Ford River, Michigan: Poraths, Gieses and Leisners

In the 1900 US census for Ford River, Michigan, the families of at least four Porath siblings and three Geise siblings are documented. All seven of these people immigrated from Germany to Upper Michigan between 1880 and 1885, along with spouses and some of their children. I presume that they all came from the same locale in the old country. They were: Wilhelmina Porath, Frank Porath, August Porath, Amelia Porath, Ernestina Giese, August Giese and Frank Giese. The Porath’s mother, Fredrika, lived with August Giese and his wife Wilhelmina Porath, and the Giese patriarch, Michael Jacob Giese, lived with the Frank Giese family.

I include the Porath families in this account because of the ties between them and the Giese families in Germany and the US, such as the marriage of Wilhelmina Porath and August Giese, and because of at least one new-world marriage, between Ernestina’s son, Ewald Leisner and Frank Porath’s daughter, Sophia Porath.

By the time of the 1910 US census, the family of Frank Giese had moved on from Ford River, and I couldn’t determine where they went to. The Frank and August Porath families were still there, although by 1920 they too had moved on, August to nearby Wells, Michigan.

Ernestina Giese-Leisner

Ernestina arrived in America in April of 1884 on the ship Werra, with children Herman, Carl, Augusta, Marie and Bertha, who was less than a year old. The departure was from Bremen, Germany, and Southampton, England. Children Ewald and Emma (my great-grandmother) were born in the United States. I had often wondered about the gaps between the births of Herman, Augusta and the other three children. Perhaps there were other children in Germany who died young. Finding the ship’s manifest filled in the gaps somewhat, since Carl and Marie were unknowns until then. Whether Fritz was already in America or not is unknown.

My mother tells the family story of how Ernestina, still bleeding from childbirth, walked to the market and back in Germany, returning with a sack of flour for her hungry children. Another story tells of the bread Ernestina brought along on the ocean voyage to the US, and how it may have saved lives, since the bread supplied on the ship, while looking wonderful, was not edible. This bread supplied on the ship was described similarly by immigrants on the Fragale side of the family.

Ernestina and Fritz lived in Ford River, Michigan, probably on the same farm as her brother August and his family. I have a postcard, shown below, addressed to Mrs. Michael Fragale (Emma), from her cousin Martha. This would be from August’s daughter, five years older than Emma. Emma and Martha would have grown up together in Ford River for a while. The postcard is dated 1912 from Howell, Michigan. It seems that some of the Gieses headed south.

Ernestina probably lived with son Ewald for a while after the death of her husband in 1915. She moved to Escanaba some time in the 1920s, living justone block down the street from her daughter Emma, and nearer to her children Augusta Herman and Bertha.

In 1931, at the age of 86, Ernestina died in a house fire. She is buried with her husband in Escanaba.