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| Anna Maul Hoffman (1833-1927) |
Anna’s story is tied to her husband August Hoffmann but she outlived him by many years, living to be 93 at a time few survived to that age. As one of the last members of her generation, she told various tales to her grand-daughters long after the events were finished. Like all family stories, some are true but other parts do not quite fit what the records tell us or even the known history of Europe. By the end of her life, not only were her siblings long gone but so were many children. As a result, some of Anna’s history is only now emerging as new document indexes appear online and DNA evidence link her to long lost family and her birth home.
Girl Talk with the Grand-Daughters
When Anna's grandson, Fred L. Hoffman, recorded his understanding on the early Hoffman family arriving in Michigan from Russia (see the story of August Hoffmann in this blog), he made little mention of his grandmother even though she had lived many years with his family in the Ann Arbor house on Seventh Street. In fact, Anna’s son Fred G (father of Fred L.) had built an addition onto the house just for his mother. The addition was later rented out to provide extra income to the family.
Fred L. noted that Anna’s husband August left her behind when he came to the US. She arrived several years later with four children when her husband was able to send money for their passage.
More personal stories of Anna’s life came from her female descendants. As noted by her grand-daughter Clara:
I remember Grandma H. saying that she was born in Tilsit, northern Germany. I remember that name. It seems that Grandpa H was born in the south of Germany. Perhaps you know more about this than I do, but the marriage was arranged by the family. I remember her telling how she cried and cried to think of marrying him. I don't think she had met him before they were married. [Letter from Clara Jay Hoffman to Phyllis Hoffman, Feb 8, 1957]
The oldest of her great-grand-daughters, Dorothy born in 1892, apparently loved to listen to the old tales, even when others were uninterested. According to Dorothy:
Grandpa & Grandma Hoffman [Fred. G and Lydia] had built a large double house on 7th St in Ann Arbor for their 5 children which could be and was divided later into a two family. It was more or less used as such by the family, as great grandmother [Anna] had one side. It had 8 bedrooms, a large attic, 2 baths, 2 sets of living rooms, dining rooms, kitchens & large front porch.
She was a bossy old lady to hear mother and grandma talk. Children always take in more than parents think. However, I liked great grandma and since my parents spent a lot of time with my mother’s parents [at the house on Seventh Street], she talked a lot to me.
Her story to me was that there were originally 9 children (or more) and they came to the US across Siberia and landed in California near Long Beach. Some of the older children dropped off in Europe & Russia. One or two, perhaps more dropped off in California and Montana & Washington. [Written by Dorothy Williams Burpo, 1981].
Dorothy amplified the story verbally to myself and others in the family, describing the many challenges in dealing with needed documents required on the trip and a harrowing train ride across the Siberian wintery wastes.
Hints from Original Documents
How much of these tales was true? Initially there was little known to disprove the oral legends. Births, deaths, and residence info from census rolls give an outline of family life in the US but little from earlier times. Known facts: Anna’s family initially settled in Manchester, Michigan and were there by 1880. They had six children, two dying young. Only the youngest son, Charles, was born in Michigan with the others all born in Russian Poland (now Lithuania). The family spoke German attesting to their Germanic rather than Polish or Russian roots. They resided in the city of Manchester rather than the countryside nearby, with August working for the railroad and then as a day laborer until his death in 1891. Anna continued to live in Manchester until about 1900 after her youngest son headed to Montana and she moved to the Ann Arbor house on Seventh.
Although many immigrant families have no information on their Old World origins, the Hoffman-Mauls retained three documents that pointed to the Russian Polish past. Of those infamous documents needed for Anna’s journey were three transcripts from church and official records which survive to the present: a marriage record for August Hoffmann and Anna Maul dated 1856, and two birth records for sons Joseph and Louis. These were given to my Aunt Phyllis, the original family historian, by Clara and Dorothy.
It is sometimes hard to imagine in this era of the Internet that finding documents and getting translations was a time-intensive and often costly process requiring travel and connections. Clara had attempted to learn more about her father, but had little knowledge of Eastern European history.
Amongst my mother's things I found my father's birth certificate, christened "Ludwig Hoffmann.” It is written in Russian and a Russian lady translated it for me. It was made out in Deminitka, Village Seynes, Dec 9, 1864 (January, according to the certificate that being the Russian calendar). Certificate was written by K. Edward Weigal, Pastor of Seynes of the Assyrian Evangelical Reform Congregation.
As I understand they owned a farm in Germany that had belonged to Russia, that is, it was Russian territory ceded (or something) to Germany, but returned to Russia officially, evidently since papa's birth certificate was written in Russian. It would be interesting to find out where the family really lived before they came to this country. I can't find a place named Diminitka on any maps that I have seen.
Fred L. had also talked about Seynes as the birth place of his father, and Phyllis had discovered the marriage record from Mariampole was hand written in Russian and in Polish on the document, but was unsuccessful in finding someone to translate it before her death. Neither Seynes nor Diminitka appeared on any modern maps.
