Photo captions can be short, incomplete, mysterious, or full of clues. It all depends on whoโs writing it and when. The caption on this image is different. Itโs in two parts in a different script and the authors are arguing. When I saw this image sitting in a bin, I had to have it. Itโs the first time Iโve ever seen a caption quite like this.
Weโve been using this image to demonstrate the digital photo organizer MemoryWebโs back/front photo linking feature. This is definitely a caption that we donโt want to lose and back/front linking means I donโt have to search for two separate images. They are together in my MemoryWeb account.
In my quest to find the truth behind the caption, Iโve fallen into research rabbit holes (as genealogists call them) and now know more about the subject of the caption than likely his living family did.
But I donโt know everything and thatโs where I could use a little help.
Letโs start at the beginning. There are five basic clues present on/in the imageโphotographerโs name, a location, the identity of one caption writer, what they are wearing, and the fatherโs name.
The caption casts doubt on the fatherโs career. Was he a success or was he a failure? Thatโs the big question.
Photographer and Location
Henry Grimsehl of 229 Prospect Ave., near 5th Ave, Brooklyn, N.Y. took this group portrait in Prospect Park. Thatโs easy. The imprint is on the back and the place is recognizable. He was a German immigrant who took pictures in New York City and later in Brooklyn. He was a photographer in Brooklyn from about 1892 at that address, and after 1902 at 299 Prospect. Grimsehl died in 1919.
The group posed in front of the Prospect Park Concert Grove Pavilion. It still stands and is undergoing restoration. The restaurant on the left-hand side of the image was demolished in 1946. Itโs mentioned in the caption as proof of a manโs success and thatโs where the story gets interesting.
The Caption
I love that Edmund Voigt signed his caption. โProspect Park Brooklyn where Dad held the restaurant and cafรฉ concession.โ That part seems clear, right? Not so fast. There is a person in a chef/cooking staff outfit standing in the center of the image. Edmund continues. โThat might be Dad on right standing looks like him except the mouth.โ
Above his statements is where the argument starts. An unnamed person, โDad Helmuth Voigt was not a successful businessman. He would start a business, go broke then leave it. Never could save anything.โ Seems pretty apparent that there is no love lost between the writer and their father. Below Edmundโs identification is โthat is NOT Dad, no Iโm afraid.โ
From their caption, we know that both commenters are children of Helmuth and that one of them was Edmund. Thereโs no gray area in the disagreement.
Tracking Helmut
Finding Helmuthโs life story took time. Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com, various newspaper databases, Ellis Island, FamilySearch.com, and Google. I now have a timeline of his life with gaps. Youโll see what I mean. Rather than research backward from his death, letโs build a timeline working forward. Dating photos often involves doing extensive research to find clues that relate to an image in hand. Not everything I’ve found is relevant to the image, but it’s a good idea to accumulate as much information as possible.
16-year-old Helmuth Voigt/Voight, born 13 October 1865 in Meisenbach, Rudolstadt, left Bremen, Germany aboard the General Werder which departed Bremen, Germany, and arrived in New York on 19 June 1882.[i]
From 1882 until 1889, there is a gap in Helmuthโs story. In 1889, heโs living in Waterbury, Connecticut, and is naturalized on January 14 of that year. While he claimed to live in Waterbury, only a Michael Voigt/Vogt appears in the city directories for 1886 to 1889. Although Helmut did live there in 1907 and 1908. Of course, itโs possible for Michael to be a relative of his, but there is no proof of that at this point. [ii]
Helmuthโs next stop is San Francisco where he states his occupation in voter registration rolls as a waiter in 1890 and a steward in 1892. In 1893 he marries an English immigrant, Jennie Thomas in Santa Clara. Itโs the first marriage for both. [iii]
According to his 1897 passport application, Helmuth Voigt, a resident of Brooklyn, stated that he wanted to return to Germany for three months, but instead didnโt return until early September 1898. It doesnโt appear that a wife traveled with him.[iv]
For photo identification purposes, the passport included physical details. He stood 5 ft 6 ยพ inches had a high forehead, gray eyes, and a prominent nose. He had a fair complexion, oblong face, and light-colored hair. This description will be handy for sorting through the men in the group portrait.[v]
Searching the Census
With a known relationship of father and son in the caption, it was time for a census search. Helmut and Edmund appear together in 1910, 1920, and 1930 census for Schenectady, New York.
