Great Grandma and Grandpa Fuhrmann

Friedrich Fuhrmann and Christina (Nagel) Fuhrmann were my great grandparents. They were the parents of my Grandma Hall. I never knew either of them as they both died before I was born. I actually never even knew who they were until a few years ago.

Christina (Nagel) Fuhrmann

Friedrich Fuhrmann

At that time I found their names and eventually found them on a the passenger list arriving in New York, New York, USA from Rotterdam, Amsterdam aboard the steamer SS Dubbeldam. Friedrich and Christina Fuhrmann arrived at Ellis Island with their 5 month old son, Friedrich Fuhrman in 1893 bound for Kimball, South Dakota. They were accompanied by 14 Fuhrmann and Nagel family members.

Eventually they settled in Cathay, Wells County, North Dakota and raised 12 children, Grandma Hall was #10.  She was just 13 years old when her mother died.

Bertha Anna Maria Kuester

Today I would like to share my great grandmother, my mother's maternal grandmother. We all just called her Gross Grandma. In some ways I didn't know her well at all and in others I knew her better than people might think. My clearest memory was of going to visit her with my Grandma. It was the summer when our family took a long road trip to the Midwest from the West Coast to visit family we hadn't seen in several years.

By this time Gross Grandma lived in the geriatric ward of the local hospital. I clearly remember walking into the day room and the stir it caused among the residents, some of whom very seldom received visitors much less 12 year old girls. Gross Grandma was not a bit happy about it either, we were her guests and she made it clear to everyone there that this was the case. I sat down with Gross Grandma while Grandma went off to talk to someone, I assume a nurse to see how Gross Grandma was doing. While I sat there, Gross Grandma talked to me in a mixture of German and English, finally switching over to all English. We sat and talked and watched her favorite afternoon show, The Dating Game. When Grandma came back, all three of us went down to the hospital coffee shop for a dessert which was the highlight of Gross Grandma's day. When I was older I would understand the reason for this. It was because she was diabetic and this was the one exception to the rule.

There were other trips and I do remember visiting Gross Grandma at her house with the funny front porch that wrapped around one corner of the house. I remember how her house smelled of the cooking and cleaning that she did and the Black Forest cuckoo clock she had hanging on the wall in her living room. These memories are not nearly as clear as the last time I visited her. 

Gross Grandma was born November 22, 1883 in Leipzig, Germany. Her family came directly to New Ulm, Minnesota from Germany around 1884 when she was about 11 years old. On May 17, 1905, she married my Gross Grandpa, Fritz Rauschke. The next year they built their house in New Ulm. This is the house she lived in when all four of her children were born, the house where her four children were raised and where she lived until the day she went to live in the geriatric ward of Union Hospital in New Ulm. The house still stands and once in a while when I am in New Ulm, I drive by just because I can. 

Gross Grandma died January 12, 1970 at the age of 86. I believe that she lived a full life that was not without the problems and sorrows that any life has. She is buried in the St Paul's Church Cemetery in New Ulm, Minnesota with her husband who predeceased her by over 20 years. I still visit her there whenever I am in New Ulm. My maternal grandparents, my mother and several other family are buried nearby and I visit them as well.

One of my favorite photos of Gross Grandma is one that is faded, a little hard to see and was taken when she was about 16 years old. Taken before she became a wife; taken before she was a mother; taken when she was a teenager, barely more than a child herself. This is something I have trouble wrapping my mind around, sometimes it is hard to imagine Gross Grandma being a youthful 16 year old. Perhaps this is why I go back to this photo often and try to see what I can see in it. I close this post with that photo.

Bertha Kuester; 1901; Age 16