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Final Certificate of Naturalization

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

State of Illinois, County of Cook:

Be it Remembered, That on this second day of November in the year of our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and Sixty-three in the SUPERIOR COURT OF CHICAGO, in the State of Illinois (the same being a Court of Record, having a Clerk and Seal), and of the November Term thereof for the year aforesaid,

Frederick Helle an alien, came into Court and applied to be admitted as a NATURALIZED CITIZEN of the United States, and it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the said applicant has resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States, for and during the full term of five years last past, and one year and upwards immediately preceding the date hereof, in the State of Illinois, and that during said term of five years, he has sustained a good moral character, and appeared to be attached to the principles contained in the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order, well being and happiness of the same; and two years and upwards having elapsed since the said applicant filed the declaration of intention to become a citizen of the United States, according to the provisions of the several acts of Congress heretofore passed on that subject: and he having now here in open Court, taken and subscribed the oath required by those laws to support the Constitution of the United States, and to renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to every Foreign Prince, Potentate, State or Sovereignty whatever, and more particularly all allegiance which he may in anywise owe to Frederick William King of Prussia whereof he was heretofore a subject:

It is therefore Ordered and Adjudged, by the Court, that the said Frederick Helle be, and he is hereby admitted to all and singular the rights, privileges and immunities of a NATURALIZED CITIZEN of the United States, and that it be certified to him accordingly, WHICH IS DONE BY THESE PRESENTS.

In Testimony Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and affixed the Seal of said Court at Chicago, in said County of Cook, this 2nd day of November A.D., 1863, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty Eighth.

[signed] Thomas R. Carter

Clerk of the Superior Court of Chicago.

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On 31 December 1863 Frederick was ordered to Louisville, KY, where he was to oversee a government bakery and vinegar works. He was paid $100.00 a month. He settled his business affairs in Chicago and proceeded to Louisville, leaving Katharine in Chicago for the birth of the third child, KATHARINA HENRIETTA, born at the Canal Street address 7 March 1864. In June of that year Katharine and the three children set out upon the railway journey to join her husband in Louisville. Three-month-old Henrietta died enroute and was buried at Jeffersonville, IN, on 23 June 1864.

MARIA "MARY" KATHARJNA JOSEPHINA was born in Louisville 20 Oct. 1865. Shortly thereafter, the Civil War and Frederick's government employment now ended, the family returned to McDonough County and settled in Bushnell where Frederick again entered the saloon business.

MARTHA BERNADINA "DENA" was born there 7 June 1867 and MARIA THERESA "TRACY" on 25 March 1869.

"Spoon River Destiny" The Second Decade

On 20 November 1869 Frederick and Katharine paid $300.00 to and received from Jacob Mowery and Mary J. Mowery, his wife, 80 acres of land northwest of Smithfield; 10 the nucleus of what eventually became "home" to them and their growing family.

The rolling forested hills and valleys of Spoon River must have reminded both Frederick and Katharine of the land of their youth. Covered with virgin timber, the land had to be cleared by hand -- chopping down and burning the trees, digging and pulling the massive tree stumps out with only the aid of oxen and/or horses. Apparently Katharine was the "prime mover" in this endeavor.

The first five years on the farm brought them the births of three children --

CHRISTINA, 14 January 1871

ANTON "ANTHONY" JOSEPH, 5 Max 1872;

GEORGE ADAM, 17 October 1873

the death of one -- Christina, who died on the 6 October 1871 --, and three cabins, two of which burned.

Finally, on 5 August 1875, Frederick and Katharine borrowed $600.00 at ten percent annual interest from George Nagle and purchased ten acres of land from Oliver Miller. This land abutted the original 80 acres on the southwest corner and provided a good water supply for family and livestock. In the meantime, Frederick had also purchased a sawmill at Whites Ferry, so he had a readily available supply of lumber for building purposes.

They started building a large two-story frame house on the recently purchased ten acres. On 17 Jul'. 1876 KATHARINA "KATE" was born, and on 22 November 1878 BRIGITI'A BERTHA "BERT" was born. The family moved into the new house shortly thereafter and CAROLINA "CARRIE" MORETITA AMALIA was born there 13 October 1881.

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Heritage of Katharina Krauser

The fairy tale land of the Grimm Brothers, the Rhineland, was the ancestral home of the Krauser Family. Katharine was born 25 February 1839 in Mosbach, Hessen - Darmstadt.

The Black Forest, mountains, uplands and valleys provide a picturesque landscape. Over the centuries this hostile terrain isolated the people who descended from the Chatti. Other races made almost no impression upon the region.7 The people had "cautious minds of their own, loved custom and tradition, had a strong sense of justice." Mainly peasants and craftsmen, the many independent households were undisturbed by the industrial age until well into the nineteenth century.

As Katharine and her brothers matured, over population, unemployment of handicraftsmen and more and more restrictive legislation made the lure of immigration to America irresistible. After each son reached age sixteen, he soon left his fairy tale homeland where real life had become so harsh, and made his way to the United States of America to seek a better way of life.

"As Told by Clara Belle Ethel Helle Palmer

GEORGE ADAM KRAUSER

d.Mosbach, Hessen-Darmstadt; after 1858

m.ELISABETH FURA

d.Mosbach, Hessen-Darmstadt; circa 1849

GEORGE ADAM KRAUSER was a cabinet maker, as were many of his ancestors. When one ancestor was caught carving on a tree in the forbidden Black Forest, he explained he was carving a shrine for weary travelers on their way through the forest. The police remained with him until the shrine was completed.

