Helena Maria Petersen, Leck, Schleswig-Holstein
Helena Maria was the third child of Peter Hansen Petersen and his wife Elise Momsen and was their first daughter. Until recently, we didn't know that she existed. Now, thanks to a new cousin who shared photos in his collection, we do! Click the image at right to enlarge it.
This photo was part of the collection of Catharina Maria Petersen, also the daughter of Peter Hansen and Elise, but it was unmarked. Catharina was Helena's younger sister.
Understandably (from her standpoint) Catharina didn't ever bother to label it -- she knew the identities of the two folks on this card de visite. But she forgot that her descendants would someday want to know.
This is where our new cousin stepped in and provided an answer. His family (descended from Helena's and Catharina's brother Alfred) had a copy of the same photo, and it had a caption on the back. This was a family mystery that had lingered for decades.
Helena Maria was born Ellena Maria Petersen in Tinningstedfeld on September 15, 1848 and was baptized on November 18, 1848. Among the godparents were her grandmother Ellen Jürgensen Petersen (Peter Hansen's mother), Maria Hansen (relationship, if any, to Helena unknown), and Momme Momsen of nearby Klixbüll, brother of Elise Momsen, the infant's mother. There was a mistake in the registry entry, noting that the child's father was Emil Jacob Petersen. But we know that the clerk mixed up the names. Emil Jacob was Helena's older brother, born in 1846.
We know only three more facts about Helena. She appears in the 1860 census of the Karlum district with her parents and other siblings, who eventually numbered eleven in all. She was married, probably about 1868-1870, to a Fritz Burmaster or Burmeister (the more likely spelling). And she never emigrated to America when some of her other family members did so in 1878 and 1883.
In fact, the fainter notation on the back of the photo says "died in old country." A search of local archives failed to turn up her marriage record or any subsequent information about Helena and Fritz. Perhaps they moved to Fritz' home village in Schleswig-Holstein.
The person who wrote the inscription estimated that the photo was taken in 1885, but it's more likely to have been around the time of her marriage to Fritz. Helena's dress details are more in keeping with the fashions of the early to mid-1870s.
The photos that Alfred and Catharina had were both printed at the Henry W. Reith photography studio in Kenosha, Wisconsin. This suggests that they were sent by another brother, Andrew Petersen, who lived with his family in Kenosha. The photo that Alfred kept in Omaha, Nebraska has a fresher look to it.
But the one that Catharina kept in her collection in Chicago bears fingerprints and shows some discoloration and fading, suggesting that it was handled frequently, and perhaps a bit wistfully. It's possible that Helena was still alive when Catharina and her second husband Thomas Mikkelsen made a brief visit back to the old country in 1914. If so, we can imagine the happy reunion.
Thanks to our Nebraska cousin, Donald A. Leu, for providing new details about our Petersens in Nebraska, and thanks as always to Klaus Struve for his invaluable archival research in the land of our roots.
