Anna Maria von Gerichten Gretsch
(January 8, 1829, Speyer—August 28, 1871, Mannheim)

1) Anna Maria’s mother Anna Maria Mink was born in Speyer and died in Mannheim July 8, 1870. Anna Maria Gretsch died a year later.

2) Anna Maria’s fater Johann Peter von Gerichten was born March 17, 1805 in Morlheim. and died in 1843 in Mannheim. He was an innkeeper at “Weissen Kreuz” in Speyer and later a Masterbaker in Mannheim.

3) Anna Maria’s father was the sixth child and the third son of his parent’s 8 children. They were all born in Morlheim.

Their father, Grandfather to Anna Maria was Johann Jacob 1773-1823. He was born in Morlheim and owned an estate. (Was this Ozergut?) Her grandmother was Anna Maria Volcker from Edenkoben (1775-1810). Anna Maria Volcker died soon after her eighth child was born. Both of her parents both outlived her. Did they help take care of the 8 children she left behind?

4) Conrad (1795-1837) Johann Peter’s olderst brother was also an estate owner and an innkeeper like his father. He had moved to Impflingen. He died at age 42 leaving 8 children. The oldest was 17, the youngest 6. There is no record of when his wife died. These 8 children were also cousins of Anna Maria.

5) Johann Peter’s second older brother Ludwig was a farm owner, an innkeeper of “Krone” , a tanner, a lumber dealer, Seed Dealer and Common Dye manufacturer in Offenbach.

Would he have been helpful to the family of his younger brother when Johann Peter died?

5) Ludwig had a son Conrad who was Anna Maria’s first cousin. Conrad owned a farm near Offenbach . He died at an early age (Oct. 1868) leaving 3 daughters. The second daughter Elizabeth born in 1857 married Georg Kling in 1876.

Later Anna Maria’s son Friedrich’s (Fritz) widow would marry a David Kling a friend of her late husband’s.

Possibly also a distant relation.

Anna Maria might have been close to these three orphaned daughters of her first cousin and her children would have known the Kling family. Quite possibly this is how Fritz Gretsch came to know David Kling and introduced him to his wife and family in America.

David Kling was the eighth child of Joh. Jacob and Sybilla Koob. He was born in Goennheim, Pflaz, Bayern on Dec 3, 1861 and baptized on Dec. 15.

This is near Ludwigshafen.

6) Ludwig had a daughter Philippine and a daughter Katherine. They were Anna Maria’s first cousins. Philippine married Ludwig Lienenweber in 1849, had a son Ludwig in 1850 and she died in 1853. On September 28, 1854, Philippine’s sister Katherine married her sister’s widower Ludwig and in 1856 had a daughter Philippine. The Lienenweber’s were in the leather tanning business. Quite possibly this is where Fritz Gretsch learned the leather tanning business from his uncle Ludwig von Gerichten and his cousins Ludwig Lienenweber.

4) Another uncle, Johann Jakob, the next youngest son after Johann Peter also lived in Offenbach. Like his father and his brothers, he was an innkeeper. He also was a farmer, a wine maker and beer brewer

8) Anna Maria’s father had a sister Philippine von Gerichten. She was born May 11, 1803 and married January 19, 1823 the brewer Johanne Jakob Grohe in Mannheim who owned “Zum Rosen”. Philippine’s aunt, had married Johanne Melchior Grohe who owned “Zur Rosen” in Mannheim. Did Philippine than marry her cousin?

7) So Anna Maria had four uncles who were innkeepers like her father. Conrad (born 1795) inn keeper in Impflingen. Ludwig (b.1799) innkeeper of “Krone” in Offenbach. Johan Jakob ( b. 1807) innkeeper of “ Weinwirt” in Offenbach and Johann Grohe in Mannheim who owned “Zum Rosen”.

9) Anna Maria was the oldest of ten children, 8 lived to adulthood. She was born January 8, 1829 and had one sister, Philippine born March 19, 1842.

10) The von Gericthen family moved to Mannheim from Speyer in 1833. Ten years earlier her father’s sister Philippine had moved there.

11) In 1843 when Anna Maria was 14 years old, her father died leaving her mother a widow with 9 children.

Were any of her father’s siblings helpful?

Phillipine Grohe? Ludwig? Johann Jakob? another aunt maria Catherina in Offenbach married Wendel von Gerichten?

12) Six of Anna Maria’s brothers went to America. Mostly they settled in California. Much of this information is taken from a book Familie von Gerichten by Dipl. Ing. Georg Kling. (FvG, GK)

1a) Friedrich Willhelm born May 18, 1830 in Speyer.

He married Josefine Shredelsacker from Mannheim.

They had a daughter Philippine who was born in San Francisco February 12,1860. She died there on December 14, 1875.

2a) Peter Karl born April 6,1833. (Merchant or business man in San Francisco, St. Louis, (California) and San Diego. Was one of the most renown and sometimes the richest citizen on one of those cities.) (FvG, GK)

Married in San Francisco September 15, 1863 Anna Philippine Hagen (born in Mannheim in 1840). Three children were born.

a) Anna Maria von Gerichten born July 28, 1864 in St. Louis Rey Sierra City. Married May 15, 1882 in San Diego to Arnold Wentscher. Died February 7, 1888 in San Diego.

b) Katie von Gerichten born Dec 5, 1865 in Holland Flat, Sierra County, California. Married in S. D. on December 26, 1894 Charles Rensch and died in Darmstadt on July 5, 1922.

c) Anna Caroline Philippine born July 19, 1867 and died Nov.7, 1867.

