Tag: <span>Meyer</span>

Sepia Saturday 342-a

Fylstra-MeyerOur Sepia Saturday format has changed a little for the month of August.  Instead of one image per week, we have one image for the whole month and are welcomed to post as much or as little as we like during the month.  It feels a bit odd for me to use one image as the source of inspiration for the whole entire month, so I think I’m going to go on-theme for the first post and then choose photos off-theme  for the other three weeks.  Our prompt image is a lovely, billowy wedding photo, and of course I have more than one wedding photo, but this one felt right to include this week.  My photo here is of the marriage of Garret Fylstra and Gertrude Meyer on 31 March 1926 in Paterson, New Jersey.  They were married by the Rev James Holwerda at the Christian Reformed Church of Midland Park, New Jersey.  Our happy couple is on the left side of the image while their two witnesses, James de Waal Malefyt and Jessie Meyer on the right.  Jessie is Gertrude’s sister and James married Jessie and Gertrude’s cousin not even a year prior.  To make things a little more complicated, their cousin was also their step sibling since after Jessie and Gertrude’s mother died, their father married their mother’s sister who had also just lost her spouse.  It makes for an interesting and complicated family tree but wasn’t something completely unheard of during that time.

Gertrude is my husband’s grandmother, and she lived to age 93,  passing away on 4 November 1996.  She outlived her husband  by almost 30 years, and they had 9 children together, two of whom didn’t live past infancy.  My photo may not be quite as billowy and romantic as our prompt image, but it’s a pretty wedding nonetheless!

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Sepia Saturday 314

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For this week’s Sepia Saturday, the prompt image was a fairly old family photo.  While mine is probably from about 1924, the family history here is a pretty neat story that I’ve been researching heavily over the past couple of months for my husband’s side of the family.  Before I get too far, let’s introduce the people in the photo.

L to R, Back Row:  Cornelius Herman Tanis, Gertrude Meyer, Jessie Meyer, Harry Meyer, Jeanette Tanis, Jenetta Meyer
L to R, Front Row: Josephine Tanis, Alida Meyer, Johannes Meyer, Jacob Meyer, John Meyer Jr., Richad Meyer, Alida Grootveld,  Helen Tanis, Gertrude Tanis.

Johannes Meyer was born 3 August 1878 in Stiens, Leeuwarderadeel, Friesland, Netherlands.  He came to the USA, arriving on 4 May 1893, with his sister Grietje, her husband Frans de Haan, a sister Willemke, and Grietje and Frans’ two children Pieter and Jan de Haan.  The rest of the family followed later and they ended up living in Passaic County, New Jersey.  On 26 November 1902, Johannes married Gertrude Lena Catherine Grootveld and had 7 children seen in the photo above with the last name Meyer.  Sadly, Gertrude died on 18 May 1916.  Just a few short months after Gertrude’s death, Alida Grootveld, sister of Gertrude, lost her husband, Herman Tanis on 15 August 1916.  Alida and Herman had been living in Wisconsin for a number of years, and in 1920, the census shows she was living as a widow in Illinois.  Shortly after the census, Johannes Meyer married his deceased wife’s sister, Alida on 10 September 1920 and brought her and her children back to New Jersey to make one big blended family.  Together they had one son, Richard Meyer, born 1 September 1922 (the baby in the photo).

I suppose circumstances lined up just right, with Alida’s husband and Johannes’ wife passing away around the same time, that  it made sense for two large families to join together and combine resources to support each other and since they already knew each other, so hey, why not?  Getting into the details of the photo, the girls are all wearing basically the same dress or variations on the same dress.  The older three boys are in suits, and John Meyer Jr. is in a lovely sailor outfit, tying us neatly into the prompt photo this week.