Hulda, Hulda, Wherefore Art Thou?

She was born Hulda Tobolt. After marriage, her community called her Hulda Heiser. Hulda divorced and, with the passage of time, her story faded from memory and Hulda disappeared. Today we know her 1933 death certificate recorded her name as Hulda St. Claire and recorded her parents as unknown. Hulda used a variation of her death name for more than 20 years. She called herself Hulda St. Clair. 

Born in 1863, Hulda was the first child of Martin Tobolt and Augusta Witte. Seven more children for Martin and Augusta, a marriage at 22 and a divorce at 34 for Hulda, and Hulda was lost to those of us who are picking up the trail of a mostly forgotten family branch. In these modern genealogical times with nearly instant communication between cousins and Internet accessibility to historical newspapers and documents, we could account for her three sisters and four brothers, but not Hulda.

Prior to her disappearance, Hulda was sighted on the 1882 Silesia ship manifest with her family, the Minnesota state census for 1885 in another home probably as live-in help, in an 1885 Minnesota marriage index, in the 1895 Minnesota state census while she was still married to John Heiser, and her divorce was published on the front page of the Worthington (Minnesota) Advance on November 4, 1897, above the fold in the legal news, right next to the advertisement for Royal baking powder.  Then in the 1900 United States census, Hulda was enumerated using her maiden name, as a servant to a family living in Detroit Village, Becker County, Minnesota. And then Hulda disappeared. Just disappeared. She was not mentioned in the obituaries of her brothers and sisters. 

Did Hulda disappear after her divorce or was she hiding in plain sight? Did she appear to disappear, as so often happens when women change their names upon marriage or remarriage? That became my working theory but, without a name, her movements could no longer be traced. The 1900 census tells us Hulda resumed using her maiden name after the divorce so, if lucky, we might yet make a Tobolt sighting and, if very lucky, we might even find that elusive connection to an unknown marriage and unknown name. And so it came to pass.

Then what did happen to Hulda? Hulda became a homesteader! Oh yes, she did. A divorced woman, early 1900s, taming the land, her land, alone. Without Hulda's entry in the federal land records I would never have thought to look for her in North Dakota. Homesteading makes sense for Hulda as a piece of land to call your own gave unmoored people a place to be and an opportunity for a new start. Divorced from John Heiser in 1897, and again using her maiden name, Hulda filed her homestead application in 1901 for 157.48 acres in Lake Hester Township, McHenry County, North Dakota. The land patent was issued in 1909 in her maiden name. Her neighbors could confirm for us that this was our Hulda. The adjoining claim was homesteaded by John Colby, the name of the man who married Hulda's sister Emma. Thereafter this same Colby family appeared on their homestead in the 1910 United States census, John Colby with his wife Emma and their then four children, all names long known to us. With family close by Hulda wasn't entirely alone, and the ratio of men to women in homestead country would have been considered favorable, at least for women.

Hulda's 1909 homestead patent was the last Tobolt sighting for her, but when you can't follow the people, you follow the land. Once she had her patent in hand, Hulda was free to sell her land as homesteaders were known to do. A land plat attributed ownership of Hulda's homestead in 1910 to a "Mrs. St. Clair". Mrs. St. Clair appears again in the 1910 United States census for Lake Hester Township as a single woman head of household. The fact Mrs. St. Clair's given name was Hulda was less of a surprise than the discovery of a St. Clair daughter on the census, a 7-year-old named Della St. Clair. This was a two person family unit.

Hulda St. Clair appears again back home in Minnesota in the 1920 United States census and the 1930 United States census in the same town where her sister Bertha Tobolt Gordon was enumerated in the 1910 census. Having settled near one sister in North Dakota, Hulda and her young daughter were drawn to Verndale, Minnesota to live near another sister, this in close proximity to the 1910 census. Minnesota is where Hulda remained to raise her daughter and beyond, even after Bertha emigrated to Canada in 1918.

Need further convincing? Hulda Tobolt and Hulda St. Clair both celebrated their birthday on May 24. 

As to the questions that remain unanswered, the first to address is what happened to Hulda's daughter. After we were introduced to Della in 1910, census records offer no further sightings of Della St. Clair, either with Hulda, or alone. Every sighting, and the absence of sightings, raised more questions. Della disappeared. Just like her mother. And "Unknown Male St. Clair" remains in the wind.

