Tag Archives: Lutz

Evading the Law in 1899

Hedwig Cichos—Hattie to those who knew her—was first widowed at the age of thirty-one. Her husband of twelve years, Joseph Lutz, had succumbed to tuberculosis, leaving her with four young daughters to provide for on her own. The oldest was just ten and the youngest not yet three; with so many mouths to feed, it comes as little surprise that Hattie remarried before the year was out. On 29 December 1887, not quite eight months after Joseph’s death, Hattie married Albert Rindfleisch, a fellow Silesian immigrant who was more than five years her junior.

Albert and Hattie made their home in Minnesota Lake, Faribault County, Minnesota, the same village where Hattie had settled with her parents when she had immigrated to America in 1873. In the years to come, Hattie would have five children with Albert: Edward in 1888, Agnes in 1890, Albert (II) in 1892, Elsie in 1893, and Frank in 1895. The 1895 Minnesota state census, recorded before Frank’s birth, indicates that only the youngest of Hattie’s daughters from her first marriage, Melanie, eleven, still lived under her roof. Her eldest daughter, Julia, had married at the age of sixteen in 1893 and moved out of state; the whereabouts of her middle daughters, Anna and Hattie (II), for the year 1895 are unknown. According to the census, Albert was a laborer and had worked for eight months of the previous year.

In the summer of 1899, everything changed for the Rindfleisch family. First, charged with “whipping his wife,” Albert, then thirty-eight, was jailed at the county seat of Blue Earth. He somehow managed to escape the sheriff, board a train, and travel one hundred miles west—but then his luck ran out. The Slayton Gazette and Murray County Pioneer reported:

Run Over by the Cars. Albert Rindfleisch, of Minnesota Lake, was run over by the west bound freight at this place Tuesday morning and had both legs taken off below the knee. He boarded the train here intending to go to either Hadley or Lake Wilson, and as the train pulled out he was standing alone on the front end of the accommodations car. He claims the cars gave a bump and he was thrown forward. He fell between the cars with both legs across the north rail and his body north of the track. The accommodation car passed over his legs and he was not seen by the train men. His cries attracted passersby and he was taken to the depot and from there to the poor house to be cared for. Dr. Morell, the railway physician, assisted by Dr. Lowe, amputated both his legs, one just above the ankle and the other just below the knee. A bottle containing a small amount of whiskey was found near him when picked up. He had thrown it away so as not to have it on his person. This has given rise to the suspicion that he may have been under the influence of liquor at the time of the accident. He claimed to have been looking for work. He has a wife and five children at Minnesota Lake.
Slayton Gazette and Murray County Pioneer, 03 August 1899

Two months later, the same newspaper provided an update:

Sandy McDonald, sheriff of Faribault county, was here last Saturday and took back with him Albert Rindfleisch who had been an inmate of our poorhouse since he had his legs taken off by the cars here two months ago. Rindfleisch was in jail at Blue Earth for whipping his wife and escaped from the sheriff. While fleeing from the sheriff he had his legs taken off here.
Slayton Gazette and Murray County Pioneer, 12 October 1899

It is not known whether Albert ever returned home to Hattie and their children—or whether Hattie would have let him if he had tried—but when the U.S. census was recorded in the summer of 1900, Hattie was reported to be a widow. It is possible that she may have been known in her heavily German-speaking community as a Strohwitwer, a term with the English equivalent “grass widow” that indicated that a couple was separated or that the wife had been effectively abandoned. Albert and Hattie—both Catholic—never divorced, and Hattie was not in fact widowed for the second time for another thirty years.

