Day: July 19, 2008

One of the little puzzles I’ve been working on is, what happened to Mabel Meineke?

The 1900 US census lists a Mabel Meineke as the infant daughter of Henry and Maria. All other censuses, both federal and state, show a Matie who was born in the same year, but no Mabel. What happened to Mabel[1]? And why, if they were born in the same year, isn’t Matie listed in the 1900 census? Are Mabel and Matie the same person? The names are sufficiently similar, so that I think it’s possible that an enumerator might have heard Matie and assumed it was Mabel. (Remember, both parents were born in Germany, and so would have spoken with an accent that may have been difficult for an enumerator decipher.)

Another possibility is that she was simply known as Mabel when she was young, but was called Matie when she was older. After all, her brother was known as Fred, Cecil, and John.

I’m not really any closer to an answer. However! I talked to my mom this morning, and she had some more information from my grandpa. Mom said that one of grandpa’s uncles had married a Marge Soren. I couldn’t find any trace of her, and I think that’s because Matie was the one who married a Soren. Elmer Julius Soren, to be exact. I found him and Matie in the 1925 Iowa census, which oh so very helpfully lists Matie’s parents’ names, so I absolutely know she’s grandpa’s aunt.

I’ve found all the other available federal and state census records for Matie and Elmer, as well as Elmer’s SSDI record and Matie’s burial place (Evergreen Cemetery in Wright County, Iowa).

And guess what? One of their daughters was named Marjorie. So, there was a Marjorie Soren, just not where I was expecting to find her.

Something else that my mom mentioned is that Ada was also known as Henrietta. That, I’d actually figured out from the 1900 US census, where she was listed as Henrietta Meineke. And in another census, she was listed as Ada H. Meineke. None of that is as confusing as their grandmother, however. I’ve found her listed as Augusta, Henriette, Sophie, and Elsie. Aieee!

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1. Just to make things even more confusing, one of grandpa’s uncles married a woman named Mabel, so there’s more than one Mabel Meineke floating around.