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The curious story of Peter Westrich and his descendants

12/4/2023

Peter Westrich (aka Wichterich, Westerick, Westrick, Westerich, Wisterick) was born about 1846 (according to the 1905 Minnesota Census) or 1844 (according to his death record) in Germany. He is not found in public records prior to 1895 Minnesota Census.
The 1895 census is a wealth of information (Figure 1). It shows Peter living in Faribault with a wife and seven children. Although born in Germany, he has been in Minnesota for 27 years and in Faribault for 4. He works as a laborer and had worked 8 months in the prior year. The city directory from the same year puts them on 1116 North Maple Street.
His wife in 1895 is Mary who was born in Germany. However, she is only 33 years old. The oldest three children, Catherine (17), Peter George (16), and John (14) may not be her children. The four younger children are significantly younger – Frank (7), Anna (5), Heinrich (3), and Nicholas (1). The gap between John and Frank is also curious, given that all the other children are only a year or two apart.
There are some potential records which are not complete enough to be conclusive, but form a tantalizing probable story. There is a marriage record from Rheinland, Germany, of a Peter Wichterich to Maria Catherina Schick, on 26 June 1866. Other records put the name of the older children’s mother as variously Mary Schuenke, Scheinke, or Schinke. Then there is a record of Peter Wichterich marrying Maria Konig 14 May 1884 in Rice County, Minnesota. These would match up well with the children’s known birthdates as well as ages for both Marias and would explain the gap between John and Frank. (Maria Konig would be 22 in 1884 if she is the Maria on the 1895 census, aged 33). Baptismal records for Nicholas and Heinrich give their mother as Emilia. However, Emilia and Maria Konig could very well be the same person.
Another daughter, Elisabeth, was born in 1896. The eldest daughter, Catherine, married that same year, to William Bahe of Faribault. But something terrible affected the family between then and 1899. Because on 1 June 1899 the four youngest children were admitted into Saint Joseph’s Home for Children, also known as the German Catholic Orphan Asylum, in Saint Paul, Minnesota (Figures 2 and 3).
There is no death record for Emilia/Maria/Mary. I cannot find a 1900 census record for Peter. Catherine was married but living with her in-laws with a baby in 1900. Peter George was working as a waiter in Fargo, North Dakota and living in a boarding house. John was in Hillsboro, North Dakota working as a day laborer, probably on the railroad. He was also living in a boarding house.
One imagines that Emilia/Maria/Mary died in early 1899. No one in the immediate family was in a position to support the four small children. Leaving Peter with only the orphanage as an option. The one enigma here is Frank. He is too young in 1899 to be on his own – only 11. However, he does not appear in the orphanage records and does not appear in the 1900 census.
Elisabeth left the orphanage first, on 29 July 1901. She was adopted by Jonathan (probably originally Johann) and Mathilde Krauss. The 1900 US Census provides a detailed picture of them. Both had been born in Germany, but they had been married in Minnesota in 1892. Jonathan had emigrated in 1889, at the age of 25. Since then he had become a naturalized citizen and was working at a brewery in Minneapolis. Mathilde had emigrated earlier, in 1880, aged only 13 or 14. They owned a house at 2123 Grant Street. They had no children in 1900 (Figure 4).
The 1905 Minnesota Census finds Peter living at 821 8th Avenue South in Minneapolis. The census records him as being in Minneapolis for only the past two years. In the same building are John, now 24 and working as a baggageman for the railroad. John is married to Emma nee Kolb and they have a two-year-old son, George John. Also in the same building are Emma’s sister, Elizabeth, a laundress. Frank Westrich, now 17 is also at 821 8th Avenue South, employed as a typesetter.
By then William Bahe and Catherine nee Westrich and little Arnold, had moved to 727 1st Avenue North in Faribault. William was working as a teamster.
Peter George we do not find definitively. There is a 1905 Minnesota census record for a Peter Westrick working as a waiter in Duluth. However, the record has him as being 32 years old (birth year of 1873) and records his parents as being born in the United States. Although one wants this to be a link, it probably is not “our” Peter George.
Nicholas (Nicolaus) is in the 1905 Minnesota Census at the orphanage (Figure 5). Heinrich and Anna are not listed. Their orphanage records (back to Figure 2) have the cryptic message “Went to Dakota” with no date. In 1905 Heinrich would have been only 11 and Anna 13. Anna’s individual record has the additional notes “went to work” and “adopted in Dakota”. Unlike Nicholas (see below) and Elisabeth (above), if Heinrich and Anna were adopted there is no record of the adoptive parents.
On December 6, 1907 Peter died in Minneapolis. His death record gives the cause of death as septic pyemia (an infection of staphyloccus bacteria that causes pus-filled abscesses to form throughout the body; pyemia is treated today with antibiotics) and his occupation as laborer. His body was returned to Faribault for burial in Calvary Cemetery.
On 8 January 1908, Nicholas was sent to Mr. F. N. Fox in Hampton, Minnesota (Figure 2). Hampton was, and is, a small farming town due south of Saint Paul, about 25-30 miles from the orphanage. It was probably a cold trip. On the 1910 US Census Nicholas Westerick is listed as a hired hand on the farm of Ferdinand N. Fox in Vermillion Township, Dakota County (Figure 6). The largest nearby town is Hampton.
Heinrich has disappeared by 1910. I do not find him on the census. If he had been adopted he could have taken his adoptive parents’ name. Or he could have died. Child labor was notoriously dangerous at the beginning of the 20th century.
By 1910 Catherine and William had welcomed a second child and had moved into a rented house at 817 Central Avenue in Faribault. William was now a baker for the Roell Bakery.
Likewise John and Emma had welcomed a second child by 1910. They were still at 821 8th Avenue but now they had the building to themselves, and Emma’s sister Elizabeth.
Peter George had married the widow Luella Fuller Whitman in 1907. He was working as a waiter at a café. They were living in a rented house at 806 Tenth Street South in Minneapolis - Peter George, Luella, Luella’s two children from her first marriage, and two boarders.
Frank, according to his obituary, had left Minnesota for Colorado and then, by 1910, had arrived in Great Falls, Montana. He was single.
Anna had gotten married in 1907 to Ferdinand Appl, and welcomed her first child in 1909. They were living with his mother, stepfather, and brother on a farm in Bogus Brook Township in Mille Lacs County, Minnesota. Ferdinand worked on the farm.
Elisabeth had assumed the last name Krauss and was living at 1101 4th Avenue North in Minneapolis (Figure 7).
The siblings stayed in touch with each other – we see them mentioned in the society pages as visiting each other and in wedding announcements for their children. And in the obituaries when they died.
It would tie up many things if we could find details on Peter’s wife or wives. The mystery of why Catherine included Becker as a surname also remains a mystery. Could she have been adopted? Or married briefly before William? Or taken in by the Beckers for a time if tragedy took her mother in the early 1880s? We don’t know.
While the orphanage records were a great help in tying things together they are also exceptionally brief. What happened to Heinrich? Where did Anna go when she “went to Dakota”? Was she really adopted or was it more a child for hire as Nicholas seems to have been?
Plenty of "gold" left to find.