This post has narratives, documents, photos, and letters from family members dating back to the early 1800s through the 1940s.
Below is a narrative written by Helen Saunders Mahony around 1990 covering the Kerby, Saunders, and Kaesemeyer families.
First some documents and photos of the Kaesemeyers.
Below is some information on my great great great grandparents Christian Kaesemeyer and wife Margaret Hermans and Gotlieb Christoph Maesel and his wife Augusta Friederika Hasanever.
Their children Theodore and Katherine were married in December 4, 1854 and their children are listed below. Theodore Gotlieb Kaessemeyer married Emma Coy and were my great grandparents.
Kaesemeyer
Below is a Bio of Theodore F. Kaesemeyer and his wife Katherine, my great great grandparents. Apparently they were generous and respected people who owned the Unionville House hotel in Michigan.
Theodore Gotleib Kaesemeyer and Emmaline Coy, my great grandparents, had eight children of which seven survived to adulthood. The oldest was Maybelle Clara who married Carleton Earl Saunders. They were my grandparents.
Pictured here are Theodore Gotlieb Kaesemyer and his wife Emma Coy Kaesemeyer on the occasion of their 50th wedding anniversary. Their seven children are pictured below including Grandma Saunders.
Here is the Kaesemeyer family listed above taken in 1900. Standing left to right: Theodore Frederick (Tweed), Margaret Catherine, Herbert Edward, and Frank. Seated: Ahlma Kathleen, Maybelle Clara, and Emiline Coy (Emma).
Maybelle Kaesemeyer Saunders around 1905
Mabelle Clara (Grandma) Saunders birth certificate dated August 7, 1885.
Here are some photos and documents from the Saunders family.
Ed Sanders, father of Carleton Earl Saunders, as the name was originally spelled
Ed’s wife Ellen Kerby Saunders who died at 22 just 2 years after Carleton Earl was born.
Carleton Earl (Grandpa Saunders) at 2 years old in 1880.
Marriage license for Mabelle Kaesemeyer and Carleton Earl Saunders dates July 24 1903. He was 25 and she was 18 years old.
Photo of Carleton and Maybelle (they are the tird and fourth from the left). Estimating the date sometime in the 1920s. Don’t know who is in the photo but the young man to Maybele’s left looks like her son Cardie.
Carleton and Mabelle’s first three children: Bob, Cardie, and Kerby taken around 1912.
Younger siblings Helen and George taken in 1920.
Grandpa Saunders with four sons: George, Cardie, Bob, and Kerby taken in the mid-1940s as George is still uniform.
Grandma Saunders with three of her handsome sons (George, Kerby, and Bob) also in the 1940s.
Photo of Grandpa Saunders and son Kerby in from of their home at 197 Nutley Ave, Nutley in the 1930s
This the same house in 2011.
Classic photos of Grandma Saunders
Three surviving Saunders siblings taken in early 1980s: Cardie and wife Connie, Pat and husband George, Helen and husband Ray Mahony
I am also descended from the Kaesemeyers. I have researched them back to around 1700 and in 2009 my wife and I visited a small Prussian village where they lived just prior to coming to the US. You can read about my research on http://www.purkiss.us. I would appreciate it if you would send me an email when you have visited my site. I would also like a higher resolution copy of the Kaesemeyers photos.