When Matthias Hoffmann died in 1879 at the age of fifty-eight, he left a widow and six children, the youngest of whom was only four years old. Matthias, a thatcher by trade, had lived with his family in the village of Prümzurlay, Eifelkreis Bitburg-Prüm, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, near Luxembourg. He and his wife, Anna Marbach, had married in the village of Ernzen on 24 September 1861, and six children were born to them over the next fourteen years: Clara (1861), Nicolaus (1864), Jacob (1867), Elisabeth (1869), Eva (1872), and Matthias (1875).

It is not known how the Hoffmann family supported themselves after Matthias’s death, but as Anna did not remarry, she and her eldest daughters may have been able to earn an income from spinning, weaving, or the like, while her eldest sons may have hired out as shepherds or farm laborers. Perhaps Nicolaus, who was fourteen when his father died, was fortunate enough to have already had an apprenticeship in place; eventually he married and settled in the area, living out his life in Germany.

For the others, however, new horizons were sought. Jacob, the second eldest son, who had been twelve years old at the time of his father’s death, was the first to immigrate to America. He traveled alone from Antwerp to New York in the spring of 1887 when he was twenty years old. One can well imagine the hard work that he—and his mother and siblings—must have undertaken in order to book his passage, quite likely with the expectation that he would pave the way for the rest of the family to eventually join him overseas. Jacob then made his way to northeastern Iowa.

Three years later, in the spring of 1890, his sisters Clara and Elisabeth followed. Within a month of their arrival in North Washington, Chickasaw County, Iowa, Clara, who was twenty-eight, married fellow immigrant John Seelhammer. One wonders whether they had been acquainted in Germany, or whether Jacob may have facilitated the match. Elisabeth, twenty, was not so quick to settle down; she found employment as a housekeeper for the local priest, Father Probst, who was a native of Luxembourg.

In the spring of 1891, matriarch Anna (Marbach) Hoffmann, who was by then fifty-five years old, voyaged from Antwerp to New York with her two youngest children, Eva, eighteen, and Matthias, sixteen. They too were bound for Chickasaw County, Iowa, where they would reunite with Jacob, Clara, and Elisabeth.

The 1895 Iowa state census indicates that Anna and at least four of her children resided in Chickasaw County: Anna headed a household that included her sons Jacob and Matthias, both of whom farmed; Clara lived with her husband, a shoemaker, and their children; Elisabeth resided at her place of employment with Father Probst and the Sisters of Charity. Eva is absent from the 1895 Iowa state census, but whether this is because she had moved elsewhere or was simply missed by the census enumerator is not known.

It was in Chickasaw County that Jacob married Margaret Nosbisch in 1895, and where Elisabeth married fellow immigrant Mathias Noehl in 1896. In 1898, however, tragedy struck the Hoffmann family, when Matthias, the youngest child of Matthias and Anna (Marbach) Hoffmann, died at the age of twenty two or twenty three. Another blow occurred that year when Jacob and his wife lost a child at one day old.

It was also in 1898, however, that Eva married in Chicago to Mathias Weyer, and by 1900, her mother had joined her there. Chicago wasn’t a surprising destination for them; Anna’s mother and two of her sisters had settled there decades earlier. Although her mother had since passed away, Anna would have had the opportunity to reunite with her sisters and to meet her nieces and nephews.

Ultimately, Anna seems to have remained in Chicago until her death in 1907; the cause was attributed to asthma. Clara and Elisabeth both raised large families in Chickasaw County, with Clara having eight children and Elisabeth nine. Eva had one child with her first husband, a farm laborer and beer peddler; after she was widowed, she remarried in 1913 to Milton Jonas, and lived out her life in Chicago.

Jacob, whom a local newspaper described as being “of that hustling, genial disposition which makes him companionable and agreeable whether the weather, or something else is or is not just to his liking,” set his sights on South Dakota shortly after the dawn of the new century, and later settled in Hidalgo County, Texas, with his wife and son—who was ultimately the only one of his six children to survive infancy.

Whether the scattered Hoffmann siblings were able to remain in close contact in the decades following their mother’s death is unknown, but it is known that Jacob returned to Iowa to bury his wife in 1929, and there is also evidence—in the form of a photograph—that Elisabeth visited her older brother Jacob at his orange grove in Mission, Texas, in 1940. Eva had died in 1936; Jacob would pass away in 1954, Clara in 1955, and Elisabeth in 1957. Of the fate of their brother Nicolaus who was said to have remained in Germany, however, nothing is yet known.

