Above: Inscription on back reads: "Ida Stobernack Schmidt (ca. 1875) mother of Bertha Schmidt Smith) Hannibal Mo."

A Remarkable Image

Bertha (Schmidt) Smith, Ida's daughter wrote to her daughter Gianna:

Left: Bertha Schmidt identifies the woman above as "Momma", ie. Ida Stobernack Schmidt. I think this is a striking picture, so different from the others. She looks so alive and vibrant. Look at the pose she strikes, note the hand in the pocket. This is not the sad old lady that my mother recalls, or the woman who lacks confidence in the memory of her daughter Bertha. (See complete photo on Bertha Schmidt's page.)

The two sisters, Ida Stobernack and Emma Elizabeth (aka Emme Lee or Emily) Stobernack married two brothers, respectively, W. Adolphus Schmidt and Edward Carl Schmidt.   

Above: Undated Portrait of Ida Stobernack

Above: Tin type, false color image. Inscription on back reads "Ida Stobernack Schmidt, Hannibal, Missouri"

My mother Gianna Hochstein recalls being doted upon by her grandmother Ida. In my mother's memory, at one point, there was a dispute between Gianna's grandmother Ida (above) and her mother (Bertha). Apparently, Ida gave my mother some candy, but her mother Bertha did not approve. Bertha "resented intrusion" in her life by her mother, said my mother. This was one of the few, if not the only time that my mother met her grandmother Ida.

Clearly my mother disproved of her mother's resentment of her own mother, and saw her mother as excessively concerned to prevent "interference" in her child raising.

The letter below is from "Aunt Bertha" to a nephew named Edward. A letter from Bertha Smith (grandmother of Miles Hochstein) to daughter Gianna reports that Bertha Adelheida Stobernack [was a] teacher and principal of a district school in Hannibal, died April 12 1946"

Ginger Nowling also found an identical version of the letter below in her family effects. Ginger explains that

"This was written to Edward Schmidt - son of Emma and Edward Carl. He was very young when his parents died and was legally adopted by Bertha at six years old. We have quite a bit of his personal effects (pictures, etc.) that came to us through my Great Uncle when he discovered we were doing family history research."

Above: Ida Stobernack Schmidt and her granddaughter Gianna (circa 1932?), on one of the few visits she made prior to her death. Note how very small Ida was. When her husband Dolph wrote to his "darling little Ida" he wasn't just using an endearment - she was tiny!

The Edward referred to on the left is the son Emma (nee Stobernack) Schmidt and Edward Carl Schmidt (source G. Nowling, communicaiton Jan 30 2002)

If one reads the letter in the context of June 1941 and the looming war in Europe with Germany it would appear that "Edward" was attempting to establish whether his parents were "American born" and his Aunt Bertha is assuring him that they were. I assume that she means by "died when the remaining three were children", that three children still remained still living at home when Katherine and John Stobernack died, Bertha, Emma and my ancestor Ida Stobernack Schmidt, as is also known from the previous quotation.

I had to read the above letter several times to grasp that she is saying "don't be ashamed about being an immigrant from Europe...your family had a good excuse! And I'm glad they came before the children were born." (Because that was easier for them? Because that meant they were born Americans? Difficult to say what she means.)

It is difficult to say what proportions of xenophobia, patriotism and wit are intended by this crusty 81 year old woman's words, but she sounds like an interesting character.

Bertha Stobernack, known from various sources to have been a school principal, is mentioned specifically in Hagood and Hagood's The Story of Hannibal, (p. 166, 1976) as one of Hannibal's school principals in 1923.

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"None of the ancestors will ever come back to make any trouble." said Bertha Stobernack (Sister of Ida) in June 1941. Yes, but she clearly didn't know the trouble that genealogical research can cause.

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1880 Census

As noted above, Ida and her sisters went to live with their guardian, Mr. John England upon their parents' deaths in 1871 or 1873.

By 1880 Ida, 22, had married (see above) and Ida's sister Emma 16 lived with them.

The other sister Bertha (see letter above) had gone on to school, and would not (it appears) marry, but instead became a school teacher and administrator in Hannibal.

They no longer resided with Mr. John England, but here is the census data for Mr. John England of Hannibal, Missouri in 1880, in whose house they had resided a few years previously.

John England was a German born wagon maker, age 45, married to Jacobina (38, also German born), with a 15 year old daughter, a 13 year old son, and five year old daughter. A niece of Jacobina, from "WERT", age 13, also resided in the household.

Somewhere I THINK I read that one of the England children remained in contact with Ida or to her daughter (my grandmother) Bertha. This was probably in Bertha's letters.