Karl Wilhelm Friedrich August Leopold Graf von Werder was born on September 12, 1808, in Schloßberg, in the province of East Prussia. At the age of 17 he entered military service as a career soldier, serving in various capacities and ranks until his retirement 54 years later.
During his tenure as a soldier, von Werder made quite a name for himself as a strategist and leader. He attained the rank of captain in 1846 and became a major-general in 1863, when he took command of a Guard Infantry brigade. After showing exceptional strategic and leadership ability in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, he gained the rank of lieutenant-general. He was promoted to general of infantry in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War, during which he won a number of significant battles for Prussia.
When he retired from the military in 1879, von Werder was so highly esteemed that he was given the title of count, indicated by the word Graf which eventually became part of his name. Additional honors for him included his name being attached to the 30th (4th Rhenish) Infantry regiment and a statue of him standing in Freiburg im Breisgau. Von Werder died at Grüssow in Pomerania in 1888.
The general’s military feats, especially during the Austro-Prussian War and the Franco-Prussian War, were considered so noteworthy that while he was still active, a steamer ship was named after him. In 1874, Caird & Company in Greenock, Scotland, built an iron screw steamer as a passenger liner. When it was launched on April 3, it was given the name of SS General Werder. The ship’s maiden voyage commenced in September, going from Bremen, Germany, to Southampton, England, to Baltimore, Maryland, and back to Bremen.
The SS General Werder was owned by Norddeutscher Lloyd of Bremen. It was more than 351 feet long and 39 feet wide, with a depth draft of 31.2 feet. Its single screw engine was rated at 450 nautical horsepower. It was designed to carry 144 first class, 68 second class and 502 steerage passengers.
Among its many voyages before the ship was retired in 1912 was a journey which began in Bremen in June and docked in the port of New York on July 7, 1879. For this crossing, the ship only had about half the number of passengers it was built to carry. The manifest submitted by the ship’s captain lists 15 adults in the first class accommodations, 20 adults and 3 children in second class, and 256 adults, 40 children and 19 infants in steerage.
Among those passengers in steerage was a family with 9 children. The ship’s manifest lists the family as follows: Baldwin Odens (44), Wenke Odens (32), Baldwin Odens (16), Philipp Odens (14), Johanna Odens (12), Popke Odens (10), Ode Odens (7), Antje Odens (6), Wilke Odens (5), Aufke Odens (2), Jannette Odens (1).
The senior Baldwin in that family is my paternal great-grandfather. The ship’s scribe writing down the information didn’t write every detail correctly. For example, Popke was listed as a ten-year-old girl in the manifest, when in reality his name was Popka and he was a ten-year-old boy. It would be of interest to know if Baldwin had already anglicized his name and told the scribe to write it as it stands, or whether that spelling was the scribe’s doing on his own. The German spelling of the name was Boldewyn.
The elder Boldewyn was born on September 1, 1838, in Gros Polder, Germany, and named Boldewyn Oden Odens. He married Wendelke (Wenke) Jansen Müller in Norden, Germany, in 1861. In addition to the nine children listed on the ship’s manifest, she bore two more children after arriving in the United States, another daughter named Johanna Jannatte and a son named Wenno.
The excitement of coming to America was greatly tempered with grief during the voyage and shortly after arrival. Just days before the General Werder arrived at Staten Island, twelve-year-old Johanna died and had to be buried at sea. The sorrowing family made its way to Iowa, where three more children died. Two-year-old Aalfke (listed as Aufke on the ship’s manifest) departed this earth on July 20, five-year-old Wendelke (Wilke) died of typhoid fever on July 28, and one-year-old Jannette died of typhoid fever on October 3.
On February 12, 1884, less than two weeks after the birth of her eleventh child, Wenke died at the young age of 41. So did the son Wenno to whom she gave birth.
With a household of teenagers and younger children, the elder Boldewyn tried to raise the family on his own for four years. Then, on September 6, 1888, he married Maria Margarete Alfke, who was born in Germany on October 25, 1856, and emigrated to the United States when she was 16 years of age.
To this union were born three children: John, born in Sibley, Iowa, on August 7, 1889; Mabel, born in Little Rock, Iowa, on March 15, 1892; and Margaret, born December 2, 1893, in Little Rock. All told, Boldewyn Oden Odens was the father of fourteen children. John Odens is Opa’s father and my grandfather, which makes Maria (Mary) Opa’s grandmother and my great-grandmother.
I’m guessing that the deaths of younger siblings and the death of their mother had a huge impact on the Boldewyn Odens children borne by Wenke. How could it not? It appears that at least one of them couldn’t handle it. Popka, whose name and gender was wrongly listed on the ship’s manifest, ran away from home at the age of 18. He never experienced life with Maria as a step-mother, having departed the home a year before Boldewyn and Maria were married. One of my desires as a genealogist is to learn what became of Popka, but so far no hint has been found.
How much comfort did the family find in the Lord as they endured so much sorrow, pain and loss? We don’t know. Thankfully, we can be heartened by the fact that Opa and Oma were witnesses to Maria’s willingness to speak openly about the Lord–at least in her later years. So there is a good degree of confidence that she knew Jesus Christ as her personal Savior and Lord. We have no way of knowing about the spiritual condition of Boldewyn Odens. He died in 1917. before Opa was even a year old, so Opa never had the privilege of knowing his grandfather.
One indication that there was not much of a gospel emphasis in the Boldewyn Odens home is that it was Opa who had the privilege of proclaiming the gospel to his father, John, leading him to trust in Jesus and baptizing him as a new believer. In fact, the first person Opa baptized as a pastor was his father! As a result, when John Odens died in Minneapolis on December 10, 1956 (yes, four days after Uncle Paul was born), the sorrow experienced by Opa and others who knew Jesus was mixed with gratitude and joy.
Thank you, Jim. It is so interesting to hear about our heritage.