First wife died June 15, 1868 in San Francisco.

Married 2nd: Florintine Timm Jan. 30, 1872 (sister of his brother Conrad’s wife) in Nevada City, California.

a) Leda Caroline born Mar 9, 1875 in San Diego. Married April 5, 1899 in San Diego to Jerauld Ingle, a lawyer in San Diego.

b)Amy Dorothy born June 23, 1876 in San Diego. Married in Dresden (was she perhaps visiting her first cousin Augusta Katherine Gretsch who had married Hellerman from Dresden? Or was she living with her uncle Conrad Melchior) Hans Hermann Doecke (big merchant in Luboch) July 15, 1902. Died June 13, 1935 in Baden Baden.

c) Ella Auguste born in June, 1882. Married October 8, 1903 in San Diego, Ernest Darlus Scott, a Brigader General USA.

Peter Karl died April 28, 1884 in San Diego.

3a) Philipp William born on Dec 31, 1834

Married Katharine Rosina Esswein born in Mannheim February 22, 1841

“manufacture in Mannheim, later in America”. (FvG, GK)

4a) Conrad Melchior born Dec 17, 1837 “ manufacturing owner in San Francisco. (Studeid in Gottingen? But couldn’t find him hin the Student Registry. Later he went to America on May 23, 1854 and later on he lived for a long time in Dresden.)” (FvG, GK)

Married Dorothea Timm (sister of his brother’s second wife)

a) Dolly (Dorothea) born Aug 4, 1867. Married in 1899 in Dresden to Ernst Roessler. Died July 16, 1928 in Roloshagen in Mechlenburg.

b) Conrad Melchior born n July 4, 1870 in San Francisco. Aritst painter in Munich, Berlin and Buffalo. Died April 19, 1919 in Buffalo.

c) Lulu Franziska born June September 7. 1873 died June 22, 1900 in Gorlitz. Viktor Lettre. No heirs.

Conrad died February 5, 1897 in Dresden. Dorothea died Oct. 27, 1920 in Goettingen.

5a) Jacob Edward born April 5, 1839 died in San Francisco in 1884

(allegedly studied at Goettingen but couldn’t find him in student directories) (FvG, GK)

6a) Franz Friedrich Heinrich born Nov. 15, 1843 seems to be missing but might be the butcher in NYC who ran for alderman.

All the above siblings of Anna Maria went to America. Her sister and another brother remained in Germany.

Anna Maria’s only sister Philippine born May 19, 1842 was god mother to Anna Maria’s second daughter, Pauline Philippine born May 16, 1857 and also to the fourth daughter, Anna Maria Philippine born January 4, 1861.

On July 15, 1873, Philippine married Heinrich Diehl, an older man who was a butcher and wealthy. In April of 1875, they took in the young Philippine who was then an orphan.

13) Anna Maria had one brother Ludwig August who lived as an innkeeper in Mannheim and his son worked as a managing director for a factory. Ludwig had a daughter Anna Katherine Philippine who never married. She was born in 1866 and was a first cousin to the Gretsch girls.

14) The Wm Gretsch family lived in Speyer in the 1840’s and moved to Mannheim probably in 1849. In March 1853, Katharine Fuks the first wife of Wm. Gretsch’s died. Two sons from William’s first marriage, Wilhelm Casimir and Gustav August Gottfried.

15). Anna Maria von Gerichten married Wilhelm Gretsch on July 10, 1854 shortly after her brothers Carl Peter and Conrad Melchior left for America.

16) Anna Maria named her first child a daughter Anna Maria after herself and her mother. Her mother Anna Maria Mink also named her first daughter after herself. But when Anna Maria Gretsch had a daughter in New York in 1891 she named her Wilhelmina after her husband Wilhelm von Schellegrell. Perhaps this Anna Maria Gretsch had a first daughter before Wilhelmina that is not yet known. Or maybe she was merely breaking the tradition.

17) Anna Maria von Gerichten Gretsch named her first son Karl Friedrich Wilhelm. Her husband Wilhelm had a son from his first marriage named Karl Friedrich who had died in infancy. Anna Maria had a brother Friedrich Wilhelm. It is through the von Gerichten family that the name Friedrich was introduced to the Gretsch family. Except for the name of her brother Conrad, the sons of Anna Maria were named in the same order that her brothers were named: Friederick, Lugwig, Karl, Philipp, (Conrad) Jacob.

18) July 18, 1870 Anna Maria’s mother died in Mannheim.

March 1, 1871 Ludwig August 39 years old, her only brother living in Germany died in Mannhein.

On August 28, 1871, Anna Maria died in Mannheim one year after her own mother’s death. She was 42 years old.

Her husband remarried less than one year later and her children started leaving for America.

19) Anna Maria had 9 Children by Wilhelm Gretsch. All of these children came to America after her death. These children were following a long tradition of movement on both their mother’s and father’s side. Their father William had moved from Simmern to Spyer to Mannheim. William’s brother Jacob was already settled in America at the time of William’s death. Their mother’s family had moved first from Morlheim and then to Speyer and to Mannheim. Most of her brothers had moved to America. These Gretsch siblings had lots of Aunts and Uncles and cousins in America on both their mother’s and father’s side.