Tombstone Tuesday ~ Jennie [SAURER] SENFF

Jennie E. [SAURER] SENFF
Born July 13, 1875
Died October 31, 1911



Jennie was one of Caroline FLORY SAURER's children. I chose Jennie because of the few stories my Grandma told me about her. Although Jennie died before my Grandma was born, Grandma told me more than once how, "everyone loved Aunt Jennie." Grandma said that Jennie's husband adored her and bought her china "from England." I actually have that china and it's certainly not fine or expensive - but it's a very pretty white and blue flowered pattern and I'm sure that in rural Ohio in the early 1900's it was quite special. Jennie's brother and wife - my great grandparents - still had a hand pump in their kitchen when my father used to visit them as late as the 1940's!

Talk of "Jennie" confused me for a while and I thought she must have been a child I had missed in my research. I always found mentions in the census of "Emily" Saurer when I was researching the family. I even had this card to confirm that name.


It wasn't until I started looking at dates and talking more to my Grandma that I realized that "Emily J" and "Jennie" were the same person. Fortunately, I didn't have to rely on her funeral card which gives nothing of her own name.

I so wish I had a picture of Jennie. I have pictures of her older sister and her brothers, but somehow no picture of her was handed down in my family. Of course the pictures I have of the rest of the family are all, as far as I have been able to establish, taken after 1911. There were no family group pictures or baby pictures. Of course Jennie was not quite 9 when her mother died and I'm guessing that having pictures taken wasn't the first thing on her father's mind as Jennie was not even the youngest of the children that Caroline left behind.

So, in the absence of a picture, I always think of her gravestone when I think of her - small and ornate, pretty and pink while the others around her are plain and gray and severe.