Sarah Hazel Edwards

Notes:

BonnieJacobs shows that she married first Roland W. PRICE, on 20 Dec 1916 (Columbia County, Wisconsin Marriage records, 14-124). She further notes that in the 1931 disposition of the estate of George W. Benkelman, Hazel is named as Hazel BENTLEY.

Sarah married Floyd Russel Bentley on 7 Jul 1919 in Lansing, Ingham County, Michigan. Floyd was born on 26 Apr 1896 in Tabor, Fremont County, Iowa; died on 10 Jan 1953 in Madison, Dane County, Wisconsin. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Kendall Owen Bentley was born on 21 Jun 1920 in Madison, Dane County, Wisconsin; died on 15 Jun 1996 in Norfolk (Independent City), Virginia.
2. Living
3. Living
4. Living

Notes:

Said to be the son of William J. Edwards and Mary Elizabeth Owens, who also shows his place of brith as Caledonia Twp, Columbia County, Wisconsin. (Harold Henderson, hhsh@earthlink.net)

(Research):

Census Listings:


1900 Census
Wisconsin, Sauk County, Baraboo, 2nd ward
220 241
Edwards, Thos. O. head WM Oct 1871 28 M & WI WAL WAL contractor & carpenter
Minnie wife WF Aug 1866 33 M 7 2 2 WI PA GER
Pearl dau W F Aug 1893 6 S WI WI WI at school
Hazel dau W F Sep 1895 4 S WI WI WI

Henderson, Harold (hhsh@earthlink.net) "Ancestor Exchange!" Versin 2009-05-20 ; http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=hendersonscholes

Thomas married Minnie A. Benkelman on 17 Aug 1892 in Lewiston, Columbia County, Wisconsin. Minnie (daughter of Johannes "John" Benkelman and Sarah Jane Keech) was born on 28 Aug 1866 in Lima Center, Rock County, Wisconsin; died in Feb 1901 in Baraboo, Sauk County, Wisconsin. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Married:
Could this marriage have actually been in 1882? Lorraine Smith Benkelman cites a letter written from Portage, Wisconsin, on August 13, 1882, from Minnie to her cousin G. A. Striffler. She announced she was to be married on August 17. It is more likely that Lorraine mistranscribed the year of the letter, as Minnie was only 15 in 1882.

Married by Lyman B. Webb, Methodist elder, witnesses Chas. Mathison & Cor a Benkleman
"Minnie A. Benkleman" v4 p 0145 on 17 Aug 1892 in Lewiston, Columbia County, Wisconsin

Henderson, Harold (hhsh@earthlink.net) "Ancestor Exchange!" Version 2009-05-20 ; http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=hendersonscholes

BonnieMargaret Jacobs writes that Thomas Edwards was "of Baraboo" and that after their marriage the young couple lived in that town, where Thomas worked as a contractor-carpenter. Minnie died of consumption when her daughters were still young, and as a result they were carried for by relatives of their fathers in Baraboo during remainder of their childhood. They later moved back to Portage, where they were married.

Notes:

Johannes Benkelmann was referenced as applying to emigrate to North America in 1850 by Schenk, Trudy and Froelke, Ruth The W?rttemberg Emigration Index Salt Lake City: Ancestry, Vol. 5. 1988. 240 p. Source Code 8057.8, p 14. Also indexed with hims were Johann Adam and Catharine Benkelman (1851) and Johan Georg Benkelman (1850). Census records indicate he emigrated in 1852, though German church records show that actually "ist 1851 ausgewandert."

BonnieMargaret Jacobs wrote that Johannes, at the age of 15, made the journey to America with his older brother, Adam, and Adam's new wife, Catharina Schaufele. When the three of them left, they not only had to receive a release from the authorities that they had no outstanding debts, they also were required to have someone remaining in Germany to act as guarantor for any unknown debts that might later be discovered. Eldest brother Friedrich act as guarantor for Adam, whereas Johann Georg Stager, a citizen and farmer in B?rtlingen, was the guarantor of Johannes. Johannes arrived in Hamburg to depart for the United States a few days later than Adam and Catherine, June 23, 1851 versus June 19, but BonnieMargaret assumed they travelled on the same ship, (p. 81).

He is said to have stayed in New York for some period, presumably with Adam and Catherine, before later leaving for Milwaukee, Wisconsin with another brother, Leonard. Leonard later moved to Manitowoc, Wisconsin, whereas Johannes remained near Milwaukee, in Rock County. It was here that John was married in 1857, and from census records it is apparent he and Sarah moved to several other states before returning to Wisconsin.

