"Oh, Come on! We Can Look"

When my Polish researchers sent me a marriage license for the daughter of my four times great grandfather Marcin (or Martin) Schalin, it was new information. I hadn't previously known about Anna Rosina Schalin. I learned she married Christoph Arnholtz on 24 January 1816 in Maliniec, Kolo, Wielkopolskie, Poland. That sent me to the Master Pedigree Database maintained by the Society of German Genealogy in Eastern Europe (SGGEE) to see if Anna and Christoph were included and found them. The database indicated they had a son, also named Christoph, born about 1826 in Police, Kolo, Wielkopolska, Poland.

Son Christoph married Anna Rosalie Buech on an unknown date and they had three known children. Then the trail ran cold at SGGEE. However, after entering the names and birth dates into my family tree, I discovered their son, Carl Ludwig Arnholtz's wife, Rosalie Juliane Schechinger, lived with her son, Adam, and his family in Strathcona, Alberta, Canada in 1911. There was no mention of her husband, Carl Ludwig, on the census form, even though it indicated she was married. I found the passenger list for Adam's family but not his mother, who did not appear to travel with him. Adam immigrated to Canada aboard the S/S Bremen in 1907, leaving Bremen, Germany on 11 May and arriving in Quebec on 22 May.

Adam wasn't the only son to leave Russia. His brother Friedrich, still single, also left and settled in Portland, Oregon, about the same time according to his naturalization papers. Once in the United States, he went by Fred. He married Ernestine "Tinnie" Ganske sometime before 1912. They had six children children, including daughters Esther Nettie and Evelyn Mae who married two brothers named George and Raymond Rueck.

In 1987 a long article about George and Raymond, their spouses, and three other siblings and their spouses was published in The Oregonian on 10 April entitled, "Commitment upholds long-lived Rueck marriages." When Raymond and Evelyn (Arnholtz) Rueck celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary that year, they became the fifth Rueck sibling to pass the half-century mark.

Five Rueck siblings and their spouses; article courtesy of the Oregon
Historical Society

There was one passage in the article that made me laugh out loud:

Another reason the five marriages has [sic] lasted is, Ella May Rueck said, "We don't have our eyes on other men."

"Oh, come on! We can look!" joked Evelyn (Arnholtz) Rueck.

I just loved her sense of humor; she reminded me of my Dad and his telling his children after we were married we could look but couldn't touch. It was Rule No. 1. Another one of his adages was, "Just because I'm on a diet doesn't mean I can't look at the menu," about giving pretty girls a second look. Then he would quickly remind us of his first rule! He had all sorts of pearls of wisdom that I still live by today.

I find it hard to believe an 1816 Polish marriage registration led me to an article in Oregon newspaper over 170 years later and half a world away.

How I got there:

Christoph Arnholtz (c1787-unknown) married Anna Rosina Schalin (c1792-unknown)[1]
>Son Christoph Arnholtz (1826-unknown) married Anna Rosalie Buech (1829-unknown)
>>Son Carl Ludwig Arnholtz (1848-1936) married Rosalie Juliane Schechinger (1849-1937)
>>>Son Friedrich "Fred" Arnholtz (1889-1948) married Ernestine "Tinne" Granske (1893-1933)
>>>>Daughter Esther Nettie Arnholtz (1912-2006) married George Rueck, Jr. (1910-1996)
>>>>Daughter Evelyn Mae Arnholtz (sister of Esther) married Raymond Rueck (1914-2003)

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Anna Rosina Schalin was my three times great grand aunt