So many losses…
His name was Hans, and he was born 90 years ago today.
He was the son of Gerhard Nuckel and Lina Sophie Henriette Blanke,1 who were married in Bremen, Germany, in May of 1922.2
And so he was The Legal Genealogist‘s first cousin once removed — and first cousin to my father, whose mother Marie was the older sister of this baby’s father, who was called Gerd.
And he lived for less than a single day.
He died, according to the records, on April 3rd, 1926.3
The cause of death is hard to read, but his appears to have been a premature birth (“Frühgeburt”) — and that, clearly, was a great sadness.
But his death was not the only time the Grim Reaper came calling on this couple.
Taking family lore and official records together, Gerd and Sophie appear to have had at least eight children.
As to two of them, all I know is their names — there was a girl called Wilma and a boy called Friedel — and what they looked like in a 1932 photograph found in my father’s papers after his death.4 Wilma looks to be 10 to 12 years old in the photo, and Friedel perhaps 12-18 months old.
As to a third, all I know is that he or she was a twin, born on the 25th of September 1938. I don’t have a name or a gender, only a reference in another child’s birth record of that child being a twin.5
For all of these three, I also know that there is no record of any death of a person who matches what I know that was recorded in Bremen through the last year I can access in the member databases of the Bremen genealogical society Die Maus. That could mean they’re still alive; it could just mean they died somewhere other than in Bremen or after the years for which records are available.6
And as to the other five… well, Hans was one of them. Dead at the age of one day. But he wasn’t the first child Gerd and Sophie lost. Klaus Heinz Nuckel was born on the 22nd of March 1925.7 He was one day short of four months old when he died on July 21st of that year of meningitis (“Hirnhautentzündung”).8
Then there was Hermann Nuckel, born on the first of December 1927.9 He lived roughly a half-hour and appears to have been another premature birth (“Frühgeburt”).10
And there was Gerhard Nuckel, born on the 15th of June 1929.11 He was exactly five months old when he died on the 15th of November of heart failure and diphtheria (“Herzschwäche” and “Diphterie”).12
And there was Gustav Nuckel, born on the 25th of September 1938.13 He wasn’t quite two months old when he died on the 13th of November of some kind of eating disorder (“Ernährungsstörung”).14
Eight births.
Eight babies.
And five who did not live to see even a first birthday.
Five little boys — Klaus, Hans, Hermann, Gerhard and Gustav — my cousins whom I never knew. Cousins whom I remember today.
SOURCES
- Bremen Standesamt, Zivilstandsregister (Bremen city registry office, civil status registers), Geburten (births) 1926, Reg. Nr. 1207 (1926). ↩
- Ibid., Heiraten (marriages) 1922, Reg. Nr. 815 (1922). ↩
- Ibid., Todten (deaths) 1926, Reg. Nr. 923 (1926). ↩
- See Judy G. Russell, “Well, hello there, Uncle Gerhard…,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 19 Dec 2015 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 1 Apr 2016). ↩
- Bremen Standesamt, Zivilstandsregister, Geburten, Reg. Nr. 5535 (1938), recording the birth of Gustav Nuckel “Zwilling” (twin). ↩
- While many records have not been digitized at all, German privacy laws impact record access as well. German birth records are not available until 110 years after the birth, marriage records 80 years after the marriage, and death records 30 years after the death. ↩
- Bremen Standesamt, Zivilstandsregister, Geburten, Reg. Nr. 1132 (1925). ↩
- Ibid., Todten, Reg. Nr. 1821 (1925). ↩
- Ibid., Geburten, Reg. Nr. 4385 (1927). ↩
- Ibid., Todten, Reg. Nr. 3060 (1927). ↩
- Ibid., Geburten, Reg. Nr. 2413 (1929). ↩
- Ibid., Todten, Reg. Nr. 3175 (1929). ↩
- Ibid., Geburten, Reg. Nr. 5535 (1938). ↩
- Ibid., Todten, Reg. Nr. 3486 (1938). ↩
Judy, just a couple of weeks ago, I began researching the line of one of my 2nd great-grandfathers. He had migrated from New England, where his family had lived since immigrating in the 1600s. They lived in Essex, Vermont for several generations, and take up large sections of a couple of cemeteries there. As I’ve gone back in time, I’ve found still births and infant deaths, but I was stunned by what I found here. This family had more than its share of tragedy. There is an entire row of gravestones in their section of the cemetery that read “Infant son” or “Infant daughter”. By that I can understand that these are children who never drew a breath. Those who did, who were alive when born, or lived a day, or a month, or four months, had names. All are marked by the initials and last names of their parents: four for one set, four for another set. The parents were brother and sister and their spouses. I found other infant deaths in other cemeteries, sprinkled among elder children and unmarried young adults.
