Great Grandfather Friedrich Schwebel

Buried in Reinheim, Germany, great grandfather Friedrich Schwebel. His wife had died 27years previously and I am not sure why they were not buried together. Perhaps at her death he could not afford a stone? Perhaps he thought he may most likely remarry? Do not know. Perhaps his son paid for Friedrich's funeral and the stone, as it is his name, Heinrich, also on the stone. Sophie Schwebel, maiden name Daum, is Heinrich's wife. States at the top "her resting in peace".

great grandfather

Friedrich Schwebel

Wagnermeister

"Master wagon maker"

b. 9 August 1867

d. 19 September1927

Birth Record of Grandmother Elisabeth Schwebel 1897-1938

Grandmother Elisabeth Schwebel Feick's birth record was found the same way as grandfathers was...by going through the 1897 Reinheim, Hesse birth records, of the year 1897, one by one. It seems she was initially named Elise while future records all showed various versions of Elisabeth. There are many variations and diminutives of Elisabeth used in Germany, one being Elise. That should have occurred to me before now.

Hesse Germany Births 1851-1901, accessed 5 Feb 2018 Ancestry.com: 
Geburtenregister und Namensverzeichnisse. Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Wiesbaden, 
Deutschland: Personenstandsregister Geburtsregister; Signatur: 902; Laufende Nummer: 918

Elise was the second of three children born to Friedrich Schwebel and Margarethe Wörtche.

Paternal Grandmother
Elise Schwebel
b: 25 May 1897 Reinheim, Hesse, Germany
d: 20 August 1938 Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany

***click on document to enlarge for easier reading***

Death of Great Grandmother Margarethe Wörtche Schwebel 1872-1900

home birth  with the midwife 1800's

Why did great grandmother Margarethe die? This is a sad question we most likely will never have the answer to. She was only 27 years old. Twelve weeks earlier she had given birth to her third child, a healthy little girl that actually lived to adulthood. Puerperal (childbed) fever was a common cause of death of women having babies as antibiotics had not yet been invented and many doctors still did not believe in or strictly adhere to the practice of handwashing. Her baby, Margaret Elisabeth, however was delivered not in Darmstadt but Reinheim, most likely at home by a midwife or family member. Home births had a much lower rate of puerperal fever than did hospital births. Women who died from puerperal fever also generally died in the first few weeks after giving birth. Margarethe died 3 months after her daughter's birth.



Why also did she die in Darmstadt? I would doubt that a healthy mother would leave a child so young or herself care to travel for whatever reason so soon after delivery. I know that Darmstadt had the closest hospital therefore I find it most logical that Margarethe, ill or injured, traveled to Darmstadt hospital for advanced medical care. Knowing medically what we do now I still think it possible that the birth of her child somehow contributed to her death. Pulmonary embolism? Infection? Hemorrhage?

Why? We will never know. The record of her death doesn't say.

Ruhe in Frieden

great grandmother

Margarethe Wörtche Schwebel

b: 7 July 1872 Reinheim, Dieberg, Hesse, Germany

d: 8 May 1900 Darmstadt, Dieberg, Hesse, Germany

***click on document to enlarge for easier reading***

Feick and Schwebel, Schwebel and Feick

My hubby's grandfather was a Feick and his grandmother was a Schwebel. Both families have been in the Groß-Bieberau area for centuries and seeing that it is really not so large an area (4,500 population of Groß-Bieberau today) it is inevitable that Feicks and Schwebels should intermarry....repeated times. The first instance, I discovered this was while researching hubby's 3rd great grandfather, Johan Wilhelm Schwebel 1777-1866. who married Elisabeth Margaretha Feick 1781-1840. Elisabeth was already listed in the family tree as a fourth great aunt and now she is also a third great grandmother! There are many Feicks marrying Schwebels. In fact many other surnames I find popping up over and over. It boggles the mind to think how many possible inter marriages there are. That's why Walter Feick is not only my husband's father but he is also my husband's

fourth cousin twice removed
fifth cousin
sixth cousin once removed
sixth cousin twice removed X2
seventh cousin X2
seventh cousin once removed X4
seventh cousin twice removed
seventh cousin three times removed X2
and on and on and on up to twelfth cousin and would be more but Groß-Bieberau didn't have church records before that time.

