Pain is so close to pleasure, they say. Would you believe that this applies to genealogy as well :)? The moment I find a lost photo, fully identified, perhaps even including clues regarding location or birthdates, such pleasure! But then I eagerly browse my favourite platforms for records, thinking to myself oh this will be a walk in the park, instead hardly anything comes up on them. Oh the pain :). Here are some of my newest Brick Walls - identified lost photos but the stories of the strangers in them remain a mystery.
Käthe Tümler
Finding little Käthe Tümler has been a bit of a headache. I can’t be sure if what I have found is really about the Käthe in this photo.
This photo was apparently taken in July 1902. Käthe would be perhaps 2 years old in this photo? I found one Käthe Lizzy Tümler in the records who was born on September 1, 1900 in Hamburg to Bertha Wilhelmine Carla Litty née Mayer and her husband Alexander Friedrich Tümler. Her parents had got married in August 1899 in Hamburg. Her father was 43 at the time, and her mother 28.
The photo studio was located in the centre of Hamburg, just a street away from Johannes Tümler's offices at 32 Neuer Wall in 1902:
Käthe’s father Alexander Friedrich Tümler had some interesting patents registered in his name in the USA and the UK in 1901 and 1902! His patents concerned some specific improvements regarding the ladder tapes for Venetian Blinds.
I then find one Käthe Tümler in Stuttgart in 1940, working as an artisan. I can’t be sure if this is the same Käthe. But the Käthe with the "Venetian Blinds father" passed away in August 1992 in Stuttgart, so perhaps Käthe moved to Stuttgart in the 1930s already.
I really can’t be sure if I’ve found the right Käthe in the records. Which is why I’m including her in this blogpost of Brick Walls.
Gabriele Bauer
The text on this photo says "For you to remember your teacher Gabriele Bauer in 1892" and the photo was taken in Augsburg in 1893 (see the tiny print in the lower right corner).
What did Miss Bauer teach? She could be perhaps in her 30s in the photo, perhaps born in the 1860s. But I can't find anything solid about her.
Johannes Wilhelm Ostwald
This one says “To my dear mother 1905, Wilh. Ostwaldt Jr.” and the photo was taken in Schöneberg-Berlin in Germany.
I found one Johannes Wilhelm Ostwald born on July 24, 1904, in Berlin. His parents were Johannes Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald and Elisabeth née Preuss from Berlin. Johannes Wilhelm Sr. had a long career in the Imperial German Navy. He was actually serving in the Navy at the time when Wilhelm Jr. was born.
But there is nothing else I can tell you about little Wilhelm or his mother or how his life turned out. A classic Brick Wall!
If you know anything else about these persons or recognise them in my photos, please let me know! Any new clue might help us find out more about them and their story and perhaps reunite them with their lost families again some day.
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