My mother's Pomeranian connexion
[Pomerania] [Johann August Klemz] [My mother]
Pomerania
Pomerania has been occupied by Germanic & Slav peoples over the centuries; its history is rich and varied and it has been under the rule of many different powers through the centuries. From 1181 until 1806, Pomerania was a part of the Holy Roman Empire and was ruled as imperial fiefs by the Dukes of Pomerania and the kings of Poland, Denmark, Saxony, Brandenburg, Prussia, and Sweden. Eventually it was acquired by the Kingdom of Prussia and, with the unification of Germany in 1871, it became part of the Germany.
After the 2nd World War, the boundary of Poland was moved westward to the 'Oder-Neisse Line' and hence Pomerania was divided between the German Democratic Republic (GDR) & Poland, the larger part being incorparated into Poland as shown on the map above. In October 1990, the GDR was united with the German Federal Republic to form the modern state of Germany.
Johann August Klemz
My great-grandfather,
J. August Klemz
On the right is a photograph of my great-grandfather, Johann August Klemz, who was born in Pomerania 1855; at this period Pomeria was German-speaking and part of Prussia. I have been told that he was born in the village of Zülkenhagen (Sulikowo) near Neustettin (Szczecinek). He was the son of August Klemz, a fireman, who died in 1879 and he had a sister, Wilhelmina (Mina) who was born in 1853. We suspect he may have had other siblings, but at present I have no record of them.
At some time he and his sister (and possibly a brother called Carl) came to Britain; according to my mother, he left because of growing militarism in his homeland. In 1879 Mina married a German widower called August Alfred Notscheid: they had seven children.
In June 1885 in Horsham, West Sussex, August married Jane Bird Penfold (born 1860 in Richmond, Surrey). There he worked as a taylor and he and wife his had a family of nine children:
Back row (left to right): Dorrie, Beattie, Harry, May, Milly
Centre (left to right): August with Otto, Jane with Ruby
Front row (left to right): Winnie, Eva
- Ethel May (born 31st May1886; married Raymond Voice, 4th quarter 1913; died 2nd quarter 1976)
- Blanche Amelia ("Milly" born December 1887; married Victor Verrall)
- Harry Carl Johann (born June 1889; married Priscilla Bosanquet)
- Beatrice Bertha ("Beatie" born 2nd quarter 1890; married ? Crosby)
- Dorothy Bird ("Dorrie" born June 1892; died 1989?))
- Evelyn Gladys ("Eva" b. 2nd quarter 1894)
- Winifred Louise ("Winnie" (born March 1897; married Joseph Ward; died 1991?))
- Otto Arthur (born September 1899; married Olive ?)
- Ruby Hilda (born December 1901; married Arch Brown; died Feb. 1994)
My mother
In 1913 at Horsham, their eldest daughter, Ethel May Klemz, married Raymond Voice (b. 1889; d.1962), a monumental mason of Billingshurst in West Sussex. They had a family of four, who are shown in the photograph on the left; they are (from left to right):
- Aubrey John (b. 2nd April 1915; d. 3rd quarter 1981)
- Geoffrey Edward (b. 1st Nov. 1918)
- Greta Evelyn (b, 1st April 1914; d. 29th May 1998)
- Raymond Peter (b. 19th March 1923, d. July 2001)
In 1937 Greta Evelyn Voice married Leslie Armar Brown (b. June 1910; d. Dec. 2001) and they had two sons, Raymond Armar (b. 15th Jan. 1939) and Colin Armar (b. 19th Jan. 1941), and a daughter, Janice Greta (b. 21st Oct. 1947).
On the right is a photograph (regretably not of high quality) of four generations of my family. At the back stands my mother, Greta Evelyn Brown (née Voice), and my grandmother, Ethel May Voice (née Klemz); kneeling in the center is my great-grandmother, Jane Bird Klemz (née Penfold), wife of Johann August Klemz; the child she is holding is me. |
Four generations |
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Created May 2004. Last revision: Copyright © Ray Brown |