This is the story however all over Medieval Europe when the population was small and people just didn't have the opportunity to move about as much as today. On the positive side I never noticed any family members who looked like the kid in Deliverence (do we hear banjos playing?).

H.G.Wells, Albert Einstein, Edgar Allen Poe, and most of the royalty of Europe married their cousins so I guess we are in good company. Besides, anthropologists believe that everyone on earth is at most our 40th cousin. Oh well. It makes the family tree rather confusing at times though doesn't it?

a Feick by marriage only (although my Scandinavian ancestors dallied with their kin also),

Marriage of grandparents Georg Ludwig Feick and Elisabete Schwebel

Georg Ludwig Feick and Elisabethe Schwebel were married April 29, 1922
in Groß-Bieberau, Darmstadt-Dieburg Hesse, Germany

click to enlarge document for easier reading

This is the record of the marriage of grandparents Georg Ludwig Feick and Elisabethe Schwebel. Ludwig is 10 years her senior. Both of their fathers are relatively young but this marriage must have been particularly important to the Feick family especially as Ludwig was now an only child, Both of his brothers, Peter and Karl, had died during World War I. I thought it rather unusual initially that the wedding was in the home town of the husband and not the wife, as was the usual. However both of the participants were most likely members of the church parish of Groß- Bieberau. The parish church being in the town proper of Groß-Bieberau it is there that it is recorded. The marriage is reported by the Reinheim official so it could very well have been celebrated in her home of Reinheim. Or celebrated at all? Germany at this time was financially and morally beaten low after the loss of World War I.  Unemployment rose higher and higher. Not only did Germany loose 13% of its land but it also was faced with reparation payments  to France and Great Britain that Germany could not afford, Germany began printing exaggerated amounts of money. This threw Germany into a state of super inflation. Inflation reached the point where millions of marks were worthless. 

It was quite likely that life was so difficult people had not the money or desire to celebrate much of anything. Perhaps they quietly said their vows in the pastors presence and went home, but then again I am just guessing, I will never know.

Information from this record:

• Registering the 29 April 1922 marriage #10 in Groß Bieberau

• Schreiner (carpenter) George Ludwig Feick, born 3 November 1887, birth #34 registered in Groß-Bieberau, resides in Groß-Bieberau

• Elisabethe Schwebel, no occupation, born 25 May 1897, birth #24 registered in Reinheim, resides in Reinheim

• father of the groom Schreinermeister (Master Carpenter) Johann Friedrich Feick, resides in Groß-Bieberau, age 61 yr. old

• father of the bride Schreinermeister (Master Carpenter) Friedrich Schwebel, resides in Reinheim,  
age 54 yr. old

• attested by the above four people and the civil office in Reinheim

The additional hand stamps on the top right of the first page indicate this record was accessed in 1966 and the date of Elisabetes death is mentioned as 1938.

An interesting read can be had here↓

GERMAN ECONOMY IN THE 1920's

Death of Grandmother Elisabeth Schwebel Feick

"She died young" is all we heard and no one knew why or the circumstances of her death. A second cousin of my mother in law first got the date of death for grandmother Elisabeth Schwebel Feick from the archive in Groß-Biberau, Hesse, Germany for me. August 22, 1938, was a bit of a surprise as my late father in law once told me he barely knew his mother since she died young, He would have been 15 when she died. My brother was about that age at my mother's death and he remembers her very well and fondly. It made a little more sense when my sister in law told me that her Dad had said his mother was ill for  quite a long time and he had to do many of the household chores.