While Hattie remained in Minnesota Lake, Albert made his way to Wisconsin. Milwaukee city directories indicate that he may have eked out a living as a peddler for a period of time, but ultimately, he spent many years at the Milwaukee County Infirmary, an almshouse and poor farm in neighboring Wauwatosa. The 1920 and 1930 U.S. censuses both indicated that he was an inmate there, although whether alcoholism or the loss of his legs was the primary factor that brought him to this last resort for food and shelter is unknown. His final days were apparently spent in a rooming house in Milwaukee, as that is where he died on 08 May 1930:

08 May 1930, Thu The Sheboygan Press (Sheboygan, Wisconsin) Newspapers.com

Alcoholism, domestic violence, disability—all played a part in Albert’s sad demise, his death ultimately garnering a headline only as an oddity. Hattie, for all the hardships she may have suffered in an unhappy marriage and as a single mother, was resilient. She supported herself and her children as a seamstress and through her own self-sufficiency, keeping a milk cow, chickens, and pigs on three acres of land. Her grandchildren’s memories of her industrious nature and of her home cooking and preserving—ham, bacon, sausage, braunschweiger, pickled pigs feet, sauerkraut—long outlived her. Of Albert, however, little was ever said.

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Two Brothers from Sondersdorf

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When immigrant Joseph Lutz died in 1887 the age of forty-two, only one line in a Minnesota newspaper made note of his death. His brother Paul, however, survived him by more than fifty years, and when he died in 1939 he was ninety-three years old. A lengthy obituary in a Minnesota newspaper documented his death, but what is more, his birthday several years prior had warranted an informative and colorful tribute to his life both in his native Sondersdorf, a village in eastern France, and in southern Minnesota. As Joseph and Paul, only two years apart in age, both served in the Franco-Prussian War and then immigrated to America, many of Paul’s recollections relate what must have been shared experiences.

The brothers were born to François Joseph Lutz (1801-1881) and Marguerite Meister (1801-1876), Joseph on 31 May 1844 and Paul on 07 August 1846, both in what is now Sondersdorf, Haut-Rhin, Alsace, France. Their father was a farmer, and this was his second marriage; their mother was a native of the nearby border village of Roggenburg, Switzerland. Joseph and Paul were raised to work hard, although they also had the opportunity to attend school, as related in the Blue Earth County Enterprise in 1935:

“Alsace Lorraine at that time belonged to France, as it does now, although for many years between it was Germany’s. And so young Paul was born a French citizen. His father was a farmer and when Paul was still very young he was put to work. How young? Well, he says, laughing, that he thinks he began to work before he was born. He worked in the field, in the town, anywhere where there was work to be had.

“French was taught in the schools, but his family, like many others in Alsace, spoke German at home. So he grew up with a knowledge of both tongues. However, today and for many years since, it is German that he speaks fluently. There are, he says, no Frenchmen around to give him practice in that language.”

In 1866, Joseph and Paul, by then twenty-two and twenty years of age, appeared in a census in a household in Sondersdorf with their parents and younger sister, Philomene. Just a few years later, the brothers served in the Franco-Prussian War, which broke out in the summer of 1870:

“Like every other French citizen, [Paul] entered military training when old enough. His memories of that period are clear and vivid, for while he was still in the army, the Franco-Prussian war broke out. That was in 1870 and one of the causes of the bitter enmity between France and Prussia was that same Alsace Lorraine where he was born, a strip of territory at the eastern edge of France coveted by both nations and snatched first by one, then the other. When Prussia whipped France in that war of 1870, she took Alsace Lorraine as one of the indemnities and from then on France never rested until the World War brought it back again to the French.

“There wasn’t so much to the war so far as he was concerned, says Mr. Lutz, except horse meat to eat and being taken prisoner at the battle of Metz. Asked how that happened, he drolly repied [sic] that the Germans took the whole army prisoner so of course he went along. Speaking of horse meat, Mr. Lutz remarked that it wouldn’t have been so bad had they been given some beer, or at least enough water to wash it down with. But there was none of the first and little enough of the second. To make it worse he says it was tough meat with no pepper or salt. You stuck two sticks up on each side of a fire and hung the meat on a third stick laid across. After it had toasted a bit, you ate it – if possible.

“Because Germany considered Alsace her own, and to gain the good will of its people, she released the French prisoners from Alsace earlier than others. That was in 1871. Between horse meat, fighting and being a prisoner, Mr. Lutz says he’d had enough […] and straightaway came to America.”

