January 2018

The 2017 holiday season renewed my interest in the vintage letters I had inherited. Visiting my side of the family for Thanksgiving, and my husband’s side for Christmas really hit home that I needed to share what I had with anyone who was related to the letter writers, no matter how distant. 

The timing for me was better now with fewer outside responsibilities. I was slowing down my consulting business, and my son was grown, had a great job, fiancee, and apartment.

After the holidays, I dug back in and made scanning the remaining letters, and transcribing all of them, my project. My goal was to share the files of the scanned originals, along with the transcribed Word documents, with family members scattered across the U.S. so they could know the people who came before them as more than just names and dates on a family tree.

I started with the oldest letters, dating from 1864, but I couldn’t shake the thought of K.M. Lorenz, Aunt Kathryn. After decades of sifting through pictures, documents, and talking with relatives, I thought I knew, at least in passing, all of the family names in my tree dating to the early 1800s.

This mystery gnawed at me because it showed me there was so much more to learn. What else didn’t I know? What was still undiscovered?

Finding More Connections

I set aside the letter I was working on, and got to work finding out who Kathryn was, and how she was connected to my family.

While organizing the trove of letters, I found two more written to Lou and Mabel Winney from Aunt Kathryn, one each in 1920 and 1921. Neither of the envelopes had a return name, just the Remsen postmark, so I felt fortunate the first envelope gave me a last name for Kathryn. Just how fortunate was clear later, when the records for her early life amounted to a few scraps, and her mother’s name was confirmed only from hoping I had the right person, and following clues backward. 

I truly believe that this one envelope bearing the Lorenz name is the only reason I got to know, and root for, this modern woman for her time, who died one year before I was born. 

With clues from the envelopes showing when, where, and who, my next step was to read the letters more carefully to pick up any snippets that would show me where to focus my online research. 

In the letter dated March 7, 1920, I got my first sense of Kathryn’s selflessness and devotion to her family and community.

“For three weeks during the Flu Epidemic I was kept busy helping out among the sick. And did only what I had to here at home. One whole week I did not see home at all. I naturally got a little tired but otherwise felt fine.”

“I made enough lace this winter for two Pair Pillow Slips. And want to make some more for our Fair. Also made a yoke. Now I am making some lace for the Church.”  

She also talked about visiting Lou and Mabel four years prior: “Quite a change has taken place in those four years since I was out there and I can hardly realize it. How  many children has Annie got? Ruth must be quite a girl she is nearly five years old. Are Mae and Kent living in Anaheim? So Abe is expecting to settle down and have a home of his own.”

Annie, Mae, and Abe are some of Lou’s siblings. This paragraph showed me that she was very close to the Winney family, not just Lou and Mabel. It is only later, in fall of 2019, when I’m organizing every bit of family ephemera that I have that I find the photo accompanying this page.

 It must be from that time because the name says Kathryn Lorenz and it’s in the Winney photo album. I find it both frustrating and exhilarating to find that I had the answers to some of my questions all along, I just didn’t know it. Or if I had come across them before, the significance was lost on me at the time.

This deeper family tie spurred me to see what the next two letters held.

Click here to read Part 3 of Kathryn’s story.