Johann Heinrich “John” Schulte – Papa’s Delicate Condition – 52 Ancestors #51

Entry #51

Here I am on the second to last night of 2014 posting the second to last entry for the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge.  I have chosen my great, great-grandfather, Johann Heinrich “John” Schulte for the topic of this post since I have new information about him.

My great, great grandfather, Johann Heinrich “John” Schulte, was born 2 October 1833 in Lorup by Sögel in the Kingdom of Hannover, Lower Saxony, Germany. I am not sure when John arrived in Cincinnati, but he was present by 1859 when he married Christena Ostendorf on 15 November of that year. John and Christena had three children:

Anne Schulte, 1861 – 1931
Henry J Schulte, 1867 – 1932
Christina Wilhelmina (Minnie) Schulte, 1872 – 1941

Misfortune struck the Schultes and Christena died suddenly on 27 February 1878, probably of a stroke. Christena was just 36 years old at the time of her death.

Some years ago, I had the good fortune to become acquainted with a Schulte cousin through a post to an Ancestry message board. Kay Engel had a lot more information about the Schulte family, because she is related by the first-cousin marriage of her great-grandparents. (I believe I have this correct.) Her great-grandmother was Wilhelmina “Minnie” Schulte, the youngest daughter of John Schulte, and the sister of my great-grandmother, Anne Schulte Beermann. Minnie married her first cousin Joannes Franciscus Wilhelm “William” Schulte. William’s father was Rudolph Reuben Schulte, who was the son of Reuben Schulte, and the brother of John.

Kay was able to enlighten me regarding a few things about John Schulte that had been told to her through family lore. I knew that John was a cigar maker. My grandfather Biermann had passed this along to me. I suppose as a cigar smoker that must have been meaningful to my grandfather. What he did not share was that later in life John Schulte owned a saloon. It was co-owned by his son-in-law, John F. Beermann. Kay said that John Schulte was a drunk. He would over-imbibe, pass out somewhere in the neighborhood, then, have to be carried home in a drunken stupor and cared for by his daughters. Perhaps referring to it as “Papa’s delicate condition” is an understatement. By 6 June 1880, Anne Schulte had married John F. Beermann and the chore of taking care of father seems to have fallen exclusively to Minnie. Kay also told me that when it came time for Anne to marry, they made her trousseau from her mother’s things.

John died on 1 May 1890 of apoplexy. His obituary from the Cincinnati Volksblatt follows:

Just before Christmas, I posted in the Lower Saxony Facebook group asking for help locating the Catholic Church records for Lorup. Monika Thölking responded that she could help me lookup the information, which was much more than I had expected. I was especially grateful since these records were not available through the LDS collection of films. Monika found that Johann Heinrich Schulte’s parents were Wilhelmus Schulte(gerdts), born 1799 and Maria Krull (born 1797). This is not exactly what I was expecting, since Kay believes that Rudolph Reuben Schulte’s father was Ruben Schulte; however, the date of birth fits Ruben (senior) from the Cincinnati 1860 Federal census, and Mary, his wife, was a few years older. Mary could be Maria Krull. Here we have the dilemma that we just don’t know for certain if Wilhelm could have been Wilhelm Ruben Schulte. It is not unusual to find Germans under different given names in different records. Additionally, Wilhelm’s parents were given as Johannes Schulte(gerdts) and Hempe Maria Dierksen. I will need to ask Monika about the given name “Hempe” as I have not heard it before.

In the meantime, my cousin Kay has DNA tested her autosomal DNA through Ancestry.com and we are expecting her results any day now.