THE BADER/JASTRAMS

Meet another branch of the Bader Family Tree.

 Last week, I heard from Carol (Jastram) Blaha, a direct descendant of Fred Bader, younger brother of our great-grandfather, J. R. Bader.  J. R. and Fred were the "Bader Bros." who had the furniture store in Fremont, Nebraska.

Carol's grandmother was Ruth Bader, Fred's eldest daughter, born in 1896. Ruth married Mernitz Dewey Jastram, probably in Fremont. Their son, Rupert Mitchell Jastram (called 'Bud') was born in January, 1926.

This is "Grandpa" Fred and baby Bud, taken on the front steps of Fred's home in Fremont, July 6, 1926.

Carol is the eldest daughter of Bud Jastram and Ella Jane Stroud (called Jane), who married in 1950. she and her sister, Kathryn (Kate), were born and raised in Minnesota, where Carol still lives.


She's  been kind enough to share a lot of family snapshots of the Bader/Jastram clan in Fremont.

Here are Ruth Bader Jastram, her husband Mernitz Jastram, and baby Bud, April, 1926.

Fred and his wife, Laura (Cochran) Bader only had one other child, another daughter, Ruth's younger sister, Marian, born in 1902.

Here is the very lovely Marian with her new nephew, Bud, in June, 1926.
Carol writes, "I never knew my grandmother Ruth, she died before I was born or maybe just after, but I knew Marian, her sister, my great aunt.  She lived in Fremont until her death sometime in the 1970’s.

She was a lovely woman….never married and was the librarian at the high school in Fremont."

In late 1927 or early 1928, Ruth and Mernitz had a second child, Bud's younger sister, Edith (called 'Edy') Marian Jastram.

Carol writes, "This is Ruth, Dad (Bud) and Edy.  I love the look of admiration (and mischief) on Edy’s face!  Had to have been August 1930."

This is Edy and Bud, probably around March, 1931. "Love the clothes!" writes Carol.   "They were always dressed beautifully and elaborately."

Carol writes, "(This) photo album stops when Dad was about 7.  The Jastram side of the family says that Mernitz left his family about then.



"We’ve found that he lived until the early 70’s and that he’d remarried. 

 I think I remember my mother telling me that they received a telegram when I was born, so Dad and Mernitz must have stayed in touch."

The four people on the left in this last photo are Jastram family members. But the dark haired young woman is grown-up Edy Jastram and her mother, Ruth Bader Jastram. Carol dates this photo around 1949, give or take.

Thanks for all the info, Carol. Welcome to the Team!

A BADER CHRISTMAS

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On Christmas Day, 1947, five of the six Bader siblings reunited with parents, Rev. Carl George Sr. and Edna (Maudie), at their home in Lincoln, Nebraska. (Rev. Bader had been assigned to the Methodist church in Lincoln in 1944.)

By this time, Bobby, Ernie, Barbara, and Carl George Jr. were all married. Only 16-year-old Philip still lived at home. Jeannie flew in from California. 

Barabara was the only one of the Bader 8 who missed this reunion. Her husband, Art Jensen, was still in the Navy and they had started a family. In December, 1947, they might still have been on Midway Island in the Pacific, or they might have relocated to Long Beach, CA.

But the rest of the Baders were on deck on what looks like a bright, sunny Christmas Day in Lincoln! 

Decorating the front porch, above, from the left, are Philip and Jeannie, Carl Jr. (behind Jeannie), Bobby, and Ernie. With—of course—Doc, the dog, smack in the middle!

In this other group shot, we have Philip and Ernie in back, with Jeannie, Maudie, Norma (Bohlken) Bader (she and Bobby married in 1942), Nadine (Goyer) Bader (she and Carl Jr. married in 1946), and Carl Jr.

In 1946 or '47, Ernie married Charlotte (Carlie) Prather. 

She's not in the Christmas pics, but three days later, she and Ernie and some of his gathered sibs took a tour of the University of Nebraska campus in Lincoln. 

This is Carlie and Ernie (and, yes, he was that tall, at 6' 8").

Here are Bobby, Jeannie, Carlie and Ernie at UN. My guess is Carl Jr. who was also on this excursion, took the photo.

And finally, the car they all rode in on! I don't know whose car this was, but it looks like Ernie driving (or possibly Carl). 

That's definitely Jeannie putting on her lipstick in the front seat!

And who's the photographer casting his shadow on the car? My guess is Carl Jr.

NEW BADER PAGES

J. R. Bader in America

After a long, long hiatus, I'm finally back on the Team Bader blog!

Please notice the two new Pages I just added to this site (see tabs, above). "Baders from 1645" is an incredible chronology of Baders from 1645 in Hugsweier, Germany, to the generation that emigrated to America in the late 19th Century.

