Thursday, March 31, 2016

Meet Wilhelmina Rosella .....

Looking up my ancestry trying to ascertain if I'm the great niece of Annie Oakley or Jesse James, I discovered a little more information about my Great Aunt Minnie.  I was astounded to find out that her REAL name is Wilhelmina Rosella, one of my grandfather's twelve siblings.  Can you imagine dealing with thirteen children in the 1880's??  My great great grandfather Daniel must have been rich beyond words!!

This beautiful Pompador doll made in Germany in the 1850's is now 166 years old.  Pretty hard to imagine, right?  Curiously, her name is Wilhelmina Rosella.  The bells in my head started dinging as I pulled out all the information I had, which happened to be hidden under her dress.
My Great Aunt Minnie, who never married, lived in Colorado and was a personal nurse to an 83 year old patient.  His younger sister owned the doll when their family moved from Germany to Denver in the 1800's.  The Gottisbagen's lived in a huge mansion with six bedrooms, six bathrooms, a music hall, a library, a "salon" and a huge kitchen and pantry, inhabited by a chef and many servants.  This is where my Great Aunt went to take care of him.  She called the young housekeeper a "scamp", up to no good ... who never really cleaned the house!

The family was so wealthy, that French seamstresses were brought to their home to make all the clothing for the mother, three daughters AND the doll.  Thus the fancy hand sewn dress with fur pieces

Upon his death, the place was closed up along with the doll.  Some time later his sister, now a Luckenbach, required nursing care, so my Great Aunt took the job. Luckily, the doll, along with many other possessions were finally delivered to Mrs. Luckenback after her brothers death.  She had two children, described as unmanageable, who would inherit the doll and probably destroy it.  Instead, she gave her to my Great Aunt for safe keeping.  I assume my Great Aunt named her after herself and she's has been in the family ever since.

In 1945 she came to my Grandmother and was then passed down to me.  In a letter (kept under her dress) written by my Great Aunt in 1968 (just before she died) about where the doll came from, she states "I'm glad Nancy will receive her, but she better not ever sell the doll, because I will come back and HAUNT her!!"  I totally believe that's true!!

The head is made of paper mache with a wax covering and real hair ... the body thin cotton, filled with straw.  She even has her own trunk with another beautiful red dress.   

She's a little worse for wear as pieces deteriorate from age, even though I keep her in the glass case.  Today I'll go find her trunk and see how that's faring.  I'll also check her lineage on Ancestry.com and see if I can locate any of her original family information.  

DARN!!  No Annie Oakley or Jessie James so far.  







5 comments:

  1. If you're still having problems with your battery on your phone It sounds like you're running too much program and apps
    try these two tips
    If you don't use your phone say between the hours of 9pm and 9 am
    Charge your battery until it's 100% and then switch it over to airplane mode then disconnect the plug in charger from the phone check your's battery in the morning it should be about 95% charged
    In airplane mode your your phone goes into a neutral mode
    ( Give you another hint if you go in airplane mode it will charge faster )
    Tip number 2 charge your phone till it's 100% charged turn the phone off disconnect the charger in the morning it should be 100% because you didn't use anything
    If you have less than 100% then your battery is bad
    I can give you another hint if you buy iPhone from anyone you could take it to any authorized iPhone store 90% of all the stores have classes that you can take to teach you how to maximize any Apple product you buy
    from first time buyer up to a professional. A lot of classes are only for a couple hours and good majority of them are free The rest are at a nominal fee
    If you do buy an iPhone and they want you to trade your old phone in,do not Take the time to put it on eBay you'll get more for it then you will with there trade-in,, put the money in your pocket ( check your make and model on eBay and see how much they're selling for as buy it now price )
    That's also how some sales people make extra money refurbishing your phone and selling it on eBay Trust me it's a very lucrative market
    As for your doll find a good reputable antique auctioneer and ask him to give you an estimate average cost
    If you want to have it restored they may be able to help you in that department as well

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    Replies
    1. Every night I would plug my phone in and in the morning it would say 100% If I unplugged it and set it on the counter, it would die completely within 10 minutes. Pretty sure the battery is gone. eBay is a good idea ... I'll try that.

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  2. You can unlock any phone including all the iPhone 6,s
    You can take it to any unauthorized phone dealer they'll unlock it for you for probably about 50 bucks or less you can go with any carrier after that
    If you do a search for unlocking iPhone 6s on YouTube there's dozens out there
    If you paid for it with a credit card you have a certain amount of time to return it but they do have to give you your old phone back

    ReplyDelete
  3. I don't know if you have a phone company called cricket
    It is an ATT pre-paid spin off Owned by AT&T no contract $40 pr,mo,unlimited talk text 5 GB of web
    If you use AT&T now you have the same coverage for a lot less cost

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, Cricket is available here ... even though they declared bankruptcy a couple years back. The trouble is I use close to 20 gigs a month cellular internet data on my unlimited plan. 5 just won't work for me.

      Delete