Henry goes home

Henry & Minnie (Boldt) Staker

The ironic thing about my years of family history research is that the one name that's always somewhat eluded me has been my own.

Once you start researching you start to collect a lengthy list of surnames, especially when you get five, six, or seven generations back in your tree. These branches of my tree have roots all over Europe, with the majority located in Germany.

It was there, in 1848, that Henry Staker was born. Henry, my great-great grandfather, was the patriarch of the Staker family in Iowa. He came to the U.S. on his one in 1870 (his obituary said 1869, but passenger lists showed it was a year later). Like many Iowa Germans he made his way to Davenport before - for reasons yet unknown - he came to Tama County.

In 1877 he married another German, Wilhelmina Boldt, a woman 10 years his junior who had also settled in Tama County. The couple farmed in Grant Township and raised a family of 12 children (plus two who died in infancy). Wilhelmina, or Minnie has she was known, passed away Dec. 29, 1929, in Gladbrook, Iowa. Three days later, on the morning of what was supposed to be Minnie's funeral, Henry passed away as well. At the time of their deaths the Stakers had 37 living grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren. As the years progressed the generations expanded, creating an expansive Staker family that is still well-represented in Tama County - myself included.

While the legacy of Henry's family his well known, his heritage remains a mystery. Minnie came to the U.S. as a child with her parents and three brothers, all of whom lived in Tama County. She had an uncle in Tama County, another in Davenport, and numerous cousins. Henry came to the U.S. alone. There were no other Stakers on any U.S. Census records who weren't his direct descendants. His only family was the one he had with Minnie.

Perhaps most frustrating has been the inability to find Henry before he arrived in the U.S. I haven't had the time or resources to actually do research in Germany, but searches of online databases have proven fruitless. There have been some clues along the way. The 1925 Iowa Census, which had respondents write their parents' names (including mother's maiden name), told me Henry's parents were Hans and Margaret (Siems) Staker.

 Of course, anyone who conducts family history research knows how unreliable spelling is in Census records. In fact, spelling has always been an issue for the Stakers. On Henry's naturalization certificate his name is spelled Stäker. The pronunciation has always been contested too, though it's well established that the original German sounded more like Stacker instead of Staker, and early newspaper accounts of the family added the "c" to the name.

"Grandpa Staker's Folks" was the only
information written on the back of this
small, misshapen old image.

The closest I've come to identifying anything about his past was a small photo. It was stashed in a box that belonged to Elaine Marken, Henry's granddaughter and my grandfather's first cousin. Elaine's niece gave me a collection of Staker family photos several years ago. Among them was a small, odd-shaped, sepia-toned image of an older couple. On the back in pencil was scrolled "Grandpa Staker's folks". Since Elaine's tie to the Staker family was through her mother, I assumed the "grandpa" involved was Henry, making the photo Hans and Margaret.

But what happened to them? How long were they alive? When was the photo taken? I highly doubt Henry was an only child and the photo is clearly taken after Henry was in the U.S. Did they correspond? What were his connections to his homeland?

This summer, I found another clue. While combing through the archives at the Tama County Historical Society and studying The Tama Northern newspaper from Gladbrook, I came across this entry April 28, 1910.

Mr. and Mrs. Chris Hoeppner and Henry Stacker of Traer left Tuesday on an extended visit with relatives in Germany. They will be accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. John Hoeppner of Walcut, Iowa. The party expects to be in the Fatherland about three months.

 The first thing I did when discovering this was to research Mr. and Mrs. Chris Hoeppner. So far their connection to Henry other than being German has eluded me. For a time I started thinking this was a typo, that it wasn't Henry Staker, but some other Henry or a different last night. I once read a story stating the death of twin boys, both of whom I new when they were in their late 80s. Mistakes happened. Reporting was sloppy. Most of the time it was someone on the neighborhood just writing down gossip, third-hand details, and suppositions.

I put the details out of my mind for a while and went on to other things. Today, on a complete whim, I decided to log into Ancestry.com and search for Henry. I've done that many, many times, but every month or so I like to go back and re-search for someone. I always hope some distant cousin has suddenly posted a tree and tons of photos. (Actually did happen once, but that's another post).

This time what came up were ship manifests. They were the same ones that showed up every time I search for Henry, one being his immigration record from 1870 and others being nonstarters - or so I thought! This time, I looked with the newspaper clipping as context. If Henry left for Germany in April 1910 as the paper claimed, perhaps one of these records would show his arrival back home. The newspaper said he'd be gone nearly three months. Sure enough, among the German passenger lists was Henry Staker traveling from Hamburg back to the US, departing June 23, 1910.

But, was it him?

My answer to that is "Yes, I'm pretty sure." I say "pretty sure" because with family history it's hard to ever be really certain unless you have first-hand accounting or primary sources. There are enough factors in this record, however, to make me confident this is my Henry. First, the name (obviously). Next, the age: The passenger list says he was 63 (born in 1847), which is definitely close enough to 1848 to count (Old ship manifests had wide ranging ages for people, as did Census records. If a date is within a few years of the recorded birth year I consider it verified.).

The real clue came from what he listed as his residence and ethnicity.

Residence: Reinberk
Ethnicity/Nationality: USA (American)

I believe Reinberk is a transcription error and should read Reinbeck, as in Reinbeck, Iowa, the Grundy County town near where Henry lived. His Grant Township farm was somewhere between Traer and Reinbeck, so Reinbeck could have been the post office from which he received mail. The fact he lists his nationality as "American" says to me this Henry and mine are one in the same.

A search of American port arrivals shows the ship arrived July 2, 1910, in New York, with Henry (now listed as 62) on board.

So, now that I've confirmed Henry traveled back to his homeland for the summer of 1910, the next question is deceptively simple: What was he doing there!?

That's a question still in want of an answer at this point. Without knowing more about his family in Germany, it's impossible to know who was living, who he visited, where he stayed, and what occurred during his few months abroad. I would like to think he visited relatives and told about his life in Iowa with a large family, many grandchildren, a prosperous farm, and general success. I wonder if his parents were still living. Was this when he brought back their small photo? Did he have aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers, cousins? Did they gather to see their American cousin come home after 40 years?

There are so many questions related to Henry's trip. I don't know if I'll ever find the answers. However, I'm confident - now that I know he did, in fact, travel to Germany as the newspaper said - that those answers do exist.

Somewhere.