Although comparatively little is known about Joseph Lutz’s experiences, his grandson once related that after serving in the Franco-Prussian War and coming out on the losing side, Joseph immigrated to America because he wouldn’t live under Prussian rule. It seems the brothers were allied in their feelings after having fought and been imprisoned by the Prussians—and having been forced to survive on horse meat during the Siege of Metz, which has been documented. A passenger list has been located that may indicate that the brothers immigrated together, arriving in New York aboard the Nevada in May 1871, mere months after the war’s end.

Joseph Lutz (1844-1887), circa 1875-1885; digital image 2010, privately held by Melanie Frick, 2021.

Although the Blue Earth County Enterprise recorded in 1935 that Paul and his wife Josephine Lutz married in Sondersdorf and immigrated together, settling first near Burlington, Des Moines County, Iowa before making the move to Minnesota, records indicate that the couple actually married in Des Moines County, Iowa, in 1872. “Asked if they came by train to Burlington, Mr. Lutz chuckled and said, ‘Well, you needn’t think I walked.'” Perhaps the plan all along had been that Paul and Josephine would reunite and marry once in America and free of the strife of their homeland. Joseph, it seems, had not made any such promises to any young women from their home village; he instead married a Silesian immigrant, Hedwig Cichos, in Faribault County, Minnesota, in 1875.

The brothers’ paths diverged to a degree in Minnesota; Paul farmed, as their father had before him, whereas Joseph lived in town, making a living first as a butcher and then as a saloon keeper. Of farm life, the Blue Earth County Enterprise shared that Paul owned one hundred and twenty acres “two miles west of Bass Lake,” and noted, “Memories of early days in southern Minnesota come to [Paul] as he talks. He tells of hauling grain to Delavan and Easton in the winter, using oxen-drawn sleds. Many a time, he says, blizzards would spring up and there was nothing for it but to give the oxen their heads and trust them to find the way home. They never failed.” Of Joseph, the newspaper shared, “Joe Lutz, early Mapleton butcher, was [Paul’s] brother. His shop was on Second Street just back of where the Wiedman drug store stands today. The frame building that housed it is the same one that stands there still, says Mr. Lutz.”

Joseph was indeed known to have been a butcher in Mapleton in the early 1880s; in the 1870s, however, he had operated a one-story frame butcher shop in Minnesota Lake, behind which were rooms where his family lived. After his stint as a butcher in Mapleton, he returned to Minnesota Lake but this time kept a saloon. Family lore notes that Joseph was a generous-hearted man who was known to give away cuts of meat to new immigrants in his community—to the occasional dismay of his wife, who chided him that these newcomers would not even have a pot with which to cook the meat!

Joseph would succumb to tuberculosis not quite sixteen years after his arrival in America; it seems especially tragic that he was stricken with this disease as he might otherwise have enjoyed as many years as his brother. At the time of Paul’s eighty-ninth birthday, the Blue Earth County Enterprise wrote, “Paul Lutz feels much younger than his years. His mind is far keener toward what is going on in this world than that of many a younger man. Age has as yet brought little failing to his senses. His speech is filled with humor that indicates his cheery optimism and enjoyment of life. His hearing is good. He walks up town every day. He administrates for himself the affairs of the farm he owns near Bass Lake. Paul Lutz has enjoyed and is still enjoying a full life with a clear memory that is truly remarkable.”

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Hedwig

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It has been said that Hedwig had “fiery red hair.”¹

However, by the time color photographs became mainstream, her hair was white.

And, in fact, no color photographs are known to exist of Hedwig at all.

