The Colm-McCourt Home PageUpdated February 11, 2001 |
John P. Colm JPColm@wire-net.org |
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| I am researching the German, Bohemian, Norwegian, Dutch, Jewish and Irish roots of my family. On my father's side, my sisters and I are the first generation American born. My mother's parents were born in the US, in Minnesota, but only her Dad's folks were US born. Her mom's were Norwegian born. The names I'm researching include: Colm, Daniels, Kubat, Deininger, Nicolassen, Hermes, Slezak, McCourt, and McCarthy from places like Monroe, Wisconsin; Zanesville, Ohio; Owatonna, Minnesota; Hannover, Germany; Ulvenes, Norway; Ceska Trebova, Czech; Dlouha Trebova, Czech; Amsterdam, Holland... to name a few. The Colms came to the US from Germany in the 1930s, fleeing Hitler. My grandfather, Gerhard, was part of the University in Exile, and later the dean of the Graduate Department of the New School for Social Research in NYC. A key author of the first Federal Employment Act, he also was an architect of the postwar German currency reform. He died in 1968. His wife, Hanna Nicolassen, was a child psychologist who studied Rilke, Buddhism, and existentialism. I've traced Gerhard's family back to Carl Cohn, a German lumber tycoon. Carl made a fortune in Scandanavian lumber(railroad ties). He later moved most of his operations to Russian, only to lose most of later it in the Russian Revolution. Hanna's family includes Johann Timotheus Hermes, a famous German novelist (one of the earliest, with his "Sophies Reise" still in print today), poet and musician. Mozart set 4 of his poems to music. The Nicolassen's were Lutheran ministers as well and, thanks to relatives in Brazil, I've collected memoirs and photos of them (in German) and the Hermes also. Hanna was a close friend of the troubled German artist, Anita Ree, who committed suicide a few months after Hanna left Germany for the USA. Anton Kubat came to the US from Bohemia in 1854, travelling to Freeport, Illinois and then to Owatonna, Minnesota in 1856. They journeyed with well known organizer of Bohemian immigrants, Joseph Kaplan. He was from Dlouha Trebova, Bohemia (now the Czech Republic). I am still trying to find out what their life was like in Bohemia in the 1850s. His son, Joseph Kubat (b.5-Jan-1848) married Anna Barbara Slezak (b. 1856), of Cheska Trebova. Foster Kubat (b. 1904), Anton's great-grandson, married Hazelle Ulvenes, my grandmother. We have a family history of the Ulvenes family that goes back to their Norwegian farm and about the mid-1700s. Foster's mother was Elizabeth Deininger (b. 1882), from Monroe-Green County, Wisconsin. Her parents, Margaretha and Frederick Deininger (they shared the same last name) were from Wurttemberg, Germany, arriving in the US in 1856. Foster was a Democratic party activist in Owatonna, a business man, a hunter and a wood carver. I don't know a lot about the Irish side of our family (my wife's). My wife's grandfather was a survivor of the Johnstown flood. Jack McCourt, my father-in-law, was born in Zanesville, Ohio. His mom's name was Roberts. The McCourts and McCarthys were hard working steel and coal people from Pennsylvania. Pictures of many of these people can be found in the Colm-McCourt Photohistory pages link below. |
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