Edmund was born in 1910 and he had a sister Lillian four years older. Sometimes enumerators add a bit more information. For marriages on this page, she put a superscript 2 or 1 next to the M for married. Itโs the second marriage for both Helmuth and his Scottish immigrant bride of two years. While Minnie is Edmundโs mother, Lillian is not Minnieโs child, her motherโs nationality was given as German (likely a mistake), and a place of birth of Connecticut. Further searching identified Minnie as Mary Boyd. Perhaps Lillian was born to Jennie and Helmuth, but so far, no birth records or death records fill in that blank.[vi]
Enumerators collected information from who they could and that lead to discrepancies. The 1920 census asks year of immigration and naturalization which for Helmuth the enumerator wrote 1890 and 1895. Itโs definitely worth looking at each census to study all the columns. Ten years later Helmuthโs immigration date in the census was 1880 when in fact he arrived in 1882. Itโs important to verify the data given in a census record. [vii]
Dating the Image
Notice that I had a gap in the timeline between 1898 when Helmut returns from Germany and the census of 1910. Itโs an interesting coincidence. Youโll see why.
There are plentiful clothing clues in this image from what infants wore to older women. Itโs a broad spectrum of fashion in a particular time period. Always look for the most fashionable woman in a picture. Babies can wear hand-me-downs and older folks may don their best but outdated outfit for a portrait. The small straw sailor hat was worn by the woman on the left and the hair ornament sticking up the hair of the oldest woman help date the image to circa 1899-1900. This image fits neatly into the timeline, exactly where there is a gap. The missing information includes a lack of a census record for Helmuth.
In 1900, Helmuth would be 35.
Letโs take another look at the photo. In it, there are clusters of people. They are likely posed in family groups.
On the left, itโs a young woman, an older middle-aged/older woman, and standing behind them is a man who could be in his thirties.
The cluster in the middle consists of a seated man in his probable 40s flanked by two boys likely less than 10. Behind stands a man about the same age in a chef cap. Both men have dark hair and eyes. They bear a resemblance to each other and to the woman with the sailor cap.
On the far right are two twenty/thirty-something women (one with a baby) and a man possibly thirty-something. He has lighter hair and eyes. Since Helmutโs passport application identified him as having a prominent nose, high forehead, light hair, and grey eyes itโs clear thatโs why Edmund suggested it was his father.
Edmund pointed him out to be his father with the exception of the mouth. Lillian didn’t support his identification. If it isn’t Edmund then who is it and why did Edmund mistake the man for his father? At the time of his birth, Helmuth was 45. Perhaps his appearance had changed significantly since the photo.
I spot some family resemblances in the men, especially the men with mustaches. They could be brothers. The woman in the tiny hat could be their sister and the older woman their mother. The light hair and eyes on “Helmuth” make him stand out. It’s just another puzzle in this picture for which I don’t have evidence.
Food and Family
It could be a family photo celebrating a significant event. For instance, in 1897, there was an Emil Vogt who operated a restaurant at the Park Circle Hotel, opposite the entrance to Prospect Park as a โcompetent caterer.โ Itโs possible the food business ran in the family. Edmund later becomes a baker. Helmut always claimed to be a waiter. [viii]
Helmuth Voigt died in Schenectady in 1936, where heโd lived for 28 years. His obit mentioned him being a waiter for 27 years, a fact that is confirmed through city directories and census research. In the 1907 city directory for Waterbury, Connecticut Helmuth worked at The Elton, a luxury hotel still in operation. Itโs the only mention of an exact place of employment for him. There is no mention in city directories of him being associated as an owner of a series of businesses. As for Helmuth being a failure, there is a discrepancy. At the time of the 1930 census, he owned a house worth four thousand dollars in Schenectady, New York (and a radio).[ix]
There are so many missing details. When I look at this photo, I see the groups as possibly representing branches of a family. There could be other Voigts living in the area or perhaps they aren’t Voigt’s. Helmut lived at various times in Brooklyn, northern California, Schenectady, and Waterbury/Hartford Connecticut. When he died there remained a connection to Brooklyn.