He was a Private in Captain John Hauser's Company D, 48th Regiment, Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry from February 1865 to November 1865. His declaration for pension dated February 22, 1907 describes him as 6 feet an one-half inches tall, light complexion, gray eyes and brown hair. His occupation was shown as blacksmith.

BonnieMargaret writes that John and Sarah moved from Rock County sometime after the birth of daughter Minnie, going northwest to Columbia County where they were live out the rest of their lives, settling first in Marsalla and later in Lewiston. After John could not longer farm, due to rheumatism, they retired to the town of Portage. (p. 108).

The following article appeared in the Cass City Chronicle four months before John's death. An obituary was not located, however.

Cass City Chronicle
Friday, September 29, 1916

Mrs. M.M. Schwegler left Tuesday for Portage, Wisconsin to visit her brother, John Benkelman, who is in feeble health. Mrs. Schwegler is expected to remain there two weeks.

(Research):

Census Information:

1860 Census
Illinois, Wayne County, DuPage, P.O. Wayne Station
Page 358
2630 2681
John Binkleman 24 M Blacksmith $2000 $300 Wittemberg
Sarah Binkleman 26 F Penn
Emma Binkleman 2 F Ohio
Louisa Binkleman 1 F Ohio
Wm. Keech 24 M Blacksmith Penn

1870 Federal Census
Wisconsin, Columbia County, Marcellon, P.O. Randolph
Enumerated 1 June 1870
Page 21, Stamped 213
166-172
Benkelman, John 34 M W Farmer $1000 $428 Wertemburg
Benkelman, Sarah 36 F W Keeping House Pennsylvania
Benkelman, Franklin 6 M W At home Iowa
Benkelman, Minnie A 4 At Home Wisconsin
Divina, Mary 25 F W At Home Wertemburg


1880 Federal Census
Census Place:Marcellon, Columbia, Wisconsin Source:FHL Film 1255420 National Archives Film T9-1420
Page 17 RelationSexMarrRaceAgeBirthplace
John BENKELMAN Self M M W 44 W?rttemberg Occ: Blacksmith And Farmer Fa: W?rttemberg Mo: W?rttemberg
Sarah J. BENKELMAN Wife F M W 45 PA Occ: Keeping House Fa: PA Mo: PA
Franklin BENKELMAN Son M S W 16 IA Occ: At Home Fa: W?rttemberg Mo: PA
Minne BENKELMAN Dau F S W 13 WI Occ: At Home Fa: W?rttemberg Mo: PA
Leonard J. BENKELMAN Son M S W 7 WI Fa: W?rttemberg Mo: PA
Cora E. BENKELMAN Dau F S W 3 WI Fa: W?rttemberg Mo: PA

1910 Census
Wisconsin, Columbia County, Portage City, Ward 1
Enumerated 18 Apr 1910
SD 2 ED 26 Sheet 4B
220-37-38
Benkelmann, John Hd M W 74 m1 52 Ger-German Ger-German Ger-German
Benkelmann, Sarah Wf F W 75 m1 52 7/2 Pa Pa Pa
Benkelmann, Frank Son M W 46 S Iowa Ger/German Pa Laborer Odd Jobs
Benkelmann, Lenard Son m W 45 Wd Wisc Ger/German Pa Laborer Odd Jobs
Benkelman, John Jr Grandson M W 14 S Wisc Wisc Wisc
Benkelman, Myrtle Granddtr F W 10 S Wisc Wisc Wisc

Johannes married Sarah Jane Keech on 7 Jun 1857 in Emerald Grove, Rock County, Wisconsin. Sarah was born on 24 Aug 1834 in Pennsylvania; died on 28 Nov 1921 in Portage, Columbia County, Wisconsin. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Married:
BonnieMargaret Jacobs writes that their first three children, Emma, George and Louisa, all died of fever (p. 107), Emma first, who was a few month past her fourth birthday, George died a month later, still just a baby, and then finally Louisa, some five months later, at age 3 and 1/2.

BonnieMargaret also noted that "The Benkelmans of Portage are buried in Silver Lake Cemetery, but the only record of that is with the cemetery sexton. None of the graves bears a marker. (p. 112).

