Jersey City, Then and Now

I was back east earlier in the month and spent part of an afternoon in Jersey City, New Jersey photographing buildings and visiting places my Badendick great-grandparents knew in the early part of the 20th century. According to family history, Carl Badendick came to this country from Barth, a small village on the Baltic Sea in Pomerania (now Germany) around 1880. He married my great-grandmother, Bertha Zerull on 9th September 1883 in Jersey City and they lived there for the rest of their lives. Carl died in 1916, and Bertha in 1931.


Current photo of former Badendick home
Corner of van Reypen Street and Stuyvesant Avenue
Jersey City, NJ

I remember visiting the house they had lived in when I was a very young child when some of my great aunts were still alive. I remember nothing of the inside but I do remember what seemed to me to be really tall front steps! Here is a photo of my great-aunt Edith Badendick on what I think are those same steps around 1900.

Edith Badendick

My great-grandfather operated a small store at the other end of the block from their residence, on the corner of Stuyvesant Avenue and what was then Hudson County Boulevard and is now John F Kennedy Blvd.

 

Carl Badendick's store on the corner of Stuyvesant and the Boulevard, Jersey City, NJ
around 1900

 

February 2013

The building is still recognizable with only a few modifications. The door has been moved from the corner to the center of the front facade, and the cupola has been modified. The store is now a coffee shop and 99 cent store. The sign in the window in the old photo says cigars and tobacco on one side, and confectionery on the other. There is a sign out front of the store advertising Reid's ice cream.

I plan to do more research with the deeds I have found for the house and store.  I suspect some of the building numbering has changed over the years which makes it difficult to detrmine which plots of land and buildings are in the deeds I have. Family history as well as some newspaper clippings indicate Carl ran a saloon in the basement of what I assume was his store. More research is needed to determine if this was indeed the same location.

My Heritage Pie

I know I'm a little late to this but here is my Heritage Pie. Randy Seaver first blogged about this on
16 July 2011on his Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Your "Heritage Pie" Chart. The following 'pie' shows the distribution of the birthplaces of my 16 great-great-grandparents.

Birthplaces: 8 in Germany, 2 in Canada, 2 in England, and 4 in United States (Rhode Island)

Paternal great-great Grandparents -

Joseph Goff Grant - born 1 Aug 1819, No. Providence, Rhode Island

Lydia Boomer Leach - born 13 May 1827, Warwick, Rhode Island

Ernest Lord Mellor - born 2 Mar 1832, Chadderton, Lancashire, England

Hannah Worthington  - born 7 May 1833, Royton, Lancashire, England

Zophar Skinner  - born 12 Sept 1843, Valley Falls, Rhode Island

Eliza Jane Carpenter  - born 12 April 1847, Coventry, Rhode Island

John William Betts  - born June 1844, Wallace, Nova Scotia, Canada

Susan Fulton - born 13 Feb 1839, Wallace, Nova Scotia, Canada

Maternal great-great-Grandparents -

Johann Martin Veith - born 9 April 1825, Altdorf, Wurttemberg, Germany

Anna Maria Heller - born 4 Oct 1828, Hudlach, Wuttemberg,Germany

Joseph Zeiler - born 21 Dec 1826, Wuttemberg, Germany

Anna Margaretha Mack - born June 1827, Wuttemberg, Germany

Christoph Badendick - born Germany

Friederike Spierling - born Germany

Gottfried Zerull - born 4 March 1812, Garnseedorf, West Prussia

Wilhelamine Kroening - born about 1835 in West Prussia

I love Find-A-Grave!

I received a gift in my email inbox today! A kind volunteer in Brooklyn took pictures for me of gravestones for some of my maternal relatives. I've recently spent some time trying to research all my maternal lines forward in time to find cousins with whom I could exchange family information and hopefully get identifications of relatives in old photos I've inherited.  A lot of this work has paid off already and I've exchanged information with new cousins in two lines. Thanks Jason and Lori and Drew!

Two days ago, I was finally able to convince myself I was following the right family for another cousin in the census records.   This line is descended from the oldest half-sister of Bertha Helene Zerull, Wilhelmine Emilie Zerull who was born in Garnsee, West Prussia in 1842. From some family records, I knew that Wilhelmine (known as "Emilie") married a man named Schultz and had children Martha and Harriet Schultz. I also knew that Martha married Julius Schiller. And my searching finally paid off and I was able to locate this family in the 1900, 1910, 1920 and 1930 federal censuses. Emilie's husband's first name was Hermann.

I looked on Find-A-Grave early yesterday and located some of these descendants in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY but there were no pictures of the tombstones. I submitted the request for pictures of these graves and received the links to them today from a kind volunteer who photographed the graves! Dates from the tombstone confirmed that these were my distant cousins.

Now I just need some luck in finding descendants that are still alive and I may have more 'new' cousins to exchange information with. Someone must know who these people are with my grandmother!

My grandmother, Minna Badendick Veith, 3rd from left

Are these Schiller relations? Or Schultz? Or are these Lemke/Lamken cousins descended from another half-sibling of my g-grandmother? I'm determined to find out!