Hedwig (Cichos) Lutz Rindfleisch was born in 1855 in what is now Nowa Wieś Książęca, Poland, but what at the time was the village of Neudorf in Silesia.² She immigrated to the United States at the age of eighteen,³ settling in southern Minnesota, and at nineteen, she married fellow immigrant Joseph Lutz.⁴ They had five children together, although the eldest did not survive childhood.⁵ After Joseph’s death, Hedwig remarried to Albert Rindfleisch and gave birth to five more children.⁶ She raised her nine surviving children in Minnesota Lake, Faribault County, Minnesota, and spent many years as a single mother, supporting her children as a seamstress and tending her small farmstead where she processed and preserved much of their own food.⁷

There are no widely known family stories about Hedwig having a stereotypical temper to match her red hair, although she was said to have been stern. A tale that perhaps comes the closest suggests that when her first husband, a butcher, would give generous gifts of meat to new immigrants in their community, she would chide him and say that the newcomers would not even have a pot to cook with.⁸

Back: Anna (Lutz) Catlin, Melanie (Lutz) Adam, Elsie (Rindfleisch) Beyer, Edward Rindfleisch, and Front: Keith Beyer, Hedwig (Cichos) Lutz Rindfleisch, and Albert Rindfleisch, Danville, Blue Earth County, Minnesota, circa 1937-39; digital image 2010, privately held by Melanie Frick, 2019.

Two of the three known photographs of Hedwig were taken on the same summer day at her daughter’s farm in Danville, Blue Earth County, Minnesota. The year is uncertain, but based on the presumed ages of the children in the photograph, was likely circa 1937-39. Although this gathering may not have included all of her surviving children and grandchildren, four of her children and three of her grandchildren are pictured.

Back: Anna (Lutz) Catlin, Permelia Adam, Melanie (Lutz) Adam, Adelheid (Brandt) Rindfleisch, Elsie (Rindfleisch) Beyer, Mary (Grover) Rindfleisch, Alfred Beyer, Helen (?) Catlin, Vance Catlin, Edward Rindfleisch, Henry Adam, and Front: Keith Beyer, Hedwig (Cichos) Lutz Rindfleisch, and Albert Rindfleisch, Danville, Blue Earth County, Minnesota, circa 1937-39; digital image 2010, privately held by Melanie Frick, 2019.

Surrounded by family, Hedwig, who had celebrated her eightieth birthday in 1936, looks relaxed and content, with a wisp of hair blowing in the breeze and her mouth pressed into a smile. She wears a printed dress in a light color, suitable for a summer day, and squints in the sun.

Hedwig (Cichos) Lutz Rindfleisch, Minnesota, circa 1940; digital image 2019, from a photocopy courtesy of Armond Sonnek, 2002. Provenance of the original unknown.

The only other known photograph of Hedwig shows her seated at the kitchen table in the home she shared with her eldest son and his family during her later years. Wearing a loose patterned house dress, her hair pulled back, she clasps the fingers of one hand in the other as she appears to gaze peacefully towards a window.

It was at this table that she was said to have sat to churn butter and clean vegetables, an industrious soul still determined to contribute to the household as much as possible.⁹

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The Royal Neighbors of America

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When Melanie (Lutz) Adam of Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa became a member of her local chapter of the Royal Neighbors of America as a newlywed in 1906,¹ she could not have known how much her role as a Neighbor, as members called themselves, would define her adult life.

Founded in 1888 as a social organization, the Royal Neighbors of America incorporated as a fraternal benefit society in 1895 and became known as one of the nation’s first insurers of women.² Following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the Royal Neighbors of America developed a disaster aid program,³ and perhaps it was hearing about these worthy efforts that encouraged twenty-two year old Melanie to join later that year.

Melanie (Lutz) Adam, in hat with dark sash seated center left, on a local outing with the Royal Neighbors of America, Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa, 1916; digital image 2010, privately held by Melanie Frick, 2017.

Melanie was first a member of the Evening Star Camp before transferring to Sioux City’s Twilight Camp #6674.⁴ In 1922, she began her first term as oracle (leader) of the Twilight Camp, a position she held for nine years, and in 1925 began work as a field representative.⁵ She traveled frequently throughout northwestern Iowa as a life insurance agent, which provided a welcome source of income—particularly when her husband was unable to find steady work as a carpenter and after his death in 1944.⁶ Melanie retired as District Deputy in 1959, having served a total of fifty-three years with the Royal Neighbors of America.⁷ Upon the occasion of her retirement, she was honored with a speech, special guests, and the presentation of a scrapbook, “This is Your Life,” assembled by her colleagues.⁸

Melanie (Lutz) Adam at Royal Neighbors of America retirement, Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa, 1959; digital image 2017, privately held by Melanie Frick, 2017.

