George Roediger, pt 3b--The German origins of his second wife, Anna Große-Schmidt

Where was Anna Grosse, second wife of George Roediger, born? That is the subject of this Post.

I received an email from a second cousin once removed, this past week. For those in Germany, you would say he was my "Onkel 3. Grades". Thanks once again to Regina for showing me an easy way to learn the German equivalents to our American system of designating relationships. But, I digress. The email my cousin sent me was in response to my series on George Roediger, elder brother of my great-grandfather, Conrad Tobias Roediger.
He sent me digital copies of his parents' obituaries as well as the obits for three of his sisters who died in 1937, ages 11, 9 and 3.

In addition he sent me digital copies of two postcards that had been sent to his parents in the 1920s with this note, "I came across a couple cards that may of be of interest.  The cards are addressed to Hulda and Harry and are from Neundorf b. Pirna which is near Leipzig.  I remember my mother, Hulda, saying her mother was from near Leipzig.  In reviewing your excellent four part review of the history of George Roediger, my grandfather, I did not see a connection of Anna to Leipzig.  Maybe this information can help provide a clue to the many puzzles you are working on solving."

Thank you, dear Onkel 3. Grades, for responding to my request for more information about your family!!!

Here are the two postcards:

The color card was addressed to Harry and Hulda at Christmas time and had nothing more than a Christmas greeting "Merry Christmas" and the address  of Harry and Hulda Rödiger in "Nord=Amerika" on the back. It is not clear who sent this card.
The black and white card, however has a note attached which is written in the old German script. Most of it I have not yet deciphered, but it also appears to have been sent at Christmas time, as it contains the word "Christbaum" (Christmas tree). The note begins, "Lieber Erwin!" (dear Erwin) and includes greetings to Georg Harry and Hulda [Luth] and to Heinrich Roediger and wife. It is signed "Mit Grüß, Onkel Emil".

This card may contain other helpful information and will be submitted to my Genealogy Angel, Regina, for review, but for now, what I have been able to decipher has provided the clues necessary for me to locate to the relative birthplace of Anna Augusta Große.

The first clue is in the identity of the writer, "Onkel Emil" (Uncle Emil) and the addressee, "Erwin". Keep in mind that the Hulda who is mentioned here is George Roediger and Anna Augusta Große-Schmidt''s daughter. Anna Augusta had a son from her previous marriage, Ervin (or Erwin) Earnest Schmidt.

After further research I discovered that Anna Augusta was the daughter of August Große and Wilhelmina Buttner (or maybe Büttner) and that she had at least three siblings who had emigrated from Germany and ended up in "German Village", Columbus, Ohio.

The chart above is designed to show multiple marriages. I have circled Anna Augusta's name so you can see both marriages clearly. And I created a red rectangle around her brother, August's two wives. The reason for that will become clear a few paragraphs from now. I have also circled her brother, Emil's name. It was he who wrote the postcard to Erwin. And as you can see from the chart, Emil is indeed the uncle of Ervin Earnest Schmidt.

Having established these relationships, one naturally would want to know where Neundorf b. Pirna is located. The "b." stands for "bei", meaning that Neundorf is near Pirna.

Neundorf is represented by the Red marker. Pirna is to the NW. I have included Dresden to make finding Neundorf easier

If you wish to take a look at Neundorf bei Pirna on Google Maps, here is the link.

Before I received the postcards from my cousin I had stumbled across a passport application that Emil Große had made in June of 1920 with the intention of traveling to Switzerland for his health.

According to this document, Emil's father was born in Gerstdorf, where he still lived in 1920; and Emil was born in Friedrichswalde. When initially looked for these places on Google maps I found several possibilities for each, but none were close to the other. So I was undecided about which Gerstdorf and which Friedrichswalde were meant. But thanks to the postcards, I took another look and found that these two villages were located within an area called Bahretal, and part of a larger area known as Sächsische Schweiz (Saxon Switzerland). This takes me on a trip down memory lane. Mom and I took a river cruise on the Elbe River in 2016 and went right through this area. Too bad we were unaware of the significance to the family :(

The locations named in the postcards and passport application are circled. The locations where I took photos while on our cruise show as photo icons.