Internet to the Rescue
The ability to request help on the Internet now makes the possibility for getting translations easier thanks to many kind volunteers as well as locating information on towns no longer in existence or renamed.
The marriage record for August and Anna revealed their parents and home locations. August was farming in a different village than his father’s home. His parents were listed as being from Tamiliszki and her parents from Karkuplenai, places in what is now eastern Lithuania near the Polish border.
Initial translations of the birth document for Clara’s father (known in the US as Louis but christened Ludwik) showed the document was a written copy of records from the Sejny Evangelical Reform parish book of births, extracted 26 Dec 1874/7 Jan 1875. Ludwik Hoffman, son of August Hoffman and Anna nee Maul. Born 9 December 1864, in Dyminiszki.
Reinventing Anna Maul Hoffman
With more complete documentation, a somewhat different version of Anna’s story emerges. Anna was born about 1833 to Wilhelm Maul and Maria Muller. No record of her birth has been located so it is unclear where she was born. A marriage record for her sister shows she was born in Prussia, perhaps supporting an origin nearer Tilsit. However, at the time of the marriage her family lived in Russian Poland, Karklupiany village, county Mariampole (now Lithuania).
The documents show that the Hoffman and Maul families knew each other although it is possible Anna did not know August before marriage in 1856. Their parents lived in neighboring villages, and August lived apart from his parents. At the time of their marriage, both August’s mother and Anna’s father were deceased, perhaps an underlying reason for the timing of an arranged marriage, particularly if Anna’s mother could not support her children after the father’s death. Their parents operated inns or pubs in villages linked to the large “folwark” estates owned by nobles and farmed by local serfs. The German and Jewish residents were craftsmen and merchants in their communities, well educated and more independent than the poorly treated Polish serfs.
Anna’s oldest daughter was born in Tamuliszki, the home of August’s parents. It is not clear when August moved to establish his own farm, one that Anna reportedly sold to a local Jewish family prior to moving to the US. From at least 1860 until August left, the family lived in Serejai where they had six children all recorded at the local church. One daughter died as a toddler, and if there were nine, the others were possibly stillborn and births not recorded. August took one son with him to the US in 1872 (documented in passenger records), leaving Anna to raise the other five on her own for three years.
The dates on the original documents show Anna began collecting the extracts and passports needed to emigrate about 1874, and passenger records show her leaving Bremen in January 1875 with her four surviving children ages seven to seventeen. There was no wild train ride across Siberia even if it makes a great adventure story, and the children she took with her did not scatter. They arrived almost three weeks later in New York in February 1875 and presumably headed to Michigan where August had established residency.
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| The house on Seventh with the addition right (1905) |
Anna spent most of her adult life in Manchester, Michigan, keeping house as the census records show. One son died shortly after arrival, and another in 1883. After her husband died in 1891, she continued to live in Manchester renting space in her house. As she grew older, in the early 1900s she moved in with son Fred G. and family in Ann Arbor.
There is little but hints of how aging affected Anna, but she was moved for some period into an old-age home and son Louis moved back to Ann Arbor during these years to help with her care. Her death certificate indicates she died of senility and heart disease, so she may have suffered from dementia in the final years of her life.
Who is the real Anna?
The picture that emerges of Anna is one of a strong woman who survived many challenges. She not only moved with a young family from Lithuania to Bremen to Michigan without her spouse, but in her later years traveled on her own to visit son Charles in rural Montana in the early 1900s. She was reported to be “difficult” but that may just be an indication that she was strong-willed and did not fit neatly into the more passive female role stereotype of the time.
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| In Montana with son Charles |
That she was lonely in her old age does seem likely. Although family did not scatter on arrival, by the early 1900s her children had indeed mostly moved away and her siblings who had come to Michigan were deceased when she told her story. Very few of her age cohort remained by the time she passed away. She died Feb. 26, 1927 at the age of 93, and is buried in Ann Arbor’s Bethlehem Cemetery near her son Fred G.
More Mauls in Michigan
With new records and DNA matching, it turns out Anna was not quite as isolated from family as she implied in her later stories. From at least the 1880s forward, she had relatives nearby. Her brother Fredryk Maul married a widow, Mary Strauzs Breanizer, in Russian Poland, and brought his family to the Jackson County area, not far from the Manchester home of the Hoffmanns.
Anna’s sister Louisa Maul died in Russian Poland, but her son Julius who was already living in Jackson County, brought the rest of his family to the US about 1883 after Louisa died. The family took an Americanized name, Coulson rather than the longer Polish one of Kielczewski found in Louisa's marriage record.
Anna had three other known sisters based on records from Serey, but at present no descendants of these families have been located beyond initial records of births and marriages in Russian Poland in the late 1800s. DNA matches have only been found for Louisa and Fredryk descendants. Both Louisa and Fredryk had large families, and many still reside in the Jackson County area.
