A Face to a Name

Almost a year ago I posted about some quilts my great-grandmother Augusta Koch made for two of her grandsons (my father and my uncle). At that time I did not have a picture of her. Then on Ash Wednesday, a mysterious box appeared on my doorstep at about 5pm. Inside was a note from my second cousin Dave (who can be seen in the last photo in the post about the quilts) and a beautiful framed photograph of Augusta around the turn of the century when she was probably in her late teens.

She was also Dave's grandmother, and after a conversation with Dave at my cousin Andy's wedding, he promised to send me a picture of her. I had forgotten (and so, apparently, had he). So to open up that box yesterday was a real treat. When I saw the picture I immediately thought, "She looks like Nick and Kennedy." (Nick is one of my first cousins. He has the pink rose on his lapel in the last photo. Kennedy is his eldest daughter.) Funny how features keep showing up, generations later.

What's so wonderful about this photo is that it is probably from the same era as two more heirlooms I have of Augusta's (or "Gusty" as she was affectionately called). One is this locket, engraved with "GD" on the back.

The second is a beautiful (but broken) pocket watch (made by Elgin), also engraved.

The casing (made by Fahys) has lovely flowers and birds, but the really special engraving is inside the back: "From Pa to Gusty Nov 11th '05"

In November 1905, Augusta was 19 years old. She didn't marry until 1913 when she was 27 years old, so this was not a wedding gift. The 1910 census has her living at home with her parents and four siblings in Detroit. Her father Albert (66) was a carpenter, her older brother Herman (26) was a cabinet maker, and the census lists Augusta's (23) occupation as a cigar maker (which I understand she disliked immensely). Younger brother Louis (20) was a machinist hand in a machine shop, younger sister Elsie (18) was a "credit girl," and the youngest sister Eloise (14) and mother Christine (53) were not employed.

Having every able bodied child working shows me that the Durrow's were likely not wealthy. But the photo, the watch, and the fact that mother and 14-year-old daughter were not working tell me that neither were they poor. They were, however, of hardworking German stock. Albert was born in Germany in 1844 and emigrated to the US in 1872. Christine was born in Canada and arrived in Detroit in 1861 at age 5. Her parents emigrated to Canada from Germany. So Augusta was a first generation American and her immigrant parents obviously worked hard to establish a respectable, industrious, self-sufficient family.

That work ethic has been passed down through the generations. One of the most important lessons I think my father has taught my sister and I is that we are responsible for our own living and we should not expect others to hand us anything on a silver platter. This work ethic hasn't made anyone in our family fabulously wealthy, but it has made us good citizens who take care of our families, contribute to society, and don't milk the system. In an age when nearly 50% of Americans don't pay any income tax at all, and yet use billions of dollars of tax revenue through various government services, I think this legacy of personal responsibility is ever rarer and ever more precious to me.

Between her birth and the 1910 census, the time at which the picture was taken and the watch was given,  I have no information on Augusta. In cousin Dave's note to me about the picture he mentions that his mother, my great aunt Marion (Augusta's eldest daughter), was wondering when I was going to come pick her brain about family history. So I will have to plan a trip to Holland, Michigan, soon to find out what I can about the watch, the locket, and the rest of Augusta's life.