Sisters Magdalene and Hortensia Kruger

I bought this image recently at my local flea market in Hamburg. It says on the back:

"To cousin Charlie from your North Dakota cousins

Magdalene and Hortensia Kruger

March 28, 1915"

Kruger (or Krüger) is a very common German surname, so my first guess was that the sisters’ parents or grandparents must have immigrated to North Dakota from Germany. How wonderful to imagine that back in those days of snail mail, families still kept in touch with the relatives overseas, spanning over generations, maybe never having met each other in person! You couldn't just Facetime your overseas folks or keep track of their life on Instagram, but instead you sent a photo every few years.

What I find even more interesting is that the photo was sent to the German cousin while WWI was raging in Europe and the world knew that Germany had started it. The US had not yet officially entered the war, but I'm sure it was not popular to be seen having close contact with the Germans, even when they were own cousins. If this photo was sent to Germany where I found it a 100+ years later, then cousin Charlie could have been Karl in German. And Karl held on to this photo for so many years, through two raging wars in fact.

The sisters’ parents had immigrated from Germany, but independently from one another – father Fred Charles Kruger (or Friedrich Carl Christian Kruger) in 1884 at the age of 29, and mother Aurelia née Faustmann in 1887, at the age of 26. The passenger list reveals that Aurelia was a servant at the time, travelling together with other young German women, all servants. The couple must have met in America, they got married in Kane, Illinois, on the last day of 1888.

They soon settled down in Elgin, Illinois, where I find them in the 1900 Census. Elgin was very popular among German immigrants. In 1900, 46% of the population were from Germany! The Elgin National Watch Company opened the first watch factory in Elgin in 1864. The company was one of the first to mass-produce watches. No wonder Fred chose this town as his new home – he was a watchmaker by profession, or so he stated in his passport application in 1890! He later worked as a fireman in Elgin and as a farmer in North Dakota.

By 1910, the Krugers had left Elgin behind, and moved to Stark County in North Dakota, almost a 1000 miles away. I wonder what the reason for such a big move was? When I look at the names of their neighbours in Stark in the 1910 Census, the names all sound German.

The sisters Hortensia and Magdalene Kruger had six other siblings – older sisters Teresa and Aurelia, and younger siblings Carl, Alexandrina, Herbert and Herald. Between the births of Teresa and Aurelia, father Fred spent a year in Germany. He had been recently naturalised and apparently well-off enough to purchase a return ticket for another overseas passage as well as leave his young wife in America with their newborn daughter.

I wish I knew who was who in the photo. Magdalene Paulina Kruger was born on October 13, 1896, in Elgin. Hortensia Mildred Vilha Kruger was born on November 3, 1898 in Elgin.

The older sister Magdalene married Rudolph Gerhardt who was a farmer near Taylor, North Dakota. Magdalene worked as a school teacher in the area. The couple had one daughter, Shirley (Gerhardt) James. Magdalene died in March 1992 in LaMoure, North Dakota, and was buried at the Dickinson Cemetery in Dickinson, Stark County.

The younger sister Hortensia "Tenzie" married Fred Muecke on June 21, 1926 at Dickinson, Stark County. Fred had lost his first wife in 1922, just 2 years after their wedding day. The young widower was a farmer in the Gladstone area. Fred and Hortensia had three children: Louise (Muecke) Crone, Winnifred (Muecke) Wehner, and Otto Muecke.

Hortensia passed away in November 1968, and Fred almost 20 years later. He never re-married. They were buried at the Immanuel Cemetery in Taylor, Stark County, North Dakota.

I have added the sisters' photo to FindaGrave.com.