The Keipes Chronicles from the First to the Last, What Is Known As of April 2011
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The Keipes Chronicles From the First to the Last, what is known as of April 2011. It began with a love affair. The year was 1881 and the world seemed to be in chaos. Tsar Alexander II of Russia, after spending almost forty years had expanding his empire into Central Asia, was murdered by a terrorist bomb in a public square. For the second time in less than twenty years, an American president–first Lincoln, then Garfield–was assassinated. Tumultuous decades of German nationalization under Otto von Bismarck were waning, but there was strife in France between the last leftist remnants of the French Revolution and right-wing conservatives rooted in peasantry, the military and the Church. Luxembourg stood amidst it all torn by wars, revolving door governments, high taxes and poor harvests. Emigrants were leaving in thousands until eventually 20% of the population would be gone. Weicherdange, Clervaux, Luxe. 1 The 1881 Christmas season found Susanna Helzing, a 25 year old midwife from town of Weicherdange in the canton of Clervaux, on the verge of a new life. Just a short time into her career, she had already filled three pages in her births registry with entries from her own as well as neighboring villages. Although her mother had died two years too soon to see it, Susanna had completed her studies with honors (“d’une maniere tres satisfaisante”) in September of 1879 from Le Collège Médical, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg, receiving the degree of “Sage-femme” and a great duty to mothers and children. It was a time of excitement and promise – and passion. December in the northernmost reaches of Luxembourg could bring an icy chill, but Susanna found warmth that winter in the embrace of the farmhand Pierre Keipes. 2 Pierre, one of ten children born to Pierre and Marguerite Bauler Keipes (see Appendix), was named for his father and hailed from nearby Goesdorf, Wiltz, about ten miles to the south. With fluency in both French (generally the language used in official public speaking) and German (often the language at home) being custom in Luxembourg, Pierre was also called Peter. In 1881, he was working as a farmhand in Weicherdange. We know Susanna’s father, the widower Mathias Helzing, was a farmer. Is this how the couple met? That fact may remain a mystery. But Susanna was expert in matters of procreation and she knew what the signs meant when she observed them in her own body. Month followed month and by the spring of 1882, it was undeniable. And so on Wednesday morning, May 17, 1882, in the presence of family and friends, Peter and Susanna stood before the civil authorities in Clervaux and recorded their marriage. 3 4 Four months later on Monday, September 11, 1882, Peter and Susanna welcomed the arrival of their firstborn, a son they named Mathias. Over the next several years more children followed, bringing the young couple both joy and sorrow. On April 28, 1884, there were twin boys named Pierre and Jean Pierre. Sadly, Pierre died on May 11. Jean Pierre would later be called James. Two years later in 1886, again on April 28, came Marie, later known as Mary. On May 11 of 1889, Jean Henri (Johann Heinrich) was born. He lived fifteen months before dying on August 2, 1890. On May 18, 1891, they greeted the last child to be born on European soil. It was another girl, and they named her Sophie. 5 Whether due to the deaths of the children or the declining quality of life in Luxembourg, a decision was made the following year. It was time for the family to leave the land of their birth and join so many thousands of others in the United States. In March of 1882, the Keipes family—Peter, Susanna, Mathias, Jean-Pierre, Marie and Sophie—along with Susanna’s father, Mathias Helzing, travelled to Antwerp in Belgium then set sail aboard the Red Star Line’s Westernland bound for New York. A new immigration station had opened three months previous on January 1, and they would be among the first of millions to arrive there. The port of entry was called Ellis Island. Westernland, Red Star Line. In use since the 1850s, steamships like the Westernland shortened the overseas voyage from six weeks to two. In that sense, it was easier. But life at sea for the immigrants was likely far from pleasant. Those who could not afford private rooms slept dormitory-style in narrow bunks below deck. Food was often barely palatable. Daylight and fresh air could be scarce when the weather was poor. And there was the constant motion of the ship, worse if there storms, which made many passengers wretchedly ill. The smell of the chamber pots used for toileting and the vomit due to seasickness was inescapable. There must have been time