Sad, Depressed, at the same time Fearless Female of the month

# 11 Category From The Accidental Genealogist. Tragic ,Sad, Depressed, Female.
At the same time brave. From a woman's perspective.
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Did Lizzie suffer from Abandonment issues. She seems to have supported my theory that girls who have fathers who intentionally leave the family usually have children themselves with out fathers. I am not sure if it's some kind of anger issue, lack of self esteem, or lack of good guidance. Would it help her issues, if she had a substutue father as in the case of Mr. Carlsson marrying her mother a few years after her father left. I am not sure if it helped somewhat, but she still found herself on the way to America pregnant to join her father on his farm at Reading Calhoun county Iowa. We won't know what her life was like prior, and we will barely know what it was like when she arrived and lived in the little community of Farnhamville.

We won't know if August William knew ahead about what he would receive from Lizzie at his home. A daughter he had not raised himself and known from childhood on up to the age she was arriving at. His regrets or gladness. And if he knew what other gift that of a baby she was going to bestow on the childless couple.

She met his many friends and neighbors of his and his wife, Anna Vogel. She soon married one of their friends Gustav Jaeschke from Danzig, who had traveled coincidentally with Anna and her Nephew on the same ship to America. But not as soon as you are probably thinking. Her daughter Anna was born Jan. 22 1893 and census say her marriage with Gustav occurred in 1897. He had wishes that they would not start the marriage off with a child. So August and Anna continued to raise her while she married and lived in the neighborhood. Soon she was raising his new babies one after another!!

I wonder if she had secret thoughts of bringing Annie home with her, but then she had enough to do with all the others. Did Annie visit them a lot or did she just see her mother at family social events. We won't know all that or what was in Elizabeth's mind as she slowly sunk into deep depression.

Did she have social involvement, I wonder if in those days woman with young children have to stay home with them, or if pregnant you stay home. Did she have any near friends to talk to. I noticed in the census the neighbors changed a lot over the years. I wonder too if she even attended the church. Or had any involvement with it. Did she believe in Heaven and Hell.

About this time, somehow, she must have learned that Annies father had died. [No one alive had ever told who Annies fathe was.] From one of Annies insurance papers, which my grand father kept, stated that Annie's father had died before age fifty of kidney infection. I wonder too what Lizzies feelings were for this man, who had abandoned her through death or for some other reason. Had Lizzie harbored some kind of love and hope involving him. Since she married 1897, I think those feelings had been over about the young man and she had made attempts to carry on.

We won't know what caused her depression, more so after her last infant Charlotte died and was buried. Was it post partum blues, was it her marriage and all the children, was it not what she thought life would be, was it a thyroid problem, or was it a result of miscommunication malfunction in the brain..

I have long questioned what her life was like as a married woman. I can learn a little from questions to a relative, but we only know what were told. Census does not tell us that her husband was a musician and taught others in a band. It doesn't tell us that he played accordion whenever he could. He was probably gone a great deal. He liked to call and play at dances and events. I have wondered did she go along with the children in tow or did she sit at home with all of them, while he developed his life's love, his music.

What was her relationship to her children as she spent the time with them. Her oldest daughter Louisa loved her father a great deal, she probably was daddies girl. What ever it was, it was not enough to break her through her depression for their sake, her husbands sake, or her own sake.
Eventually she died from consumption of lye.

Did she have anger issues that she resolved, did she have any regret as she lay dying three days watching the expressions and emotions on the faces of those she knew. What were the children told about the mother who lay there. Or were they sent somewhere else during the three days. They all had time for farewells. They all had time to deal with their own abandonment issues.

Her musician husband the father of all her children except for Annie had problems raising the younger children. He kept the older children with him and was able to send the rest of them to join August, Anna and Annie who was not yet married to Herman.

And again what abandonment issues did her children and her fathers family develop.
Those older ones who stayed with their father, maybe it worked out fine for them. And perhaps not as well as one might think, but I can't say with out a clear concise fact to back that up.

For the younger ones, I think it made it's toll.
In the 1910 census before Annie's marriage of 1911 August William has Gertrude age seven and Little Herman age six. Annie is age seventeen. Her family along with her future husband Herman Meyer are going to be living in Minnesota. They did then go to make a home for all of them in Minnesota. They added another wing to the old house on the property, so that there would be privacy for Herman and Annie and August and Anna and places for the children.

