This note has been very puzzling. "Aunt Bertha Roediger Smith" was my grandfather, Alfred Roediger's sister. But I had never been able to identify how Dora was their cousin until just this summer. About two years ago, I discovered that my great grandfather, Conrad Tobias had two full sisters in addition to a half sister, Anna Katharina Rödiger, who married Friedrich Eichenauer. One of his full sisters was Katharina Elisabeth who was the subject of my last Blog post, "The Rödigers of Bochum Revisited and Expanded". As the title implies, there had been previous blogs (in 2017) on this subject when I first discovered the two sisters existence.
The other sister, and subject of this post, was born nearly ten years after the first on 4 March 1858 in Tann, and was baptized with the same name as her older sister, Katharina Elisabeth. Yet her baptismal sponsor was her half sister, Anna Katharina (Rödiger) Eichenauer. Usually a child was given the name of the baptismal sponsor, but not in this case. My reason for mentioning this should become apparent shortly.
Her marriage and death records give her name as Katharina Elisabeth. And, she was baptismal sponsor for a niece, Katharina Elisabeth Rödiger. So, two sisters, who lived concurrently had the same name, Katharina Elisabeth Rödiger.
But, interestingly (at least to me), most of the records following her marriage, including the baptismal and death records of her children have her name as Anna Katharina. And she was listed as a baptismal sponsor of another niece under the name Anna Katharina.
I am not sure of the reason for the waffling on her given name, other than the fact that her parents may have discovered that having two daughters with the same name in the same household became confusing. It doesn't help my family tree either. I have had their names in my tree as Katharina Elisabeth (1) and Katharina Elisabeth (2), and since finding so many records with her name as Anna Katharina, I was preparing to just change her name in my records to Anna Katharina, then realized I would have the same problem because her half sister was also Anna Katharina Rödiger. So, I have melded the two names together and re-baptized her as Anna Katharina Elisabeth Rödiger. I hope nobody minds 😊
And what does this have to do with Dora Gabler? Well, because of my lack of progress in discovering her Cousin status, I contacted my third cousin, Jürgen, who was born in Tann and asked if he had ever heard of Dora Gabler. It was a long shot, but to my amazement, he did know of her. This is his response:
"Yes, I know Dora Gabler, her maid name was Rodel. Her mother was Liese or Elisabeth Strippel, she was married to a man called with family name “ Rode” in Kassel . Elisabeth Strippel was born in Tann, she moved to Kassel, when she was round about 18 years.
It was usual in that time! Kassel was a very busy city with a lot of heavy industries, they needed a lot of employees and so, children from farms, mostly the second son for example, moved to Kassel, Frankfurt or Ohio, There was not enough to earn on the small farms in Tann area.Dora Gabler visited Tann very often in the years between 1945 and 1980. Dora or Dorette passed away last year with an age of 98.Dora came often on vacation to their relatives in Tann, because her home were destroyed during the war by bombs. In the burning nights of Kassel also two cousins of mine, twins 5 years old, died by the bombing.Next week, I will meet my cousin, Friedrich Brand, he is 90 years now. He will tell me anything about Dora’s roots.I believe, the grandmother of Dora Gabler in Tann was a Lady from Rödiger family, she must have been married to a man named Strippel."
Armed with this new information, I was able to find the marriage record of Dora's parents:
Her father was Burghard Heinrich Rode, son of Georg Rode and Elise Schmidt. Burghard was born on 3 September and baptized on 6 October 1895 in Großalmerode, and was, at the time of his marriage, living in Bettenhausen, a "suburb" of Kassel.
Her mother was Anna Elise Strippel, daughter of Adam Strippel, deceased, and Anna Katharina Rödiger. Anna Elise was born on 21 April and baptized on 10 May 1896 in Tann.
Burghard Heinrich Rode and Anna Elise Strippel were married on 6 April 1919 in the Lutheran Church in Tann.
According to a subsequent email from Jürgen, after his visit with his cousin, Friedrich Brand, Friedrich was told Jürgen that Dora was born on 10 August 1920 in Kassel, that she married Paul Gabler in Kassel during the war (between 1940 and 1945). After the war, Paul worked as a tram operator in Kassel. They had no children. Dora died in 2018 at the age of 97. [this may be a correction to the preceding email which said she died at age 98. I have not gotten a date certain for her death, yet].
Her mother was Anna Elise Strippel, daughter of Adam Strippel, deceased, and Anna Katharina Rödiger. Anna Elise was born on 21 April and baptized on 10 May 1896 in Tann.
Burghard Heinrich Rode and Anna Elise Strippel were married on 6 April 1919 in the Lutheran Church in Tann.
