Who ARE we? More than Photo-Chemical Visiages

Sometimes a photo portrait, in this case of a family portrait, percolates up from the bottom of the "unidentified" pile, as if desperately pleading for resurrection up from the photo-chemical netherworld, back to identity and meaning.

As it turns out, a combination of three words from Emma Aufderheide Boock; the photographer's embossed logo; Olivia Raabe's March 1961, "The Family Tree;" and Jim Aufderheide's genealogical notes [found on the right side-bar of this blog], provide important information that lead close to a complete answer. First, the three words are "Landwehr," "Otis," and "Harold." Since Olivia Raabe's family chart draws out many family names from the Schapekahm trunk of "The Family Tree," the "Landwehr" branch on her tree was the second clue.

Actually, the name "Landwehr" occurs twice in her records: Johann Schapekahm Sr. married Margareth[e]a Adelheid Landwehr in Germany, before emigrating to the United States. And, interestingly, their son, John Hermann HeinrichSchapekahm, married Maria Westphal and they had a daughter, Emma S. Schapekahm who married William J. Landwehr. It remains unclear what family connection, if any, there might have been between Emma's grandmother and her husband.

Jim Aufderheide's genealogical chart for that Schapekahm line shows that Emma and William Landwehr had two sons: Ottis G. and Harold W. Which of the two of them would be the gentleman on the photo was easy to resolve: Harold died before he reached his first birthday (11 May 1898-29 March 1999). So, from his chart it may be concluded that the gentleman is Otis G. Landwehr, born 10 October 1896, and married to Louisa A. on about 1902.

The photo taken by "Gooe, Milwaukee" provides the final clue, because John Schapekahm "moved to Milwaukee where all of his children lived in 1920, when he was 80 years old and died there in 1922, which is his notation #9, with its source, "Farewell for Mr. and Mrs. John Schapekahm," New Ulm Review. New Ulm, MN. 15 Sep 1920, Microfilm, Brown County.

Yet to be determined would be Louisa's maiden name and the names and dates for their children--and, of course, their story.

Coincidentally, this detail from a photograph taken on the occasion of an Aufderheide family Easter picnic in New Ulm, on April 20, 1919, a year and five months before John and Mary Westphal Schapekahm headed to join Otis' family in Milwaukee, shows both John Schapekahm (second from left, standing next to Emma Aufderheide Boock) and his wife, Mary Westphal Schapekahm (on the extreme right of the photograph). Young Norbert Boock is standing tall in the center of the detail.

I said "coincidentally," because I've just been passing the picnic photo around to see if we could clearly identify everyone in the larger photo for future reference. Jim Graupner