The end of the story
His full name was Benjamin Franklin Ernest Schreiner, that little boy born in 1895.
The first and only child of German immigrants, he was born on the fourth of July in Chicago, Illinois,1 and that birthdate is undoubtedly the explanation for the choice of his name.
Given their ages when he was born, you know his parents must have considered him their miracle baby. His father, Herman Franz (“Frank”) Schreiner, was 41 years old when that boy was born. His mother, Auguste Paula (Graumüller) Schreiner, was 37.2 He was from Gera,3 Reuss Jüngere Linie, Germany,4 and she was from Köstritz,5 Reuss. They’d married in her home town, in the Lutheran church there, St. Leonhard, on 20 February 1881,6 and emigrated to the United States in 1886.7
But that birth record, for the longest time, was all The Legal Genealogist could find for that little boy. Oh, I could put him properly into the family tree: his mother and my paternal great grandmother Emma Louisa (Graumüller) Geissler were sisters,8 so he was my grandfather’s first cousin and my first cousin twice removed.
Sadly, I also knew he did not survive. While I could never find a death record in Chicago, he was not enumerated with his parents on the 1900 census, and his mother was recorded on that census as the mother of one child, none surviving.9
But now I know more.
I know more because I was finally finally finally able, last month, to stand in the Church of St. Leonhard in Bad Köstritz. And — more importantly — because a wonderful member of the church council there, Rainer Faber, went through a whole bunch of the original church books for that church and found something there I wouldn’t even have thought to look for.
It’s in the death and burial records from the summer of 1899.
Those church books record the death of a little boy born in Chicago in 1895 and who died in Bad Köstritz, on the 13th of June 1899.10
A little boy buried on the 16th of June in the family plot, where his grandfather and cousin had been buried before him.11
We know, now, what happened to Benjamin Franklin Ernest Schreiner, and why we could never find a death record in Chicago.
We know that little boy had been brought home in that early summer of 1899, undoubtedly to meet his grandparents and his aunts and uncles and his cousins for the first — and the last — time.
We know how that little boy died. The records tell us he drowned on that June day in the river Elster, the river that ran through his mother’s home town.12
And we know now for certain what we’d always suspected. He was never called Benjamin or Franklin or even Ernest, for that matter. Like many Germans, he had a call name — the rufname13 or the name by which he’d be known in the family.
The name his grieving family gave to the pastor who entered it into the records of his family’s home church.
They called him Ernst.14
And so, now, will we.
Rest in peace, cousin Ernst.
Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “They called him Ernst,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/ : posted 30 Nov 2024).
SOURCES
- Cook County, Illinois, Return of a Birth, No. 15466, Benjamin Franklin Ernest Schreiner, 4 July 1895; Cook County Clerk’s Office, Chicago. ↩
- Ibid. ↩
- Wikipedia (https://www.wikipedia.com), “Gera,” rev. 31 Oct 2024. ↩
- Ibid., “Principality of Reuss-Gera,” rev. 21 Oct 2024. ↩
- Ibid., “Bad Köstritz,” rev. 25 July 2024. ↩
- Kirche St. Leonard, Trauregister (Marriage Register) 1881, nr. 5, Schreiner-Graumüller; digital image in possession of the author. ↩
- See 1910 U.S. census, Cook County, Illinois, Chicago Ward 29, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 1272, p. 71A (penned), dwelling 144, family 346, Frank Schreiner household; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 30 Nov 2024). ↩
- Both were children of Johann Christoph Gustav Graumüller and Auguste Wilhelmina Zimmermann. See Kirche St. Leonard, Taufregister (Baptismal Register) p. 110, nr. 52, for Emma (1855), and ibid., p. 162, nr. 64, for Auguste (1857). ↩
- 1900 U.S. census, Cook County, Chicago, Illinois, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 914, p. 71A (stamped), dwelling 210, family 528, Frank “Sweiner” household; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 30 Nov 2024). ↩
- Kirche St. Leonard, Sterbregister (Death Register) p. 93, nr. 21 (1899). ↩
- Kirche St. Leonard, Bestattungsregister (Burial Register) p. 135. ↩
- Ibid., Sterbregister and Bestattungsregister. ↩
- Wiktionary (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Rufname), “Rufname,” rev. 2 June 2024. ↩
- Kirche St. Leonard, Sterbregister and Bestattungsregister. ↩
Judy we have missed your postings like this!
Thanks for the kind words. I will try to do more!!
Ouch! So sad, so sad when mishaps happen, when accidents and unfortunate health experiences, or atrocities of war, take or took the little ones in our families and in our communities. An empty seat at a family table, and this forever …. Thanks for sharing and thanks for caring, Judy — tough hardships for any parent, grandparent and family!
What a painful visit that must have been. How very sad. And you now have the information, the story, for this little boy, Ernst. Thanks for sharing his story, Judy.
Such a tragic story. When we are able to find out the stories about our ancestors we sometimes find heartbreak and sorrow we hadn’t imagined. The sad tale of Franz and Auguste and their little Ernst is now known by many who feel for their loss.