Cornelia Wissekerke
I am involved with Genealogical Society of Bergen County, and we are doing an indexing project of one of the local papers, the Hackensack Republican. We index all mentions of births, marriages, engagements, and deaths, as well as birthdays, anniversaries, and funerals. In the meantime you get to read a lot of other old news as well.
We started with 1873, and are now on 1925. The paper continues until 1932, so we are almost there.
One of the things that strikes me is the enormous amount of car and train accident that are reported. Every week people get killed at train crossings, and hurt and killed by cars. The reporters frequently talked about the “devil cars.” Many times there were hit-and-runs.
The obituary of Cornelia Wissekerke struck me as particularly sad. She was 5 years old and on her way to Sunday School, when she was hit by the car. She was the daughter of Floris S. and Grace F. Wissekerke. They were living in 1920 on Madison Ave in Midland Township, next door his parents Cornelis and Sadie Wissekerke. She was their only child at the time. In 1930 Floris and Grace were living on William Street in Saddle River Township with two more children. His parents live in the same town, but no longer right next door.
Cornelia was named for her grandfather, who immigrated from the Netherlands in 1892. So while she does not fit my Bergen County database, I wanted to remember her somehow.
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