ELISABETH (FURA) KRAUSER died of tuberculosis when Katharine was about ten years of age. Her aunts lived nearby and taught her the duties of a grown-up housewife. Katharine soon learned to care for her long braids of hair. She mastered tasks such as the baking of bread, making soap, weaving carpets and plucking the down from geese for feather beds and pillows. These geese had to be led out to the community grazing land, alongside the sheep which the villagers kept and which were herded by the young boys of the families. In late fall the geese were fattened by force-feeding them. The young girls would sit on the ground with the geese held between their legs and stuff com into the gullets of the geese. Roast goose was always the traditional Christmas dinner. The villagers pastured the ewes with the rams and when it was not desired that breeding take place, the ewes wore leather aprons over their rumps.

Soap could be made only when the weather was right. This was usually a dry windy day in March when the moon was in the dry phase for, if it were attempted with a wet moon, the soap stayed soft and never dried properly. The potatoes were always planted on Good Friday, even if snow covered the ground, because the potatoes would be covered with "toes" if the sign was not right. Likewise, cabbage could only be planted when the sign was not in the heart, otherwise the heads had huge hearts. Pigs could be castrated only when the sign was right. Calves and babies could be weaned only when the signs were other than in the breast, else they bawled day and night and mothers' breasts would cake. They could not explain these matters scientifically, but they knew they worked. Nasturtium blooms were gathered, dipped in a batter, fried and eaten with bread.

George Adam made furniture and coffins which the boys delivered in Mosbach and nearby villages. After Frank, Katherine's last brother, immigrated to the United States, she had to deliver the handcrafted items her father made. Even though she wore a padded ring on her head, a permanent bald spot developed. In her old age Katharine would entertain her grandchildren by showing them how she could dance around the room with a glass of water balanced on her head and never spill a drop of water.

Katharine recalled one unsettling experience of those days after Frank immigrated. Her father had sent her to a village about six miles away with a coffin and she did not get back until long after dark, hysterical over having to make the trip through the Black Forest in the darkness. Her aunts upbraided Katherine's father for sending her so late so she did not have to make any more night trips.

Katharine developed a beautiful soprano voice and sang in the Cathedral. She was taught plain and fancy needlecraft and used to applique scraps of bright woolens in the forms of animals and birds on plain woolen cushion tops for their chairs as the family prospered in America.

Katharine was eleven or twelve years old when brother Frank immigrated. Now alone with her father, she missed her brothers and would sometimes cry much of the night. As her father aged, he spent more and more of his evenings in the cellar among the wine barrels with his political friends and the arguments were loud and sometimes scared her until she could not sleep. When she was nineteen years of age, she, too, sailed away for America. Sometime after Katharine left, George Adam suffered a broken leg. He pleaded for her to return and care for him but she could not. This always grieved her.

When Katharine immigrated, she carried in her trunk her featherbed, her rosary and pewter crucifix which had been in he Krauser Family for 200 years, her German Catholic Bible, two-month supply of food and her few cooking utensils. .Each family aboard ship had but one hour per day at the stove in deck on which to cook for 24 hours. By sharing her period with an Italian family, both benefited. Each person was alloted but one quart of water a day. Bunks were arranged around the walls below the deck, head to the feet of the next occupant. The man next at her feet developed smallpox, but she escaped it.

When Katharine landed at New York City, she could not get her trunk out of customs because she could not speak English. She walked the gloomy customs building with her large shawl tightly clasped around her, weeping and running her beads until a German exporter heard her and helped her through customs. It was only then that she learned of the distance between New York City and Bushnell, Illinois. She had thought her brothers could be reached in a matter of hours. The man who had befriended Katharine knew of an English-speaking exporter nearby who was looking for a housemaid and who was only too eager to latch on to a sturdy German girl for his home so he hired her and she landed in is fancy home not knowing any English and the family knew o German. The mistress would trace the time on the clock to tell her when to take the bread out of the oven, etc. Always Katharine had to dash into the parlor the minute before the husband's return to dust the mantle for that is where he always looked for any signs of coal soot and they all got it if his white gloves became smudged When the mistress went out to market, Katharine would sneak into the parlor with her crochet hook and copy a chair tidy which she loved. It was made of white carpet warp, a large star about two feet in width and that much in length, a perfect circle, which was draped over backs of rocking chairs in those days. Katharine was to make at least a hundred in her lifetime and one is in my possession today. It was given to me by Katharine for helping to clean her large two-story home in her latter years there, about four years before Katharine died.

When Katharine had earned her train fare to Illinois, she headed West. While enroute she visited her brother, John, in Portsmouth, Ohio. She reached McDonough County sometime in 1860 and was reunited with her brothers: Frank, who lived in Bushnell, and Aloise, who lived in Macomb. Now 21 years of age, Katharine was a good marriage prospect. Frederick Helle, a baker who lived up the street from Aloise in Macomb, was often invited to come for dinner when Katharine was there so she could show him what a good cook she was.

One evening when he appeared with a pair of pants minus a button, her sister-in-law handed them to Katharine and told her to sew the button on for him. Katharine did this and since she soon after married the man, she was always kidded about "getting her husband through a pair of pants." She cared not.

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