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Wagner Family Photographs

 

 

The Second Generation — descent line from Phillip and Rhoda (Freiholtz) Wagner

(Photographs and information courtesy of Sherry (Pearce) Hartline of Oklahoma.)
Phillip Wagner, likely in the early 1900s.
Phillip was the eldest surviving child of Johann and Anna Mary Wagner's ten children.  He was born near Samara, Russia, in 1869, and came with his parents and younger brother George to the United States aboard the MOSEL in 1876.

NOTE:  Some records show Phillip's birthplace as Germany, others as Russia.  Remember that America was filled with anti-German bias when World War I  broke out, and we then added widespread anti-Russian sentiments after the 1918 Bolshevik Revolution.
The preponderance of evidence points to Russia, despite what he may have felt more comfortable saying in later years.

Phillip married Rhoda Freiholtz in Atchison, Kansas, on Christmas Day 1889.  The marriage was not a happy one, and Rhoda filed for final divorce in October 1899.  She took their two children, Mary Elizabeth (born November 1890) and William Wesley (born July 1892?), into Missouri

— Note that the 1900 Census finds the children in St. Joseph, apparently hidden with friends (relatives?) named William and Ruby Brown, with the kids listed as the Browns' "stepson" and "stepdaughter."

Phillip discovered their whereabouts, and abducted his son to the Wagner family homestead near Jennings [Pawnee County] Oklahoma.  Only in 1912 did William Wesley learn that his mother Rhoda and sister Mary Elizabeth were alive and well, living in Lancaster [Fairfield County] Ohio, just southeast of Columbus.  He rejoined them there on 21 Mar 1912.

Phillip's second marriage was to Elizabeth "Lizzie" Pike, and they had a daughter, Alta (Altha) in 1919, and a son, Phillip, Jr., in 1920.

He died on 12 Mar 1931 of cardiac failure.  He was buried in the Jennings Cemetery, Oklahoma, although no headstone remains extant.

Rhoda (Freiholtz) Wagner, likely in the 1890s.
Rhoda was the daughter of Johannes Nepornucenus Freiholtz, who came to New York with his brother August aboard the ELIDA, landing on 2 Oct 1854.

The brothers then parted ways — August headed to Wisconsin, while Johannes (now Americanized as "John") went to Macoupin County, Illinois, northeast of St. Louis.  There, he married Sarah Ellen Stoner on 6 Apr 1857.  John was a stonemason.

By 1858, John and Sarah Ellen were in Holt County, Missouri, northwest of St. Joseph.  After John's service in the Civil War, they moved across the Missouri River into Atchison County, Kansas.

They had seven children, and all but their first were born in Atchison.  Rhoda was the middle child, born in 1872.

Sometime after Rhoda divorced Phillip, a legal process she began in October 1899 and which probably dragged on into 1900, she moved to Ohio with her daughter Mary Elizabeth and son-in-law Arthur Smith.  There she met a barber, John Heston, and they were married in 1914.

Rhoda (Freiholtz) (Wagner) Heston died on 6 Jul 1944, only 42-days after her daughter Mary Elizabeth's unexpected, sudden death from hypertensive apoplexy.  Rhoda herself died of "cardiac decompensation due to myocardial weakness," but the family's diagnosis was simply a broken heart.

She was buried beside Mary Elizabeth in Newkirk, Oklahoma, although no headstone remains extant.

The Third Generation — descent line from Phillip and Rhoda (Freiholtz) Wagner



Sister and brother:
Mary Elizabeth Wagner and
William Wesley Wagner.

Mary Elizabeth Wagner was the first of Phillip and Rhoda's two children, and she was born on 10 Nov 1890 in Atchison County, Kansas.  She died 25 May 1944 in Burton [Harvey] Kansas.

According to family information, William Wesley Wagner was born during July 1892 in Atchison, and died about December 1966 in the Veterans Administration Hospital at Oklahoma City.

NOTE:  The Social Security Death Index shows a William Wagner born 17 Apr 1893, died May 1964, last residence in Oklahoma — Social Security number 442-26-0806.

A 5 Jun 1917 World War I draft registration card shows a William W. Wagner in Shamrock [Creek] Oklahoma, born in Atchison, Kansas, on 9 Jul 1894.  He did NOT fill out the form himself —(compare the Ws of his signature with the Ws of the words "Wife" and "White")
— so this should not be considered a Primary Record, but a Secondary one.

In May 1936, he was living in Terlton [Pawnee] Oklahoma, when he signed a quitclaim deed to his share of the Wagner family homestead inheritance.
See Wagner Land Records.

Mary Elizabeth (Wagner) (Smith) Berg

(Left, with husband Arthur V. Smith)

She married Arthur V. Smith in August 1908, and they had two children, Edith Mae (born 27 May 1909) and Vernon Arthur (born 16 Feb 1911).  The Smiths and Mary Elizabeth's mother, Rhoda, lived in Lancaster, Ohio, southeast of Columbus.

While on a Sunday outing to Cedar Falls (Hocking Hills State Park, Ohio), ten-year-old Vernon slipped into a deep pool, Arthur dove in to save him, but both were drowned (22 May 1921).

After the tragic loss of Arthur and Vernon, perhaps with William Wesley's encouragement, and likely because Oklahoma was in its "roaring '20s" oil boom, the three surviving generations of women (Rhoda, Mary Elizabeth, and Edith Mae), then left Ohio for Marland [Noble] Oklahoma, just west of Pawnee County, where William Wesley had been raised.

In Perry, the Noble County seat, Mary Elizabeth married Henry H. Berg on 25 May 1926.  Berg worked in the oil-fields as a "roustabout."  They lived in Three Sands, a 1920s oil boomtown which is now extinct.  The Bergs had no children.

Mary Elizabeth (Wagner) (Smith) Berg died suddenly and unexpectedly on 25 May 1944 of hypertensive apoplexy — basically, a stroke.  She was buried in Newkirk, Oklahoma, although no headstone remains extant.


NOTE:  Descendants in succeeding generations are still living,
so specific data are omitted in this on-line version of the pedigree chart.

Original data source:
Sherlynn (Pearce) Hartline of Oklahoma,
to whom many thanks.  October 2011.