"Katie"
Born 3
Sep 1893 Mercydorf, Hungary
Came to
America 12 Jul 1907
Married:
1917 to Harry Arden Donaldson,
in Atlanta, Ga.
Harry Arden
Donaldson
Born: 9 Apr 1894 in
Atlanta, Fulton, GA, USA
Died: Jul 1966 in
Memphis, Shelby, TN, USA
She
gardened, cooked, canned & crocheted.
She was
loved by all.
Died:
19 Jan 1992 Atlanta, Georgia
My
Grandmother Katharina "Katie" Ingrisch, was an amazing woman.
At age 14 she journeyed to the US with her mother Elisabeth and her
siblings to join their father Martin Ingrisch, in Atlanta, Georgia.
They traveled in steerage of a steamship. These steamships
could accommodate as many as two thousand passengers in steerage.
It was called steerage because it was located on the bowels of the
ship where the steering mechanism of the sailing ships had once been
located. From what I have read these long narrow compartments
were divided into separate dormitories for single men, single women,
and families. Jammed with metal-framed berths three bunks high, the
air in steerage became rank with the heavy odor of spoiled food,
sea-sickness, and unwashed bodies. There was little privacy, and the
lack of adequate toilet facilities made it difficult to keep clean.
Lice was very prevalent and it is said "the atmosphere was so thick
and dense with smoke and body odors that if your head itched and you
scratched your head, you got lice in your hands."
By 1910 many ships had replaced steerage with four and six-berth
Third Class cabins. But not soon enough for Elisabeth
and the children.
Upon settling in the Atlanta, Katie
worked as a housekeeper for a few prominent locals. She
married a man named Harry Arden Donaldson. Eventually he left
Katie for another woman and she raised 5 children alone and without
support. In-laws tried to encouraged Katie to give
the children up, she would not hear of such a thing.
"No, I will keep them all together" she would say. That she
did and she also sustained from dating for the rest of her life and
never remarried.
Still in
Hungary
click image
to enlarge |
Her
parents (my Great Grandparents) were Martin Ingrisch
born in Mercydorf and Elizabeth Marmon
born in Mehala, a suburb of Temeswar [today Timisoara].
I
received from this photos from a new found cousin Axente. It was among
his family
photos brought from Romania. This is the earliest known photo
of Elisabeth & the children. From the
left... Katie was about 13, Uncle John in next to the oldest, about 12. Notice
John and Martin 7 wore similar outfits, while young Anton, 18 months
old, wore a dress, typical for that period.
Elizabeth 3 holds a hoola hoop?? I didn't know
they existed back then. |
| |
|
|
Katie, shy of 2 months of
being 14 immigrated 12 July 1907 with her mother
Elizabeth and siblings John 13, Martin 7,
Elizabeth 3, Anton 18 mo's. They joined father Martin in Atlanta, Georgia where he had settled the year
before when he immigrated. |
Coming to
America
|
| |
|
|
 |
Ingrisch Family,
taken in the US circa 1917
Two more
children were born in the US. The above group
photo was made circa 1917, Elisabeth was pregnant with
Margaret. A year & a half later, my Great Grandmother
Elisabeth died. Story I heard was she was hit in the
stomach by a washing machine crank, then cancer was
discovered.
Click image to
enlarge |
Where could I begin to
tell you about my Grandmother Katie? My earliest memories of
her were during my visits to her home in Brookhaven, Fulton Co.,
Georgia when I was about 6 years old. We had just moved down
south from NJ and to me it was like paradise to be at her home.
She lived there with my Uncle John, Uncle Charlie and her
daughter Frances and granddaughter Anne.
Grandmother Katie was short in stature and
had beautiful gray hair. Keep in mind, she lived to be 99 years
old, so when I was 6 she was 67. She always kept her German
accent and she wrote English the way it sounded. After she had
died I heard she was able to help one of my cousins with her
Latin homework, apparently she learned it back in Hungary. She
was 13 when she came to the US. I can only imagine what it was
like for her to come to a new land and begin a new life.
I wished I had asked more questions, took
notes and remembered everything she did say. Shoulda woulda
coulda, but didn’t. Once I did ask her about her life where
she came from and the thing that has stuck in my mind is her
saying the Church was a very important part of their lives. She
also said they lived in a one room house!
Katie loved to crochet and made the most
wonderful dollies and tablecloths. I have some of her pieces
she made and also some of her crochet needles. She also made
afghan blankets. When I was in high school she made me one of
my school colors.
|
I loved to spend the night at her
house. We would walk to the bus stop and catch the bus
and ride to Atlanta shopping and there were many days
afterwards we would stop to play bingo. She loved to
play bingo and cards. Our Sunday afternoons were spent
at her house where all her children and my cousins would
gather. After the big dinner, the table was cleared and
the cards were shuffled. That would go on for hours.
Sometimes they would play bingo and let us kids play. I
have to admit some of those days were very boring for me
as I got older. [click image to enlarge] |
 |
I can still recall the smell of her freshly
laundered linens that were washed in her wringer washer and line dried. I would have to sleep with her and I loved the smell of
her pillow cases. She was a very important person in my
families life. Katie was a very articulate person and very
clean.
I sometimes cry when I think of her being
gone. She had it so rough in her earlier years. She was
married to a not-so-nice person who left her with all the
children to raise by herself. There were times Mom said when
her in-laws would say to her “why don’t you give the kids up” –
she would reply “no way – I am keeping them all together” and
she did. Katie married Harry Arden Donaldson in 1917, she was
21.
|
Uncle
John & Grandmother Katie in the flower garden
 |
|
Uncle John built the home in Brookhaven for him and his
second wife Ruby. Rudy died in the fifties and
that is when Grandmother moved in. The house
sat on a very large piece of property and they developed
gardens everywhere. They had a concrete pond with
a fountain on one side of the house, on the other side
of the house was a flower garden with a circular stone
walkway surrounding a sitting area in the center.
A terrace ran along side that side of the house.
On the back side of the property they had a chicken coop
and down the path that ran along side it there was a
huge vegetable garden. Leaving that area in
another direction you would have to walk through a
tunneled scupenvine (spelling?), it was always cool in
there and we loved playing it in. And then there
was the cellar, where Charlie kept all his gadgets,
Grandmother would keep all her preserves, jellies,
canned vegetables and wines that she had made.
Katie was the best cook. My favorite was her short
ribs soup with “homemade” noodles. She would roll
the dough out so flat and let it dry then cut then in
the tiniest strips, yum!
I cannot leave out
mentioning her fruitcakes, made with blackberry wine and
soaked for days, why those cakes would be preserved for
almost a year!
click
images to enlarge |
I dedicate this website &
my genealogical adventures to Grandmother Katie.
My Grandmother
Katie, my Mother Laura and me, Jody
in the garden at
Brookhaven, Georgia - 1960.
Grandmother Katie's first child Christine.
Christine was left with someone while
Grandmother Katie visited her Mother in the
hospital. She was OK when Mama left her but
when she returned Christine had started having
convulsions and died. She was a beautiful
healthy baby in the morning and gone by the
evening.
The story goes the family That kept her, fed her
bananas. [Anne]
|
 |
|
Family Photos
click
images
to enlarge
|