Notes:

In a 1979 letter that Margaret-Bonnie Jacobs wrote to Ben Benkelman, Jr she said: "You may have heard from one source or another that I'm putting together rather a comprehensive history of the Benkelman family. To date, it's taken me most of my time just to track the original 10 immigrants and get them firmly placed and dated and documented. This year I am concentrating on the reach back to Germany. I have hired a genealogist there to see how far back we can go with the family before the mass emigration of the '50s. Just by collecting the data on the 10 immigrant children I have learned a great deal. All of the boys were artisans with trades. In Germany that usually meant long apprenticeships. Since Adam and his brothers and sisters were born in different villages I assume the father, Leonhard, was also a tradesman of some sort rather than a farmer."

BonnieMargaret later concluded they were all actually born at the Schneiderhof, across from Breech, on the outskirts of B?rtlingen, and Parish records discovered later showed Leonhard's occupation as bricklayer

In her 1981 unpublished manuscript, BonnieMargaret wrote that "On February 6, 1796 Johann Leonhard Benkelmann was born to Katharina Bauer, and according to the parish record, he was born at the Schneiderhof. The pastor dutifully recorded that he was unehelic (illegitimately) born and that he bore the name of his unehelic father, Johann Jacob Benkelmann of Pl?derhausen. BonnieMargaret indicated that His mother was refered to on Leonhard's and his wife Dorothea's family register page as "Maria Katharina, frueher des Johannes Haeller auf dem Schneiderhof Ehefrau geborene Bauerin." This means that she was then the wife of Johann Haeller, and was born Maria Bauer. (pp. 56-58)

When Leonhard's father, Johann Jacob, married another woman the year after Leonhard's birth, he was first required to provide 75 of the 200 florins he had inheritied from his grandfather to his "Weibsbild" for the upbringing of his son born out of wedlock. (p. 58)

Leonhard was only 2l when his stepfather died , and as a result became the head of his mother's household. He must have discharged all of his responsiblities admirably, because only five years later he was allowed to be married to Dorothea St?hle, the daughter of a respected citizen and farmer of B?rtlingen. (Jacobs, p. 70).

On the Parish records, he is referred to as a "Bauer and Maurer"...farmer and bricklayer.

After Leonhard's death early in 1848, each of his 10 children that had survived into maturity emigrated to the United States. The first to leave was his namesake son, Leonhard, in the summer of 1849, who was age 21. The last was eldest son, Friedrich, and he left in 1873 at age 50, taking a large group of family members with him.

The Benkelmanns were not alone. A huge number of Germany left their homeland in and around 1848. This excerpt, from a website about the "The Origins of the Forty-Eighters" in Davenport, Iowa applies to the Benkelmann family as well, even though Leonhard and Dorothea's children instead settled in first in New York, and later Wisconsin, Michigan and Colorado, versus Iowa.

Letters ... sent back to Germany were instrumental to channeling the influx of immigrants from Germany.....

Historian Scott Christiansen explains the purpose of the letters:

"They wanted to tell their friends back home how good it was in America. And they tended to exaggerate a little bit, because they were lonely and liked to have some of their compatriots come over and join them."

The decision to emigrate from one's homeland is generally informed by two forces: the so-called push and pull forces. Letters from family and friends who had already settled in the new world certainly qualify as pull factors. Other such factors were the multitude of job opportunities, inexpensive, yet fertile cropland, and - especially important to the politically motivated Forty-Eighters - the guarantee of democratic liberties such as freedom of speech and expression.

Many of the push factors are related to the causes of the German revolution. As the social and economic conditions in Germany worsened during the 1840s, many people were forced to look for new opportunities. [E]migration has become a matter of life or death, as one German newspaper put it. America with its promise of a new chance for everyone appealed to many Germans ready to emigrate. Reports from America, printed in German newspapers, underscored this notion. Iowa, for example, was described in 1847 as leaving little to be desired both to the productivity of its soil and the more bearable nature of its climate.

While economic necessity might have been a major driving force for many to emigrate, political reasons also factored into the decision to leave the homeland. In fact, the Forty-Eighters are per definition political refugees who for the most part did not struggle financially. But one might argue that a majority of emigrants regarded both political circumstances and economic distress as making life in Germany unbearable. The causes for emigration thus intermingle in many cases.

The strong early presence ...triggered a chain migration...in succeeding years. The term chain migration is defined by the Dictionary of Geography as [a] migration process which depends on a small number of pioneers, who make the first moves to set up a new home in a new place. They send information back home, and this encourages further migration from the originating area.

