18 October 2025
In the 1970s, Sarah “Sadie” (Schanhaar) Lawrence, my maternal grand aunt, corresponded with Kathryn May (Schoenhaar) Rohleder.
The two women were first cousins once removed, since Frederick Schoenhaar was Sadie’s paternal grandfather and at the same time Kathryn’s paternal great-grandfather.
That they knew each other well enough to correspond is remarkable, since Sadie grew up in North Dakota and had been living in San Francisco since the late 1930s. Kathryn, meanwhile, had been raised in Wisconsin and, after her marriage in the 1950s, lived in Colorado and later Arizona. The women were also separated by a generation. Sadie was in her 70s at the time of their correspondence, and Kathryn was in her late 40s and early 50s.
A Golden Anniversary
I was fortunate to acquire facsimiles of two of Kathryn’s letters, which related some Schanhaar/Schoenhaar family history. In one of the letters, Kathryn mentions that she has a photograph of Frederick Schoenhaar and his wife, Catherina Margaretha (Donsbach) Schoenhaar, taken to commemorate their 50th wedding anniversary.
Thanks to a June 1910 article published in the West Bend [Wisconsin] News, we know a celebration of the event took place on Sunday, May 29th of that year, with their then-living children in attendance.
The question is whether the photograph has survived. Kathryn, her husband Victor N. Rohleder, and their only son are no longer alive. Discovering whether one of their son’s children has preserved this irreplaceable bit of family history might be possible but for one major stumbling block: I am I certain of their father’s name, and I don’t know their names at all.
In one letter, Kathryn states that she received the photo from her paternal aunt, Viola C. (Schoenhaar) Mechenich, since “no one else was interested in having it.” As it happens, I am more than interested, and hope that one of Kathryn’s descendants has preserved this bit of family history and will someday be kind enough to share a copy.