Copyright © 2024 Melanie Frick. All Rights Reserved.

SOURCES

Alois Schleder, Familienbuch Irrel: Pfarrei St. Ambroius mit Filiale St. Nikolaus Prümzurlay, 1639-1899; Westdeutsche Gesslschaft für Familienkunde e.V., Sitz Köln (Köln: 2002).

Elinor (née Noehl) Buscher to Mary Kay (née Walsted) Adam, undated letter, circa 1980, providing information about the family history; Adam Family; privately held by Melanie Frick. Elinor was the granddaughter of Elisabeth (née Hoffmann) Noehl and wrote, in part, “My mother’s father died and left her mother with six small children. In later years they all but one came to this country. One of her brothers was engaged to be married so he remained in Germany. The youngest boy died soon after coming to Iowa.”

“Illinois, Chicago, Catholic Church Records,” digital images, FamilySearch (www.familysearch.org : accessed 23 June 2017), St. Michael Parish (Cleveland Ave), Deaths 1866-1915, entry for Anna Hoffmann, 05 January 1907.

“Cook County, Illinois, Marriages Index, 1871-1920,” database,  Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 30 December 2023), Eva Hoffman and Mathias Weyer, 24 Nov 1898, Chicago, Cook, Illinois; citing Illinois Department of Public Health, Springfield.

“Cook County, Illinois, Marriages Index, 1871-1920,” database,  Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 30 December 2023), Mrs. Eva Weyer and Milton Jonas, 01 Jul 1913, Chicago, Cook, Illinois; citing Illinois Department of Public Health, Springfield.

“Iowa, U.S., Marriage Records, 1880-1951,” database and images, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 30 December 2023), Mathias Noehl and Elizabeth Hoffman, 22 September 1896, North Washington, Chickasaw, Iowa; citing Iowa Department of Public Health, Des Moines.

“Iowa, U.S., Marriage Records, 1880-1951,” database and images, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 30 December 2023), John Seelhammer and Clara Hoffman, 24 June 1890, North Washington, Chickasaw, Iowa; citing Iowa Department of Public Health, Des Moines.

“Iowa, U.S., Marriage Records, 1880-1951,” database and images, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 30 December 2023), Jacob Hoffman and Maggie Nasbisch, 30 May 1893, North Washington, Chickasaw, Iowa; citing Iowa Department of Public Health, Des Moines.

“Iowa State Census, 1895,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VTSR-HFV : accessed 30 December 2023), Anna Hoffmann, Chickasaw, Iowa, United States; citing State Historical Society, Des Moines.

“Iowa State Census, 1895,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org : accessed 30 December 2023), Elizabeth Hoffman in household of J. F. Probsh [Probst], Chickasaw, Iowa, United States; citing State Historical Society, Des Moines.

“City Personal,” New Hampton Gazette, 17 January 1907; Community History Archive (https://chickasawcounty.advantage-preservation.com/ : accessed 30 December 2023).

“Devon,” New Hampton Courier, 21 December 1893; Community History Archive (https://chickasawcounty.advantage-preservation.com/ : accessed 30 December 2023).

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“Devon,” New Hampton Gazette, 08 February 1899; Community History Archive (https://chickasawcounty.advantage-preservation.com/ : accessed 30 December 2023).

“Mrs. Jake Hoffman Given to Tomb,” New Hampton Tribune, 21 August 1929; Community History Archive (https://chickasawcounty.advantage-preservation.com/ : accessed 30 December 2023).

“New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957,” digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 30 December 2023), manifest, Friesland, Antwerp, Belgium to New York, arriving 21 May 1890, Elis and Clara Hoffman; citing National Archives microfilm M237, roll 548.

“New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957,” digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 30 December 2023), manifest, Friesland, Antwerp, Belgium to New York, arriving 11 March 1891, Anna, Eva, and Math Hoffman; citing National Archives microfilm M237, roll 562.

“New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957,” digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 30 December 2023), manifest, Westernland, Antwerp, Belgium to New York, arriving 21 May 1890, Jacob Hoffmann; citing National Archives microfilm M237.

Find A Grave, Inc., digital image, Find A Grave (http://www.findagrave.com : accessed 30 December 2023), photograph, Matt Hoffman (1898), Memorial No. 52947954, St. Mary’s Cemetery, North Washington, Chickasaw, Iowa; photograph by Shelby Hicks.