Facing those deaths
One hundred and 71 years ago today, on the 22nd of August 1844, right about 11:30 in the morning, a little girl was born at home at Buntentorsteinweg 64, in the City of Bremen, Germany.
Her name was Hinnerina Sievers,1 and she was the third child — and third daughter — of The Legal Genealogist‘s third great grandparents, Carsten Hinrich Wilhelm Sievers and Metta Huthoff. Her father was a 23-year-old laborer; her mother was 24 when she was born.2
And there is so little more that we know of this child.
We know she was baptized on the 15th of September 1844, by Pastor Hanffstangel in Bremen.3
And we know she died on 12 March 1845 — 10 days shy of being seven months old.4
The fact that that is all we know about this child is unspeakably sad, and the tale is sadder still when you look at the child mortality in this family.
Her oldest sister, the first-born child, Maria Margarethe Sievers lived only 15 days after her birth in 1841.5 Her younger brother Carsten Hinrich Wilhelm Sievers was not yet two when he died in 1848.6
But what just breaks your heart about all of these babies and their untimely deaths is one simple fact.
Civil registration was introduced in Bremen as a form of registering vital statistics in 1811.7 Births, marriages and deaths were reported to the city registrar’s office — the Standesamt — and in the case of births and deaths the person making the report was most commonly a member of the family.
When these babies were born in the Sievers family, it was their father who went to the Standesamt to report the births.
But when little Hinnerina died in 1845 — when her older sister Marie died in 1841 — when her little brother Carsten died in 1848 — each time one of the babies of this family died… it was their grandmother, their father’s mother, my fourth great grandmother Maria Margarethe (Storch) Sievers who had to perform that sad duty.
Maria Sievers was a 42-year-old widow when she traipsed down to the city registrar’s office in 1841 to report that her first-born granddaughter had died. She was shown as 48 when she made that same sad trip down in 1845 to report Hinnerina’s death. And the records list her as 50 when she went to report little Carsten’s death in 1848.
And I know those weren’t the only times she had to make that trip. She was the one who reported the 1843 death of another little Carsten Sievers, just a few months old, son of 21-year-old Hermann Sievers.8 And there may be others I haven’t found yet.
It is unimaginable to us here in the 21st century to lose so many babies in any of our families. To even lose one — as my family did earlier this year9 — is heartbreaking beyond what any words can begin to convey. As a family researcher you want to hold every one of those babies close to your heart… to make sure each and every one of them is remembered.
But it is way past unimaginable to consider Maria Margarethe (Storch) Sievers. Beyond what our minds can comprehend to even try to put ourselves in her shoes.
To think of what it was like for that woman — time after time after time — standing in front of some city official, and saying that yet another baby had died.
She was one amazingly strong woman.
And as one of her family researchers, I want to hold her close to my heart… and honor her for that strength.
I’m not sure I could have done the same.
SOURCES
- Bremen Standesamt, Zivilstandsregister, Geburten (Bremen registry office, civil status registers, births), 1811-1875, Hinnerina Sievers, Geburten 1844, Reg. Nr. 1171 (26 Aug 1844), p. 574; FHL microfilm 1344160. ↩
- Ibid. ↩
- Ibid. ↩
- Bremen Standesamt, Zivilstandsregister, Todesfälle (Bremen registry office, civil status registers, deaths), 1811-1875, Hinnerina Sievers, Todten 1845, Reg. Nr. 541 (13 Mar 1845), p. 48; FHL microfilm 1344223. ↩
- See ibid., Maria Margarethe Siefers, Todten 1841, Reg. Nr. 144 (13 Feb 1841), p. 72; FHL microfilm 1344222. ↩
- See ibid., Carsten Hinrich Wilhelm Sievers, Todten 1848, Reg. Nr. 95 (22 Jan 1848), p. 48; FHL microfilm 1344224. ↩
- FamilySearch Research Wiki (https://www.familysearch.org/learn/wiki/), “Bremen Civil Registration- Vital Records,” rev. 16 Mar 2011. ↩
- See Bremen Standesamt, Zivilstandsregister, Todesfälle (Bremen registry office, civil status registers, deaths), 1811-1875, Carsten Hinrich Wilhelm Sievers, Todten 1843, Reg. Nr. 96 (25 Jan 1843), p. 48; FHL microfilm 1344223. ↩
- See Judy G. Russell, “Mourning Adam,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 20 June 2015 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 22 Aug 2015). ↩
This touches a nerve. My great grandmother, Magnolia (Yarbrough) Gibson stated on the 1900 census that she had given birth to 17 children. When she died only 7 were living, so she buried 10 of her children, most of them infants or young children , but two were young adults. A son was killed at age 24 and a daughter died in childbirth at only 15.
She must have been an incredibly strong woman.
Absolutely a strong woman. I hope you’re telling her stories…
As difficult as the journey would be for any grandmother, then or now, I see it a little differently. Every parent wants to protect their children from pain, no matter how old the children may be. Maria could not spare her children the grief of losing their children but she was able to spare at least two sons the heartbreaking task of reporting the deaths.
