The last child and third daughter of Johann Friedrich Elling was Anna Maria Margaretha, the only one to be born in America - Henry County, Ohio - on August 2, 1860. The nation would soon be in the uproar of the Civil War.
Aunt Alma once wrote me that she remembered her dad talking about his Tante Anna Hastedt who lived in Michigan. What a great clue that was! Anna was living at home with her parents in the 1870 census - 10 years old. The next year her father died. By the 1880 census, she had gone to Kelley's Island where she was found in the household of Julius Kelley, his wife H. Mary and their son, H. Zina who is 33. The son was listed as having some kind of fever (not legible) so I don't know if he was disabled or just temporarily ill. Anna, then, was listed as a servant at the age of 19.
Going to Kelley's Island and working as a domestic before marriage seemed to be a pattern for the girls in this family.
On October 23, 1873, Anna married Hermann Hastedt. Without the 1890 census, I can only assume that they moved back to Henry County, Ohio because by the 1900 census, the family is found on Elm Street in Deshler Village, Bartlow Township. Harmon and Anna, both born in August 1860, had been married 17 years. Sadly, she has had 12 children, of which only 6 survived.
The children listed were: John born September 1885 and 14 years old; Ida born January 1889 and 11 years old; Arthur born August 1892 and 7 years old; Ella born October 1893 and 6 years old; Mary born April 1895 and 5 years old and Harmon born November 1897 and 2 years old.
Father Harmon, who immigrated in 1879, worked as a day laborer and they rented their home.
It must have been the lure of good, cheap farm ground. By the 1910 census Harmon and Annie had moved to Jordan Township, Fillmore County, Minnesota. Harmon, now 50, and Annie, 49, lived with their children: Otto (named as Arthur on the 1900 census), Mary and Herman.
Harmon rented a farm there and Otto, 17, and Mary, 15, were home farm workers.
Things must not have worked out in Minnesota because by the 1920 census, the whole family has moved to Newell Street, Flint City, Genesee County, Michigan. Harmon and Annie ran a boarding house with four children still living at home: Otto, 26; Ella, 25; Harmon Jr., 21, and Mary, 22. (These ages do not quite connect with previous censuses, but we have the same names.)
Otto worked as a policeman on the city police force and Ella worked at the boarding house. Harmon Jr. had a job at the auto factory soldering and it said that Mary was a machinist at the auto factory.
The family had four boarders - Mary Clarance, 27, who worked the drill press at the auto factory; Chas. Clinton, 19, and Fred Scherd, 28, who were truckers for the auto factory; and William Schroder, 20, who was a machinist at the auto factory. I really am amazed at the two young women working in the auto factory.
Many, changes occurred in the years between 1920 and 1930. Anna died Nov 27, 1929 and by the 1930 census, all the children had left home except for Otto. Still in Flint City on Newell Street, the boarding house was no more. Living alone in the house were Herman Hastedt, age 70, not employed, and his son, Otto, age 38, still working on as a policeman on the city force.
Herman died June 16, 1935.
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