From her earliest years with the organization, Melanie found a strong circle of female friends among her fellow Neighbors, and photographs showcase countless gatherings, both formal and informal. Called “Mala” by those closest to her,⁹ notes in her retirement scrapbook call up a number of lighthearted memories within the organization as well as glowing praise for her work:

“You are to be congratulated […] for having accomplished, in good measure, what every person who does much thinking so very much wants: That is, to be remembered for something good they have done. Could you ask for more than – At the end of a cold, snowy day of driving in Monona County, as you drove home late and tired, to know that it had been you who had guided and influenced a young family in the start of a plan that has materially helped to educate their fine children? […] And perhaps that same cold day you had been responsible for the protection that later was the means of keeping together in the home a young mother with her children; because you had urged the young father that night to protect his family with Royal Neighbor insurance.

“We could look into many homes in Sioux City and the counties around, where you find Neighbors to bless you for the little extra you urged them to save. This little, now added to their Social Security, makes the difference between a bare existence and many of the good things of life.

“Perhaps many remember the good times at meetings and conventions and Royal Neighbor trips together. All that has been enjoyable and a happy way of life. And when you can add to it the sure knowledge that you can be remembered in so many places for something truly good, that you have done, you can say with certainty that yours has been a most worthwhile life as a Royal Neighbor Deputy.”¹⁰

The Royal Neighbors of America remains an organization with a rich tradition, and in addition to the scrapbook received upon her retirement, Melanie tucked away a number of other mementos of her time with the organization. One, a book, Rituals for Local Camps, details the many ceremonial aspects of the organization and also notes the tenets of faith, endurance, courage, modesty, and unselfishness upheld by its members.¹¹ As a champion for women and children, the Royals Neighbors of America was known also for their support of the suffragette movement, and Melanie may well have taken part in local efforts to secure the right of women to vote.¹²

Although enrollment has dwindled in Sioux City, the Royal Neighbors of America remains active nationwide today, a fact that would certainly have pleased Melanie who had a profound appreciation for the friendships, leadership experience, and career opportunities she enjoyed during more than half a century as a Neighbor.

Copyright © 2017 Melanie Frick. All Rights Reserved.
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A Visit to an Alsatian Village

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I can never forget the moment when I knocked at the door of a home in a small French village, a copy of my family tree chart in my hands as I stammered the phrase, “Bonjour. L’histoire de ma famille!“ to the startled teenage girl who answered. Thankfully, before long, with our fathers by our side—her father just so happened to be the mayor of Sondersdorf, Haut-Rhin, Alsace, France—we managed to reach a mutual understanding of the fact that my father and I had ancestral roots in this village and would love to take a peek at the old records.

Sondersdorf, Haut-Rhin, Alsace, France photograph, 2006; privately held by Melanie Frick, 2016.

This was ten years ago, when I first traveled to Europe. Along with a few days spent in Paris and the ancestral village of my mother’s German grandfather, we also paid a visit to the charming Alsace region of northeastern France where my father’s great-great-grandfather had lived and served in the Franco-Prussian War.

Joseph Lutz, the son of Francois Joseph Lutz and Switzerland-native Marguerite Meister, was born 31 May 1844 in Sondersdorf, Haut Rhin, Alsace, France.¹ In his mid-twenties when the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 broke out, family lore states that Joseph served and was injured.² Following the war and its German victory, the residents of the newly annexed region of Alsace were informed that they could remain French citizens by removing to France by the fall of 1872, or they could stay in their homes and default to German citizenship.³ Joseph’s parents, who were over seventy by this time, apparently opted to stay in Sondersdorf; a move to French territory may well have proven to have been a great hardship, no matter if they would have preferred to remain French.⁴ In any case, it was said that Joseph did not wish to live under German rule.⁵ Thus, at the age of twenty-eight, he left Sondersdorf for America, where he settled in Faribault County, Minnesota, near other relatives.⁶

Sondersdorf, Haut-Rhin, Alsace, France photograph, 2006; privately held by Melanie Frick, 2016.

