Monthly Archives October 2020

Loyla Henriette Von Osten Ohmer

Biographies | No comments

February 21, 1900 – December 18, 1977

By Judy and Susan Ohmer, granddaughters

Loyla was one of the first children in Petersburg, arriving in 1903 with her father Captain Von Oston, when she was only three. They sailed to Alaska when the town of Petersburg was not much older than she was. Her father purchased a house, and the two of them returned to Tacoma to get the rest of the family.

When Loyla, her little sister Edna, and parents Henriette and Carl Von Osten settled in Petersburg, the Norwegian language was commonly heard on the streets. Loyla’s mother was of Norwegian heritage and her father of German/Prussian, so there was a comfort in calling the developing Scandinavian town home.

As young girls, Loyla and Edna enjoyed their dollhouse furniture, setting it up in ...

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John Francis Ohmer

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November 7, 1856 – November 4, 1938

OHMER, John Francis, manufacturer and inventor, was born in Dayton, Ohio, Nov. 7, 1856, son of Michael and Rose Marie (Welty) Ohmer. His father, a native of Alsace, France, came to America in 1831 and settled the following year in Dayton, where he was a furniture manufacturer and a pioneer promoter of street car railways. The son attended St. Mary’s College (later the University of Dayton). At the age of fourteen he became an apprentice in his father’s furniture factory and four years later obtained his first patent on a furniture caster. Following the retirement of his father in 1878 he purchased the furniture business and, after admitting his brothers into the firm, reorganized it as the M. Ohmer Sons Co...

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Gloria Lucille Ohmer

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Gloria Lucille Ohmer

November 24, 1925 –

By Judy and Susan Ohmer, daughters

Gloria Lucille Anderson arrived in Petersburg on April 28, 1949, aboard an Alaska steam ship for a two-week visit with friends.  By the time she was to return to Everett, Washington, 14 days later, she had already decided that “this was her spot,” and she’d taken a job.  She said,

“I loved Alaska.  It offered opportunity – and the exhilaration of possibility.  It was a land of extremes and of characters.  I felt as if I were coming home for the first time.”

Born in Chicago, November 24, 1925, Gloria started Kindergarten in Everett, Washington, as the Great Depression began.  It was, she said, a time of incredible struggle, of heartache, of sadness, loss, and hunger...

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David Paul Ohmer

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July 3, 1919 – December 8, 1979

By Judy and Susan Ohmer, daughters

Dave was one of the first generation of children born in Petersburg. He was reared there as the town was developing into a noted seafood producing areas in Southeastern Alaska. He had the typical freedoms of boys of the wilderness, almost expected to be packing a fishing pole, a basketball, or a .22-rifle.

Childhood summers included time at Greenrocks, rowing skiffs, picking berries, jigging fish, and chopping wood. As a teen he would entertain tourists by diving from Citizen’s Dock and swimming across Wrangell Narrows. Winters meant ice-skating and sledding parties. And basketball was king. In 1938 the Petersburg Vikings won the Southeast Alaska basketball championship...

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Europe 1848 Timeline

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My ggg grandfather Tobias Ambre Ohmer left Neupotz, Germany in 1851 for unknown reasons. The following timeline is presented in hopes of providing some clues toward finding out just why he migrated to the U.S.

1846-1849: Economic depression was spread throughout Europe. It was marked by rising food prices after a poor harvest and the recession that followed the industrial expansion in the early 1840s.

February 22, 1848: In France, one of many banquets to protest the government’s inflexibility was planned, but the government banned it. Crowds began to gather in the streets and minor skirmishes with police erupted. Workers who could have never afforded tickets to the banquet constructed barricades. The revolution had begun. 

February 24, 1848: Louis Phillipe abdicated to his nine...

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A Brief History of the Pfalz

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(through 1815)

by CAROL SAINT-CLAIR

The area referred to as the Pfalz (or Palatinate, in English) stretches today from Bad Kreuznach in the north to the French border in the south.  It is bounded on the east by the great Rhine River, and on the west by the smallest German state, Saarland.  The Pfalz, which after WWII was joined with a larger area called the Rhineland to make the modern German state of Rheinland- Pfalz, lies in the warmest and sunniest corner of Germany, and half of it is made up of the fertile Rhine River Basin, where famous German wines are made, and even tobacco is grown.  The Pfalz has probably always seemed like God’s little acre.  At any rate people have been living here for the 100,000 years, according to relics and shards that are found everywhere here...

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Carack Passenger Manifest

Ships Manifests | No comments

List of Passengers of the ship Carack

Ship: CARACK

Arrival: New Orleans, June 16, 1851

Port of Departure: LE HAVRE, FRANCE

Captain: FALES, WM J

Last Name First & Middle Name
ABTUL? ADOLPHE
ABTUL? ELISABETH
ABTUL? GOTTFRIED
ABTUL? JOHANN
ABTUL? MELCHIOR
ABTUL? SAMUEL
ANDRETTA ANTOINE
ANDREWS J
ANTON REY
BAECIOCHI GUISEPPE
BAHLMANN JOHANN
BANSCHER BABETTE
BANSCHER CONRAD
BECK MICHEL
BERKSWIZ LOUIS
BERTRAND PIERRE
BIDWELL H
BISSINGER JOSEPH
BOHN JOSEPHA
BORDOLI STEPHAN
BRAND DANIEL
BRAND LOUISE
BRAND MADELAINE
BRAND MARGURITE
BRAUD ADOLF
BRICKMANN FRANZ
BRONZWISKY JACQUES
BRUNKANT GABRIEL
BUB WILHELM
BUNA JOSEPH
BUNK HEINRICH
BURNETT GENEVIEVE
BUSER ARO
CHAUVELOT ANNA CLAUDE
CHAUVELOT JN FRANCOIS
DACOME? CHARLES
DANSMANN ANNA
DANSMANN CHRISTIAN
DANSMANN MARGUERITE
DANSMANN SUZANNE
DEHNER CRESENESA
DEHNER KUNIGUNDA
DEMB...
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Neupotzer Heimat Buch

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Neupotzer Heimat Buch

(The Neupotz Homeland Book) by Alfred Boltz

Neupotzer Heimat Buch
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1990 Census Data

Census | One comment

1990 Census data on the surname OHMER

The files from the 1990 census data contain four items of data. The four items are:

  1. “Name”
  2. Frequency in percent
  3. Cumulative Frequency in percent
  4. Rank

In the file (dist.all.last) one entry appears as:

(1) OHMER (2) 0.000 (3) 86.713 (4) 55151

In our Search Area sample, OHMER ranks 55151th in terms of frequency. 86.713% of the sample population is covered by OHMER and 55150 names occur more frequently than OHMER. The surname, OHMER, is possessed by 0.000 percent of our population sample.

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Assumption Parish circa 1860

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Approximate ward boundaries

Click for a larger view

The research for this map was done by Kenneth Toups and was published in Audrey B. Westerman’s “1860 Census Assumption Parish, Louisiana“, Second Printing 1987.
A scanned image from that document was obtained by permission of Audrey B. Westerman.
The above map, based on Kenneth Toups map, was recreated by me.

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