Finding Aunt Katie

Author's note:  Earlier versions of this post have been published in the CAGGNI newsletter and in Treasure State Lines, the journal of the Great Falls Genealogical Society (Montana).  This post represents a departure from the French-Canadians and addresses Michelle's maternal side, who are Poles and Slovaks.

Mom was convinced she knew everyone in her grandmother’s family, the Harmatas.  Mom’s grandma, Susie Harmata Svidron, was the eldest, and she had two sisters, Mary Harmata Hanzely Swanson and Sophie Harmata Kissel Morse, and a brother, John Harmata.  That was it for the Harmatas, mom said, four kids, one marriage, nothing more to it.

Cooper Street on the Mississippi River flats, 79 steps below Washington Avenue in the boisterous, saloon-filled Cedar-Riverside district.  The river terrace neighborhood was known as The Bohemian Flats; this photo from Hennepin County Library shows the northern half of the neighborhood.  A squatter’s community, it was populated primarily by newly arrived Bohemian Czechs and Slovaks like the Harmatas.  Emmanuel Lutheran Church is visible on the left, note the steeple between the bridge piers.  Breweries bracketed both ends of the neighborhood:  Norenberg Brewery is on the right. The flats would regularly flood in spring.  Undated photo, probably c. 1905.

 

I was a beginning genealogist and had uncovered the Harmatas online in the 1895 Minnesota State Census.  Unlike the US censuses, this one bore an anomaly:  a girl named Katie, said to be 11 in 1895, was mixed in with the expected Harmata kids in this one aberrant record.  Mom knew nothing about any Katie.  And by 1900, Katie was gone.  I searched every variation I could think of on Katie’s name and came up bare-handed in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.  Katie was neither married nor buried.  She was just phhhtt!  Gone!

1895 Minnesota census excerpt, Minneapolis Ward 6, 69 Cooper Street.  Andrew, Anna [Annie Frances] and Katie were born in Austria-Hungary, today, Slovakia.

 
Over the years new collections came online and I learned more about the mother of the family, “Annie Frances” Harmata.  I learned that Annie Frances’ maiden name was Marhevka.  But occasionally I’d find her with the surname Novak.  Could Katie have been the child of a first marriage?  Mom said no, and that was that.

In 2014 a re-read of a long held document and one lucky search result led me to a new sibling in this family, Anna.  The mother, Annie Frances, had died at a 27^th Avenue address, Minneapolis, in 1923.  I had just assumed this was at her daughter Susie Svidron’s 27th Avenue home, but I was wrong.  Susie was living at 3455 27^th Avenue but Annie Frances died at 3529.  You might make this mistake too if you knew, as I did then, that Susie’s husband was a builder and that the Svidrons had lived at several 27^th Avenue addresses.  The lucky search result was the Harmata surname as “mother’s maiden name” in a Minneapolis birth records index.  When I finally wrote for the complete record, I discovered Susie’s sister, Anna Harmata Dunn.  Census records showed Anna, not Susie, was the woman of the house where Annie Frances died.  With the discovery of Anna Dunn, I knew mom’s info was not 100% correct.  Anna seemed to be a lot older than Susie, so this too indicated the possibility that their mother, Annie Frances, had had a first husband in the old country before she immigrated and married Andrew Harmata.

1897 Davidson’s City Directory, Minneapolis.  Katie is working as a domestic.  Katie’s stepfather Andrew Harmata is at the same Cooper Street address as in the 1895 census.

I found just one other trace of Katie online in Minneapolis – paging through city directories I found a Catherine Harmat working as a domestic servant in Minneapolis in 1897.  I knew by then that our Harmata family was the only Harmata family in Minneapolis at the time.  But a city directory is pretty weak evidence.  Would a thirteen year old servant be listed?  This Catherine could have been anybody.

I’d also known all along that in the 1900 census Annie Frances, the mother, had claimed to have borne 10 kids, with 6 still living (and this before Sophie was born in 1901).  I just thought this was bogus information.  I’d learned that Annie Frances had died of cirrhosis “probably from acute alcoholism”.   I did not consider her a reliable witness.  Ten kids!  No way!

Finding the sister Anna Dunn had been a small breakthrough.  The next breakthroughs came after I finally wrote the St. Paul Archdiocese for the sacramental records for this family.  Why I put off this task for so many years I no longer understand.  The archivist was helpful and the records invaluable.  “Kath. Harmata” was a godmother to one of Anna’s children!  This cinched it for me, Katie was real.  I figured she must have married out of state at a young age.  But with 49 states to consider, I despaired of ever finding her.  

What I did not know was that my family tree on Ancestry was busy doing my work for me.  I had entered in Katie as a child of Annie Frances and of the person I now thought might be Annie Frances’ first husband, John Novak.  I knew the information would not pass muster per the genealogical standard of proof, but I posted it anyway.  Am I glad I did!

Then one Friday in June, Ancestry user S…97 made contact:  “thanks for putting info in about the 1/2 siblings, I have searched and searched for Katie Novak family and found it under her 1/2 sibling, Susie Svidron” went the email, “This is my husbands great grandmother which he knows little of.  It was thrilling for both of us!!” 

