Showing posts with label sylvia plath relatives. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sylvia plath relatives. Show all posts

Monday, January 11, 2021

Otto Plath's Family Matrix

Ship's manifest listing immigrants Ernestine Plath and five of her six children, 1901

Here's rare information about Sylvia Plath's extended family on her father Otto's side. Otto Plath was the eldest of six children born to Ernestine and Theodor Plath, residents in the zone of  Prussia called Posen, ethnic Polish territory ruled by the German Empire from 1871 to 1919, when it became part of Poland. Otto had five siblings. From immigration papers, the U.S. Census, city directories, draft cards and other official documents we can learn about their lives. Of all her aunts and uncles, Sylvia met only her Aunt Frieda, briefly, on a 1959 trip to California. Here is the family:

 

Otto Emil Plath: April 13, 1885-Nov. 5, 1940. Ships' manifests show 15-year-old apprentice shoemaker/bootmaker Otto Plath, traveling in steerage, arriving in the U.S. on September 9, 1900, ahead of his father Theodor, a blacksmith who arrived in March 1901. In December 1901, through Canada, came Otto's mother Ernestine with Otto's five younger siblings, ages 3 to 13. They lived on an uncle's North Dakota homestead while Otto lived with Wisconsin relatives. In the 1905 Wisconsin state census, Otto is a boarder in Watertown, WI. Otto marries for the first time in Washington State in 1912. In 1920's federal census, Otto is a boarder in Berkeley, CA. In 1930, Otto, a boarder in Boston, for some reason shaved five years off his age. Otto Plath married Aurelia Schober in Carson City, Nevada, on January 4, 1932. Sylvia was born October 27, 1932. Otto died November 5, 1940, age 55, on the 22nd anniversary of his father Theodor's death.

 

Paul Plath: Dec. 20, 1886-Sept. 24, 1933. Paul in the 1910 census is named Paul "Platt" and is farming in Oregon with his father Theodor Platt (who'd entered the U.S. as "Plath"). Paul's brother Max "Platt" is a "hired man" for their neighbors. Wife and mother Ernestine is not listed in their household in 1910, and neither are the two Plath daughters, Martha and Frieda. Paul "Plath" in 1920 is a laborer in Washington State, and in 1930 a laborer boarding in Portland, Oregon. Paul could not have been born in December 1888 as papers sometimes claim, because his brother Max was born in February 1889. Paul in 1933 married his widowed landlady, Christina, a Russian 10 years his senior. Paul died later that same year, 1933, of pneumonia.

 

Max Theodor Plath: Feb. 15, 1889-Dec. 21, 1953. Max Plath took after his father and was a homesteader and mechanic, then became an inspector at a lumber mill. He moved frequently, living in 1910 with his father in Harney, Oregon, then shared a house with his mother until she was hospitalized in 1916. In 1920 Max lived in Saddle Butte, Oregon; in 1926 in Portland, in the early 1930s in Salem, in 1936 in Eugene, in 1946 in Cottage Grove. Max married Bertie in 1917, then Harriet in Stevenson, Washington, in 1935. The 1930 U.S. census said Max had two children, born in 1928 and 1930.

 

Hugo Fredericks Plath: Dec. 6, 1890-Aug. 17, 1974. Hugo kept the surname "Platt." Around 1911 he visited Canada, it seems on business. His draft card, signed in June 1917, says he both lived and worked at Standard Auto Supply in San Francisco. On that card Hugo asks exemption from the draft, saying his mother and father are his dependents. Hugo enlisted anyway on July 29, 1918, and served until December 23, 1918. The longest-lived of the siblings -- 83 years -- Hugo dwelt mostly in and around Los Angeles, at one point giving his occupation as "carpenter."

 

Martha Bertha Plath Johnson: Feb. 21, 1893-April 8, 1961. Theodor Plath in 1901 sent his wife Ernestine and his five younger children directly from Europe to Maza, North Dakota. As Martha's father and brothers moved farther west, Martha seems to have stayed in Maza, and in 1910 at age 17 works as a "servant" for family there. At 19 Martha marries the town postmaster. She has two daughters, stays in Maza, and is buried, alongside her husband, near what is left of that town.