BonnieMargaret Jacob's cited similar reasons in her manuscript, pointing out the decrease of demail for high-quality goods of the small town artisan, the reluctance of these artisians to move to cities to work in factories, the restrictive craftsman guild system that made it difficult to learn and advance in a trade, and the equally restrictive marriage laws.

"The auswanderer went less to America to build something new than to regain and conserve something old...to till new fields and find new customers, true enough, but ultimately to keep the ways of life they were used to, which the new Europe seemed determined to destroy...people who traveled thousands of grim miles in order to keep their roots, their habits, their united families and the kind of future they wanted for their families. They did not wait passively for their roots to be broken, to be sure; yet they were conservatives, who acted radically in order to preserve, and who journeyed to another world to keep their homes." (Walker, Mack, GERMANY AND THE EMIGRATION 1816-1885, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1964, Page 69, as transcribed by BonnieMargaret Jacobs on pages 77 and 78 of her manuscript).

Johann married Maria Dorothea St?hle on 20 Nov 1822 in Schneiderhof, Waldhausen Parish, Welzheim, Jagstkreis, W?rttemberg, Germany. Maria (daughter of Georg Friedrich St?hle and Anna Maria Leins) was born on 5 Jan 1800 in B?rtlingen, G?ppingen, Donaukreis, W?rttemberg, Germany; died on 22 Oct 1853 in Transit to America, Lost At Sea. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

On "January something" in 1983, Bonnie Jacobs wrote "A search for some years has finally yielded information for me. As you have probably heard, the last of the 10 Benkelman children to emigrate from Germany were the four girls and their mother [Dorothea, age 52, and daughters Dorothea age 23, Catharina, age 21, Maria, age 13, and Lena, age 7]. We had heard from family legends that the mother died at sea and I have pursued that information for years. I have finally retrieved it. It is a painstaking process to get the facts, but I finally found an obituary that identified the port of entry as Baltimore---a stroke of luck since Baltimore was one of the few American ports of entry that did have a Customs passenger list. I have retrieved the film from the Archives in Washington--but it has brought a new mystery. It is remarkable that finding the answer to one question almost always raises another. Missing from the party of four daughters and the mother is the second eldest daughter, Catharina. She was released from the Empire with the others on 20 September of 1853--but there is no record of her having arrived in Baltimore!

At least I have a death date on the mother now. She died at sea on 22 October, barely a month into the voyage. The ship arrived in Baltimore on December 15. Can you imagine being packed into one of those filthy sailing vessels for six to nine weeks? Try to imagine the day to day living with no privacy, no way to bathe or attend to personal needs and only buggy, dried food to eat! Our ancestors suffered much. I will go and try to retrieve the Captain's actual report now that I know the ship and the Captain--to see if a cause of death is listed. Cholera was rampant that year, but I think it was not the cause since the part of the list I have seen shows only one other death during the voyage."

BonnieMargaret Jacobs shows her, on her transcription of the familienregister page of the Benkelmann family, as a daughter of George Friedrich St?hle and Anna Maria REIK or RECH. However, Anna Maria REIK is actually the mother of Dorothea's daughter-in-law Catharina Schaufele, who married Dorothea's son Adam Benkelmann. Kathy Bonnell, on her transcription of G?ppingen church records, shows her mothers maiden name was LEINS. BonnieMargaret appears to have been simply confusing the two Anna Maria's. Additionally, the family register for the family of Georg Friedrich St?hle, listing his wife and children, shows his wife Anna Maria was born to Georg Friedrich Leins, a farmer.

On the Oberant Welzheim Emmigrants list, 1818-1891, She is listed as Maria Dorothea, Witwe (widow) des Bauers Johann Leonhard Benkelmann von Schneiderhof, Gd. Waldhausen geb. den 5ten Januar 1800. Their guarantor was Johann Georg St?hle, Bauer von B?rtlingen.

(BonnieMargaret's full source citation was: Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg, "Verzeichnis der Auswanderung aus dem Oberamt Welzheim 1818-1891" F 214 B?schel 91 Fortlaufende Number 42 [or possibly 47] ).