Through out their lives the little Jaeschke children went back and forth in homes and in schools. They learned early in life not to speak of certain issues. Even so they lived in a farming community surrounded by others who had also come up from Greene, and Calhoun county. A death occurred around 1914 of Herman's brother and it wasn't long after that that his other brother William came up to Minnesota to live. Their were other cousins and friends as well there to get a good deal on the farming land in other communities , but not far.

[My father the youngest, and Lyle to his right. August is at the far right. Maybe his wife Anna is taking the picture. This was always one of my favorite photos. My father didn't care for it. I had it enlarged into a poster. He said I could have picked a better photo. Mother said I looked like his side of the family.]

The Jaeschke children were there in later years after my father was born 1918 and I have wondered what the relationship was in those days between Lyle, Dwight, Herman Jaeschke and Gertrude. In later years I heard some things from others of Minnesota. I have seen some pictures of the children all together, I think there was closeness among them. Time was short for Annie. She herself passed from her battle with diabetes when Dwight was about eighteen years of age.

How were those lives personally affected. I haven't asked enough questions of relatives to exactly know. I wonder if Elizabeth would have regrets to know the details of her childrens lives.
August the farmer, Herman, Louisa, Gertrude, William, and Annie. Had she had moment to think of the effect her leaving their lives would have. Did she think she was doing them a favor, for their good, that they would be better off with out her, Did her issues involve feelings of not being good enough for them, and loss of hope of it getting any better for them which led to her her state, that she just did not care. Did anger or sadness over ride everything. I think so.

I wish I could have time travel back then to ask her what it was. Maybe to remind her of actions consequences would be the same as those she suffered herself. Would she want her children feeling abandonment from herself and eventually from their own father. Lizzie had those issues. I doubt that reminding her that her children needed her would help. It probably would only send her further into her thoughts of hopelessness. I could have told her we all make mistakes in raising our children. They do manage on their own somehow to have a good life in spite of our mistakes as parents. Because somehow we managed to give them what they need maybe from just our love.

We all deal with the wounds our parents have.
You teach your children how to deal with problems and find and give the tools they need to cope with their own lives no matter what the outcome.

With Lizzies death statement, I think the others learned, and developed a closeness that might not have been. The Meyer Seil family were going to Minnesota to live. The Jaeschke family were remaining behind. That closeness might not have happened as much as it did between the step siblings. Of course Annies disease of diabetes had a play in that also.


I said she was brave and believe she was at the time it counted and maybe too brave to face death. Although it's debateable, I still say she was not a coward, to leave life, but maybe deprived of something she most needed in her life to keep going. Her life was affected by what she saw of her mothers family, the time she lived, the social system of Germany and in America of those times. Had she lived now in our age it may have been so very different for her. Our world is working towards those goals.


Whether from influence on Lizzie having children together so close in age, had it's influence or not on the spacing of Annies children, we don't know. She and Herman and one in 1914 and the other one in 1918. I am not sure if they planned on more or if health issues got in the way. My own parents spaced their children three years apart. I myself planned it to be that way as well.

There was no picture of Lizzie in the Meyer album. Pictures and people were not mentioned too much anyway. Their had been a fire, which took many sentimental valuable items such as photographs, etc Some of which were replaced by kind family. But there was no picture of the one you see in the prior post for anyone to ask about. Some one else in that family did also commit suicide and I think the family believed that if the family knew of it it could happen to someone else.

I think the outcome was that Annie was a good loving mother who showed her love to her children. I think she had opportunity to have something for herself too. By that I mean she was active socially with the 4-H which involved her children as well. I am not sure what she did for the local church of Lewisville. But she had been in some groups of the Farnhamville church.

Lizzies life influence extended down into my father and my mother's life in the way they raised their children in a shell of protectiveness and secrecy of the past. Each Generation brings forth issues, and each generation strives to correct those before and do right. Without knowing what has been before, how would you know what the needs are that need continued healing. I hope that what ever of the past including the unknown genes is brought out to the light, and that creates and leads to some kind of healing factor for future generations.



Note: I still need to get a death certificate on Lizzie. I still need to find any kind of church records to see what her standing was there. I still need to get some information from the church about Annie and some kind of birth statement.