Kate (Nunn) Preiss (21 December 1893 – 29 April 1928)

The next step in the story of Kate (Nunn) Preiss was to verify her date of death. My second cousin Nicholas said she was married in 1927 and died in childbirth in April 1928. His memory is like a steel vault, but I had to verify that information for myself. Thanks to Reclaim the Records, I verified that Kate married Carl Preiss on 17 September 1927.

Several weeks ago I checked the public trees on Ancestry.com. There was a tree for the Preiss family and Carl was listed with spouses, but not Kate. I contacted the person who had put up the Preiss tree. She replied with information on Carl, but she didn’t know about his first marriage to Kate Nunn.

She wrote again to say she found a Jersey Journal headline from 30 April 1928 that read: Mrs. Preiss and Babe Die in Hospital.

I contacted the Jersey City Free Public Library and asked if they could locate this article for me. In early evening I received a nice note from a librarian there with a scan of the page I needed.

The article was short, but it told me what I needed to know. Kate and her baby did indeed die in childbirth at the North Hudson Hospital in Weehawen, New Jersey on 29 April 1928. The article also told me she and Carl were living in West New York, New Jersey.

This information saved me from paying someone to visit the New York City Municipal Archives for a death certificate. She didn’t die in New York; she died in New Jersey. Kate is buried in St. Michael’s Cemetery, Queens, New York alongside her sister, Elizabeth.

Although there was no charge for this information from the library, I plan on sending a donation in support of their digitization project.

I love librarians!  And Nicholas was correct once again!

The marriage of Carl Paul Preiss and Kate Nunn

Marriage Affidavid for Carl P. Preiss and Kate Nunn

Thanks to Reclaim the Records, I was able to solve some of the mystery surrounding my grandfather’s sister, Kate Nunn (b: 21 December 1893). I knew very little about Kate after the 1920 census where she continued to reside with her sister, Elizabeth Siebert. Kate worked as a silk mill harness maker, probably a skill she got from her father, Joseph Nunn, who earn a living as a harness maker in the late 1800s.

From my second cousin I heard that Kate married around 1927 and died in childbirth the next year. Another second cousin wrote that Kate died of a miscarriage. Since marriage and death certificates were not available for the city of New York, (because I didn’t have an exact date) I had not been able to verify this information.

When the Reclaim the Records organization was able to convince New York City to release their marriage record index for this time period, I was able to view the index and find the exact date of marriage – 17 September 1927. I wrote a letter to the Municipal Archives and specifically requested the affidavit, marriage certificate and marriage license.

Within a short period of time I had all three documents. I now had a lot of information about the couple - the groom's full name, his parents' names, who stood up for the couple, when and where they were married, occupations of both.

From information supplied by my second cousins, I know that Kate died in 1928. She is buried in St. Michael’s Cemetery, Queens, New York.

But . . .since I still don’t have a death certificate, I began to wonder. Did she die in childbirth, or a miscarriage? If childbirth, was there a slim chance that the baby survived? That is when I decided to check on the whereabouts of her husband, Carl Paul Preiss.

Checking various records, I ran into inconsistencies with his date of birth. He states on his WWI Draft Card that he was born 24 March 1899 in New Jersey. Other documents state 1900. His parents were Edward (b: abt 1861) and Anna (Greulich)(b; Dec 1883) Preiss, both born in Germany. [Preiss is sometimes listed as Prices in various documents) Carl had two older sisters, Lena and Theresa.

The search continues as I have found little information on Carl until the 1940 census when I found him living with his mother, Anna. There are many more sources to check, but I suspect no child was born. Darn.

And, Happy Birthday, Kate! 

Is it a coincidence that I am thinking and writing about you on this day, your birthday? Hmmm. . .