Friday, March 5, 2010

Charles and Grace Burgus.......


Charles Thomas Burgus
My Paternal Grandfather
Son of Charles and Elizabeth (Ries) Burgus, my great grandparents, who migrated from Germany in 1800's , 13 children were born into this family.


The family of Grace Turner Burgus and Charles Thomas Burgus

Front Row: Eva, Grace(mother), Charles(father), Mary, and Amye.
Back Row: Cecil, Ralph, Jesse(my dad), Carl, Donald and twin sister Doris.  I just realized that one of the sisters is not in the picture.  Ruby  and her husband had taken off to Washington state for a while to work a job. I don't remember what kind of job that it was.

The photo had to have been taken in the 1940's as two of the brothers are wearing their uniforms.  Unfortunately the picture was taken at about the time that one of the son's lost his own son in a drowning in Thayer Lake.

I won't give you all of the information about each but I want to share a little about some of them. Four of the sisters remained housewives most of their lives. One of them was a teacher for most of her life to help support her husbands farming and also to support herself after he died.  The one that was in Washington state lost her husband and worked as a welfare administrator the rest of her working years.
The oldest brother was a train fireman, who road the trains first to scoop coal and then eventually was a co-worker with the engineer. He was deaf after all the time he spent on the train. One brother owned a farm implement dealership then a laundromat. Two of the brothers became farmers after the war, and one brother, a mechanic, died of cancer in 1957 when they could then do nothing about it or didn't really know how to diagnose it.
The first to die was my Grandfather Burgus in 1949.  The youngest girl and last of the family to die was about five years ago. All of them are gone.
As a side note of interest, three of these sisters each lost babies due to the RH factor.   My mother, not a sibling to these women, lost a daughter because of the blood complications also.  My dad had the O blood type apparently with the wrong combo with my mom. From my research, I find that it is all related to the RH and it could affect any blood type. If one has a negative Rh and the baby develops with a positive RH it can be fatal. They now know to immediately transfuse them with the correct blood type and they survive.

I have a very bad photo of the full family of 13 that my grandfather belong, and I need to really work on it. My great grandfather Charles Burgus and his brother migrated here together, leaving behind parents and three other brothers and sisters.  While here their mother died, the father remarried so they had 6 more half brothers and sisters. 

I also have a wedding picture of my grandmother and grandfather Burgus when she and he were very thin. I need to work on that photo before I can show it. 
Grace, my grandmother was from a solid line of English blood with Abernathy and Turner in her line. 
Charles was from the German line with the mixture of Ries in it, which, I have found to be a German name also.
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11 comments:

Kat Mortensen said...

Wonderful photos, Larry. My mother had complications from the RH factor in her blood. She had a number of miscarriages, I had a brother who didn't survive beyond 5 days and I myself, was premature. I didn't know about the 0postive issue.

I can't imagine what it would be like to lose someone to a drowning.

My post will be up some time tomorrow morning.

Kat

L. D. said...

Kat, you are correct. I had relatives that just told me it was the blood O type that caused it but I reworked my blog with the correct info. Thanks for mentioning it as I just now researched it. It is the RH factor problem and if a baby develops with a positive and a negative Rh from parents they don't survive or are born premature.
To be honest with you I knew my sister died but I was never told why until my Dad's funeral, in 2000, and a first cousin told me of all of the history of all the lost babies. She didn't apparently understand the RH thing so she explained it wrongly.

Martin said...

I enjoyed this very much Larry. Get to work on those photographs. You've whetted my appetite now.

Thanks to medical progress, women at risk can now have injections of Rh immunoglobulin (RhIg) during pregnancy. This apparently helps a Rh negative mother by suppressing her ability to react to the Rh positive red cells.

Vicki Lane said...

So sad- all those lost babies.

The Silver Fox said...

Heh. That second photo of your grandfather reminds me of Harry S. Truman in his later years.

Meri said...

As Martin said, now there are shots to minimize the RH-incompatibility risk. There are also sometimes problems with AB-O incompatibility, so perhaps there was a confusion of these things in the telling of the story.

Tess Kincaid said...

Dashing man, your grandfather Charles! I wonder what his little lapel pin was? Wonderful family photo, as well.

The Retired One said...

It is so neat you know all of this history. My brother and I recently took a roadtrip to interview two of our Uncles (one is 88 and one is 90). We filmed them for future generations. They had such interesting stories to tell.
I have O neg. blood and both our babies were positive..so I had to have a shot of Rhogam which prevents the complications now that you described happened to these ladies. Thank goodness they now have a remedy.

Far Side of Fifty said...

Wonderful old photos..your Grandfather looks so distinguished! The tie is so large..I have always felt sorry for men in tight looking ties:)

Barry said...

That is a wonderful photo that shows a lot more character than many posed family pictures. How sad to loose a young child that way!

North County Film Club said...

I had a baby that was affected by the RH factor. It was in 1957 and I don't think much was known at that time. She actually lived 13 years but was severely mentally retarded. This sounds different than some of the experiences recounted here. I don't remember much about what I was told at the time. I've probably blocked it out.
I also have Reis family members but as you can see it's spelled differently. Wonder if it might go back to the same roots.

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