Kate Frank, my 4x great grandmother was born one hundred and eighty years ago this November 29th, in the year 1845 in Kirchenkirnberg, what is now a neighborhood of the town of Murrhardt, in the Rems-Murr district of Baden-Württemberg, Germany.
Her father, Gottlieb Frank was born in Kirchenkirnberg in 1802. Kirchenkirnberg was a part of the Duchy of Württemberg (which became the Electorate of Württemberg in 1803 and the Kingdom of Württemberg in 1806) in the Holy Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Empire dissolved in 1806 when Gottlieb would have been just four years old and Frederick the third assumed the title of King Frederick the first. For a time the Kingdom of Württemberg fought with Napoleon against the Russians and then later allied against the French. The Napoleonic wars would have ended about when Gottlieb entered his teen years. Frederick was succeeded by William the first and in 1816 the region suffered the “Year Without a Summer” with crop losses and famine due to a volcanic eruption in the Dutch East Indies. King William and his wife invested in the country and its people and the agriculture of the region improved. Gottlieb married Maria Barbara Wahl in 1825. The couple had 8 children in the next twenty years.
Their eldest child was named Catarina, but she died in November of 1839. So when their youngest was born in 1845 she too was named Katharina. Their son Gottlieb Jr also died in November of 1839, likely the two succumbed to disease, there was a cholera epidemic that year in the area.
There was a boon in immigration out of the country in the 1870s due to the industrialization, increased taxation and mandatory military service. The United States was seen as a land of opportunity, with greater freedom. What exactly drove Kate to board a ship to America, alone, in 1873 I don’t know. Her father, Gottlieb, died in 1861 when she was just 15. Her sister Rosine died at the age of 30 after marrying and having a child in 1867. Her mother and eldest surviving brother didn’t die until 1882 and 1886 respectively. Her sister Anna married in 1850 and died in 1903. There are two siblings I have not been able to determine what happened to. Did they relocate to the United States and give Kate the idea to join them? I don’t know. The other Franks I find in Peoria area cemeteries often come from Russia or other regions of Germany. Pamphlets and advertisement were published throughout Germany encouraging immigration to America.
What I know is she arrived in New York in 1873 on the Ship Silesia which departed from Hamburg, a single woman of 28. From there she came to Peoria, Illinois and on New Years Day of 1875 she married widower Rudolph Morey (Moeri) when she was 29 years old.
I have previously written about the Moeri family. Rudolph and his family came to America from Kappelen Switzerland on the ship Mercury in 1867. His wife Maria died shortly after in 1870 in Metamora, Illinois. Kappelen Switzerland is only about 400 miles from where Kate was born in Kirchenkirnberg. They both travelled 4 thousand miles to Peoria to meet.
Their first born daughter was my 2x great grandmother, Anna, possibly named for Kate’s sister. Rudolph operated a tailor shop in Peoria. She gave birth to five more children after Anna, two dying in infancy. When her youngest was 12 she died in Peoria at the age of 54. She is buried in Springdale Cemetery there.
As verification I have DNA matches thru Kate’s children and one through her mother’s sister.
Kate’s mother was Maria Barbara Wahl Frank. She was born 30 June 1803 in Stixenhof, the town of Gaildorf, Schwäbisch Hall, in what is now Baden-Württemberg, Germany. In 1803 it was newly part of the Kingdom of Württemberg, previously it had been part of the Free Imperial City of Schwäbisch Hall. It was a Free Imperial City in the Holy Roman Empire for five centuries until it was annexed by Württemberg. Ironically, my grandfather, Ken Starr was stationed in Schwäbisch Hall during WW2 where he served in the Military Police and I have several photos he took there.
Maria’s father was Jakob Wahl, also from the same place- Stixenhof, the town of Gaildorf, Schwäbisch Hall. The Wahl family can be found in that exact location going back to 1627 and my 9x great grandfather, George Wahl.
I can only trace the Frank family back to about 1700 when Georg Michael Frank, my 7x great grandfather was born. Johann George Franks Sr died in the village of Hundsberg which borders Bavaria in 1810. His son Johann Jr was buried in Kirchenkirnberg where Kate was born. Unfortunately there aren’t any records of their occupations, but these were largely rural agricultural areas. Many of the mills that operated as far back as the 11th century still stand and are now part of a series of hiking trails today.
