Great grandfather William Karg
The Karg family tree starts when Martin Luther Karg and Maria Kulmas came to the United States at the time of the Franco-Prussian war, which was in 1871-1872. They had three children, Magdalene (Lena), Joseph, and William, my grandfather. William married Louise Ringwald. My father Herbert William, was born in 1905. There was a daughter, Frances, who died in infancy.
When we lived in Newark I would sometimes take a walk on Sunday to visit Aunt Lena and Uncle Joe. To my eight year old eyes they seemed very old! My grandfather William died around 1925, so I never knew him. My grandmother, Louise Karg, came to live with us when my mother died in 1942. Uncle Joe never married and Aunt Lena married Fred Haussmann. She later took back her maiden name of Karg. I never knew why. A family skeleton, I guess. They had one son, Fred, who married Lucille and they also had one son, Freddie. For a small family tree this is beginning to sound like a Russian novel!
Doris’s grandmother
My grandmother was a very special person who said my grandfather had what she called the “Karg” disposition, as did my father. They were very easy going people, who took everything in stride. Nothing ever bothered them and they never lost their tempers. People would ask my grandmother why she never remarried and her answer was “I knew what I had, but I didn’t know what I would get.” I think she became a “Karg” by osmosis because I never saw her lose her temper.
I don’ t know what my grandfather did but we were always told that the “Kargs” going back to the old country were musicians. My father went to Brown University but dropped out when my grandfather died. My grandmother had some property in Newark and I guess had some money to live on because when we bought our house in South Orange, she contributed $10,000, which was a lot of money in 1945. My father promised her she would always have a place to live.
My grandmother always woke us up and had a small alarm clock that she set every day. When she died at home in the early morning hours one day in 1960 my father was with her. When he looked at her clock later he saw that it had stopped when she died!
In looking at the family trees of the Kargs and the Lidkes, through Jennifer and Kent we are all of German descent, which is remarkable. So how do we explain that our favorite food is pizza?
To end on a funny note — when Jennifer had the family tree in traditional form on her desk at school, one of the kids looked at it and said “Your grandfather was Martin Luther King?”