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Grace Ann Miller

German Ancestors

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Grace Ann Miller had the good fortune to days across the cold Atlantic from Bremen, Germa-
witness monumental progress in one century ny. The little boy was accompanied by his young
and to gain an inkling of what would come in the mother, Wilhelmina, and his three brothers: Franz,
next. She saw diseases like polio and measles eradi- age eight; Wilhelm, age seven; and Hermann, only
cated, artificial hearts implanted in humans, and in- one month old.Two brothers, Fredrich and George,
sulin introduced to reduce suffering from diabetes. would be born within a few years.They stepped off
She saw the introduction of such everyday conve- the SS Dresden into a new world already bustling
niences as frozen food, high speed travel, and digital with immigrants like themselves.
communications, as well as the discovery of nuclear
reaction and the exploration of outer space. The Kutschenreuters were arriving at the tail end
of a decade of German emigration to America. Over
Those 20th century breakthroughs could hardly 1.5 million people made the long trip from the for-
have been imagined when August Fredrich ests of Bavaria and the factories of Prussia to a new
Kutschenreuter arrived at the Port of Baltimore on life in America’s upper Midwest.The efficiencies of
April 16, 1890. Four years old, August was wide- 19th century industrialization having rendered their
eyed and weary after a steamship voyage of seven old-world crafts obsolete, and with land scarce, the

August Fredrick Wilhelm Friedrich Kutschenreuter Friedrich Kutschenreuter
Kutschenreuter Wilhelmina Kutschenreuter Augustine Wilhelmina Faber
Grace Barbara
Kutschenreuter Joseph Kohler John Kohler
Grace Theresa Katherine Kastel Mary or Kathy Trimmer
Kohler
Viet Kastel
Katherina Hammerschmidt

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