My great grandmother was born in Amerika. In Brooklyn in 1890. Which I've already blogged about during my first visit to New York last May.
At that visit, I found the church in which my great great grandparents got married in 1872 shortly after arriving in New York from Denmark.
Hence my great grand mother was born in New York and expired in Denmark. And the other way around with her parents: Amalie and Julius. Amalie died very young in 1896 when my great grandmother - Elsie - had just turned six. Amalie's early death was the main reason for Elsie being sent to Denmark half a year later as her father couldn't afford supporting four kids. Therefore, the two youngest were sent back to the old country - Elsie and her two years older sister, Lily. Their departure from New York in the summer of 1896 was, by the way, the last time the sisters saw their brothers and father. Ever. And on top of everything, the two sisters were separated on their arrival in Denmark and placed with two different aunts. In less than half a year, my great grand mother had lost her entire family and shifted to a new continent.
A fascinating but horrible story. Not least considering how many similar coincidences throughout history has happened for me to become - me. My great grandmother kept contact with her father till his death in 1915. Her brothers didn't speak (or write) Danish any longer and they lost touch after 1915.
My mother is doing what she can to find descendants of the brothers. I leave that to her. I, on the other hand, have been looking further into my great grand parents' merits in New York.
We, or rather my mother, has found the cemetery in which Julius and Amalie are buried: Evergreen Cemetery in Brooklyn. In Evergreen they have a register of everybody who's been buried there throughout history. And even more important: they do not cancel graves - space isn't a scarcity in the US.
So I set out finding my ancestors. It was pouring rain when I went to Brooklyn and Evergreen. I couldn't tell from my map which subway stop to get off at, so I tried the first one: Wilson Avenue. The view from the station kind of suggested I was right...
The station were pretty worn down, not that the other subway stations are very fashionable, but this one were in a worse state than usual.
Not that it matters, but I had definitely gotten away from the tourists, the upperclass and Manhattan.
It turned out to be the wrong stop. You could get in to a cemetery from this station. A catholic section separated from Evergreen by a huge fence. It was raining. One stop further, Bushwick Avenue. Not particularly more fashionable and surrounded by car dealers and fast food restaurants. Didn't really look like a place with a cemetery. Long story short, it was. And I found out after walking the opposite direction for an hour, which meant that by the time, I reached Evergreens, it was right at the time that Jerry - one of the caretakers - were closing the gates for the day. Jerry was extremely sweet and helpful and gave me instructions for how to find a grave at the cemetery and told me to ask for him if I had trouble finding it.
The sun was out next morning and I thought I'd give it an extra shot. I called Evergreen and were told in less than two minutes that Amalie and Julius were buried in the same grave no. 8542 in section Bethel Slope.
Bethel Slope were kind of easy to find. Marked on the map and right next to a Chinese Section as I'd been told. But finding a particular grave... In a place looking like this:
It took me a while to realize how the graves were numbered. Till I found these stones:
Which gave me numbers to follow and finding this:
That looked like this below the grass:
Which meant that the first tombstone was 8541. And that the second one was 8542. The great great grand parents grave:
Which my great grand mother had seen when only her mother was buried there, but now contained both parents. The last one put to rest there almost 100 years ago. The stone hadn't been maintained for a long time, so most of the inscription had vanished. You could actually only tell the number and the inscription: "died" - which kind of came implicit.
The trains passed by at the other end of the cemetery every few minutes. You could see the subway station, I had gotten off at the day before. And that was about as much as was happening. I put a small stone on their tombstone. Felt like doing something. And bringing flowers were just a bit too much.
And that was kind of it. I was there. Feeling it was sort of important to have found my great great grand parents. My ancestors in America. But couldn't really do much more. On my way out, I met Jerry. He waved at me. I waved back.