I don’t know what was going on, but only a few living children of that line in this place and era and generation lived on to have families. My great-great-grandfather was the only living child of his parents. He seems to have done his best to fill in the gaps- he had several families and all were large.
I had one more shock. This line begins with a series of Samuels (given name)dating from the 1600s. My line follows the Samuels up to my 2nd great-grandfather, and then the name went largely through other of his children, occasionally popping up in other lines, including mine. One of my daughters named her son Samuel, directly after his father’s father but also to honor the name in my family.
A few weeks ago, our young Samuel died in an accident. Every one of those lost children became intensely, and painfully, personal.
I’m so sorry for your loss of your young Samuel… yes, that would make it all so painfully personal.
Possibly the “eating disorder” of Gustav Nuckel may have been (English version) “failure to thrive.” It’s a catchall for several possibilities, but some of them are an inability to absorb amino acids, or dietary fats, or an enzyme imbalance the baby’s body can’t correct. They seem well when they’re born, since the mother’s body has been processing it was born with, so they live a short time and then die — waste away is probably as good a description as any. My father had a brother who lived three weeks in 1915 and that was the diagnosis. Now it’s possible to deal at least with the enzymes, but not in 1915.
That’s what we’re thinking as well, Ann, and that’s was caused the death of my mother’s oldest sister, my aunt Ruth, as an infant: “failure to thrive.”
always sad to read of the death of little angels. Who knows how the families would have been changed if they had lead full lives.
Judy,
I’m sad for those cousins you didn’t know–and even more for their parents who didn’t see them grow up.
I had a cousin whom I knew very well, two years older than I. When he was 12, he fell off his bike, hitting his head. He told his parents, when he got home, that he was “fine.” But the next night he spiked a high fever. In the morning (Mon), when it hadn’t gone down, they took him to the hospital, where he died on Tues. of what the doctors thought was meningitis. A few years ago I was searching newspapers for anything on the extended family, just entering the surname, and up popped a handful of articles about his death. Because it was not a “normal” death, the coroner had to do an autopsy. The article implied poor parenting. The autopsy, however, showed they were not at fault, and the next article backed off. But think of what the first article put them through. My parents didn’t allow us to attend the funeral, though they went. I certainly hope many others turned out to support them. These were my favorite aunt and uncle, and we were close to the cousins, seeing them several times a month. No one in the family ever spoke of this loss in my hearing, but remained close to us the rest of their lives. I still see my only surviving cousin from this family at reunions. I know of many families who have lost more children, but this one hits close to home, and the publicity seems particularly unfair and designed to add to their suffering. I was quite shocked to read about it 50 years later.
Doris
At a family reunion my great-uncle (older brother to my grandmother) gave me a copy of a history he had written for his parents and warned me to have a handkerchief ready. He was so right. My great-grandparents had 14 children and had 5 die very young. There was even one hard period where a baby or child died every three years like some awful clockwork. This on top of getting through the Depression. That same great-uncle, though the oldest child, is one of only two surviving along with the youngest daughter (my grandma died a long time ago) and is now in very poor health. It’s hard to think of the end of a generation within the family.
Five losses would sure be hard to take, Gina… and yes… it is very hard to think of losing a whole generation.
It’s sad indeed to think of such a string of very early deaths as recently as the 1920s. I’d like to comment on a different aspect of the story, however. While German privacy laws may be rather restrictive, NARA has many rolls of microfilm covering documents relating to the Nazi period. Whether or not a person’s German relatives were actually Nazis, but especially if they were, much can be learned about some of them through these films, such as information about military service.
That was one of my priorities when I did what is now Gen-Fed (the Genealogical Institute on Federal Records, formerly the National Institute on Genealogical Research) some years ago. None of my families are in those records, however.