Keeping busy during a pandemic

Staying home, staying safe.  What to do while quarantining?  

Eat comfort food, binge watch shows, some work, zoom meetings, online exercise, nap, repeat.  

Also big on my list was doing all the things that I haven't had time to do before covid19. 

Trying to make some lemonade out of lemons, I signed up to ancestry.com to hopefully, solve some family mysteries.

The first mystery. My father's mother died when he was 9 months old.  He and his Dad, John Sr.  & older brother, John Jr., who was 2, moved into their Grandfather, Dr. August Osterman's house.  John Sr.,  was a traveling auditor for the B&O railroad, he had to depend on his family for much needed help raising his boys.  Later John, Sr. remarried a lovely woman, Ruby. 

We knew Ruby growing up as our grandmother, no-one spoke of my Father's real mother, Elsa Catherine, at least not in our house. 

I also had a lot of anxiety worrying about my father's early life, not knowing anything about it. You see my father died at 60, we never had the heartfelt talks that we could have had, I was still stuck in my own head, not having the foresight to ask the questions that I so desire now as an older adult.  

Thanks to ancestry.com & my cousin Jim, I've been able to get some answers. My father had a wonderful childhood surrounded by loving Aunts, Uncles, Grandfather and Grandmother. A house full of life and a wonderful Aunt, Emma, who pretty much raised the boys until age 7 & 10.

Elsa Catherine died at age 26 from Septice.  On ancestry I found her birth certificate, she was attended by her loving Husband & Dr. August Osterman who arrived on March 14th and stayed by her side until the 16th, 1920 at 10:55 am

She was buried at her parents grave site.  I can't imagine how sad this was for all....   I heard from my cousin that John Jr. would stand by the window waiting for his mother.

Through ancestry I was able to find her parents, siblings and their ancestors. Her Grandfather Bernard Matt fought & was injured in the civil war. 

Elsa Catherine Ortstadt Osterman

The Grandmother we never knew.

The Osterman Family

Pictures are the Aunts that helped raise my father.