It was a treat to see Sondersdorf, although it was not quite the rugged and rocky village that my father had long envisioned. Although in a mountainous area with the snow-capped Alps within view, Sondersdorf boasted a tidy village situated among rolling green fields. We enjoyed exploring a beautiful old cemetery, where the Lutz surname was prominent, and paid a visit to the village church. If I recall correctly, it was a local who called down an inquisitive greeting from a shutter-framed window who directed us to the mayor’s home for our genealogical questions. After becoming acquainted with the mayor and his daughter in a mix of broken English, French, and German, we made plans to meet the next day to see the old vital records held in the local school building.

Ferrette, Haut-Rhin, Alsace, France photograph, 2006; privately held by Melanie Frick, 2016.

We were treated equally well by the people of Ferrette, a larger village nearby, where we stayed the night. Hearty Alsatian meals and investigating the crumbling castle ruins on its picturesque hillside kept us well entertained until it was time to return to Sondersdorf. There, we met again with the mayor, who allowed us to page through the centuries-old record books, brown ink faded on the pages. Although we didn’t conduct in-depth research, not wanting to take advantage of the mayor’s time, it was incredible to see so many family names recorded in their original form. Upon our departure, the mayor kindly presented me with a book about the history of the churches of the region, in which he inscribed the date and the place—much as Joseph Lutz had inscribed his prayerbook upon his departure from Sondersdorf, long ago.

A Paper Moon

A Prayer Book from Home

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Before Joseph Lutz left his home village, he carefully inscribed his name inside a leather-bound prayer book, small enough to be tucked inside a coat pocket. “This book belongs to me, Joseph Lutz of Sondersdorf,” he penned in French. The book, however, was printed in German; Joseph spoke both languages, having grown up in an area that was the subject of dispute between France and Germany.¹

Joseph Lutz prayer book, Adam Family Collection; privately held by Brian Adam (personal information withheld), 2014.

Joseph Lutz of Sondersdorf, Haut Rhin, Alsace, France, the son of François Joseph and Marguerite (Meister) Lutz, was baptized on 31 May 1844.² He left his homeland following the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. It was said that he had been injured during his time of service, which may have limited his opportunities for occupation, and, furthermore, he did not wish to live under Prussian rule.³ Thus, like many of his relatives, he set his sights on Minnesota.

Once settled, Joseph may have read from his prayer book with his wife, a Polish immigrant who also spoke German, as they began their life together.⁴ Perhaps it inspired his generosity during his career as a butcher, when he was said to have provided gifts of meat to struggling immigrants. When he later became a saloon keeper, it may have given him the strength to avoid the temptation of alcohol, a quality appreciated by his wife.⁵ Perhaps the prayer book brought him peace as he suffered from tuberculosis, an illness that claimed his life on 3 May 1887 when he was forty-two years old.⁶

Joseph Lutz prayer book, Adam Family Collection; privately held by Brian Adam (personal information withheld), 2014.

Joseph was said to have been buried in Danville, Blue Earth County, Minnesota, and though a wooden cross once marked his grave, it is no more.⁷ His well-worn prayer book was passed down to his daughters, who kept his tintype – his only known photograph – tucked inside to ensure its safety. These items may have been their sole mementos of their father, a slim man with a handlebar mustache, a Catholic, a veteran, and a businessman who hailed from the border of France and Switzerland.

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A New Year’s Eve Party?

Tombstone Tuesday: Hedwig Cichos

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“She was a good old German,” recalled one of the grandchildren of Hedwig “Hattie” (Cichos) Lutz Rindfleisch of Minnesota Lake, Faribault County, Minnesota.¹ Raised in what is now Poland, Hattie came to America in 1873 at the age of eighteen.² Although she married twice, neither of her husbands was buried at her side.