I'll tell you more about Della next time. 

Tobolts together at last. //Kate VanderBoom 

Notes:

If you have any remaining reservations that Hulda Tobolt and Hulda St. Clair are one and the same person, consider this. In 2025 newspapers.com "re-published" issues of The Worthington (Minnesota) Globe on the Internet where Hulda appears as St. Clair in the legal postings and real estate transfers relating to Martin Tobolt's estate in 1925, almost exactly 100 years ago. This is tidy confirmation although, armed with this information earlier, solving Hulda's mystery would have taken a different path. But we would be in the same place as we are now, with mysteries about Della and her father yet to solve.

Martin Tobolt Comes to America

Martin Tobolt first set foot in New York City in 1882, the first day of March. Fifteen days had passed since the Hamburg-American Line steam ship Silesia debarked its berth at the port of Hamburg on February 15. This time the family name was spelled "Tobol". But we know the Martin on the manifest was our Martin Tobolt because his wife, Auguste, and their children were with him. The children on the manifest were: Hulda, Mathilde, Bertha, Gustav, and Emma. Auguste was 36. Martin was 47.

Or, when he arrived in America, Martin was 28, 33, 41, 42, or 51 depending on whether you rely on the Hamburg ship manifest or the New York ship manifest; on the Minnesota census record for 1885 or for 1905; on the US census records for 1900, 1910, or 1920; on the Minnesota death record or on the numbers engraved on his headstone. Martin's birth date varied just like the spelling of his name.

Hulda was already 18, and Mathilde was 15, Bertha was 9. The ship manifest says Gustav was 3, but he turned 4 on February 7th while the family was traveling overland from Krummenflies to Hamburg to leave on their ocean voyage for this new life in America. Martin and Auguste should be forgiven if their young son's birthday was forgotten in the press of preparations to move a large family on a journey of confusing proportions. The baby, Emma, was not even a year old when the Tobolt family boarded the Silesia. Auguste must have been grateful her two oldest daughters had no romantic entanglements to hold them in Krummenflies. She was a woman in need of her helpers now more than ever before.

The Tobolts were a family of seven among a passenger load of 1,264. Enduring this ocean passage took equal rations of courage and desperation. The Tobolts were steerage passengers, counted among those who had the least amount of resources. They traveled in the lowest part of the ship, where cattle would have been transported, had the cargo been cattle instead of people. The freedom to roam with few barriers to block his way may have been pleasing to Gus, but Auguste and her daughters must have been distressed by the lack of privacy. Temporary partitions may have provided a modest amount of privacy, or not. Rough bunks sleeping three to five people may have been provided by the shipping line, or not. Families may have separated their living areas with their luggage or blankets. They would have packed food for the journey, enough food for the seven Tobolts for two weeks at sea. The difficulties the Tobolts faced were compounded by cold weather and the rough waters of a winter crossing of the North Atlantic Ocean in slow motion, and all the discomfort and sickness that entailed.

The children had the advantage of time and freedom for exploration and making their own play. If nine-year-old Bertha and four-year-old Gus wanted to play with other children aboard the Silesia, playmates were to be had among the 182 children aboard between the age of one and the age of ten. If Auguste wanted to talk to another mother, she could seek out one of the mothers attached to the 182 children aboard, 102 of these children being under the age of one.

Minnesota would be their final destination, for the time being at least. Martin and Auguste likely had family in Wisconsin who made the same trip from Prussia to New York in earlier years, more Tobolt, Witte, or Bestow kin. This would be a good reason to stop in Wisconsin on their way further west to Minnesota and to make return trips to Wisconsin to visit family, for them a little piece of Prussia on this vast North American continent.

Once Martin and Auguste settled in Minnesota, three more children were born, Edward Daniel Gottlieb in 1883, Leo Emil in 1884, and Otto Hellmuth in 1886. The Tobolts were busy.

Four of us started this place on the Internet for Tobolts to gather. Elaine Gordon Fleck is Bertha's granddaughter. Sharon Frizell is Bertha's great-granddaughter. Gloria Boldt Gifford is Leo's granddaughter, and I am Mathilda's great-granddaughter.