Bertha Helene Zerull

Bertha Helene Zerull was my mom's maternal grandmother. She was born in Garnsee, West Prussia on the 2nd of April 1864 to Gottfried Zerull and Wilhelamine Kroening. Wilhalmine was the second wife to Gottfried; his first wife was Anna Dorothea Zerull (her maiden name was also Zerull). Gottfried and Anna had at least 10 children together before Anna died. I am not yet aware of  other children born to Gottfried and 2nd wife Wilhelmine. Bertha was baptismed on the 24th of April in the Evangelical Lutheran church in the village of Garnsee.

Bertha ariived in New York on the 'Main' on the 12th of December 1881 when she was 17 years old. The ship departed from Bremen and it is not known if Bertha was traveling with anyone or who she stayed with after she arrived in New York.

Bertha Helene Badendick

By the time of her marriage in 1883, Bertha was living at 28 Essex Street in Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey. Her husband, Carl Johann Emil Badendick, was living very close by at 38 Essex Street. They married on the 9th of September 1883 in St Matthews Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jersey City. August Badendick (possibly Carl's brother) and Emilie Toepfer were witnesses.

Marriage certificate for
Carl Johann Emil Badendick & Bertha Helene Zerull
9 September 1883
St Matthews Church, Jersey City, NJ

Carl and Bertha lived in a house at 35 van Reypen Street in Jersey City for most of their lives and raised 5 children to adulthood. Their 3rd child (and oldest daughter) was my grandmother, Minna Bertha Badendick, wife of Harold Theodore Veith. Children of Carl and Bertha Badendick are:  Charles Henry Badendick, born 5 September 1887, Henry Badendick, born 1 October 1889, Minna Bertha Badendick, born 19 November 1897, Marie Johanna Badendick, born 7 Janurary 1897 and Edith Badendick, born 20 April 1898. All the children were born in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Bertha Zerull Badendick
 with son-in-law Harold Theodore Veith
 and grandson Harold Charles Veith

I don't know much about this great-grandmother. I do have her set of china though. My mom's cousin, Carol Pharis, gave it to me years ago and said that the set of china was given to Bertha in appreciation for the meals she cooked for a club her husband belonged too. Carol thought that the club was a civic or fraternal orgainization and they had monthly dinner meetings in the basement of the brownstone house that Carl and Bertha owned.

Memorial Day - Clifford E. Stalls

For Memorial Day, I'm choosing my mom's cousin Buddy to write about. His real name was Clifford E. Stalls and he was the son of Andrew Francis Stalls (1894-1962) and Edith Badendick Stalls (1898-1973). Edith's parent's were Carl Johann Emil Badendick and Bertha Helene Zerull, both of whom I profiled earlier this month.

Helen and Buddy Stalls about 1925

Buddy was born in Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey on the 23rd of January 1921. At the time of his birth, his parents and his 3 year old sister, Helen, were living in the home of Buddy's widowed Grandmother, Bertha Badendick. His grandfather Badendick had died 5 years earlier.

Clifford E. Stalls, 2nd Lt USMCR
April 1944

Buddy lived his whole life in Jersey City. When World War II broke out, he enlisted in the Marine Corps and rose to the rank of a 2nd Lieutenant. He flew fighters in the South Pacific.

Buddy was killed on the 19th of February 1945 on the first day of the Battle of Iwo Jima in the South Pacific. The battle to take this strategic island lasted over a month and more than 6800 Americans died there, 2400 on the first day.

Gravestone of Clifford E. "Buddy" Stalls,
New York Bay Cemetery, Jersey City, NJ

Stalls family plot, New York Bay Cemetery, Jersey City, NJ

Buddy is buried in the New York Bay Cemetery in Jersey City, New Jersey. His grave shares a burial plot with his parents and sister. His niece, Carol A. Pharis died on the 4 September 2008 and she is also buried in the plot, along side her mother Helen. There are no other descendants

My maternal line - Part 2

In the first posting, I added pictures of my mother, her mother and her grandmother. Here are their husbands (except for my Dad who I'll add on Father's Day).

Harold Theodore Veith

Harold Theodore Veith was born in Scranton, Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania on 19 May 1891. He marrried Minna Bertha Badendick in her hometown of Jersey City, New Jersey on 24 October 1917 when he was 26 and she was 23. He died in Englewood, Bergen County, New Jersey on 27 December 1978 at age 87.

Johann Carl Emil Badendick

Carl Badendick was born in Barth, a city on the Baltic Sea in what was the Province of Pomerania (now Germany) on 2 June 1859. He married Bertha Helene Zerull on 9 September 1883 in Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey when he was 24 and Bertha was 19. He died in Jersey City on 8 October 1916.

My maternal line

Dorothy Minna Veith

My mother, Dorothy Minna Veith,  was born in Englewood, Bergen County, New Jersey on 19 August 1922. She died in Pompton Plains, Morris County, New Jersey on 17 November 2006. She was 84 years old.

Minna Bertha Badendick

My grandmother, Minna Bertha Badendick was born in Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey on 19 November 1893. She died in Englewood, Bergen County, New Jersey on 29 April 1977. She was 83 years old.

Bertha Helene Zerull

My great-grandmother, Bertha Helene Zerull was born in Garnsee, West Prussia on 2 April 1864. She died in Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey on 21 February 1931. She was 66 years old.