There was no further information.  Who was S97?  What did she know about Katie?!  I wrote back at a furious pace, and for three days watched in agony as S97’s green light indicated she was logged into Ancestry, and the Ancestry news feed showed more and more of my old family photos getting posted to S97’s private tree.  Still no reply to my email!  Indeed, S97 was thrilled with that treasure trove of my family photos!

1898 Marriage License of John Nalevanko, son of John Nalevanko and Lise Drubatky and Katie Novak daughter of John Novak and Annie Marhetta [Annie Frances Marhevka].  The marriage took place October 15, 1898 at St. John’s Catholic Church in Great Falls, Montana.

The munificent reply finally came that Wednesday evening, chock full of the evidence of Aunt Katie.  S97 and I would go on to have a delightful telephone conversation.  She pointed me to the 1898 Montana marriage record of Katie Novak to John Nalevanko.  The record listed all four parents’ names… yes, it was John Novak and Annie Marhetta [Annie Frances Marhevka].  Best of all was the obit, an old newspaper clipping fortuitously saved by S97’s mother-in-law.  This precious obituary listed Katie Baker’s surviving sisters:  Susie Svidron, Mary Swanson and Sophie Morse.  This Katie could be none other than ours.  I learned Katie had had at least three husbands.  The unfortunate John Nalevanko died in a coal mining accident in Stockett, Montana just before Christmas in 1902.  John left Katie with two children, John Jr. and Agnes Sophie.  Katie remarried, to Joseph Fedick, and had Joseph Jr and Mary, (seemingly baptized as Sophy).  Lastly, she married George Baker.  Katie Baker died back in Minneapolis, where her sisters and brother resided, on April 1^st, 1964.

From the birth date on Katie’s death record, I could now authenticate a whole set of baptismal records I’d found on Family Search from modern Slovakia.  The records were the baptisms of four children born to Franciska Marhevka [Annie Frances Harmata] and Joannes Novak [John Novak] between 1877 and 1885.  Anna [Dunn], Maria [Zahuranec, spelled Zohunones in the obit], Catharina [Katie Nalevanko Baker] and Michael (died in infancy).  Katie’s death record was a perfect match to the Slovak baptismal registry entry made all those years ago, recording her birth on April 29, 1883.  Katie had been just 15 years old when she went out to Great Falls, Montana and married John Nalevanko.  Katie had fudged the age on the marriage record to appear to be 18, whereas the matching baptism and death records demonstrate otherwise. 

John Nalevanko and Katie Novak resided in Sand Coulee, Montana when they married October 15, 1898.  Photo courtesy of G. Nalevanko.

My research had Katie’s life covered from birth to age 13 and not a moment later.  S97 knew Katie’s story from marriage to death but not a moment before.  When S97 found me, we could put Katie’s whole life together.

In closing, four suggestions from this little story.   First:  You [still] cannot get everything off the internet.  While the internet provided clues and indexes, most of the real information, such as the birth certificate of Anna Dunn’s daughter, Anna Dunn’s death record, Katie and later Anna Dunn’s obit, the baptisms of all the Harmata and Dunn children, and the Coroner’s report for John Nalevanko, all had to be written for the old fashioned way.  I stamped many an envelope, joined societies, and spun hundreds of feet of microfilm at the local Family History Center in my quest to assemble the stories of this impoverished but enterprising Slovak American family. 

Second:   Follow the siblings.  Had I not thoroughly researched a half-sister’s children - where I found Katie as godmother - it’s unlikely I would have believed in Katie enough to list her in my tree.  Which leads me to the third point:  Posting dubious information is not always a bad thing.  Had I not listed Katie in my tree, S97 would not have found me.  I was in no way certain of Katie and her relationship to our family when I listed her in my online tree.  But my post for the family contained lots of artifacts, and S97 had information I did not.  Together, we both demolished long standing brick walls.  This entire Montana branch of our family is now restored for posterity.  

And finally:  The best work most of us will ever do may be right at the edge of living memory.  By now, there’s not a lot more to learn about that Mayflower ancestor who now has 30,000+ descendants.  Legions of genealogists have covered that territory.  Whereas how many people are researching your mom’s grandmother?  Not so many.  Yet there may still be photos, physical artifacts, and misty memories.  When you capture these and release them online, you are providing what nobody else can.  You are performing a service to the entire genealogical community, not to mention your own grandchildren.

 Novak - Harmata Family Tree

The Novak-Harmata Family. All named children of John Novak were baptized Roman Catholic in what is today Smižany, Spišská Nová Ves, Slovakia except Katie, who was baptized “Catharina” in Spišský Štvrtok, Levoča, Slovakia. Unnamed children based on the count in the 1900 census. All Harmata children were born and died in Minneapolis.  The Novak daughters Anna, Mary and Katie also died in Minneapolis. Update April 2018: I've recently located another daughter, Julianna, who survived only three days. She was born "illegitimately" to Annie Frances on March 11, 1887. Assuming John Novak was dead, his death date is now bounded by Annie Frances' youngest Slovak children: between late March 1885 and June 1886. Julianna's birth and death are recorded in the Smizany records. I hope to update the chart at a later date.