The upshot was several contacts with people also researching this same Schneider family tree and are distant Schneider relatives of Bonnie. With in weeks there was email communications with Ben in North Carolina and Ann in southern California. In addition, Gene in Washington County also has researched the Held and Schneider family tree for more than thirty years. We exchanged what we knew and identified what was not known. Pictures were also shared. None of the others knew the whereabouts of Philippine Schneider, other than her birth in Breitenheim, Bad Kreuznach, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany, until we recently compared notes .
The reason for "losing" Philippine was that she and her family moved often in the ensuring years. After farming with her husband Joh. Michael Held in Richfield, Washington Co. Wisconsin, her family moved to Jefferson County near Sullivan, where they bought into a grist mill business in 1870. Then tragedy took the life of her husband Michael Held at age 55. Her sons then took her to Ellinwood, Barton, Kansas, to engage in milling there. Her eldest daughter married and before long Philippine stayed in Kansas, living with her daughter Mary and husband Jos. Koelsch.
Another snag for those researching Philippine was that the information in the federal censuses for 1860, 1870, and 1880 didn't match very well. Sometime "Grandma Held" was id'd as Mary, then Anna. Then there were differences in where she or her parents were born...Germany, New Jersey, etc.
Philippine lived to the age of 87 years and she is buried alongside her daughter and son-in-law in the beautiful Ellinwood cemetary. Her marker is simply "Mother - P.H. - 1820-1908" for Philippine Held.
Philippine is one of four children born to Peter Schneider and his first wife Maria Sara Schlicher. Peter was remarried to Elisabeth Geib, and together with two additional children, they migrated in 1838 from Breitenheim, Germany to the USA, first stopping in New Jersey. In 1841 they moved on to Wisconsin where they were soon farming in Richfield, Wisconsin.
Philippine met and married Joh. Michael Held, a 1843 immigrant from Undenheim, Hesse Darmstadt, Germany. Their first child, Mary Held, was born in March, 1846.
Life immediately became complicated for Philippine since her husband's younger siblings and his mother was immediately part of her household. For the next thirty plus years she ran a three generation household.
Philippine died in 1908 in Ellinwood Kansas at the age of 87 years completing a life full of change and challenge. And now a larger group of Schneider researchers and cousins know what happened to Philippine Schneider.
