24 August 1852 – 19 April 1919
Emilie was a German immigrant who first came to the US before 1880 and worked as a servant for Henry (a grocer) and Louisa Juergens and their children. This got a bit confused later as she apparently returned to Germany at some point before 1890 and then came back with her younger brother Theodor, after which she returned to the Juergens’ employ for many more years. I expect that she just visited home and traveled back with Theodor, but for whatever reason, her immigration year was also given as 1890 on later census reports so perhaps there was something more complicated going on between her first years in the US and her post-1890 ones.
In 1902, her younger brother Julius also immigrated to the US and he lived out his life (at least through 1940) with Theodor’s family and then after his brother’s passing, with Theodor’s daughter’s family. He worked as a laborer, but like his sister, he never married – though he did outlive all his siblings by many years.
A third brother, Otto, is a bit of a mystery. I am extracting that they are all siblings due to the fact that their ages (and in Emilie’s case, geographic location) don’t allow them to be parents and children, but they are many years apart in age. However, they do all list John Klotz as their father, and we can connect Emilie to Theodor and then Theodor to Julius. Otto’s only connection is his shared headstone with Julius. I can’t otherwise tie him to the rest of the siblings He also has a name-and-birth-and-death-years doppleganger buried in the same cemetery. I did find a death record that is probably his, but it lists Theodor Klotz as his father which could easily be a mistake by whoever was reporting his death or a misunderstanding when the information was entered on the death form, but that one mistake makes me hesitant to use the information on that death record to definitively give Otto a set birthday and death date.
Of all of them, only Theodor married and had children. Emilie and Julius both worked hard all their lives and never married.
In 1910, Emilie was residing with and working for a new family after so many years with the Juergens. I suspect her original employer Henry – a widower in 1900 – had also passed away and for whatever reason, continuing to work for one of the children’s families did not work out or perhaps she didn’t want to transition from perhaps a somewhat maternal role to that of employee of a child she’d watched grow up.
By the time of her death, she had retired and this fact is listed on her death record. I hope she had a few years to enjoy being an auntie to her brother Theodor’s two children as well as doing only exactly what she wanted and nothing else.
She is buried near her brothers.
RIP Emilie
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