Family In The News: I’m So Pleased That The Keen Girls Visited Their Kraut Cousins

     For the longest time, years that is, I’ve searched for connections to Elizabeth Kraut’s family.  It seemed as though she dropped into Zanesville, Ohio, in 1848 as Lawrence Keen’s wife. That record of her first child’s baptism at St. Nicholas Catholic Church illuminates so much.  But where’s the rest? Immigration? Census? Parents?  Where’s her Kraut family?  I kept looking for a clue.
     Well, persistence does pay off.  Even a brief comment in the news can be of tremendous help.  That’s how this story goes. 
     One day while having some fun with newspapers online I decided to use the names of Elizabeth’s children in a search.  I was surprised when two short pieces from the Madison Weekly Herald in Madison, Indiana, popped up on the screen.  Wow!  There were mentions of Clara Keen of Indianapolis visiting the Kraut family and another news item actually stating that Anna and Clara Keen were cousins of Mr. C. A. Kraut.  The news clippings follow:

Madison Weekly Herald, 25 May 1888:

Miss Clara Keen, of Indianapolis, who has been visiting the Kraut family in this city, returned home

on the train this morning.  Friends accompanied her to Louisville on the excursion yesterday, and she

enjoyed the trip very much, it being the first time that she had ever been on a steamboat.

She made many friends during her stay here who hope to see her soon return on another pleasant visit.

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Madison Weekly Herald, 14 June 1888:

Misses Anna and Clara Keen, of Indianapolis, cousins of Mr. C. A. Kraut, accompanied by

Mr. Cheseldine and Mr. Pates came in on the excursion yesterday.  Both gentlemen are

red-hot Democrats and are of the opinion that Cleveland and Thurman will carry

Indiana next fall by at least 20,000.

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     These two tiny personal news mentions are like gold to my Kraut research.  Especially the second piece where the journalist was helpful enough to mention the family relationship and the names of the two gentlemen accompanying the ladies.  You see, documented family research shows that in 1889 Anna Keen married Andrew Cheseldine and Clara Keen married George Paetz. Here they were traveling to Madison with their fiances to visit their Kraut cousins.

     Of course, the political comment in the above news item makes me more curious about the lives of Mr. Cheseldine and Mr. Paetz.  But, for now, I’ll try to keep my eye on the goal of discovering Elizabeth Kraut’s family.  There are leads in southern Indiana that need to be followed.  Who is C. A. Kraut?  How many more family may have been living in the area?  When did they arrive in the United States and where?  Was Elizabeth with them when she was a child?  Oh, how the list of questions and ideas is growing…..All of them from these brief newspaper mentions.  I’m so pleased that Anna and Clara Keen enjoyed visiting their cousins in 1888.

      Thanks for visiting Indiana Ties,

     Nancy

Related posts you may want to reread:

The Elusive Elizabeth Kraut

Keen, Paetz, Weber Cousins

copyright © 2017, Nancy Niehaus Hurley