RUDOLPH MYER SCHULTE
My paternal great-grandfather, Rudolph Myer Schulte, was born October 24, 1869 in Beckum, Westphalia, Preußen, Germany to Joseph M. Schulte and Alvina Tobian. Joseph, Alvina and Rudolph immigrated to the US on the ship "Holsatia" and arrived on April 24, 1872 when Rudolph was only a 2 1/2 year old young boy. The family settled in Detroit, Michigan where father, Joseph, carved a career as a blacksmith.
Very little information exists about Rudolph's childhood but I do have this photo of him at the age of 21 where he looks so elegant in a professional photo with a hat on a stand and an umbrella (photo from 1890):
The above photo was taken just prior to his marriage to my great-grandmother, Juliane Feucht. Their son, my grandfather, Elmer M. Schulte, was born on August 4, 1894 in Detroit when Rudolph was working as a Detroit Fire Fighter. Here are a few photos of Rudolph as a Detroit Fire Fighter. The first photo was taken in 1890:
Rudolph with some of his fellow Detroit fire fighters in 1910; Rudolph is on the far left:
Another outstanding photo of the Detroit Fire Fighters with Rudolph in the bottom row, far right (date unknown):
At the age of 28, Rudolph enlisted in the US Navy and served aboard the USS Yosemite during the Spanish American War. His younger brother, Theodore, also served in the military as this photo of the two of them indicates:
Rudolph did not spend a great deal of time in the US Navy as he was injured and returned home to Detroit where he continued to work as a Detroit Fire Fighter:
Between my genie cousin, TK, and myself we have extensively researched our mutual Schulte line back to Beckum and uncovered exciting data taking our family back several generations. Despite all of our research, we have been unable to uncover an actual birth record for Rudolph from Beckum though we have several US records indicating that was his place of birth. We have, also, spent a great deal of time and research in attempting to uncover the reasons for the oft-times recorded hyphenated surname in the Beckum records of Meier/Meyer/Myer-Schulte. In my own immediate family I do know that the name of Meier (again with variant spellings) has shown up as the middle name of one male in each generation going back 6 generations to Rudolph's father, Joseph. When I questioned my grandmother about this years ago she indicated that the name of Meier, et al was "an old family name". Anything further she did not know. Additional research will be needed to solve this mystery.
In 1907, Rudolph lost his wife, Julie, to liver cancer and he was left with his son, Elmer, age 12. Despite the fact that Julie was to have been his "beloved" wife (as my grandfather often told me his father referred to his mother), Rudolph wasted no time in marrying again. Within a few WEEKS he was married to Julie's older sister, Elizabeth, who had been widowed twice before and came to their marriage with 5 children of her own. In essence my grandfather grew up with a step-mother who was really his aunt and cousins who were also step-siblings. One of the step-brothers even assumed the surname of Schulte though no evidence exists that Rudolph actually adopted him. It must have been an interesting household.
Over the years, besides being a Detroit Fire Fighter, Rudolph also worked selling insurance and perfected the early art of investing in real estate. At one time in the 1930's he owned 4 homes on Concord Avenue in Detroit - homes that he promised to each of his three grandchildren when they reached adulthood. Unfortunately these promises did not materialize as Rudolph's second wife, Elizabeth, died in 1938 and he immediately turned around and married a third time to a previously single woman, Mary Bender. It was his third wife who inherited his estate upon his death.
This photo is probably my last photo of Rudolph with his granddaughter, Marilyn Schulte, and Amelia Wellhausen, Marilyn's maternal grandmother:
Rudolph passed away on April 1, 1940, a short time after his marriage to Mary Bender, and he is buried with her at Elmwood Cemetery in Detroit:
Elmwood Cemetery is a very old cemetery in Detroit, considered an historic site and quite beautiful though located in an area now that is best visited with a large, burly partner. Despite this, I do have the following photos of the cemetery and the gravestone of my great-grandfather:
I have often thought of what drove my great-grandfather during his life. My father and my uncle remember their grandfather well and can recount that he always had huge wads of money in his pockets (in actuality single dollars wrapped around a $50 bill) which he would bring out and tease them with. They said he was a good grandfather but their "grandmother" as they referred to Elizabeth, wife #2, was very solemn and not a grandmotherly type. I have always felt a kinship to my great-grandmother, Julie, and am just amazed that Rudolph would have chosen to remarry just a few weeks after Julie's death. While I know that men in those years did not want to be alone raising their children following the early deaths of wives, Rudolph did not have a baby to raise as my grandfather was already 12 when his mother died. Family stories have indicated that Julie's sister, Elizabeth, initiated the marriage prompting Rudolph to combine their families. For whatever reason Rudolph and Elizabeth were married many years and her children remained close to my grandfather, Elmer, following the deaths of their parents.
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