Dear Barbara--Thank you so much for your help and suggestions! You seem to
come through for so many on this list and you are greatly appreciated. A while
ago I got a reply to my search on the list from a person who had a
grandfather put into an orphanage at about the same time (about 1895) in Duesseldorf and
he looked up in the City Directory for 1889 for Holstein and Liedtke (CLARA
HOLSTEIN's parents names) and found her father CARL HOLSTEIN, journeyman mason,
Corneliusstr. 9; and a Friedrich LIEDTKE, gardener, Linienstr. 18. CLARA
HOLSTEIN was born May 28, 1885, in Duesseldorf, and came to America (NYC) at
about age 13 (1898?) via a German family who took her back with them (I have heard
the family say it was an a bonded servant, but they treated her well). I do
not know how long she was in the orphanage or what happened to her family.
What better mystery than Genealogy!!
claire berger
In a message dated 1/2/2006 11:20:11 PM Eastern Standard Time,
raybarbara@comcast.net writes:
Hello Claire,
Perhaps you could contact this group of Dominican Sisters who are in
or near Düsseldorf. The website is in German, but there is an email address
there. They may know some English, unless you yourself can write in German!
Or maybe someone on the list who can write in German could compose a letter
for you.
http://www.dominikanerinnen-angermund.de/
I really hope this works out for you,
Barbara
Barbara again,
I forgot something. I also read that Dominican Sisters had a orphanage
in Düsseldorf.
I bet we could find something on that--I will try later. Out of time now!"A Dominican Sisters' community and 100 children were evacuated from a
bombed orphanage at Düsseldorf in 1943 and lived here till 1947."Hello Claire,
I remember that you were looking for that orphanage some time ago!
Still no luck, I guess. By doing Google searches, I read that there were
both a Lutheran and a Catholic orphanage (waisenhaus) in Düsseldorf. I
also
read that an orphanage in Düsseldorf was bombed in the war.
Did you ever write to anyone in Düsseldorf?
This is a page for the diocese of Essen (which, I think, would include
Düsseldorf):http://www.archive.nrw.de/home.asp?bta-essen
There is an email address there that you could use to get some information.
You could write to the diocese of Essen or other archives in Düsseldorf as
listed.By doing a Google search on "orphanage in Dusseldorf" I found a reference
to
an article at this address:
http://muse.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/access.cgi?uri=/journals/catholic_historical_rev