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ANCESTOR NO. 14: MARY AUGUSTA FELDWEG (1874-1960)

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 Besides myself, Mary Feldweg is the only twin in recent generations in my family. She was baptized Marie Auguste Feldweg at St. John’s (Second) German Lutheran Church in Newark, N.J., along with her twin sister Julie Bertha Feldweg in 1874. [1] They were the daughters of Robert Feldweg and Bertha Mühlpfordt , German immigrants. [2] Their birthday was May 15, 1874. They had an older sister, Henrietta Elizabeth , called Lizzie . Mary’s only brother, Robert Jr., was born on October 13, 1876. Due to the close bond between twins, even though she was only three and a half years old, Mary may have never forgotten when her sister Julia died on Nov. 21, 1877, of enteritis . [3] Could it have been food poisoning , appendicitis , or some other illness? Did the rest of the family have it, but survive? Mary’s younger sister, Bertha, was born on Feb. 28, 1879. Mary and Lizzie were already attending school in 1880. [4] In 1887, their parents bought a house at 37 West Street in Newark ...
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ANCESTOR NO. 13: OSCAR RICHARD BRUGUIER (1873-1950)

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 My grandmother was so proud of her father, the pharmacist Oscar Bruguier. At a time when few people went to college, he earned a degree. She told me that when he saw her mother riding a horse in the park, he fell so madly in love that he dropped out of medical school and married her. I don’t know if that’s true, but I did find an article naming him as one of the graduates of New York College, now called Columbia University. [1] Oscar was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey, but my mother recalled he spoke with a German accent. My grandmother said that they spoke German at home. He was born on December 15, 1873. [2] His parents, Franz von Bruguier and Anna Ladewig, were both immigrants from the German state of Brandenburg (before Germany was a country). [3] Oscar’s parents had sixteen children, but only four survived childhood. He had an older brother Paul, a younger sister Minnie and a younger brother Frank. His father Frank had his own pharmacy, and Oscar probably grew up...
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ANCESTOR NO. 12: LAURA ELOISE LUDLOW

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  My grandfather’s mother was born Laura Eloise Ludlow in Rahway, New Jersey, on November 18. There is conflicting information regarding whether that was in 1871 or 1872. Her parents were William Todd Ludlow and Sarah E. Laing. We have a photo of them. Laura is on the left and her little sister Ida Victoria is next to their mother. Laura’s older brothers Matthias and Lewis are not in the photo. Ida was born in 1877, so this photo was taken in the early mid-1880s. In 1889, Laura met her future husband, Eugene Loomis Downs, when her brother Matthias married Eugene’s sister Lizzie. [1] Laura married Eugene on July 24, 1891, in Brooklyn, New York, where the family had moved. [2] She was still living with her parents in February 1892 in Brooklyn, when New York did a census enumeration. [3] That year, Eugene was listed as the owner of a restaurant at 23 Center St. in Orange, New Jersey. Our family Bible shows Laura ...
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