Elise, Ricke, and Tanta Gebauer

If this blog is any indication, one could probably make the assumption that I can't stay away from Miss Pixie's for long. Only one dollar in my wallet? Well, that's enough for a photo! And that is exactly the type of mindset I was in when I wandered in a few weeks ago and headed straight to the back, where the photo bin is.

I was looking for older photos in particular because, as I've learned with Judge C.E. Vanderburgh, the older the photo the more likely you are to stumble into a long, interesting genealogical journey.

But an older cabinet card or carte de visite is not what I found this time; rather, I found another piece of our longstanding genealogical puzzle in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

The very first photo I featured on this blog (above), and, indeed, the first photo I found at Miss Pixie's, was of Ricke on the left, a woman who I later identified as Elise in the middle, and an unidentified woman on the right. I had always wondered who that woman was, and if her name could be another clue in solving the puzzle of how Ricke and Elise knew each other and what kind of lives they lived.

Well, now we may know who the woman is, but I don't think we are any closer to clarifying this non-familial relationship.

I came across the photo below in the Miss Pixie's bin: a new angle on some familiar faces. Ricke (this time her surname is spelled correctly!) is looking off into the distance on the right, and that familiar woman in the first photo is standing behind her: Tanta Gebauer.

I immediately went on FamilySearch and began my search for this elusive woman, using the same search parameters I had with Ricke and Elise: Elizabeth, New Jersey, 1900 - 1930.

Nothing came up.

I was a little discouraged, and thought perhaps 'tanta' was a nickname for another name, like Ricke turned out to be a nickname for Fredericka. With trusty Google on my side, I did a bit of research and eventually discovered what I'm sure some of you reading this already knew: tanta is German for aunt.
Aunt Gebauer.

I still couldn't find anything on FamilySearch, and it wasn't until a few weeks later that I was scrolling through the passenger list I had found with notes on Adam Iber (Elise's husband) that I noticed something too telling to be a coincidence. The contributor had written that Adam Iber's sister had "married a Gebauer and settled in Elizabeth, New Jersey, near her brother".

So there it is! The formerly nameless woman with Ricke and Elise is Anna Gebauer - an aunt to whoever labeled these photos. And I think we know who that is as well.

Since we determined that the photo of Fred and Charles came from the same collection, we can assume that 'Uncle Charles' is an uncle to the same person 'Aunt Gebauer' is an aunt to. Take a look at the family tree we made in Fred and Charles' blog post:

If Charles is related through Elise, and Tanta Gebauer is related through Adam, it would seem the only two individuals to whom both Charles and Tanta Gebauer are related are Elise and Adam's children, Arthur and Anna. I'm frustrated that Anna had no children of her own, and my attempts to contact Arthur's extensive network of descendants has all but failed. But that aside, I am still excited to have identified the third woman with Ricke and Elise, and to be able to add a bit more clarifying information to this once seemingly tight-knit friend group in Elizabeth. 

If anyone has any idea where these photos were taken, please comment below and let me know!