Calico Genealogy

Isn’t she adorable! This is Laura Amelia and she was 2 years, 5 months old in this photograph. Reverse side of the photograph says it was taken on April 10, 1920 so that would make her date of birth between the end of November and the beginning of December of 1917. I found these photos of her and, subsequently, her brother, George Anton at an antique shop near my home and fell in love with them both. The photos are printed on post card stock paper and only the photo with them both from the July previous had the embossed name of the studio. Wyhorn in Hackensack, New Jersey. All three photographs were addressed to their grandparents (“To Grandmother & Grandfather Gernert” doesn’t include given names).

With the above information, it was fairly easy to trace them on Ancestry.com. George spent most of his life in the newspapers. You’ll see why a little further down…he had quite the life.

Sadly, Laura only lived to see her fifth birthday, perishing after a quick bout of diphtheria a few weeks before Christmas. Her obituary said, “The death of the girl which was sudden and unexpected is a severe blow to her parents and relatives, she being a great favorite in the family”. The obituary has her middle initial as “V”, but Amelia is handwritten on the back of the photograph.

George was born on 29 October 1915 in New Jersey and died on 6 January 1988 in Hasbrouck Heights, Bergen County, New Jersey as per his Social Security Death Index. He enlisted in the Army on 25 February 1941 and was stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia for a time serving as with the military police unit there. As per the society pages in “The Record” the local Hackensack newspaper, he came home for a 10 day furlough in June of that year. He was promoted to Staff Sergeant in 1943 and after his service he spent his life as a local police officer, retiring as the Deputy Police Chief in Hasbrouck, New Jersey. He married Alice Hughes Grant sometime in 1943 and they raised a family of two sons and a daughter: Richard, George K and Vera. His wife, Alice preceded him in death in 1984.