Matthew married Jennifer Bradlee Campbell [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

William married Cynthia Lee Koeplin [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Kurt Frederick Koeplin

Writing the biographical notes of one's own parents is not an easy tas k. On the one hand, children do experience their parents over a peri od of about 20 years quite intensely. On the other hand, as a parent one r ealises that children know very little about the inner lives and also litt le about the outer circumstances of the two people who are their parent s, whom they tend to take for granted, unless some drastic incident distur bs this comfortable illusion. That said, I shall nonetheless attempt to de scribe my father, Kurt Koeplin, at least as I knew him. Others are fr ee to add their observations or dispute mine.

Kurt Koeplin was born August 10, 1929 into a family of naturalised U.S. Am erican citizens who had immigrated to the United States from Prussia (Pome rania) in 1913. He had one older brother, Erich, who was 13 years his seni or. Kurt seems to have been a reasonably carefree child, living in wh at he probably perceived as "normal" circumstances. Although the U.S. cens us of 1930 shows that his father - like millions of other Americans - w as unemployed at the time of the census, by the time Kurt really knew wh at was going on in the world around him, his father and his uncle were wor king regularly again. Later - probably at the end of the 1930s - they esta blished their own contracting company, building houses independently (o ne of which the family inhabited at 802 Germania Street, Bay City, Michiga n) and earning enough money to live comfortably. Kurt executed the norm al pranks of an active boy exploring the world around him, such as persona lly inspecting a brewery fire he had been expressly warned by his moth er to avoid and badly burning his foot in the process. When his mother not iced him limping in pain, she managed to extract the foot from the sing ed shoe and apply a self-concocted salve, which he said he had "never se en before and never saw again". The burns healed without a trace.

This idyllic normality came to an abrupt end in 1942. In addition to all t he political and social problems of German immigrants to the United Stat es in the middle of World War II, Kurt's father August developed stoma ch or intestinal cancer and died. The shock defied description, as his mot her could speak and write English only imperfectly and had never work ed in the United States outside the home, but was now forced to earn the m oney to support herself and her younger son. Erich, already 25 years ol d, had - in spite of severe difficulties with his sight and hearing - mana ged to train as an accountant and was fortunately financially independe nt (Jennison Hardware Co., Bay City, Mich.). Bertha reverted to the only t raining she had received for the world of work and took on the positi on of a housekeeper in the homes of wealthy families in the Bay and Sagin aw County areas, one of them the family of the ship builder Sarge Harve

Having lost his father and experiencing a working mother for the first ti me at the age of nearly 13 seems to have been more than Kurt could cope wi th. He said later himself that he "ran wild" during his late childhood. Th is seems also to have been the impression and the worry of his mother. Wh en he left the parochial St. John's Lutheran elementary school in Bay Cit y, at the end of grade 8, his mother sent him to the Lutheran boarding sch ool in Saginaw, Michigan Lutheran Seminary, where others could also help h er to raise him. The tactic worked well and Kurt finished his high scho ol years without many undue difficulties at the unusually early age of 1 6. His further education was, however, not entirely uneventful. He later l eft the first Lutheran college he attended (Northwestern College in Watert own, Wisconsin) after a very short length of time, as he had broken his l eg and was unable to catch up with the required course work. He then work ed at various extremely strenuous jobs such as heavy construction for a wh ile, which was, he said, enough to convince him that there must be a bett er way of earning a living. He decided to reassume the educational rou te he had recently left. As Northwestern College was no longer an optio n, he applied to another Lutheran institution of theological education, Co ncordia College in Springfield, Illinois, was accepted and completed his s tudies to prepare for the ministry in the Lutheran Church, Synodical Confe rence of Wisconsin and Missouri, the American bodies of the Lutheran movem ent once known as "altlutherisch" in Pomerania and Silesia. He graduated a nd was ordained into the Lutheran ministry in 1953.

In his first congregation, Memorial Lutheran Church in Williamston, Michig an, near Lansing, he served for five years. His second congregation was Gr ace English Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tecumseh, Michigan, where he re mained from 1958 to 1968. In 1968 he was called to Atonement Lutheran Chur ch in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he served until his death in 1992. He w as a member of the Southeastern Wisconsin District Mission Board and chair man of the Public Relations Committee of the Lutheran Church Wisconsin Syn od. He was also a member of the Lutheran Radio Committee and of the Wiscon sin Lutheran High School Board.

In 1950 he married Nancy Joan Giese, the daughter of William and Olive Gie se of their home town, Bay City, Michigan, with whom he had the five child ren listed in this genealogy between 1951 and 1967, four daughters and o ne son. He lived to see most of them married and experienced most of the g randchildren born to his four daughters.

It was on a vacation tour through the states of the eastern seaboard th at he began to complain of extreme pain in his head and told his wife to d rive him to the next available hospital - not a normal pattern of behavio ur in a life which had until then appeared unusually unburdened with any k ind of serious illness - although Kurt had been a strong smoker since t he age of 13. The physicians of the hospital in Winston-Salem, North Carol ina - a hospital coincidentally specialised in cardio-vascular thera py - were able to diagnose an aneurism in the brain, which was operabl e, so they operated and were successful. Some anxious weeks later, recover ing well, he was able to be flown back to Milwaukee, where he was tak en to Sacred Heart rehabilitation center in Milwaukee to begin active reha bilitation. The medical prognosis was very good; doctors spoke of a tot al recovery. In the rehabilitation center he contracted an antibiotic resi stant pneumonia, which was only diagnosed, when his own daughter, a regist ered nurse, took his complaints of pain in the chest more seriously than t he hospital personnel had done, procured a stethoscope and heard that t he lungs were filling and full. One had already collapsed. He fought f or his life for a few short days, but succumbed to the illness on Novemb er 14th, 1992.