Notes:

Married:
BonnieMargaret and her husband Bruce visited Germany in September, 1980. In a letter to Ben and Avis dated October 13, 1980, she shared the following information "Then we were on to B?rtlingen, where Adam and Catherine were married. The church there was built in 1484 and is one of the most beautiful we saw anywhere. I decided to see the village of Breech--for no particular reason except I that I'd heard Elsie Anthes speak of it and it had turned up in various records. WE had no real family association there--but it was nearby. What a stroke of dumb luck! Without that decision we might never have found the Schneiderhof, where Adam and his siblings were born and lived until they emigrated. The Schneiderhof is not a town and is not on any map. It's just a cluster of about 4 houses and supporting buildings, just down and across the road from Breech, and if you were looking away for just a second, you'd miss the sign to it.

I cannot tell you my excitement! ...There is nothing new there. Adam would recognize it as if he had never left. The tools and equipment are there as they have been for who knows how long. It is surrounded by orchards (apples) and small plots of vegetables. B?rtlingen is on a hill and is lovely with good views. The Schneiderhof is on top of the world, looking out on miles of hills and valleys and villages. It is incrediably beautiful. Again I found myself out in some cabbage patch, trying to explain to some farmer that this was my family heimat (home)...Clearly Americans are accepted as eccentric and harmless!...Vocabulary doesn't reach the beauty of that hilltop and its vistas out over hazy valleys, looking at other hills where red tiled houses form little villages. I can just imagine it at night--looking out over perhaps two dozen sparkling little villages on other hills around. One climbs from B?rtlingen to the Schneiderhof. But going down the back side of the mountain, through dense forest, the trail winds back and forth across the mountain into Waldhausen--which the Schneiderhof also looks down upon. This is the trip the family took to get to church, and probably to work."

In her 1981 unpublished manuscript, BonnieMargaret noted that only the top floor of the Benkelmann home shows from the road leading in. The house is three stories high on the back side, two stories high in the front. It was built in 1733, by the state, to provide housing for state licensed artisans who were not allowed in the town as guild craftsmen. Apparently it gained its name from its first inhabitants, since the name literally means "the place of tailors." The official state description of the Schneiderhof in 1845 states that it was a place with 22 Evangelical residents, lying on the mountain top about one-half an hours walk from Waldhausen. The rents were paid to the city of G?ppingen, in 1845 twelve of those residents would have been Leonhard and Dorothea and their 10 living children, others would have included Leonhard's widowed mother and some of her children by Herr Heller, and likely their families. The land was described as rocky and and lying on a mountainside, "even today it is impossible to use machinery to work the land" and that the "people who lived there would have to have outside work." The house itself lies on the very crest of the mountain, with the house built on the downside of the mountain, overlooking Waldhausen. A very small patch of is on the level crest at the top of the mountain. When BonnieMargaret visited the home in 1981, she said it had four or five dwellings in all, and barns and sheds nearby the house and in the orchards. Just west of the house stands the old Bauernhaus, perhaps the homestead of Leonhard's maternal grandparents. The fields to the south were planted in potatoes and turnips, the high production crops that all of southern Germany turned to in the early 1800's. Beyond the westernmost buildings were apple orchards, beautiful and well tended. (pp. 68, 69 and accompanying photos).

BonnieMargaret also noted that German life centered in the family. Even today we're told that day to day life included few close relationships with people outside the family. Certainly they were cordial and friendly with neighbors and cooperating artisans, but the joy of living was carefully protected within the walls of the home. Country people had no protection but each other, and the trusted "other" were kinsmen. Unlike the towns that were structured to protect the citizens from difficult times, the country folk were on their own, in good and bad times. Parents carefully nutured the bonds of affection and caring, and though they may have experienced the sibling rivalry that modern children do, it was not expressed in the German home, where only mutual caring and consideration were approved and encouraged.

Names and birthdates for this family were from the Waldhausen Parish Kirchlichen Familienregister Band I, Blatt 244, Dekanat Welzheim, Schw?bisch Gm?nd. BonnieMargaret noted that all the family information shown on pages 95 and 96 of her book were certified by Pastor Rau of the Ev. Pfarramt Waldhausen to be the complete record of the family of Johann Leonhard Benkelmann, with the exceptions of the dates of death, which were included by BonnieMargaret from other sources. They had one stillborn child, neither name or sex listed, on 4 July 1838. She also noted that they were married on November 20, but the year was illegible.

The family register for the family of Georg Friedrich St?hle and wife, Anna Maria Leins shows that Maria Dorothea was the fifth of their 15 children. She was married at the Schneiderhof on 20 Nov 1822, approximately 10 months after the birth of eldest son Friedrich.