All of the information comes from our cousin Daniel Bader in Kaiserslautern, Germany. He sent me a long, detailed pdf document months ago, the result of ten years of research he and his wife, Manuela, have done in Germany, which I have (finally!) found the time to copy out and post, so everyone else can read it too.

The other new Page is "Baders in US" which begins with the generation of Baders that founded our branch of the family in America, and lists their families and descendants. I got most of this information from the 10-page Bader Family History that my Mom (Barbara Bader Jensen) wrote out in longhand a few years ago, based on the handwritten family history she inherited from her father (Carl George Sr). Mom also kept excellent records of everyone's birth dates through the early 1990s in her ancient Birthday Book, which I've plundered extensively for this list!

However, this document is woefully incomplete regarding recent and current generations of Baders. I've filled in where I could (with many thanks to our cousins Catherine Doyle Sullivan and Linda Trotter-Heger for sending me updated info on their branches of the clan). But there are still plenty of embarrassing gaps in my limited knowledge, so if anyone has anything to add or correct, please let me know and I'll fix it.

Also, remember, these are just chronologies of names and dates. There are still lots more stories to tell!

MAUDIE

1915

Happy Mother's Day to all!

This seems like a good day to publish some more of the letter/memoir "My Mother," that Barbara wrote somewhere around 1988, but left behind in her things with a note to pass it on to me. It's a loving tribute from a daughter to her mother—our clan matriarch, Edna Alice McAfee Bader (beloved to her children as "Maudie").

"My mother was gently reared in a middle-class family in New England. Born in 1893, she was the 2nd of 4 children born to George McAfee and Frances Cowell, both of Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and wed in 1887 at Worcester, Mass.

"Mother did all the things young girls of that era engaged in. There were picnics, boating and ice-skating parties, sleigh rides, and church activities. Among Mother's swains was a young man she nearly married who went on to become the Fire Chief of the Worcester Fire Dept.

"My father was an impecunious but extremely well-educated young minister just up from Boston Univ. Divinity School on one of his first charges as assistant pastor to the Methodist Church in Worcester. He came from a well-to-do family in Fremont, Nebraska.

"Mother and Father courted and wed in Worcester, Mass. He was 27 and she 22 at the time of their wedding in July, 1915.

"Their 1st son [Bobby] was born in Worcester and their 2nd son [Ernie] in Boston. When their 2nd son was a few weeks old, they moved to Clay Center, Nebr.—a tiny village and a totally new environment for my mother.

"She pitched in as a loving and loyal pastor's wife, learned to cook, keep house, and attend her husband and young family, and partake in church activities.

Maudie on vacation, ca 1927

"Their 3rd child and first daughter [Barbara] was born while they lived in Clay Center, but delivered in the Methodist Hospital in Omaha, Nebr. My mother was to have a second daughter [Jeannie] and 3rd son [Carl George Jr.] before returning to visit her family in New England. It had been 12 years then since she'd seen her family and her native heath.

"My mother was strong of spirit, but frail physically. Finally, after a serious stomach operation the church parishioners raised funds—and presented my mother with a lovely wristwatch, and an even more lovely round-trip ticket to New England. I was 8 at the time and spent the period of her trip with my paternal grandparents [J. R. and Emma Elsner Bader] in Fremont, Nebr, along with my sister and younger brother. My 2 older brothers went to summer camp.

Clan Bader, 1946

"The hot and dry Nebraska summers, along with the harsh, bitter cold winters must have been totally foreign and forbidding to Mother. Nonetheless, she loved her husband and children and did all she could to make a good life for them all.

"Mother took us on long walks of a Sunday afternoon so Father could nap in peace. We would return to pop corn and make fudge before evening service. On Valentine's Day, Mother made little boats and baskets by folding paper. She filled them with candy hearts, popcorn, and gum drops. On May Day, she made paper baskets, filling them with candy corn, popcorn, and flowers, and hanging them on the front door for us to discover.


"Meanwhile, she sang in the church choir, acted in church plays, taught Sunday School, entertained at endless Ladies Aid socials and church suppers. She even "preached" once or twice, when Father was ill. In those days, the Methodist Church moved their pastors every 3 or 4 years, so she became acquainted with a great part of the state of Nebraska.

"Mother took care of the needs of us all. Not once through ups and downs were we ever deprived of her unswerving love and interest and devotion."

Barbara concludes, "I will never forget my mother or cease to miss her every day. I hope she knows how much she is loved and missed."

I know just how she feels! This post is for Maudie and Barbara, and all the mothers and daughters in our clan.



(Bottom photo, in back: Carl George Jr, Bobby, Philip, baby Mike, Art Jensen, Ernie. Middle: Barbara and Jeannie. Front: Maudie and Carl George Sr. 1946.)