Grave of Hedwig (Cichos) Lutz Rindfleisch (1855-1944), Saint John the Baptist Catholic Cemetery, Blue Earth County, Minnesota; image date unknown, privately held by A.S. [personal information withheld], 2013.

Hattie’s first husband, Joseph Lutz,³ died of tuberculosis in 1887.⁴ According to family lore, a wooden cross once marked his grave, but it has long since disappeared.⁵ Hattie was still a young woman at this time, however, and with four children at home, she made what was no doubt a practical decision to remarry less than a year after his death.⁶Unfortunately, Albert Rindfleisch, with whom she had five more children, was said to have struggled with alcoholism.⁷ By 1900, he had left his family, and he allegedly made his way to Milwaukee.⁸ Records indicate that he may have wound up at the Milwaukee County Infirmary, formerly known as the Milwaukee County Almshouse and Poor Farm.⁹

In his absence, Hattie supported her family as a seamstress, and, with three acres of land, proved to be remarkably self-sufficient. She kept a milk cow and chickens, saving the egg money for groceries, and she also raised pigs. She prepared her own ham, bacon, sausage, braunschweiger, and pickled pigs feet. Hattie surely also grew her own vegetables; one of her grandchildren remembers her making sauerkraut for what must have been hearty, home-cooked meals.¹⁰

Hattie was eighty-nine years old when she passed away on 10 November 1944. She is buried at Saint John the Baptist Catholic Cemetery on the border of Blue Earth County and Faribault County, Minnesota.¹¹

SOURCES
¹ William “Bill” Catlin, conversation with the author, September 2002; notes in author’s files. The late Mr. Catlin was the grandson of Hedwig (Cichos) Lutz Rindfleisch and was acquainted with her until her death, at which time he was thirty years old.
² “New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957,” digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 9 December 2013), manifest, S.S. Hansa, Bremen to New York, arriving 13 November 1873, Hedwig Cluchas [Cichos]; citing National Archives microfilm M237, roll 384.
³ “Minnesota, Marriages, 1849-1950,” index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org : accessed 9 Dec 2013), Joseph Lutz and Hedwig Joice or Tchrichor [Cichos], 19 April 1875.
⁴ “Mr. Joseph Lutze,” Wells (Minnesota) Advocate, 5 May 1887.
⁵ William “Bill” Catlin, conversation with the author, 2002.
⁶ “Minnesota, County Marriages, 1860-1949,” index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org : accessed 9 Dec 2013), Albert Rindfleisch and Hedwig Lutz, 29 December 1887.
⁷ William “Bill” Catlin, conversation with the author, 2002.
⁸ 1900 U.S. census, Faribault County, Minnesota, population schedule, Minnesota Lake, Enumeration District (ED) 92, sheet 10-B, p. 4834 (handwritten), dwelling 178, family 178, Hattie Rindfleisch; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 9 December 2013), citing National Archives microfilm T623, roll 763.
⁹ 1930 U.S. census, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, population schedule, Wauwatosa, Enumeration District (ED) 40-385, sheet 7-B, p. 5401 (handwritten), Milwaukee County Infirmary, Albert Rindfleisch; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 9 December 2013), citing National Archives microfilm T623, roll 763.
¹⁰ William “Bill” Catlin, conversation with the author, 2002.
¹¹ Find A Grave, Inc., Find A Grave, digital image (http://www.findagrave.com : accessed 9 December 2013), photograph, Hedwig B. Rindfleisch (1855-1944), Memorial No. 23967168, Saint John the Baptist Catholic Cemetery, Blue Earth County, Minnesota; photograph by judyvv.

The Lutz Sisters

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Sisters Hedwig, Julia, Anna, and Melanie Lutz, ca. 1900, Minnesota; digital image 2010, privately held by Melanie Frick, 2013.

