Life Lessons Through the Ages

The effects of Covid 19 made its appearance in early 2020. Life interrupted best describes our lives over the past year. During the 'downtime' from what our normal lives I used my free time to dive into solving my dad's maternal line. The research was somewhat troublesome to the extent I referred to  them as my quiet Germans. 

There were days when I could justify my great great grandfather's siblings' lives, and others not so much. Then I began to see pieces of my great great aunt Susanna Monath Loehmeyer's life come alive. I credit my information findings to city directories and Newspapers.com.

Susanna and her husband were married in Maryland and eventually moved to Memphis, Tennessee, this learned from city directories. This also justified the birth of their daughter Henrietta, but not why I could not find what happened to Susanna's husband Augustus Loehmeyer. I found Susanna living in Baltimore, Maryland 1880 through 1917 but not her husband. This is where she died and is buried. Even Ancestry.com and Find A Grave had no listing for Augustus. Frustrating for sure!

City directory entries listed Augustus and his brother William living and working in Memphis but stopped in 1878. I resorted to Newspapers.com with little hope.

In August of 1878 yellow fever killed thousands of people. Augustus, his brother William and William's wife were victims of this disease and their remains are buried in mass graves around the city. Susanna and Henrietta survived. My search was now completed. (The last entry in the image to the right shows A. Loehmeyer age 47 died of yellow fever. The article came from The Public Ledger, Memphis, Tennessee published 22 August 1878, page 2.)

However, my point about this is that we endured the effects of Covid 19 much like our ancestors. I wonder what will be written in the decades to come about our losses and survivals experienced throughout our global community that will teach future generations and researchers. 

To learn more about the 1878 epidemic, click this link: https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/yellow-fever-epidemics/.