SIBLINGS

Here's a great shot of five Bader siblings: Ernie (with Doc, the dog), Bobby, Carl George Jr., Jeannie, and Philip. The only one missing is Barbara.

I think this was taken in 1941, so that might have been the year she was in nurse's training at Mass General in Boston. If she had already moved out to California with Jeannie at this time, she would have come back with Jeannie for this family reunion.

My guess is the occasion was Bobby getting engaged to Norma Bohlken. Another snapshot in this group is dated Nov. 1941 (everybody is wearing the same clothes), and Bob & Norma married in May, 1942.


Here's another shot from this group. That's Bob and Norma in the middle, flanked by Philip and Jeannie. (I love those stylin' open-toed pumps Jeannie is wearing! Some day soon I'll do a post just on Jeannie's outfits; she was such a fashion plate!)

All these pictures appear to be taken on the grounds of the Methodist Church in Holdredge, NE., where The Rev and Maudie and the youngest Baders lived from 1940-1944.


Here are some undated photos of Philip and his mom (Maudie) from about  that same time. This is also their home adjoining the Methodist Church. (This porch figures in many, many Bader family photos.)

I don't know why they're both grimacing in the right-hand pic (maybe they were squinting into the sun?), but everyone looks more relaxed in the other one!


Um, I'm not exactly sure what's going on in this photo, but that's Philip again, fooling around!

Some wag (probably big brother Ernie) has scribbled this caption on the back:

"Latest thing in potted plants."

Or—

"What did you put in that last one, Mike?"

BADER TEENS

By the time they were teenagers, there was enough cash in the coffers for the six Bader siblings to get their portraits taken.


Some of these are school pics, some not.


Here's Bobby at age 17, ca. 1933, Falls City NE.




This is Ernie.

Grandpa (Carl George Sr.) writes on the back: "Ernie had these taken last fall for his applications." These might be his applications to college, in which case he'd be about 18, and this pic would date to around 1937.



Or it may be his applications for his first teaching job, which would date this post-college, around 1944? But I vote for 1937; he still looks so young!


(I also have a photo of him with the high school basketball team he coached, ca. 1940, so this might have been for his application for that job.)

Here is Barbara in high school, sometime between 1936-1940. I would guess she's about 15 or 16.



Barbara never liked this picture very much, but I think she looks very sweet, with her Peter-Pan collar and little Mona Lisa smile.

This is Jeannie in high school. I love this photo!


The original frame is marked very clearly, in Barbara's handwriting, "Jeanne, 1937, Wayne, Nebr."

So Jeannie would be about 15.



 

Here is Carl George Jr., at about age 18. Barbara writes on the back, "C. Geo, about 1942," when the family was living in Holdredge, NE.



The younger members of the family, anyway: by 1942-3, Jeannie and Barbara were already living in California.

And finally, here's a nice portrait of Philip. In Steve's handwriting on the back (writing for Barbara) it says, "Philip Bader, about 16, c. 1948," which looks about right, age-wise.


Of course, by 1948, all the other siblings were long out of the house, since, Philip was so much younger than the rest. (Carl Jr., closest to him in age, was 8 years older.) I include this portrait here so we can take a look at all the Bader kids at about the same age, in their mid-to-late teens.


I have a lot more pics of Philip as a boy in the early 1940s, which I will post soon!

HIDDEN TREASURES

So there I was, rooting around in my mom's things the other day, looking for something else, and I found these two items. I knew they had to go up on the blog!

This is a formal portrait of J. R. Bader, immigrant from Hugsweier, Germany, proprietor of the Bader Furniture Company, father of Carl George (Sr.) and founder of our family line in America.

There's no photographer's mark or any other identification on the photo, but it says "J. R. Bader" on the back in Barbara's handwriting (the very careful script of her later years, when writing had become a challenge for her). And look at his face: his expression looks so much like our "Grandpa Bader," Carl Sr. (Except for the mustache, of course!)

Again, no date on this photo, but J. R. Bader died in 1929 at age 65, so I'd guess this was taken sometime in the  mid-'teens or early 1920s.

Here is a page from the Marriage Certificate of our McAfee forebears, George McAfee and Francis Elizabeth Cowell. 

As you can see, although they may have met on Prince Edward Island, they were married in Worcester, Mass, where they raised their family—Harold, Edna (future bride of Carl Sr.), Mary Ellen ("Minnie"), and George Wyman.

It's interesting that both sets of great-grandparents married in the same year. J. R. Bader married Emma Elsner  on May 25, 1887, at  Arlington, Nebraska; George McAfee and Francis Cowell married September 24, 1887, at Worcester.

Love must have been in the air in 1887! Fortunately for all of us.