Four large (24×36) framed sepia photos greeted me when I entered the room. They were stacked against the wall of what was my grandparents’ bedroom. The people in the pictures didn’t smile. Their eyes were empty. These images were way too creepy to be in the room where I would sleep.
Before going to bed that night, I turned the photos to face the wall.
I was home for a funeral. My uncle had been going through the house discovering. His latest discovery was these old, framed photos, one with the word “Meyer” written in pencil on the back. They were some relation to my great-grandparents on my grandma’s side. The photos appeared to have been taken in the late 1800s to early 1900s. They are all wearing clothing that fits this period. The women both have crucifixes on. The woman with a softer face has similar facial features to my grandmother. The people illustrated in them, two adult men and two adult women, were obviously deeply loved by those who once displayed these photos. These photos would have been expensive to print and frame when they were made. You wouldn’t spend money to hang a picture of this size and expense for someone you didn’t love very much.
We noticed the photos seemed to have been taken at different times. Two were more black and white in tone, and the other two were more sepia in color.
My cousin has done extensive genealogy research on the family and knew the man wearing glasses was my grandmother’s grandfather, Henry Meyer. He was born in Mastholte, Germany (Prussia), on March 12, 1839, and died in Bonnots Mill, Missouri, on March 17, 1925. He married Anna Stuckemeyer (November 9, 1842 – September 21, 1915) on June 15, 1869. Henry immigrated to the U.S. in 1865, and Anna in 1864. He started a flour mill in Kimswick, Missouri, in 1877. Henry and his growing family moved to Westphalia, Missouri, in 1878 and eventually to Bonnots Mill in the 1880s, where he founded the Meyer-Morfeld Milling Company. He and Anna had five children: Catherine (b. 1870), Ferdinand (b. 1872), Elizabeth (b. 1874), Henry (b.1881), and Anna (b. 1883).
The other man photographed is likely Henry. The other woman could be his wife. She doesn’t look like any of the 3 Meyer sisters (Catherine, Elizabeth, or Anna). Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to identify these people…yet. In another time, all of these people likely gathered in the room just below my grandparent’s bedroom, at together, laughed together, and talked of the “old country.”
These are my ancestors. They left Prussia for a better life in the U.S. Those who came from the German states in the 1860s were generally looking for better opportunities and the political and civil rights they couldn’t find in their homeland. I will likely never uncover the specific reasons Henry, Anna, and my other ancestors came to the states. My life is what it is in part because of what they did with their lives. I know so little about them. Everyone who knew them is long dead. These people lived just a few generations ago, were loved dearly by people I loved dearly, and have already been forgotten.
How quickly our memory and names die after we do. It makes me very aware not only of how short our life here is by also how quickly we can be lost to time.
References
PBS. (2005, September). Destination America: When did they come? PBS. https://www.pbs.org/destinationamerica/usim_wn_noflash_2.html
Below are the 4 photographs. The top photograph is of Henry Meyer, my great-great-grandfather. The second (I think) is of his wife, Anna. This photograph is taken at about the same time as Henry’s. The third photograph may be of Henry and Anna’s youngest son, Henry. The final photo could be from Henry’s wife, but this is uncertain.
