Gohr from Nippoglense, Kreis Stolp

The earliest photo we have of any of our Gohr family is at right: three daughters of Wilhelm Gohr and his wife Laurette (Laura) Kramp: Ella, Margaret, and Bertha, from about 1898 in Chicago. But documents involving the families of Gohr and Kramp go back much further, and we're fortunate to have access to them because they tell a more complete story.

Wilhelm Robert Otto Gohr was born in February 13, 1857 and baptized on February 20th in the town of Nippoglense, Kreis Stolp, Pommern (Pomerania), a town claimed by Poland since 1945 and known as Niepogldzie. His father was a farm owner, Wilhelm Heinrich Gohr, and his mother was Emilie Louise Lübeck. Records from this region do exist but they're missing in places. We don't know Wilhelm Heinrich's parents and we don't have his baptism or death record. Whether he had siblings is unknown, although it's very likely, but no records have turned up to document his extended family. We do know that Wilhelm Heinrich and Emilie had twelve children. Wilhelm Robert Otto was their youngest.

Emilie's parents, Christoph Lübeck and Christina Reddel, were from Röstock near Gaffert on the north coast of what was then Pomerania. Christoph was born about 1775 but like his son in law there are no records of his birth or death. For Emilie's mother, on the other hand, we have documents revealing her baptism in nearby Lupow, the daughter of Michael Reddel and his wife Dorothea Lowitsky. Christina was born in 1778 and died in 1849 in Ruhleben, Jugelow, Kreis Stolp. She and Christoph Lübeck had nine children, all of them with pretty well documented lived.

The first of Wilhelm and Emilie's children to emigrate was Albert Julius Reinhold Gohr (1844-1895), who emigrated in 1872 to Chicago. When Wilhelm was twenty-four years old he joined Albert in March 1881, sailing on the S.S. Leipzig into Baltimore. On the same ship was his future brother-in-law, Carl Hasse.

Later that year Laurette (Laura) Kramp, Wilhelm's future wife, sailed to Baltimore, also bound for Chicago with her sister Augusta Kramp Hasse. Augusta's two young children Laura and Emil accompanied them.

We don't have any photos of brothers Albert or Wilhelm but we do have a wedding portrait (at right) of Anna Gohr and John Walter Glawe from 1906 in Chicago.

Five days later Laura's arrival in Chicago she and Wilhelm Gohr were married at First Lutheran of the Trinity Church on 31st Street. Both Albert Gohr and Augusta Hasse were witnesses to the marriage.

Wilhelm (later William) was a laborer. The Gohrs lived at 3230 Wood Street next to Albert Gohr, Albert's wife Wilhelmine Paulina Möwes or Mews, and their children. William became a naturalized citizen in 1892.

the Gohr's oldest child, Anna, born in 1882, at her wedding to John Walter Glawe, taken in Chicago in 1906.

William and Laura Gohr raised six daughters, several of whom had a propensity for changing their names, and one son: Anna and Minnie (twins), Caroline (Carrie), Hertha (Bertha), Margaret (Alma), Ella, and Rudolph.

Laura Gohr died in 1893 of puerpural fever. A baby daughter, Elsa, had died five days earlier. Laura, another infant William, and Elsa were buried at Concordia Cemetery with the Hasse family. Wilhelm Gohr died in Chicago in 1905 and was buried at Bethania Cemetery with his daughter Anna Glawe and her family.

Pictured above is a family group of Gohr sisters and their families in 1935 in: back row John and Anna Gohr Glawe, Arnold Schultz (Ella Gohr Schulz’ son) with Minnie Gohr, Ella Gohr Schultz and her husband Bill, “Hertha” (hadn’t yet become Bertha) Bruns, then front row: Lolus Bruns, Dorothy Glawe (Anna’s daughter) in front of Harold Collins, Carrie Collins' son, Jeanette Glawe and a baby called Bob, and Rudy Gohr, brother to the Gohr girls. Minnie, who was Anna's twin sister, was born deaf and had been a patient at the Illinois Institution for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb. The institution housed educable hard-of-hearing students throughout the state at no cost to their families. Minnie lived alternately with her sisters or in an assisted care home.

Most of Wilhelm's and Laura's Gohr offspring remained in the Chicago area. Neither Minnie nor Rudolph Gohr ever married. Anna Gohr and John Glawe and had two sons and a daughter. Caroline (Carrie) married Edward Collins and had three sons. Hertha changed her name to Bertha and married George Bruns, with whom she had four children. Ella Gohr married William Schultz and had three sons. Margaret, known to the family as Alma, married Frank Meyers and had four children.

Many thanks to Cherlyn Bruns, whose expert research on the Gohr, Kramp, and Bruns families has been invaluable; to Diane Maynard, who graciously shared family photos from her collection; Uwe Kerntopf, a researcher contributing to the Evangelische Kirche Groß Tuchen indexing project, for providing birth and baptism information for Laura and Augusta Kramp as well as the names of their parents; and to Laurel Hendrickson and Angela Clark, whose work with the Polish archives, Genbaza, in what was once Pomerania has been helpful in determining our earliest Gohr connections.