Scofield woman started a family tradition 136 years ago today
Exactly 136 years ago today, a Scofield woman started a tradition that has been going strong for five generations.
Emma Stein wore an emerald and pearl necklace when she married Anthony Bruck on Sept. 27, 1887, at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Carleton.
Since then, four generations of her descendants have worn the same necklace on their wedding days. The second time was exactly 100 years ago today.
On Sept. 27, 1923, Emma’s daughter, Mary Anna (Mamie) Bruck, wore the necklace at her marriage to Edward Mahany of Exeter Township. They also were married at St. Patrick Church.
The third bride was Mamie’s daughter, Helena Lona Mahany, who married Richard Berger at St. Francis Cabrini Catholic Church in Allen Park.
The fourth-generation bride was Helena’s daughter, Karen Berger.
Most recently, Karen’s daughter, Katelyn Johnson, wore the necklace for her marriage to Christopher Reed at Adrian College.
The necklace’s origin is unknown.
“We presume it was a gift. We presume Anthony gave it to Emma,” Karen Johnson of Trenton said.
The necklace is 10-karate gold and has an emerald and two freshwater pearls.
“It’s very dainty. It’s a softer gold and very, very fine,” Johnson said. “It’s small. In photographs, it appears to be larger than the size. It sits high on the collarbone.”
Johnson said it was empowering to wear the heirloom.
“I felt some maternal strength, I really did,” she said.
But now the necklace’s story may change. Reed has two sons and no daughters.
“There are no future plans for this poor, beautiful little piece. Katelyn is holding onto it,” Johnson said.
Johnson has been uncovering stories and artifacts from her German and Irish families since middle school, when she was assigned to create a family tree.
“I only got back two to three generations. That’s all my parents knew. I took it upon myself to keep researching,” Johnson said.
Since then, she’s amassed more than 1,000 pages of documents and many artifacts.
“I am a major genealogist. I have collected all types of home deeds, newspaper articles, ship records, ship drawings, a ton of original photos,” she said.
She’s also collected many family stories.
She learned, for example, that Emma, the first bride to wear the necklace, also was the first to receive a marriage license in Monroe County.
“It was on this date, Sept. 27, 1887, that the state law went into effect requiring marriage licenses, and the Brucks (Anthony and Emma) were the first couple to receive a marriage license in Monroe county,” according to a Monroe Evening News story. “They drove into Monroe at 4 o’clock in the morning to get it in order to be back to Stony Creek in time to be married.”
“I love the stories,” Johnson said.
She considers genealogy to be a “logical puzzle.” Before resources like Ancestry.com, she found information at places like the Monroe County Historical Society.
“I’d search all these articles. I researched the way I did in college: write all the names, type up their information and create categories,” Johnson said.
She’s encountered all the common genealogy problems – wrong spellings, people using nicknames and families arbitrarily adding prefixes like O- and Mc- to their surnames.
Her favorite source is obituaries.
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“They tell you parents, offspring, all that kind of stuff,” she said.
Johnson also has taken trips to visit distant relatives and regularly consults several Facebook pages. She’s still hoping to learn more about her families.
“You are never, ever done,” she said.
This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Scofield woman started a family tradition 136 years ago today