We know other Tobolt historians. Vicki Toble Carroll is Gus's granddaughter. Linda McCall Shelton is Gus's step-granddaughter. Debra Tompkins Gould is Emma's great-granddaughter. Lori Demars is researching for her son Blake who is the great-great-grandson of Emma. The Oden sisters, Kelly, Kimberly, Kris, and Kassandra, are believed to be Edward's great-granddaughters. Sisters Joanne Wicks Beam and Barbara Lynn Wicks Cantelon are Leo's granddaughters.

We are joined by Witte historians Correen Dalton Davis and Debra Witte Cruver. 

We grieve the death of our Tobolt history collaborators. Alice Burton Frizell (1928-2013) was Bertha's granddaughter, and Sharon Frizell's mother. Clayton Boldt (1923-2017) was Leo's son, and Gloria Boldt Gifford's father. Dorothy Byers McCall (1924-2024) was Gus's step-daughter, and Linda McCall Shelton's mother. Greg Tompkins (1975-2021) was Emma's great-great-grandson, and Debra Tompkins Gould's nephew. Christy VanderBoom (1927-2020) was my mother who knew my father's Tobolt family better than he did; she was my family history inspiration. May these family historians continue to solve Tobolt mysteries in The Great Reunion and somehow, somehow, lead our computer searches to the clues we need while we can still enjoy placing the last puzzle pieces.

We are Tobolts together at last. //Kate VanderBoom

Notes:

I originally wrote about the difficulties of two weeks on rough seas in winter as measured by the smells. You can be glad I deleted this before publishing. Your imagination is as good as mine and you should consider the conditions your ancestor suffered to get here. Your empathy will help you better understand them and their motivations in making this life changing move from all they ever knew, and knowing they would never return.

Welcome to Tobolts Together at Last!

A Tobolt by any other name may still be kin, whether a Tobold or a Tobald, a Toboll or a Toball, a Tobol or a Tobal, a Toboldt, or even a Toble or a Boldt or a Bolt. Truth be told, the Tobolts held little proprietary interest in the spelling of their name.

My search for Tobolt kin began with nothing more than the names my mother carefully recorded in the family Bible maybe 60 years earlier for my father's family ... nothing more ... but also nothing less. At least I had a place to start. Adding a ship manifest for a life-changing 1882 journey to the United States, and U.S. federal census records for the initial decades of the twentieth century, and my Tobolt family was growing. Growing on paper anyway, but where were my cousins?

I had to have cousins ... everyone has cousins ... even if lost in a sea of Tob*s. Some settled into farming in the U.S. and others continued their emigration from the U.S. to Canada in the early 1900's in search for their own land to farm. Looking for the Tob*s in Canada was made more difficult by the "language barrier", meaning a completely different government and a vastly different set of government records. And, as it turned out, the family name had morphed again.

To find my Tob* cousins, I had to stop looking. I added my areas of research to my profile on Ancestry.com and turned my focus to other family lines. Then two years ago ... two years ago YESTERDAY ... 29 September 2012, Sharon Frizell sat down to her computer in Canada and sent me a message.

Today we are a group of Canadian and U.S. Tobolts looking for more Tob* cousins. We are creating here on the Internet a home, so you, our Tob* cousins, can find us. Sharon Frizell, Gloria Boldt Gifford, and Elaine Gordon Fleck are the Canadian contingent, and I'm Kate VanderBoom, the U.S. contingent. Gloria's father, Clayton Boldt, is a very special member of our research community. For many years Clayton searched for Tob*s south of the Canadian border, just as I longed to find Tob*s in Canada. How I wish Clayton and I had met then.

Our common ancestor is Martin Tobolt, who was born in about 1840 in Prussia. Martin and his wife, Augusta Witte, arrived in America in 1882 with five Tobolt children, settling in Nobles County, Minnesota. The Tobolts arrived at their new home in Minnesota via Wisconsin ... a diversion, we believe to be family related. According to the ship manifest, the previous home of the Tobolts was Krummenflies, Flatow, West Prussia. Today this place is known as Krzywa Wies in Poland.

The Canadian and U.S. cousins have celebrated two reunions, the first in Langley, British Columbia, near the city of Vancouver, in June 2013. For the second reunion, Elaine, Sharon, Gloria, and I met in Arizona in May 2014. Tobolts together at last! //Kate VanderBoom