There is, of course, much much more to tell, of an exuberant man, who w as able to enthuse others, of a pensive man sometimes full of doubts abo ut the course his church and with it his own life were taking, of a fath er who displayed many hews of love and anger as openly as he could manag e, because he disliked deviousness in all its forms, of a man of moods whi ch dominated those around him, the negative as well as the positive. Relat ing this would, however, definitely leave the framework of any kind of obj ectivity and enter that of subjectivity or even fiction and must therefo re be left to other formats. I remember him as a father whom I loved, who se darker moods I respected to a point just short of fear, whose exuberan ce I enjoyed and whose joy showed me what joy can be. I am grateful to ha ve known him and to have had him befriend me in the years of our common fa mily life.

Karla Koeplin Schmidt
Sehnde, Germany
August 6, 2005

K. F. Koeplin
Name: K. F. Koeplin
SSN: 368-26-9424
Born: 10 Aug 1929
Died: Nov 1992
State (Year) SSN issued: Michigan (Before 1951 )

Kurt married Nancy Joan Giese [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Dear Karla:

Writing about my dad will be very short, because he didn't say much abo ut his life. You probably know more than I do.

He was born on Jan. 2nd. I think the year was 1895. He went to school thro ugh the 10th grade and then went to work, but I don't know where.
When we got into the 1st World War he enlisted in the Marines and went f or training at Quantico, VA. Then to France and the fighting there.
After getting out of the Marines he went to work at Oppenheims and travel ed between their Bay City store and their Jackson store as a window trimme r. In 1921 he married Grama and in the latter 20s they started their own c lothing store on the west side of Bay City. In 1928 they went bankrupt a nd closed the store and he went back to Oppenheims to work.

When we lived out on Midland Rd. He raised chickens, so we always had some thing to eat during the depression and even when they bought the hou se on Alp St. in 1935 I was never aware of the hard times most of the coun try was going through. We ate a lot of sardines and salt pork, but I thoug ht everybody did. We were poor, but didn't know it. Grampa kept worki ng so he was never out of a job. Then Grama joined him at Oppenheims and t hey both worked there until retirement. He loved to work in the yard and d id so until he had a stoke and couldn't do it anymore.

Written by his daughter, Nancy Joan Giese Koeplin

Received on 18 September 2007



Comment of his granddaughter:

The year of his birth was 1896 according to census records. Otherwise the re are at least a couple of things in this brief record more than I cou ld know. My mother was very right about my grandfather's not talking abo ut himself or his life very much. Was that of his own free will, or w as it because nobody would have listened? Actually, nobody had to liste n, as he and his wife Olive Retherford lived in his neighbourhood among h is family. His mother lived in their household until her death. His step-s ister's family was the nearest relative relationship of this very small nu clear family. Everybody knew his story - or at least they thought they di d. Seen that way, there was not much reason to tell a personal story - exc ept that his version would certainly have been unique.

Sunday morning Septuagesimae in the church after the close of the sermon

William married Olive Retherford on 6 Jun 1921 in St. John's Luth Church, West Bay City, Michigan, USA. Olive (daughter of Francis (Frank) Edcar Retherford and Flora Josephine Mitchell) was born on 21 Mar 1899 in Chariton, Lucas, IA, USA; died in Apr 1994 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA; was buried in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Olive Retherford Giese

Olive was born March 21, 1899 in Chariton, Iowa. She was the 5th child o ut of 11 born to Frank and Flora Retherford; 3 girls and 8 boys (Lula, Le o, Jesse, Ray, Olive, Harry, D.Q., Loleta, Earl, Floyd and Vernon).

When Leta was about to be born, Ollie was sent to visit her aunt, her moth er's sister, in Missouri. Before she left, however, she named the new ba by and that was a bond that remained all their lives.

As a child she once caught her shoelace in the railroad track and was h it by an oncoming horse and wagon. No lasting injury was sustained. In lat er years she was caught in the flu epidemic that swept the country and w as so sick that the doctor actually made out her death certificate. Needle ss to say she survived, graduated from high school and worked for a time f or the telephone company in Des Moines.

A vacation to visit a friend in Bay City, Michigan, changed her life. S he met William George Giese and decided to stay in Bay City. He worked f or the Oppenheim Clothing store, but always dreamed of starting his own me n's clothing store. They were married in 1921 and in the following years t hey did start that store. It was the wrong time in history for a ventu re of that sort and in 1928 they had to declare bankruptcy. It took year s, but they did eventually manage to pay off all their creditors. Right af ter the crash of '29, their only child, Nancy, was born. Bill had gone ba ck to working for Oppenheim's and later Ollie joined him and worked in t he boys' department for 30 years.

After her husband died, she sold the homestead and moved in with her sist er Leta, who had years before followed her to Bay City. Leta always call ed her Polly and to Bill she was always Al, so she answered to a lot of na mes. Following her sister's death, she moved to an apartment in a retireme nt home in Milwaukee to be near her daughter. She was the last one ali ve of all her siblings and remained quite independent until the last 6 wee ks of her life, when at 95 years old she succumbed to a broken hip and a w eak heart.

Nancy Joan Giese Koeplin
September 2005
Milwaukee, Wisconsin