My immigrant third great grandmother Louisa Gerbing Schuttler was born in 1836 in Vieselbach, Prussia and came to the United States in 1852 with her immediate family at the age of 16. She is the mother of my first American born ancestor.
Louisa Anna Elisabetha Gerbing was born to Martha Nicolai from Niederzimmern and Johann Friedrich Gerbing from Vieselbach. As my previous post on her parents mentions, her father was a mason by trade. She was their third oldest child and oldest daughter.
In 1852 she left Hamburg for Quebec City, Quebec in a voyage that would take approximately three months.
The following siblings came with Louisa:
Christian Gerbing
Dorothea (Dora) Gerbing
Mary Gerbing
On December 4, 1853, Louisa married another German immigrant – my third great grandfather Johann Schuttler – in St. Paul’s First Lutheran Church in Chicago. The minister that performed their wedding ceremony was Reverend Wunder. In case you are wondering why the year of birth on her marriage record is not 1836, and for more about their marriage record, please see my previous post Today’s Anniversary ~ Third Great Grandparents Louisa Gerbing and Johann Schuttler ~.
Nine months later, Louisa had her first child – Christine Catharina (Katy) Schuttler (my ancestress), 1854-1915. She married immigrant Frederick “Fritz” Eckebrecht.
The rest of her children are as follows:
Karl Wilhelm (Charles) Schuttler, 1856-1896; married Delia Bolton
Elisabetha (Louise) Maria Schuttler, 1858-1922; married Edward Fuller
Loretta Schuttler, 1863-1864
In September 1864, Loretta and Louisa contracted cholera during an outbreak in Chicago. My third great grandmother lost Loretta on September 9th. Two days later, Louisa also passed. She was only 28 years old. My second great grandmother was only 10.
To bury his wife and 1 year old daughter, my third great grandfather Johann bought what I call “The Schuttler and descendants burial plot” in Graceland Cemetery, Chicago. Through the suggestion of another researcher, I ordered a copy of the Schuttler cemetery file and was lucky enough to find an affidavit verifying a graph of Johann’s descendants drawn out in the early 1900s inside the file. (There will be more on this file and my struggle searching for the parents of Johann Schuttler of Peter Schuttler Wagon Company in the next 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge “Brick Wall.”)
Louisa counts the following individuals among her descendants:
- Her daughter Louise Fuller is buried in historic Congressional Cemetery – National Burial Ground on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.
- Her great grandson Colonel Gerard M. Leies is buried in Arlington National Cemetery
- Her great great grandson (through her son Charles Schuttler) was Sergeant Glenn Charles Stromback and is on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Panel 46W, Line 24. He was a Purple Heart Recipient. See: His Memorial Page
Please contact me if I have missed someone! I obviously haven’t found all of her descendants.
The photo below is a picture of my second great grandmother Katy Schuttler. It was said she had red hair. I wonder if she took after her mother.
Sources:
Hamburg Passenger Lists
Vieselbach, Germany Lutheran Church Records
St. Paul’s First Lutheran Church Records
1860 Federal Census
Graceland Cemetery’s file
Find-a-Grave
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Cinziarosa's Descendants (c) 