A Photo of Otto's First Wife and In-Laws

Here is a family photo of Otto Plath's first wife, Lydia Bartz, with her sisters and their mother Mathilde Kluck Bartz, taken near their home at Fall Creek, Wisconsin, on July 22, 1912. Soon afterward, Lydia left home for Washington State and married Otto Plath on August 7, 1912.

Besides the daughters in the photo, mother Mathilde (1855-1941; second from left) gave birth to four sons and a younger daughter, for a total of ten children. Three of the sons and the younger daughter died in infancy. The son who lived to adulthood, Rupert, introduced his sister Lydia to Otto Plath.

Pictured, left to right: Alma (b. 1887); proud mother Mathilde; Dora (b. 1885); Caroline (b. 1895); Lydia (b. 1889), and Odelia (b. 1892). A published, captioned photo shows Caroline and Odelia Bartz with a friend on the day of their high-school graduation; they were in the local high school's first graduating class.

Of all of Mathilde's girls only Lydia married, and at the time of this photo Lydia had worked for two years as a clerk in a general store; she wrote "clerk" on her marriage license. Lydia and Otto separated within a few years of marriage, but did not divorce until much later. None of the girls had children. Rupert (b. 1890) married and had two children.

When Mathilde Kluck married August Bartz (1839-1901), a U.S. Civil War veteran, he was a widower with seven living children. Lydia's half-sister Pauline Bartz Robinson, along with Rupert, witnessed Lydia and Otto's wedding in Spokane. August and Mathilde were both born in Posen, Prussia, the area Otto Plath and his family came from. The source of the above photo is an Ancestry.com gallery that stated the date the photo was taken and identified each woman. 

More about Lydia Bartz Plath's life and career.