This photo came with many valuable clues! It shows Johanna Kostinec, wife of Jakob Kolecka (born July 21, 1846) and wife of one Melzmuf in Vienna. We can also read in the clues that she might have been born on May 8, 1881 and that she passed away on August 14, 1938. I suspected that the birth year of 1881 would be a mistake in this case cause judging by her outfit, this photo was probably taken in the 1900s and she obviously looks much older than someone born in 1881.
So let’s find out all we can about Johanna!
As I suspected, the birth year was not correct, but the birthday itself was correct. Johanna Kostinec was born on May 8, 1851, to parents Veit Kostinec and Klara née Lahodev in Netolitz (as part of Austro-Hungarian Empire, Netolice in today’s Czech Republic).
I don’t know when exactly she married her first husband Jakob Kolecka, but I could find out that Johanna was widowed in December 1889 when Jakob died at just 44 years of age. The cause of his death: accidental oversight.
Johanna and Jakob had one son, born in July 1880, whom they named Franz. Jakob also had a daughter Franziska, born in 1877, but the record does not mention her mother. I assume that she was Johanna’s daughter. Little Franziska passed away at just 1,5 years of age in 1878.
Johanna married her second husband Johann Melzmuf, a tailor, in April 1890 in Vienna. They had 33 (hopefully) blissful years together until Johanna was widowed for the second time in March 1923.
Johanna’s son Franz, a locksmith by profession, and his wife Leopoldine Findre blessed Johanna with a granddaughter Leopoldine, born in July 1908.
I don’t know what happened, but I then found a death record for Franz Kolecka from May 1938, signed and stamped by the mental institution of Ybbs in Vienna. The official cause of his death stated in the death record was lung and heart failure. But I can’t help but wonder if that was the whole truth... When the Nazi regime took over in Austria in March 1938, one of the urgent policies of their inhuman politics was to eliminate the mentally ill... I read on the Internet that the Nazis used the Ybbs mental institution exclusively for mentally ill people until 1941. During the Nazi regime in Austria, 2,282 people from Ybbs were brought to the Nazi termination center in Hartheim and killed there as part of the National Socialist murders of the sick.
I wonder if that was the fate of Franz as well... I hope for Johanna that her only son died of natural causes. In any case, it broke the mother’s heart and less than 3 months later, Johanna passed away in her late 80s.
I don't know what became of Franz' daughter and Johanna's granddaughter Leopoldine. I hope she lived a long and happy life. Perhaps she was a grandma herself and her grandchildren might still be out there. Please reach out to me if you know the Kostinec-Kolecka-Melzmuf family from Vienna!
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