Baden

Peter’s history seems mysterious at best, placing him in New York in 1882. You see, documents only seem to indicate that he was ambiguously from Baden, but we know that the capital of Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart, suffered near destruction during the Second World War (Ray). Additionally, numerous fires near the Black Forest of Germany destroyed civil documents during the 1880s, which coincides with Peter’s arrival in America. Therefore, the likelihood of finding records of his birth is quite slim, so I must trust what little documentation survived via census records, naturalization papers, and so on. However, we can assume one thing: Peter’s culture and traditions found him among kindred spirits when he arrived in Manhattan!

Peter met Louise, the daughter of Karl and Magdalena from Neuhausen auf den Fildern, once here and started a family with her. Of course, intermingling with fellow German-speakers was quite common as previously mentioned, and I strongly suspect that their shared background from the Black Forest of Germany offered a bonding opportunity. Karl likely approved of Peter for his young daughter. Peter and Louise had a daughter named Louise who married our first-generation Bohemian-American Charles, completing our journey through Mother Dear’s ancestry.

Works Cited

“Stuttgart | Germany, Map, History, & Points of Interest | Britannica.” Edited by Michael Ray, Britannica, www.britannica.com/place/Stuttgart-Germany. Accessed 19 Jan. 2026.