[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Volhynia concern

[K. Gallagher]

Thanks to Michael Castles for the connection.  My ancestors might very  
well have known your ancestors.  They might even have been related  
although I'm sad to say that I don't know if my grandfather had  
siblings or not.  He died in 1926, well before I was born.  Perhaps  
your grandmother's maiden name was Caroline Liedke?

In case you don't have this information already, there are a number of  
families in the Middletown area that are descended from immigrants  
from Klein Gluscha.  The earliest I've traced are the Kutzner brothers  
who were stepsons of my grandfather.  The first to come were Charles  
and Gottfried in 1893.  According to family information, Gottfried  
died very soon after arrival, perhaps in New York, but Charles lived  
in Middletown/Cromwell/East Berlin area and married Anna Wilde(r)mann,  
also from Klein Gluscha.  She immigrated with her parents, Johann and  
Carolina (Martens) Wildemann, and some of her siblings in 1896.   
Charles worked various jobs, but eventually opened a saloon on lower  
Court Street with a partner named Twele.  Around 1920, shortly after  
Prohibition came, he moved to Jersey City, New Jersey.  According to  
obituaries, the children of Charles and Anna who might have  
descendants would be Frederick Kutzner, Helen Nesbihal or Helen Buck  
and  Caroline Lane.  His son Edward died at the age of eight from an  
accidental shooting.  His son Ludwig (Louis), who died before his  
first child Louis was born, has three descendants living outside  
Connecticut and his son John and his wife apparently did not have  
children.

Anna Wilde(r)mann Kutzner came from a family of eleven, apparently  
only one of whom, Ludwig (Louis) was male.  I don't have all of their  
names, but I do have the following with the names of their husbands:  
Mrs. John (Susanne) Steinmeier, Mrs. Joseph (Mariann) Schubert, Mrs.  
Friederich (Mathilde) Ziprik, Mrs. Gottlieb (Helen) Schilke, Mrs.  
Ludwig (Augusta) Krenz, Mrs. Gustav (Alvina) Pierson, and Mrs. Adolph  
(Paulina) Fahl, apparently the wife of your great-grandmother's  
brother.  The Wildemann family settled in Cromwell, but their children  
lived in the Middletown/Cromwell/Middlefield area.  Whether they know  
it or not, all of their many descendants have Klein Gluscha  
connections too.

After Charles and Gottfried Kutzner immigrated in 1893, their brother  
Gustav Kutzner immigrated in 1896 and settled in Middletown too.   He  
married Caroline Meister and had six children, only two of whom  
survived to adulthood.  Clara died in infancy, Harold drowned at the  
age of five, Elizabeth and Martha died as teenagers just a day apart  
during the Great Flu.  However, William and Marion both married,  
giving Gus three female grandchildren.   Gus was an early member of  
St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Middletown and very active in civic  
affairs, including the South District Fire Department.  After working  
in various fields, he turned to farming and bought a large tract of  
land on what is now Randolph Road.  After he retired, he sold the  
property on the south side of Randolph Road to the Diocese of Norwich  
for Xavier High School.  His farmhouse, remodeled, is across the street.

Like many immigrants, those from Klein Gluscha settled where they had  
family or friends.  My grandfather and his first family came to  
Middletown in 1903 because two sons of his first wife had already  
settled there, married and were raising families.  The Schultz and  
Kutzner families were very close in those early years, even after my  
grandfather's first wife Florentina died in 1907 and he remarried in  
1908.   Many of them are buried in the Kutzner family plot in the Old  
Farm Hill Cemetery.

If you are interested in seeing them, I have microfilms with the death  
of Gottfried Kutzner (Florentina's first husband), my grandfather's  
marriage record in 1882 and the births of three of his children on  
indefinite loan at the Family History Center in the Godfrey Library on  
Newfield Street in Middletown.  Perhaps you will find some more  
information about your Louisa Fahl in those.

I'd also like to thank Mauricio Norenberg and Richard Benert for  
shedding more light on why so many of these immigrants were reluctant  
to let authorities know they had come from Volhynia.  You've given me  
some other logical possibilities I hadn't considered.