According to a subsequent email from Jürgen, after his visit with his cousin, Friedrich Brand, Friedrich was told Jürgen that Dora was born on 10 August 1920 in Kassel, that she married Paul Gabler in Kassel during the war (between 1940 and 1945). After the war, Paul worked as a tram operator in Kassel. They had no children. Dora died in 2018 at the age of 97. [this may be a correction to the preceding email which said she died at age 98. I have not gotten a date certain for her death, yet].
Because Kassel is so large and has so many churches, I have yet to find either Dora's baptismal record or her marriage record based on Friedrich Brand's information. And it is likely that their marriage record has not been released due to privacy laws in Germany.
However, from the marriage record of her parents, I learned the identities of her grandparents--Adam Strippel and Anna Katharina Rödiger. And because I had found a remark in "Anna Katharina Elisabeth" Rödiger's baptismal record, I knew that Dora's grandmother was Katharina Elisabeth AKA Anna Katharina Rödiger, the sister of my great-grandfather, Conrad Tobias Rödiger. The remark states "Am 26.12.79 mit Adam Strippel verheiratet. Sie starb am 19. Sept. 1932" (on 26 December [18]79 she was joined in marriage to Adam Strippel. She died on 19 September 1932). Note: according to the actual marriage record, they were married on Christmas Day in 1879, but nonetheless the remark in her baptismal record helped me determine that Dora's grandmother was indeed the person known both as Katharina Elisabeth Rödiger and as Anna Katharina Rödiger.
Hopefully the diagram below will now show the relationship between Bertha (Roediger) Smith and Dora Gabler:
Scrutiny of this diagram reveals that Dora and Bertha were actually 1st cousins once removed. Their common ancestors (who do not show up on the diagram but were the parents of Anna Katharina Elisabeth Rödiger and her brother Conrad Tobias Roediger at the top of the diagram) were Johann Tobias Rödiger and Anna Margaretha Eichenauer. Dora was their great granddaughter and Bertha was their granddaughter. BTW, Dora was thirty years younger than Bertha.
Now that I have established all of that, I want to briefly summarize the family of Adam Strippel and Anna Katharina Elisabeth Rödiger. As I mentioned earlier, they were married in Tann on Christmas Day, 1879. I believe that I have identified all of their children. The first four died before reaching adulthood:
1) Anna Martha, born 24 February 1880 in Tann, died 13 March 1880 in Tann
2) George, born 10 May 1881 in Tann, died 12 April 1882 in Tann
3) George Engelhard, born 7 January 1883 in Tann, died 6 April 1900 in Frankfurt am Main. (Note: In his baptismal record he is called Heinrich, but his baptismal sponsor is Engelhardt Strippel. Then, in 1900, the death of a George Engelhardt Strippel is recorded in Frankfurt and he is said to be 17, born in Tann and living in Tann, son of Adam Strippel and Catharina, geboren Rödiger. Furthermore, there is a civil birth record for George Engelhardt Strippel, who was born on the same date as the church record indicates, with the same parents and in the same house. So, I believe that “Heinrich” and “George Engelhardt” Strippel are one and the same, and that somehow the church record recorded the wrong name). He was working as a Müller (Miller) at the time of his death. He was only 17 years old.
4) Justus, born 18 October 1885 in Tann, died 13 November 1886 in Tann
5) Anna Katharina Ernestine, b. 14 May 1887 in Tann, d. unknown. She married Heinrich Ludwig Brand on 7 January 1906 in Tann.
6) Georg Konrad, b. 24 September 1889 in Tann, d. unknown, however there is a record of his confirmation on 4 March 1903 in Tann. He was baptized on 13 October 1889. His baptismal sponsors were "Georg Rödiger and Konrad Rödiger of Moulton Ohio":
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| See second column from the right |
George Rödiger, named here, emigrated less than a month after this baptism with his four children to join his brother Konrad (my great grandfather) who had emigrated eight years earlier in 1881 and now lived near Moulton, Ohio.
7) Friedrich Wilhelm, b. 10 June 1892 in Tann, d. unknown. He married Amanda Augusta Plath in Harburg-Hambach in Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony) on 4 December 1915. His wife was born in Harburg. Since Harburg is over 220 miles north of Tann, I am making an educated guess that Kaiser Wilhelm II had something to do with Friedrich Wilhelm Strippel's presence there. Apparently he stayed in the Harburg area, based on the fact that his wife died there in 1932.
8) Anna Elise (Dora's mother), b. 21 April 1896 in Tann. As was already mentioned, she married Burghard Heinrich Rode. So, enough said.
9) Anna Margretha, b. 7 August 1898 in Tann. She married Johann Willi Lorchheim from Kassel on 30 November 1919 in the Lutheran Church in Tann.
That about sums up what is known about Anna Katharina Elisabeth Rödiger and her family of Strippels, and lays to rest the question of the identity of the mysterious cousin, Dora Gabler. I wish I had known all this back in 2014 when mom and I visited Germany. I would have loved to have met Dora Gabler.
Your Family Historian,
Stephen Roediger
