooklyn. The 1890 census was of course, destroyed. I couldn’t find the family on the 1900 census, and besides, Emilie’s adoption must have occurred before she became an adult. Her adoption had to take place between 1880 when she was living with her parents, and 1890 when she turned 18. I had to find the dates of her parents’ deaths.
I learned that the Wolfs welcomed another daughter into their family in January of 1881, Anna L. Helen Wolf, named after Caroline's youngest sister. She was born in Manhattan. Little Dora died in February of that same year in Boston, and Caroline died April 1, 1881 in a German hospital in Manhattan. She was buried the following day in Niehken Cemetery. I searched for a death-date for Ferdinand between 1881 and 1890…. but I didn’t find one. Instead, I learned that Ferdinand died in 1911 in Brooklyn – six years after Emilie’s marriage. Why was Emilie adopted if her father was still alive? Were her sisters adopted as well?
In many cases, family members adopted children if their parents died or were unable to care for them, so I decided to look at Ferdinand and Caroline’s families and work my way out. Ferdinand had three elder brothers and one younger brother. Even though their last name was Wolf, I traced their families and there was no sign that Emilie or her sisters ever lived with any of them. Caroline’s family was a different story.
Caroline had an elder sister, two younger sisters, and a younger brother. Her eldest sister, Wilhelmina “Minnie” Steltz married Henry R. Wagner in Boston in 1876. On the 1900 census, her family was living on Adams Street in Boston – the same address on Emilie’s 1905 marriage license. Their five children were listed, as well as three nieces: Emily C. Wagner, Wilhelmina Wagner, and Ida C. Wagner. Because they were listed with their aunt and uncle’s Wagner surname, it was impossible to find them through an index search under the Wolf surname. Emilie’s sister, Anna L. Helen Wolf, died in 1897, and her home address was also listed as Adams Street, which means Minnie and Henry Wagner took in all four of their nieces.
While it was common for family members to take in nieces and nephews when their parents died, more often than not, siblings would be divided up among different family members so as not to overwhelm one family with the sudden addition of several children. It’s unusual that the Wagners took in all of the girls. Assuming they took them in shortly after Caroline’s death in 1881, the young Wagner family already had two sons, and were possibly expecting their third. They willingly doubled their family, which is incredible and kind. There were many other aunts and uncles on both sides, as well as a living grandparent, Caroline Berhardt Steltz, who could have taken in some of the girls. Given that Minnie and Caroline were two years apart, Caroline named her second daughter after Minnie, and Minnie and Henry took in all their nieces, the sisters must have loved one another dearly.
Minnie and Henry were a typical working-class family during the Industrial Revolution, and were able to provide their children and nieces with a comfortable, albeit not ritzy life. They may have had a sweet life though! Henry’s occupation was listed as a confectioner and a caterer on various censuses and directories, so he probably brought home treats for them on occasion. It’s still unclear to me why they took in the girls when their father, Ferdinand Wolf, was living. He had to work, and the girls were too young to take care of themselves, so placing them with the Wagners makes sense as a temporary solution. Most men in those circumstances would quickly remarry though, and then bring their children back home. To the best of my knowledge, Ferdinand never remarried and never reclaimed his children. Did Ferdinand feel it was cruel to move them from the familiarity of their aunt and uncle’s home after so many years or did Minnie and Henry refuse to give them up? Why did Ferdinand remain in New York when his children were being raised in Boston? He was a carpenter (designer). Any large city would have plenty of work for someone with his skills. I haven’t been able to find anything particularly positive or negative about Ferdinand to add clarity. He died from a hemorrhage caused by arterial sclerosis in a Brooklyn home for the aged and infirm in 1910.
Emilie Caroline (Wolf) Turner and her husband, Stanley, lived at various times in Massachusetts and Maine, with a short stint in Rhode Island where their youngest child, Edith, was born. For years they had a small farm in Amesbury, Massachusetts, and moved back to Stanley’s hometown of Mount Vernon, Maine when his father became ill. Emilie outlived Stanley by eleven years. She spent the last eight years of her life in the home of her daughter, Edith (Turner) Waite in Vienna, Maine. She was confined to her bed with failing health and dementia during her final few years. She died in 1955 at the age of 83. I wish I knew more about Emilie and what she was like. I don’t know what sort of a relationship, if any, she maintained with her father, nor do I know if she maintained any contact with her aunt, uncles, sisters, or cousins after she married Stanley. She thought highly enough of her Wagner family to name my grandfather Frederick Wagner Turner as a tribute to them, so that says something. Though there are few things I know about Emilie, at least I solved the Wolf/Wagner mystery. Emilie was born a Wolf and was raised by her Aunt Minnie and Uncle Henry Wagner.
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