On This Day - Feb 13th

On This Day...

1684 - Birth: Ephraim Foote, Wethersfield, Hartford County, Connecticut

1775 - Birth: James C. Higginbotham, Amherst County, Virginia

1822 - Marriage: Petrus Zwilling and Margaretha Theis, Wallenborn, Eifel, Germany

1840 - Birth: Esaias Arlington Wright, Mississippi

1859 - Birth: Johann Clees, Luxembourg

1866 - Birth: Mathias J. Theis, Marystown, Scott County, Minnesota

1878 - Death: Susannah Reeler,

1890 - Birth: Peter F. Theisen, Saint Nicholas, Stearns County, Minnesota

1900 - Death: Jane E. Williams, Louisiana

1917 - Marriage: Peter Adam Theisen and Caroline Susan Keppers, Rockville, Stearns County, Minnesota

1921 - Birth: Charles Ray Hargrove, Louisiana

1955 - Death: Leo Peter Theisen, Stearns County, Minnesota

1917 - Peter Adam Theisen and Caroline Susan Keppers were my wife's paternal grandparents.  Peter Adam died a while back, but I narrowly missed being able to meet Caroline Susan as she died right before I started dating my wife.



This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2013 by Daniel G. Dillman

Sunday Obituary - Caroline Susan (Keppers) Theisen

Caroline Susan (Keppers) Theisen, May 1956

This week's subject is Caroline Susan Keppers, wife of last week's subject, Peter Adam Theisen.  Caroline was my wife's paternal grandmother.  She died right around the time I first met my wife, and shortly before the death of my paternal grandfather in November 1982. 

Theisen
SAUK RAPIDS— Mrs Peter (Caroline S) Theisen, 85, Route 1 and formerly of St. Cloud, died Tuesday at the Monticello-Big Lake Hospital, Monticello.

Funeral services will be at 10:30 a.m. Friday at Holy Cross Catholic Church, Pearl Lake, with the Rev. Roger Vaughn officiating.  Burial will be in the parish cemetery.

Friends may call after 3 p.m. Thursday at the Daniel Funeral Home in St. Cloud.  Holy Cross parish prayers will be 8 p.m. Thursday at the funeral home, followed by Holy Cross Christian Mothers at 8:30 and Annunciation Christian Mothers of Mayhew Lake at 9.

Mrs Theisen was born Jan 10. 1897, in Avon, to the late Joseph and Mary (Kraemer) Keppers.  She married Peter A. Theisen on Feb 13,1917, in Rockville and farmed in the Pearl Lake area most of her married life.  She moved to St. Cloud in 1958, where she was a resident until 1974 when
she moved to the home of her daughter in Sauk Rapids. She was a member of Holy Cross Christian Mothers of Pearl Lake, St. Theresa's Catholic Aide of Luxemburg, Annunciation Christian Mothers and Annunciation Parish of Mayhew Lake.

Survivors include children, Mrs. Gerhard (Viola) Leither, Jacobs Prairie, Francis, Mrs. Leander (Lucille) Gross, Mrs. Clodoald (Eileen) Blonigen, Mrs James (Bernice) Brunette and Marvin, St. Cloud; Marcellus and Mrs. Francis (Betty) Zwilling, Sauk Rapids, Mrs. Mathias (Rosemary) Koltes, Kimball, James, Pearl Lake, and Vernon, Elk River; 65 grandchildren, 35 great-grandchildren; brothers and sisters, Jerome, Wadena, Edward, Green Bay, Wis., Justin, Lincoln, Mrs. Joseph (Cecilia) Nolen, Roscoe, and Mrs. Lawrence (Loretta) Thielman, Cold Spring.

She was preceded in death by her husband on Dec. 23, 1971, three children, four grandchildren, and one sister.

Pallbearers will be grandsons.

This is another pretty good obituary, with a brief biographical section and names and location of children and spouses.  Also, it gives full names for her parents including mother's maiden name.  Like most obits, this one doesn't give a date of death, but rather a day.  This requires that you know the date of publication to calculate back to the actual date of death.  Other sources have provided this information: 14 Sep 1982.


I've mentioned in other posts about my in-laws not being very interested in family history before I started asking.  The Keppers family is actually pretty well documented for several generations back, a fact I discovered once I started investigating the family on the Internet.  Even so, this obituary provided some data that I had not found elsewhere.  Any source can have important data!  

Sunday’s Obituary – if you have obituaries of family members and ancestors, consider posting them along with other information about that person as part of Sunday’s Obituary. This is an ongoing series developed by Leslie Ann at Ancestors Live Here.

Sunday Obituary - Peter Adam Theisen

 

Peter Adam Theisen was my wife's paternal grandfather.  Peter was described as a taciturn man of little humor, a farmer in rural Stearns County, Minnesota.  Peter died when my wife was very young and she has few memories of him, but her father, Marvin Henry Theisen, had this to say about his father when interviewed in 2009: "Strict, often crabby when we were young, but after we grew up he was much more forgiving.  With 11 kids, that might be understandable."  Peter and his wife Caroline Susan (Keppers) actually had 14 children, but three of them died at or soon after birth.  The image above was taken from one of Marv's May 1956 wedding photographs.

Here is Peter's obituary as printed in the St. Cloud Daily Times:

PETER A. THEISEN
Peter A. Theisen, 78, 842 35th Ave. N., a retired farmer, died Thursday at the St. Cloud
Hospital. He was born in St. Nicholas, Minn., May 6, 1893, to the late Peter J. and Mary Theisen.  He married Caroline Keppers In Rockville, Minn., in 1917, and operated a farm in Stearns County all his life until retiring in 1958.

He was a member of the Catholic Aid of the Immaculate Conception parish, Rockville.

Mr. Theisen is survived by his widow; children, Mrs. Gerhard (Viola) Leither, Mrs. Leander (Lucille) Gross, Mrs. Clodoald (Eileen) Blonigen, Francis and Marvin, St. Cloud; Marcellus and Mrs. Francis (Betty) Zwilling, Sauk Rapids; Mrs. James (Bernice) Brunette, Oak Park, Minn.; Mrs. Math (Rosemary) Koltes and James, Kimball, Minn.; and Vernon, Elk River, Minn., 60 grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; and brothers and sisters, Math, Adams, Wis.; Henry, Cold Spring; Mrs. John (Louisa) Hoppe, Missuoula, Mont.; and Mrs. Lawrence (Cecilia) Hennen, Belle Plaine, Minn.

He was preceded in death by two sons, one daughter, two brothers and one sister.

Funeral services are at 10 a m. Monday at St. Peter's Church. Burial will be in the Holy Cross Parish Cemetery, Pearl Lake, Minn.

Pallbearers will be Peter and Richard Leither, Ronald and John Theisen, Bernard Koltes and Walter Blonigen.

Friends may call at the Daniel Funeral home after 2 p.m. Sunday.

St. Peter's parish will say the parish prayers at the funeral home at 3 p m. Sunday.

The nice thing about this obituary is that it has a full listing of children with spouses' names and city of residence, which is helpful for genealogists in tracing family members. It also gives a few siblings, and the fact that many grandchildren and greats exist.  Some obituaries omit first names of some descendants, notably women who are sometimes listed as "Mrs. John Smith".   Some do not include any location information at all, either.  If you are ever asked to write an obituary, please include as much of this information as you have space for!