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Note: I have a picture of this woman, Dorothy Bremm, taken in about 1904. She is the earliest relation of mine of whom there is a photograph, to my knowledge.
Dorothy Bremm was born December 31, 1835, in Germany, the daughter of John G. Bremm and his wife, Margaretha Steinmetz. She died October 22, 1925, and was buried October 26, 1925, in St. Mary's Cemetery in St. Bernard, a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio, in Section 319, Lot 19.
I was left the photograph by my father, Joseph Seiler, along with a note in my grandmother Blanche Rottmueller's hand. The note said:
This is 'Mutz's (Dora Buehler) grandma, called Doro Kolb. Came over from Germany about 1840-39. Sixteen children, all born in the U.S. De Kalb was a brother to Baron De Kalb.
Although subsequent research has not validated that last claim, and the dates and spelling were wrong, it was this note and photograph, and the passing reference to Baron De Kalb, which got this genealogy project started.
The information provided on the death certificate was given by Mrs. Jacob Braunward, a daughter; Dorothy Bremm Kalb was by 1925 living with Anna and her son-in-law Jacob Braunwort. Their-daughter, Margaret, was three years old at the time. This can all be verified by a glance at the 1920 Hamilton County, Ohio census, of which a copy is included. One interesting point is how, from census to census, Dorothy's children's ages (and even Dorothy's age) vary. For instance, in the 1880 census she is 38 years older than Anna, but by 1910 the variance had reached 40 years.
It is also in that census that we learn that Dorothy claims the birth of 14 children, although, she says, only 5 survived. Yet we have records indicating a total of six children survived. Maybe all this confusion can be attributed to an old woman's faulty education and memory, or maybe the census-taker is to blame.
In the 1900 census, shortly after her husband's death, even she is shown at the wrong age and wrong year of birth, although she gets the date of immigration (1854) and the number of years in this country (46) correct.
Further information may yet be available from the records of the undertaker who arranged the funeral, Charles A. Miller of 4138 Hamilton Avenue in Cincinnati.
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