aplenty during that voyage for our ancestors to dream of the future as well as reflect upon memories of the past. 6 The first Keipes traceable through Luxembourg birth records in direct lineage from father to son, was Michel who was born in 1555 at Boevange, Clervaux. At the time of Michel’s birth, the Native Americans still controlled the land in America which would become the home of his descendants. Queen Mary I assumed the throne of England left vacant by the death of her father, Henry the Eighth. Ivan the Terrible was Tsar in Russia. The writings of the upstart Martin Luther in Germany were swiftly circulating round Europe thanks to the new Gutenberg printing press. Luxembourg was part of Spanish Netherlands and had just seen a new king, Phillip II, succeed to the throne. After the fall of the royal House of Luxembourg in the previous century, the country had passed from one great European power to another – the Holy Roman Emperors, the House of Burgundy, the Habsburgs, the French and Spanish kings, and finally the Prussians – for centuries before regaining independence in 1815. The marriage of Michel Keipes produced a son named Jean in 1590, who in turn married and sired Jean Michel Keipes. The birth records contain no information about the wives of Michel and Jean. Jean Michel Keipes (1618-1683) was born two years before the Puritan pilgrims on the Mayflower landed at Cape Cod. He married a woman named Marie (1627-1696), and together they had a son also named Jean Michel. Jean Michel Keipes Jr. (1650-1730) was married at the age of 23 to Marie deBeur from Lullange, Clervaux, the daughter of Michel deBeur and Anne Catherine Kingen. Over the following 21 years, she bore him twelve children: 7 1 KEIPES, Barbe (1674- ) 7 KEIPES, Marie Elisabeth (1686- ) 2 KEIPES, Nicolas (1675-1730) 8 KEIPES, Jean (1688- ) 3 KEIPES, Engelbert (1678- ) 9 KEIPES, Susanne (1688- ) 4 KEIPES, Marguerite (1680- ) 10 KEIPES, Odile (1690- ) 5 KEIPES, Cathérine (1683- ) 11 KEIPES, Henry (1693- ) 6 KEIPES, Anne Marguerite (1685- ) 12 KEIPES, Susanne (1695- ) During Jean Michel’s lifetime, the world would see the Catholic Church murder thousands in the Inquisition; London first decimated by the Plague then burnt to cinders in the Great Fire of 1666; and the Salem Witch Trials conducted in Massachusetts. In 1685, Luxembourg was invaded by “the Sun King” Louis XIV of France who occupied the country until 1697 when a war-ending treaty returned Luxembourg to the Spanish Habsburgs. Jean Michel died on January 26, 1730 at Boevange, Clervaux. Nicolas Keipes (27 Nov 1675 – 05 Feb 1730), the second-born son of Jean Michel and Marie, married Elisabeth Scholtes (c.1678 – 5 Nov 1741) on November 23, 1701. Together they had four children: Marie-Régine in 1703, Jean in 1705, Nicolas in 1708 and Jean Michel in 1711. In 1715, Luxembourg came under the control of the Austrian Habsburgs when the Spanish Habsburg line died out, and was then considered part of the Austrian Netherlands. Jean Michel Keipes (13 Sep 1711 – ________), the youngest child of Nicolas and Elisabeth, married Anne Marie Plotes in 1735. Records show them childless for eight years until the arrival of Jean in 1743, Eligius seven years later in 1750, and Michel ten years after that in 1760. Jean married Marie Josephine DeBeure in 1701 and had two sons – Jean Hubert and Francois Xavier – through whose descendants other Keipes branches can be traced, some currently residing in America (see Appendix). Eligius Keipes (c.1750 – 22 Apr 1801) was born in Luxembourg but eventually migrated to the German town of Lichtenborn. Revolution drove the spirit of 8 the times during the life of Eligius. He was 26 years old when America declared its independence from Britain. He married Margarethe Meyers on March 1, 1782, and their only child, Francois, was born one year later. The French Revolution was soon underway and in 1792, they invaded and occupied Luxembourg until the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1815. Eligius died in Germany during French rule of his homeland. Francois Keipes (25 Aug 1783 – 21 Apr 1860), born in Germany, returned to Clervaux where he married Anne Marguerite Hoscheid. Their children were Catherine (born 1819), Pierre (born 1821) and Marguerite (born 1824). Marguerite did not survive the first year of life, and her mother Anne also died in 1825 at the age of 26. Seven years later, Francois remarried and had a son named Nicolas with his wife Catherine Molitor. Pierre Keipes (18 Mar 1821 – 29 Dec 1894), the only son of Francois and the late Anne, was born in Clervaux but moved south to Goesdorf, Wiltz where he married Marguerite Bauler on January 23, 1843. They would eventually have ten children over a span of about twenty years, the last of whom was born one year before Abraham Lincoln was murdered.