According to a front-page article in the Times Union newspaper of Schenectady at the time of Helmuthโs death, โa rush message was sent to Brooklyn.โ Two phonograph records were then sent back to Schenectady. They contained funeral music and burial service in lieu of a clergy person. There were German organizations in Brooklyn and it’s possible Helmuth maintained connections with one of them. The newspaper doesn’t state whether the recordings were in English or German.[x]
Edmund lived with his mother for the rest of her life and never married. When she died in 1960, her obituary mentioned another child, Mrs. John George Schilke of Bristol, Connecticut who was Lillian. Searching for information on Lillian turned up an obituary for her husband where his wife is Lillian Frances Ehle, a curious find. Perhaps Lillian’s mother was actually German and didn’t carry the Voight name. It’s possible but unlikely that Lillian had an earlier marriage unless she married in her teens. Minnie’s survivors included her two children, three grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren.[xi]
How the photograph ended up in a Pawtucket, Rhode Island antique shop is a mystery.
Remaining questions.
There are still so many unanswered questions about this image from how it came to be in the Voigt family to whoโs in it. It seems possible that Lillian and Edmund would have met other Voigt relations, but perhaps not. Lillian is adamant in the caption that it is not their father. It’s possible that Lillian was mistaken and the man with the right height and coloring was her father and one of the women is her mother. Or one of the women is Jennie. If thatโs the case, there is yet another mystery.
Iโm looking for:
- When and where did Helmut marry Minnie/Mary Boyd? Could there be another marriage?
- What happened to his first wife Jennie? And were there any children?
- Evidence of businesses in which Helmut was involved
- Why is Lillian stating her maiden name as Ehle?
- Why isn’t Helmuth in the 1900 U.S. census?
Iโm convinced this is a solvable photo problem. With 12 descendants living as of 1960, work could be done to contact them to see if anyone has a photo of Helmut. Itโs slow going to contact living descendants even when you discover the names of Lillianโs three children. Fingers crossed.
Endnotes
[i] Year: 1882; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: M237, 1820-1897; Line 44; List Number:836. Ancestry.com. U.S., Passport Applications, 1795-1925 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2007; Roll #484; Volume # Roll 484-01 Apr 1897-16 Apr 1897, Passport number 1530 dated April 13, 1897.
[ii] Ancestry.com. U.S. Naturalization Record Indexes, 1791-1992 (Indexed in World Archives Project) [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. This collection was indexed by Ancestry World Archives Project. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington, D.C.; Index to New England Naturalization Petitions, 1791-1906 (M1299); Microfilm Serial: M1299; Microfilm Roll: 36; MyHeritage.com, U.S. City Directories, Waterbury, Connecticut 1886-1889, 1906-1907.
[iii] Ancestry.com. California, U.S., Voter Registrations, 1900-1968 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2017. California Marriages, 1850-1945. Database. FamilySearch.org: 6 January 2021.
[iv] Ancestry.com, U.S. Passport Applications, 1897; List or Manifest of Alien Immigrants. Helmuth Voight. 1898. https://heritage.statueofliberty.org/passenger-details/czoxMjoiNjAyOTA1MDgwMTAwIjs=/czo4OiJtYW5pZmVzdCI7
[v] Ancestry.com, U.S. Passport Applications, 1897.
[vi] Ancestry.com. 1910 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006. Year: 1910; Census Place: Schenectady Ward 7, Schenectady, New York; Roll: T624_1078; Page: 6B; Enumeration District: 0199; FHL microfilm: 1375091; Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015. Original data: Social Security Applications and Claims, 1936-2007, Edmund Voight. ; MyHeritage.com, New York Newspapers, 1806-2007, Obituary. Mary Elizabeth Voight. Schenectady Gazette, June 11, 1960.
[vii] Ancestry.com, 1910 United States Federal Census; Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Year: 1920; Census Place: Schenectady Ward 13, Schenectady, New York; Roll: T625_1263; Page: 8A; Enumeration District: 192
[viii] Newspapers.com, advertisement. Park Circle Hotel. July 4, 1897. Brooklyn Daily Eagle
[ix] Newspapers.com, notice. โPhonograph Record Provides Funeral Service,โ Times Union (Schenectady, New York), March 13, 1936, 1. U.S. City Directories, Waterbury, Connecticut 1907; “United States Census, 1930,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X4T5-JZ7 : accessed 15 July 2021), Edmund W Voigt in household of Helmuth Voigt, Rotterdam, Schenectady, New York, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 17, sheet 22B, line 56, family 485, NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002), roll 1644; FHL microfilm 2,341,378.
[x] Newspapers.com, notice. โPhonograph Record Provides Funeral Service,โ Times Union (Schenectady, New York), March 13, 1936, 1.
[xi] MyHeritage.com, Obituary for Mary Voight. Schenectady Gazette, June 11, 1960. Ancestry.com, โObituary of J. George Schilke,โ Hartford Courant, May 2, 1965.