I found the record of her death a few weeks back. It contains quite a bit of information...written in old German script. Oh boy, this was a bit difficult but not impossible thanks to some great internet  tutorials on reading German script. I have included those sites to the left of this blog in the event they can help others as they did for me. This was my first try at the old script and hopefully I have learned some tricks for future finds.

Hesse, Germany Deaths 1851-1955, Ancestry.com, Provo, UT accessed 24 Jan 2017

• #1030 death recorded in Darmstadt, August 22, 1938
• Elisabeth Feick, maiden name Schwebel
• Lutheran
• lived in Groß-Bieberau, Dieburg
• died August 20, 1938 at 8:45am
• Darmstadt City Hospital
• the deceased was born March 25, 1897 in Reinheim, Dieberg (24th birth that year)
• father Friedrich Schwebel, master cabinetmaker now deceased who lived in Reinheim
• mother Margarethe Schwebel, maiden name Wörtche, now deceased who lived in Reinheim
• married to master cabinetmaker Georg Ludwig Feick who resides in Groß-Bieberau
• marriage certified as #10 in Groß-Bieberau April 29, 1922
• death reported by the hospital in Darmstadt
• cause of death Myomal hemorrhage, heart weakness after surgery
• name of notary and his certification credentials

. "Myomal Hemmorhage" would seem to be the ultimate outcome of some sort of female illness. As a nurse I believe a plausible explanation may be advanced endometriosis. Without the medications of today it could be quite extensive, debilitating and painful. It would also be a possible explanation for Ludwig and Else having just one child in their fifteen years of marriage. Endometriosis could lead to infertility. Perhaps surgery was an attempt to remove adhesions and eleviate some of her pain. Perhaps the surgery itself caused the hemorrhage or she began to hemorrhage as a result of lesions and the surgery was a last ditch, futile effort to stop the bleeding.

Else was forty one years old. It is really unfortunate that we have no photo of Elisabeth. I had believed I had found the name of Elisabeth's parents previously in another family tree but now, with this death record, I have the proof that she was indeed the daughter of Friedrich and Margarethe Schwebel.

Rest in peace Grandmother Feick

your grandchildren never knew you

Elisabeth Schwebel Feick

b: March 25, 1897 Reinheim, Hesse, Germany

d: August 20, 1938 Darmstadt, Hesse Germany

**click on document to enlarge for easier viewing**

The Grandma Else Schwebel mystery

Genealogy, or family history, is not just a hobby collecting names and dates for me. It is finding and understanding an ancestor, their story, their place in history, understanding who they were, what they were about, and how that influenced the dynamics of you and your family today. In genealogy most everyone can go as far back as their grandparents. In fact it would seem that most people even if they did not know their grandparents personally, due to death or distance, at the very least know their name and have been told a bit about them. Not so with Grandma Else Schwebel.

My father in law, now deceased, years ago when prompted told me that his mothers name was Elisabeth Schwebel. He said "she died when I was young, I don't really remember her". My husband did not recall even ever hearing her name. The family did not have one picture of her. The only "proof" I had that Elisabeth Schwebel was my husbands paternal grandmother was a copy of my in-laws wedding record which named her as the mother of my father-in-law and stated her date of birth. Who was she? What happened to her? What was her place in the family?

They say start with what you know. What could each tiny piece of information I found  tell me about Elisabeth? What additional questions or thoughts does each bit of information generate?

Feicks and Schwebels have met before

If you have clicked the pedigree tab above and checked out the family trees of grandparents Ludwig Feick and Elisabeth Schwebel you may have noticed something. The name Feick pops up in the Schwebel family tree. NO, this is not an error. It seems that Elisabeth Schwebel was not the first Schwebel to marry a Feick. Ludwig, born in Groß-Bieberau, and Elisabeth, born in Reinheim, actually grew up no more than two or three miles apart! A 5 minute car ride today or a 20-30 minute stroll in past years? It's a surprise that the two families didn't intermarry more. I am sure if you followed the lines of everyone (aunts, uncles, cousins) you would see the names of Feick and Schwebel intermingled many many times.

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