Julia, Anna Marie, Hedwig “Hattie” Eulalie, and Melanie Veronica Lutz were the daughters of French and Polish immigrants, respectively Joseph and Hedwig (Cichos) Lutz of Minnesota Lake, Faribault County, Minnesota.¹ By the time that this photograph was taken, circa 1900, Joseph had passed away, and Hedwig had remarried and given birth to five additional children.² Her eldest daughters must have been close, however, as they chose to have a photograph taken of just the four of them.

Standing with her arms protectively behind her seated sisters is Hattie, who would have turned nineteen in the year 1900.³ Although her position suggests that she was the eldest, she was not; it’s possible that she may have been the tallest, however, if the photographer were to have posed the sisters based on height. She is also the only sister wearing a dress with a white collar, offering contrast; the other sisters seem to be wearing their good black dresses. None of the dresses, however, are alike, each having unique decorative pleats, panels, and/or bows. The collars are extremely high, perhaps an example of what would have been known as “officer’s” collars.⁴

Julia is seated at right, her dark eyes serious. She would have turned twenty-four in 1900, and was the eldest of the sisters.⁵ Seated at the center is Anna, who would have turned twenty-two that year.⁶ Melanie, the youngest, is at left; she would have celebrated her sixteenth birthday in 1900.⁷

At this time, all four sisters had left their mother’s household.⁸ Julia was married with two young children at home; she and her husband kept a hotel,⁹ and Anna was employed as a servant there.¹⁰ Hattie lived with her elderly maternal grandparents.¹¹ As Melanie cannot be located in the 1900 U.S. census, she may have been away at school, where she trained to become a teacher. Later in life, Julia, Anna, Hattie, and Melanie made their homes in four different communities across three different states, but their sisterly bond is apparent in this photograph of them as young women.

SOURCES
¹ “Minnesota, Marriages, 1849-1950,” index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org : accessed 15 Nov 2013), Joseph Lutz and Hedwig Joice, 19 April 1875. Cichos was likely transcribed incorrectly as Joice.
² 1900 U.S. census, Faribault County, Minnesota, population schedule, Minnesota Lake, enumeration district (ED) 92, sheet 10-B, p. 4834 (penned), dwelling 178, family 178, Hattie Rendfleisch; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 15 November 2013), citing National Archives microfilm publication T623, roll 763. Rendfleisch was a variation of Rindfleisch.
³ “Minnesota, Births and Christenings, 1840-1980,” index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org : accessed 15 Nov 2013), Hedwig Lutz, 06 September 1881.
⁴ Joan Severa, Dressed for the Photographer: Ordinary Americans and Fashion, 1840-1900 (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1995), 526.
⁵ “Minnesota, Births and Christenings, 1840-1980,” index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org : accessed 15 Nov 2013), Julia Lutz, 13 December 1876.
⁶ “Minnesota, Births and Christenings, 1840-1980,” index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org : accessed 15 Nov 2013), Anna Lutz, 12 May 1878.
⁷ “Minnesota, Births and Christenings, 1840-1980,” index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org : accessed 15 Nov 2013), Melanie Veronica Lutz, 28 May 1884.
⁸ 1900 U.S. census, Faribault Co., Minn., pop. sch., Minnesota Lake, ED 92, sheet 10-B, p. 4834, dwell. 178, fam. 178, Hattie Rendfleisch.
⁹ 1900 U.S. census, Nobles County, Minnesota, population schedule, Adrian, enumeration district (ED) 209, sheet 2-B, p. 43 (penned), dwelling 29, family 29, Julia McColm; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 15 November 2013), citing National Archives microfilm publication T623, roll 778.
¹⁰ 1900 U.S. census, Nobles County, Minnesota, population schedule, Adrian, enumeration district (ED) 209, sheet 2-B, p. 43 (penned), dwelling 29, family 29, Anna M. Lutz; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 15 November 2013), citing National Archives microfilm publication T623, roll 778.
¹¹ 1900 U.S. census, Faribault County, Minnesota, population schedule, Minnesota Lake, enumeration district (ED) 92, sheet 5-A, p. 4719 (penned), dwelling 73, family 73, Hattie Lutz; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 15 November 2013), citing National Archives microfilm publication T623, roll 763.