The Brevings

Somewhere in everyone's family is a collection of old photos.  It takes a little project like this to locate them and realize what a gold mine of memories we have.  I look at this picture of Edith and see that same wavy hair I've always had.

Rosemary told me she knew she had copies of pictures of her mother as a young student at St. Rose School.  Here are three of them.  In the first picture, Edith is the second person from the right in the second row.

I love this picture.  Edith is wearing glasses and is standing in the first row.  When I first saw it, I thought for sure I was looking at the face of one of my cousins.

This is a picture of 8th Grade Graduation from St. Rose.  There were 14 boys and 15 girls in this class.  Looking at what all of them are wearing, you know that this was a very important milestone.  Edith is in the first row and is the first one on the left.

Edith and her husband, Fritz, went on a vacation to Chicago with another couple in 1947.  Here is a picture of the other couple,  taken in front of the Holy Name Cathedral.  (I'll add the names later).  Rosemary told me that this was the last vacation they were able to take before Fritz's death at the age of 49.

This is a picture of Rosemary on her First Communion day with her father, Fritz.  Rose told me that every bit of her First Communion dress including her slip were sewn by Norine.

It's always the personal things that people do for us that we remember.


Here is a little experiment.  I put together a video (that has a couple of errors) with some pictures Rose and Donna loaned me.  It has music.  Give it a shot.
Breving Video

Edith Jones Breving

We finally made it to our parents' generation.  One of the joys of doing genealogy is when you get to find out about and share some real gifts you've never seen before.  One such gift was seeing the beautiful wedding picture of Edith Jones and Frederick (Fritz) Breving.  I never had the opportunity to meet Uncle Fritz.  He died a year before I was born.

Edith and Fritz were married on June 15, 1932.  Fritz was 32 years old and Edith was 22.  Their witnesses were the brother of the groom, Jim, and the woman he would later marry, Gladys Goldsmith.  The two beautiful flower girls were the sister of the bride, Margaret Ann, and Alice Riedy.  They were married at St. Rose Church by Fr. Robert W. Schutte.  This gives me the excuse to post one more picture of St. Rose Church.

Frederick John Breving was the son of German immigrants, William Breving and Ameliz Stortz.  He was born on September 14, 1899 in Cincinnati.  Rose tells me that being of German descent, that he valued thriftiness.  When he and Edith were married they lived for a year at 2444 Eastern Ave. until he was able to pay cash for their home in Mt. Lookout. Rosemary was baptized at St. Rose Church.

Fritz was a electoplater working for the Rapid Electric Co.  He worked with lead every day on his job. His death certificate says he died of bronchiectasis, a lung disease that can lead to serious consequences.  He died at the age of 49 leaving a young widow with three children -- Rosemary, Fred and Bob.  I was able to find a copy of his draft card for World War I.  Rosemary told me he was never drafted because he did not have vision in one eye. Notice that he was living on Columbia Ave., as were the Joneses until they had to move for the construction of Columbia Parkway.

Edith was the oldest of five children of Fred and Norine.  I like to say that I come from a long line of strong women, and she was obviously one of them.  Widowed at the age of 39 and having lived with a sick husband prior to his death, she certainly had her hands full trying to raise three young children alone.  Rosemary gave me a picture of Edith at six months.

Edith attended St. Rose School, of course.  Rose tells me she has a copy of a picture of her mother that is housed in the St. Rose Archives.  I'm going to borrow it so we can upload it.  You can refer to a picture in the blog posting for September 2, 2009 on the "Perfect Family minus One" to see a teen-aged Edith.  I'm going to meet with Rose and scan in some other pictures of Edith in the near future.

Edith was a caretaker and a homemaker, very much cast in the mold of her mother.  Not only was she the first-born and a young widow of three, but she became the caretaker for her father, Fred, giving him a home after Norine's death.  It couldn't have been easy.  They lived in a two-bedroom home.  Both Edith and her Dad suffered from macular degeneration as they became older, losing their vision for all intents and purposes.  Edith became a member of Rose and Don's family.  Edith died of breast cancer on March 9, 1991 at the age of 80.  Both she and Fritz are buried at Calvary Cemetery in Evanston.