 

Frieda A. Plath Heinrichs: Mar. 15, 1896-Dec. 19, 1970. In the 1910 census, Frieda, age 13, is not living with her parents but rather is listed as "niece" of the Stapel family in Green Lake County, Wisconsin. Mrs. Stapel was Theodor Plath's sister. Frieda graduated from a Chicago nursing school. She visited her mother Ernestine in the Oregon state mental hospital in summer 1919; Ernestine died there September 28. In 1930 Frieda is a nurse in San Francisco, and by 1935 is married to physician Walter J. Heinrichs. They live in and around Los Angeles. In Letters Home, Aurelia S. Plath incorrectly gives Frieda Heinrichs' death date as 1966. California voter-registration rolls show both Walter and Frieda registered in 1966, but Frieda alone in 1968.

 

The seven Nix brothers in Sylvia Plath's children's book The It-Doesn't-Matter-Suit are named for her paternal relatives. The fictional seven are named Paul, Emil, Otto, Walter (the name of Sylvia's uncle by marriage), Hugo, Johann (the name of Sylvia's paternal great-grandfather), and the central character, Max. Written in 1959, the book was first published in 1996.

 

For sources or to make corrections, please contact me. Official papers and books aren't always right.

 

Theodor Plath lists his minor children on his naturalization papers, filed in North Dakota; Otto at age 22 is not a minor.

 

Friday, September 18, 2020

Theodor Plath's Last Will and Testament

Theodor Plath, Sylvia Plath's paternal grandfather, died on Nov. 5, 1918. He had filed his will (No. 2876) in Clark County, Washington State, on May 26, 1918. It's worth reading, and there's a surprise inside:

IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN! I, Theodor Plath, being of sound and disposing mind and memory, and not acting under the fraud, duress or influence of any person or persons, make this will.

I request that all my just debts against my estate including my funeral expenses and the expenses of my last sickness be promptly paid.

I give to my beloved wife Earnestine $100.00.

I give to my son Otto $1.00.

I give to my son Paul $1.00.

I give to my son Max $1.00.

I give to my son Hugo $1.00.

I give to my daughter Martha $1.00.

All the rest and residue of my property which I may own, die possessed of, or have a right to dispose of at my death I give and devise to my daughter Frieda.

I hereby appoint my son Max executor of this last will and request that no bonds be required of him, as such, by any Court or Judge.

Theodor Plath (SEAL)

Signed and sealed by Theodor Plath, testator, and by him declared to be his last will in our presence, who have hereunto subscribed our names as witnesses in his presence and in the presence of each other at his request, at Oregon City, Oregon, this 26th day of May 1918.

Witnesses: Maud Davis (of Oregon City), Annie Stribley (of Portland, OR). [1]

Five days before filing this will, on May 21, 1918, Theodor Plath had filed at the Vancouver [WA] Land Office a Homestead Act claim (aka "patent") to 120 acres in Clark County, Washington, near Salmon Creek, a bit north of Portland, Oregon. [2] As Homestead Act land it was free, although the owner was given a certain number of years to improve it. U.S. homesteading, mostly on formerly Indian lands, was available from 1862 to 1976. Below, in the orange square within the square, is Theodor Plath's 1918 property:

and, from the Bureau of Land Management, Theodor's title or "patent" on that land, dated 5/21/1918. Of course the land has been bought and sold since then:

Bequeathing children $1.00 was not always a "disinheritance" or insult. Were that the case, Theodor probably wouldn't have named his son Max as his will's executor. Theodor might have distributed his assets already, and the will was a formality. Or the $1.00 acknowledged that the offspring were self-supporting adults, or proved that the testator was sound enough of mind to list all family members and give them a token. Frieda Plath, the youngest, in 1918 was 21 or 22 years old and in a Chicago nursing school. Sylvia met her Aunt Frieda in 1959 and liked her. Ernestine Plath, Sylvia's paternal grandmother, in 1918 was in an Oregon mental hospital and survived Theodor by less than one year.

According to a March 1980 letter from Aurelia Plath to Mary Ann Montgomery, Otto Plath owned property in San Francisco that he sold or otherwise tended to while the Plaths were on their honeymoon. Any record has yet to be found.

[1] Washington State Archives (Olympia, Washington); Probate Place: Clark, Washington, pp. 112-113.

[2] https://glorecords.blm.gov/details/patent/default.aspx?accession=630759&docClass=SER&sid=2frdqc0a.3b2