I’m kind of hoping the dads were home comforting the moms…
Hopefully, the parents were comforting each other because they both lost a child, not just the mother.
Agreed there!
A few years ago I was searching local newspapers for anything I could find on my mother’s family after they moved to Washington in the 1930s. I entered just the surname, and found something truly dreadful. I had known that a first cousin died when he was twelve, in the 1950s, and I was about ten. Our parents wouldn’t let me or my younger siblings go to the service, which bothered me at the time, as the families were very close. They told us the boy died from falling off his bike.
Well, yes, but the newspaper articles I found told a much sadder tale. He came home telling his parents he’d fallen off his bike, but that he was fine. Nobody’d seen him fall. He even seemed fine. The next day, he woke with a high fever, so they immediately took him to the nearest emergency room. Tests showed he had spinal meningitis, and he died the following day. The headline in the first article, the day after he died, cited parental negligence. This was the most reputable newspaper in the city, too. The article then said there would have to be an autopsy. Given the circumstances, I suppose the article was correct that the law required the autopsy. That would have been hard enough for them to bear. But the headline had to have been excruciatingly painful to my aunt and uncle. The second article kind of backtracked in tone, and said the autopsy absolved them of blame. For them, I imagine the damage was done by the first headline. While having my parents at the service probably helped my aunt and uncle, I would have thought bringing their kids along to help comfort our two younger cousins would have helped too. We wouldn’t have had to know the story, just be there. I don’t blame my parents, as they too were in shock.
In all the years after this dreadful death and its attendant publicity, I never saw any change in either my uncle, who was my mother’s brother, or my aunt. Not even when they lost the youngest of their three children to a combination of MS and alcoholism as a young adult. Now that takes courage. They were always fun to be around, and my parents traveled with them as long as they were all healthy enough. The older generation is all gone now, but I think of my cousins, and my aunt and uncle, and their courage, often, and with affection.
The courage it takes to live through tragedy is often stunning, isn’t it? Those people must have been so hurt…
This story resonates with me, too. My paternal great-grandmother lost three young children under the age of five within an eight month period in 1879 and 1880. The children died of dysentery. Later two sons died at ages 37 and 28. Of ten children, she outlived five of them. I’ve wondered how she survived those losses, especially the three little ones so close together. I’m not sure I would have such fortitude.
We all wonder — and are so glad we don’t need to find out — if we would have that strength.
Thank you for bringing this emotional insight into a public record. Often as genealogists we just see the record, but it is even more meaningful to think of the person providing the information and their circumstances, whether it they are tragic as with this grandmother, or more mundane as imagining the census taker speaking with whoever answered the door.
We really are the storytellers, we family historians!
Many of us can point to a strong woman in our family’s past; a woman who held the family together in hard times; a woman who continued putting one foot in front of the other when all she wanted to do was stop and grieve. Perhaps we are all stronger today when we face our tragic times because of her. Your post is a great way to honor these women.
And we all want to honor these women in our families!
Sad, yes, but certainly not unusual before modern medicine and improved public health. No contraception meant many kids. Many kids – sons preferably – were useful as cheap farm labor. Lousy living conditions meant many deaths. One could ask how many women died during or after giving birth but the real question might be, “how did so many women survive bearing so many children?” Your example was in Bremen – my example was in southwest Wurttemburg where a 2g-gm had only two children of the five by her first husband survive more than six months and only three of the nine by her second husband survive as long as six months. Four of the latter died in four years – one died weeks before emigration to New York and the last died shortly after her birth in New York’s Five Points slums. Amazing fortitude in the day but yes, today’s women are just as strong and would do what had to be done if conditions demanded it. It is simply how you are.
Though women today are strong, and show it, in many ways, we can be exceedingly grateful that we don’t have to show it this way… that often… any more.
My great grandmother carried eleven babies to full term, only to bury seven of these precious souls. One died the same day he was born. Most lived a few months, a couple a few years. Her last child was afflicted with juvenile diabetes, living to be nine years old. I just can’t imagine the grief and sorrow. How does one go on from there? A few years ago, I was fortunate enough to be able to visit their graves. Seeing the large family monument and seven little headstones broke my heart all over again. While researching, each time I discover another detail about their lives, my respect and admiration for my great grandmother’s strength grows.
I have no idea where the strength comes from to keep going after all those losses. But oh yes… respect… admiration … and sorrow.
Such heartbreak and such strength. I see similar events in my grandmother’s family as well although I don’t know many of the details. What I kept hoping as I read it is that the mother and father and grandmother did have some surviving children (obviously since the grandmother was your direct ancestor) to love and cherish. One lost child can’t be ‘replaced’ by another in a parent’s heart but not to have any survivors sounds just too bleak to bear!
Yes, fortunately, there were survivors — or I wouldn’t be here! But the losses… wow…