Even with all of this information, I do not know the significance of Neundorf to the Große family yet.  It may be that Emil was visiting his nativity of Friedrichswalde and picked up the postcards from a nearby village and sent them to two different family members. But perhaps the village has more significance than I now know. Perhaps other members of the Große family lived there. And perhaps the Christmas postcard without an Addressor came, not from Emil, but from a resident relative. One of the ways I have been able to solve these mysteries in the past has been to look up church records on Archion.de. But after searching Archion's archive, I discovered that this area has not yet had their records digitized. So, a search of the records of Friedrichswalde, Gersdorf and Neundorf bei Pirna will just have to wait a while longer. In either case, I should point out that Leipzig is only relatively close to this area, being 83 miles from Neundorf. However, it is the most populated city in the state of Saxony, in which Friedrichswalde, Gersdorf and Neundorf bei Pirna are situated.
And unless some record appears that pinpoints Anna Augusta Große's specific place of birth, we will have to content ourselves with knowing that it is in Bahretal, Saxon Switzerland for now. The photo below will give you an idea of the geography of this area. [After posting this, I discovered that Margaret (Henkener) Aufderhaar, in her work "The Family of Tobias Roediger and Margaret Eichenauer" (2002) p. 11 “Anna Grosse Schmidt  b. 11/18/1863 in Fredericckwalder/Saxony, Germany, d. 3/1/1940, m. 10/20/1902”. So, I think this independent family sketch confirms what I suspected based on her brother, Emil's passport information--Anna Augusta Grosse was born in Friedrichswalde, Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge, Sachsen, Deutschland]

Mom took this photo from a high point in the Saxon Switzerland National Park across the Elbe River with a portion of the village of Rathen in the background. Rathen is about 8 miles east of Pirna.

Now, before I close out this blog post, I want to address a long time question of mine: How did a man (George Roediger) who lived in Mercer County, Ohio in 1902 meet a woman (Anna Augusta Große), who lived in Columbus, Ohio at that time?
I have pondered this question ever since I learned of their marriage.
However, a theory has emerged out of my research on the Grosse family. Remember this chart from earlier in this post?

I believe that this chart holds the key to how George and Anna Augusta met. See the two women within the red rectangles. These were the two wives of Anna Augusta's older brother, August. After Elisabeth Mausehund died in 1900, August married Elisabeth's much younger sister, Katharina Mausehund. Two things to note here is where they were born: Rohrbach, and when they were born, especially when Elisabeth was born (1859).

If you have read previous blogs about George Roediger, you are aware that George was born in Tann in 1854, making him just a little over 4 years Elisabeth Mausehund's senior. And Tann is just 7/10 of a mile from Rohrbach (an easy 15 minute walk along the Rohrbach creek). Could George Roediger have known the Mausehund family before emigrating? I think it is very likely that he did. And if so he may have been aware that Elisabeth and her younger sister, Katharina had emigrated and settled in German Village (Columbus, Ohio). Therefore, he may also have visited Elisabeth and her husband, August Grosse, before her death in 1900. And might even have attended her funeral on 4 August 1900. He might have had occasion to attend the wedding of August Grosse and Elisabeth's younger sister on 17 January 1901. During any one of these visits he could surely have met August's sister, Anna Augusta who was widowed about 1900-1901.
I know it is just a theory, but to me it is compelling. And if you happen to be a descendant of George Harry Roediger or his sister, Hulda Alice, maybe you know "the rest of the story" as Paul Harvey used to say. If you do, I need to hear from you. :)

Your Rödiger-Eichenauer Correspondant--Stephen Roediger