{"id":1926,"date":"2016-01-27T05:06:20","date_gmt":"2016-01-27T05:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=1926"},"modified":"2016-01-27T05:17:04","modified_gmt":"2016-01-27T05:17:04","slug":"volke-behrens-sartorius-story-emerges-from-the-probate-files","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=1926","title":{"rendered":"Volke (Behrens) Sartorius’ Story Emerges from the Probate Files"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"volkebond\"The stories of our ancestors don\u2019t appear in nice little books labeled \u201cThe Story Of —.\u201d That would be too easy, but the stories are often out there. buried in primary research materials, written in little snippets that often appear out of context and out of chronological order. That story has to be gently and carefully grown from those primary materials, watered with a knowledge of the context in which the records were created, and fertilized with a thoughtful, careful analysis. And even then, we may not know the \u201creal story.\u2019 The records we have to utilize still only provide a partial glimpse into the past.<\/span><\/p>\n

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One has to take care to tell what is told by the records and leave the concoction of reasons and the scripting of family drama to fiction writers. Unless there is copious testimony or pension affidavits. In those cases, the script may write itself.
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Such is the story of Volke Sartorius.<\/span><\/p>\n

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An 1892 Illinois newspaper account<\/a>\u00a0of Volke somewhat sensationalizes her early life and the reasons she was in an Adams County court in 1892. When one reads the newspaper account it is difficult to tell if the writer was a newspaper reporter or a frustrated novelist. There is much more to Volke\u2019s story than the dramatized newspaper account written by an author who could not get past word play based upon the name of \u201cHarm,\u201d the father of Volke\u2019s first child. <\/span><\/p>\n

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The reason why Volke appeared in that Adams County court in 1892 had little to do with that boyfriend from her past. It likely had quite a bit to do with the husband who died in his forties leaving Volke nearly broke with a family of eight children..<\/span><\/p>\n

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Much of Volke\u2019s story can be glistened from the probate and estate files of her husband and her father. With the exception of her date of marriage, every detail in her story has been taken from the estate files of Herman Sartorius, Ulfert Behrens, and Ricka Behrens (Volke\u2019s mother).<\/span><\/p>\n

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Volke\u2019s oldest daughter, Reka, was born before her marriage to Herman Sartorius in October of 1872 in Adams County, Illinois. Reka likely lived with Volke\u2019s parents even after Volke married. \u00a0In 1883, fifteen years after their marriage, Volke\u2019s husband \u00a0Herman is dead, leaving his fortysomething wife with eight living children (Johanna, Gesche, Johan, Trientje, Heinrich, Antje, Ulfert, and Gustave), two small town lots, little personal property, and a sizeable debt. Volke\u2019s father, Ulfert Behrens, was appointed administrator of her husband\u2019s estate at her request. She had the legal right to oversee her husband\u2019s estate as his widow. It\u2019s possible her father, older and more financially set, would have had an easier time navigating the legal process and advocating on her behalf. Volke sold one of the town lots which was sufficient to settle the debt. She bought her own house from the estate as well, but likely used her unrealized widow\u2019s award to pay for it, making the transaction a wash. Local Justice of the Peace and businessman H. H. Emminga appears as a witness on numerous documents for the Behrens and Sartorius families and is it highly likely that he helped the family negotiate through the financial problems following Herman Sartorius\u2019 death.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Six years later in August of 1889 Volke\u2019s parents, Ulfert and Fredericka Behrens, die within one day of each other. Volke\u2019s daughter Reka is married by this time, but Volke is still a widow and at the time of her parents\u2019 death has five children living with her under the age of fifteen. It is likely that money is still tight for Volke. Her father leaves her $500 cash in his will (the same amount is left to her sister). <\/span><\/p>\n

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With her father dead and her husband\u2019s estate completely settled, Volke is appointed guardian for her minor children a month after her father dies. This appointment is apparently so she can file a claim for the wages of her children, Trientje and Henry, against the estate of her father. She also files claims for a missing promissory note she claims her father signed on his deathbed, the money that Reka\u2019s Harm gave to Ulfert Behrens when he left town when Volke became pregnant, and for an additional amount she claimed was loaned by her to her father. The court awarded the full amount of money for her children\u2019s labor. Her additional claims of $1035 were settled for $100. Volke\u2019s claims against her father\u2019s estate are for three amounts of $250 and one amount of $285. It is possible that that Ulfert\u2019s bequest to Volke for $500 was for two of the $250 amounts. We will never know.<\/span><\/p>\n

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It is difficult to tell just how much Ulfert really owed Volke upon his death, if anything. The local newspaper thought it was scandalous that she asked for the $250 Reka\u2019s father had given to Volke\u2019s father nearly twenty years previously. It is easy to see why the paper thought it was somewhat scandalous for Volke to ask for that money given to raise Reka as Ulfert himself gave Reka $300 in his will. <\/span><\/p>\n

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It is also difficult to determine just what additional \u201cdrama\u201d was going on behind the scenes. We only have the records left behind to tell the story. Volke was left with little when her husband died in 1883. It is easy to see that she may have been in a similar situation in 1889 when her parents died.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Just one record never tells the story.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The stories of our ancestors don\u2019t appear in nice little books labeled \u201cThe Story Of —.\u201d That would be too easy, but the stories are often out there. buried in primary research materials, written in little snippets that often appear out of context and out of chronological order. That story has to be gently and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[188,156],"class_list":["post-1926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ulfert-behrens","tag-volke-behrens-sartorius"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1926\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}