Turns out men DO make passes at girls in glasses, so EAT IT, Dorothy Parker
Or least, handsome dudes named Carl Eidenschink did. And I shalt carry that legacy with me throughout all of my glasses-wearing days...
In our last chapter, we established that I barely know anything about my paternal grandmother, Gladys, or the life she lived beyond marrying my Grandpa Jim and being responsible for unleashing my father and his (delightful) siblings upon the world.
That’s mostly due to the fact that I’m an incredibly self-involved person who would rather watch old episodes of The Facts of Life than learn about other people…but it’s also due to the fact that she died from colon cancer before I was born, so at least half of that is not my fault!! And yeah, sure, I could ask my dad and my aunts to tell me more about her, and okay, so that thought literally just occurred to me and now I’m wondering why I don’t just write them all a Facebook message being all, “hey, tell me everything you know about your mom!” but perhaps I would prefer for them to read this here and then just send ME a message full of details or even better, write some stuff in the comments for all of us to enjoy???
So really, I’m doing this for you, too, y’guys! We are learning together. About MY family members which you may or not be related to and therefore also may or may not be interested in (statistically, though, at least a few of you are also probably related to a lot of the same folks I’m related to…especially if your family immigrated to Minnesota in the 19th century or early 20th century and settled in the Red River Valley region or Goodhue County).
But enough about my character failings and the cruel mistress of fate - let’s chitty-chat about Glady’s parents, my dad’s grandparents, and my great-grandpar’ants, Carl Eidenschink and Clara French!
First, we’ll start with Carl and try to cover as much of his family history as I’ve been able to dig up (spoiler: It’s not a lot).
And then after we’ve covered as many tracks as we can make into Carl’s life, parentage, and sense of place, we’ll come back to Clara, whose own ancestry is going to take us on a truly epic journey.
M’great-grandpapa, Carl Nicolas Eidenschink, was born in 1895 in Erie Township, in Becker County, Minnesota, to John Peter Eidenschink and Theresa Ann Winzerl. Carl was a first-generation American and one of TEN children born to my German immigrant great-great-grandparents John and Theresa Eidenschink (more on these two in the next chapter).
I know that Carl was a Private in the US Army in WWI, and I was able to track down his registration card thanks to a distant relative, but that’s pretty much the only info I could find about his time in the Great War.
Great-grandpa Carl’s registration card for WWI
What I do know is that, after the war, he returned home to his family and on November 8, 1922, he married hometown honaaaay Clara Nellie French. Only ten months and a week later (helllooo hot honeymoon?!), my grandmother Gladys was born.
RW friends - doesn’t Carl look like Nick Fauchald? Like I asked to be reminded of the snobbiest kid I’ve ever met every time I look at this portrait
Carl & Clara went on to have four more kids: Lucille, Doris, Charles (aka, “Buzz”), and Joseph, but I’m sure that everyone would agree that Gladys was probably the most special out of all of them…? After all, her birth was basically responsible for my birth…? So therefore…?
Anyway, Great-gramps Carl and Great-gramgram Clara farmed, raised their kids, and spent most of their life in Erie Township, which often gets cited as Detroit Lakes because it’s a township about 15 minutes away from the larger bustling town and tourist destination of Detroit Lakes (so sort of like Goodhue and Red Wing, if you get that reference…or Wacouta and Red Wing…or Lake City and Red Wing…or Hager City and Red Wing…or Bay City and Red Wing…or Pepin and Red Wing…)
Carl’s 1941 WWII registration card
After Clara died in 1973, instead of spending the rest of his life in quiet yearning and loving grief as a tribute to his wife and the mother of his children, Detroit Lakes Playboy Carl married Tilla Nelson two years later in 1975. Because apparently men just can’t be alone! Tilla was a “mature” bride at 74, so for her, Carl was probably just a blip on the screen. But looking at his wedding photo, I mean…can you blame her? I bet those old DL biddies were lining up around the block before Clara even took her last dying breath!
Carl and Clara’s oldest daughter/my grandmother, Gladys, would pass away just one year later at the age of 53. Great-grandpa Carl, for his sake, would outlive his second wife by two more years, making it all the way to September 1993. Which means he was almost 98 years old by the time he passed away!
That’s a pretty old dude, you guys!!!!
Anyway…besides the fact that I would love to know more about Carl’s life, his relationship with his family, what his time in the war was like, and how he fell in love with Clara, this is literally all the info I have on him. I’m hoping that, as more and more of my family members start following this Substack (hi guys!!) and see these posts on Facebook and the like, they can help fill in some details in the comments.
In the next chapter we’ll dive into Carl’s parents, John and Theresa, and learn more about where they came from in Germany, their “across the sea, come to me” courtship, the many tragic losses they sadly suffered in building their family, and a lovely but also sort of spooky story about how, even more than a century later, their portrait still carries some wild and beautiful energy.
Feather-light kisses upon your little button nose,
-Amber