While Jake and Ike Katz, grandsons of Rahel Katzenstein and Jacob Katz, were establishing their dry goods business in Oklahoma along with their uncle Abraham Katz and his children, other members of the family of Rahel Katzenstein and Jacob Katz were still back in Jesberg, Germany.  Rahel and Jacob had three children who were still living in Germany in the late 19^th century: Blumchen, Moses, and Meier. This post will describe the status of the families of Blumchen and Moses up to 1930.

Jacob and Rahel’s oldest child, Blumchen, died March 15, 1909, in Meimbressen, Germany, where she had lived after marrying Heskel Grunenklee of that town. As far as I’ve been able to find, Blumchen and Heskel did not have any children.  Heskel died in 1920.

Moses Katz, the second oldest child of Jacob and Rahel, had married Malchen Wetterhahn on July 3, 1869. She was from Rhina, Germany.  Moses and Malchen had six children: Rickchen, born June 28, 1869; Markus, born August 30, 1870; Lina, born September 5, 1872; Bertha, born June 22, 1878; Jacob M., born May 27, 1880; and Julia, born December 13, 1883. Moses died in 1898, and Malchen followed him four years later in 1902.

Children (and Grandchildren) of Moses and Malchen (Wetterhahn) Katz

Rickchen had married Abraham Moses on August 12, 1895; Abraham Moses was from Grossropperhausen, Germany, and had been previously married and widowed. Abraham and Rickchen had three daughters: Rosa (1896 in Grossropperhausen), Amalie (1904), and Recha (1904). Amalie and Recha were twins, Amalie born before midnight on February 10 and Recha born after midnight on February 11.  They were born in Frielendorf. Rosa married Julius Katz (perhaps from the Jesberg Katz family); they had a son Guenther born on August 30, 1929, in Frielendorf, Germany.

Rickchen died on September 15, 1933, in Frielendorf.

Markus Katz, the second oldest child of Moses and Malchen, married Minna Wallach on September 7, 1902 in Oberaula, Germany, where Minna was born in 1880.  Markus and Minna had three children: Maurice (also known as Moritz or Moses) (born in 1903, named for his grandfather), Mali (1904), and Senta (1906). They were all born in Jesberg.

Maurice came to the United States as a young man on April 4, 1925. According to his naturalization papers, he was going to his “cousin” Jack Katz in Yale, Oklahoma; this might have referred to Jacob M. Katz, his brother, who was living in Yale, Oklahoma in 1925. Maurice’s passenger manifest, however, said he was going to his “uncle,” Jake Katz, in Stillwater. (Jake, son of Maurice’s uncle Meier, was really his cousin, not his uncle.) In 1930, Maurice was living as a lodger in Oklahoma City, where he was working as a salesman in a clothing store.

 

As for Maurice’s two younger sisters, Mali married Siegfried Baumann on April 17, 1930, in Jesberg.  Siegfried was born in Lauterbach, Germany, in 1893. The youngest child of Markus and Minna, Senta, married Julius Abraham of Niederurff, Germany, by 1932 when their first child was born in Niederurff.

Lina Katz was the third child of Moses and Malchen Katz; she married Hermann Katz on April 15, 1901. He was from Schweinsberg, Germany.  Hermann and Lina had three children born in Schweinsberg: Bertha (1902), Moritz (1903), and Amalie (1905). Hermann died on November 2, 1929, in Marburg, Germany.

Lina’s daughter Bertha married Siegmund Sieferheld on January 14, 1927; they would have three children. The younger daughter Amalie married Max Blum, who was also a Schweinsberg native.  Lina and all three of her children were still living in Germany as of 1930.

The fourth child of Moses and Malchen was Bertha, born in 1878. Unfortunately the only record I have for Bertha is her birth record.  I don’t know whether she died young or married or just disappeared. According to family lore, Moses and Malchen Katz had a daughter who died by drowning in the Seine River, and I did find a death record for a female named Katz who died in France in 1901, but again, I have no idea whether that is Bertha Katz. I thought that the fact that Lina and Hermann named their first daughter Bertha in 1902 supported this theory, but then I realized that Hermann’s mother was also named Bertha and their daughter was likely named for her.

Jacob M. Katz, Moses and Malchen’s youngest son, left Germany in 1908, immigrating to the United States.  Although he put Stillwater, Oklahoma, as his final destination, he listed his uncle Abraham Katz of Louisville, Kentucky, as the person to whom he was going in the United States. By 1910, he was living in Yale, Oklahoma, working as a department store manager.  By 1920 he was married to Julia Meyer, had a son, and was working as a dry goods merchant in Yale. In 1930, Jacob and his family were living in Wolf, Oklahoma, where he continued to work as a dry goods merchant.

Finally, Moses and Malchen’s youngest child was Julia Katz.  She followed her brother Jacob to Oklahoma, arriving in August 1912 when she was 29 years old. Finding her manifest was quite a challenge as Ancestry had her indexed as Inlchen Thatz when she in fact sailed as Junchen Katz.  But as you can see, this is the right woman as she was going to her uncle Isaac Katz in Oklahoma.

Seven years after arriving in the US, Julia (as she was known in the US) married Maurice Mink, a Russian immigrant who was a dry goods merchant in Cleveland, Oklahoma.  The marriage was written about in the Pawnee newspaper:

Miss Julia KATZ, one of the most popular clerks of the Katz Department Store and niece of Mr. Ike KATZ, became the bride of Mr. Maurice MINK, of Cleveland, Oklahoma, Sunday. the ceremony took place at Tulsa and following the wedding a six o’clock dinner was served at the Cutcham Hotel. The happy couple left for a two week honeymoon, after which time they will be at home to their friends at Cleveland, Oklahoma, where Mr. MINK is one of the leading business men and has a splendid home for his bride. Pawnee regrets to lose Miss Julia, but wishes her much happiness as Mrs. MINK. (Pawnee Courier-Dispatch and Times-Democrat, June 19, 1919)

In 1920 Julia and Maurice were living in Cleveland, Oklahoma, with Maurice’s two children from an earlier marriage. Their own daughter Marguerite was born that same year.  In 1930, Julia and Marguerite were living in Cleveland, and although Julia reported that she was married, Maurice is not listed as living in the household with Julia and their daughter. He is rather listed in a separate household in Cleveland, living with his two older children from the first marriage.

Thus, as of 1930, two of the children of Moses Katz and Malchen Wetterhahn (Jacob M and Julia) were in the US and one of their grandsons (Maurice) had emigrated from Germany as well.  But all the other descendants of Moses and Malchen were still in Germany.

Similarly, three of the children of Meier Katz and Sprinzchen Jungenheim were still in Jesberg, as I will describe in my next post.