Tennie History from my mom's cousin David Tennie

The following was emailed from my mom's cousin David Tennie on August 26, 2009. More on the Tennie side! Joseph Tennie is my great-great grandfather.

This is Joseph Tennie's obituary taken from the Appleton Post Crescent on August 11, 1926.

JOSEPH TENNIE Joseph Tennie, Sr. 82, 212 N. Story Street died at 6 o’clock Tuesday evening. He was born February 6, 1844 at Ludge, Westphalia, Germany. In 1871 he came to America, spending the first two or three years in Appleton, after which he moved to a farm in the town of Greenville. Seven years ago he retired and again moved to this city. Mr. Tennie is survived by his wife, Mrs. Emma Tennie; eight children, Sister M. Ermelinda, Milwaukee; Mrs. Frank Nussbaum and Mrs. Martin Hein of Center; Oscar and George Tennie of Greenville; John Tennie, Ellington; and Mrs. Henry Viotto and Joseph Tennie of Appleton. A brother Henry Tennie of Appleton, and a sister, Mrs. Frances Kappe in Germany, and 27 grandchildren also survive. Funeral services will be held at 9 o’clock Friday morning at St. Joseph Catholic church in Appleton and burial will be in St. Joseph cemetery.

Two things to note: 1) the Town of Lügde was spelt wrong in our Great Grandfather's obituary which made searching for our ancestors difficult. 2) Joseph was survived by a sister living in Germany in 1926, which would be the key to finding our Great Grandfather's birthplace.

With the aid of the Internet, and the fact that most young people in Germany all speak English today, I was able to find Frances Kappe's death record.

Franziska (Tennie) Kappe died at the age of 88 years old on the 10th of May, 1935 at 1 p.m. in the afternoon. Franziska is buried at St. Mary's Catholic Church (Kath. Kirchenegemeinde) Lügde. The following is a letter I received August 21, 2009:

Dear Mr. Tennie, 8-21-2009
I am Jürgen van Elten. I am the son of Agnes Kappe, sister of Fritz Kappe, whom you wrote a letter. My mother often told me that two brothers of her grandmother Franziska left Germany, Heinrich (Henry) and Josef Tennie. Franziska(engl. Frances) was married with Franz. Franz and Franziska had a son and a daughter, Dorothee and Friedrich. Friedrich was married with Anna, the mother of five children, my mother, my aunts and uncles. Friedrich and Anna were the parents of my mother, Agnes, her brother Fritz, whom you wrote the letter, Rita, Maria and Hubert. The full prename of my mother is Agnes Franziska Kappe. My mother is 86 years old.We are glad to be able to show you some more documents about a lot of common relatives. We would be also glad to meet you in September in Lügde. In particular my mother would be happy to meet you and your wife Sue for speaking about her ancestors. She doesn’t speak English, but when I or one of my brothers translate, it will be possible to have a conversation with you and your wife.If you want to get more information before your journey to Germany you can write me or my uncle Fritz.
best greetings
Jürgen van Elten Lügde, Germany

I must have sent 30 letters out to random Tennie's and Kappe's that I found in the German phone book using the Internet and I was very excited when I got this letter sent back to me. At my niece's wedding this past Saturday (my sister Mary's daughter) I shared this letter from Jürgen van Elten with my Dad, Leonard, and Harold Urban. I have some other information on Tennie's living in Lügde, but nothing yet to report. Wish me luck on our trip to Germany. I will send you an update when I get home and get organized. Thanks for initiating the contact. Everyone take care. Dave Tennie

25 things...

Twenty-Five Things About Me

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it is because I want to know more about you.

1.       I’m just paranoid enough about losing this list, that I’m writing it in a Word doc first and saving it. (Thanks for the warning, Jill!)

2.       I'm anal enough that I’m also going to edit it before I post it.  Yup, I’m a perfectionist, sometimes to a fault. I’ve been working on that problem for a long time.

3.       The most important thing in my life is that I am a Christian. I happen to be a WELS Lutheran.

4.       The most important person in my life is my wife Lisa. Without her I would be lost and I would not be the person I am today.  My relationship with Lisa has to take priority even over my kids, but for their benefit: If Lisa and I do not have a happy marriage then we will not serve well as parents. 

5.       We are committed to our marriage, and we will work hard to ensure that we are happy.  We will not consider the possibility of divorce, nor will we ever suffer through and unhappy marriage together. We are committed to WORK HARD toward our long term happiness.  We take vacations and go on marriage retreats for that very purpose. Just as I need to train for my job, Lisa and I work to improve our “skills” as husband and wife.  And yet, I still screw up constantly.

6.       My kids have created true purpose in my life, in a way that no other responsibility or passion can. Being a good father, and a role model as a Christian, a worker, a father, and a husband, is the most important responsibility I have.  Through this purpose, I fulfill my other goals.

7.       Lisa and I met and started dating in high school. We both worked at McDonald’s and while I knew who she was (the cute girl with an incredible smile, who was just a bit suspicious of me!). We only worked together one day, but the rest is history.

8.       I can officially say that I’ve known Lisa for over half my life already. We’ll be married 10 years this November, and we’ve been together for a total of 14 years or so, even after subtracting the 3 years we broke up while I was in college.  By the time we’re retired, we’ll have spent about three quarters of our life together!  And on from there.  We work to stay healthy so that we’ll have no problem going strong past 50 years!

9.       Lisa and I are unified in our priority of faith, marriage, and kids. And while I showed her some of this list, I didn’t need to ask her the question in order to know that she would agree. Well, she would especially agree with #1 and 2, but that is another story!

10.   My kids are Zachery, Dylan and Cora. Their personalities and learning, their similarities and differences, amaze me every day.  We adopted one of the kids, and the other two are born to us. If you don’t, know, I doubt you can guess! We are done with children for now… but we never say never to another adoption some day.

11.   I am passionate about teaching kids and teen agers.  Right now I teach 7-8 grade Sunday School, and before that High School Youth Group.  I want to impact their lives in a way that no one impacted me at that age. I usually had great teachers in school, but no one leading me as a Christian.

12.   While my parents are Christians, unfortunately I don’t count them as significant mentors to me. We were “every Sunday” Catholics, and I suppose that is their biggest contribution to my faith: I understand that it is a responsibility (and now I know that it is a joyous blessing!) to worship every Sunday.

13.   I consider myself lucky that another girl I met in high school – just before meeting Lisa – had parents who were not afraid to challenge me. They managed to point out my situation as a sinner, and tell me of the opportunity and need for me to have Jesus Christ as my savior.  They gently corrected me when I said absurd, 16-year-old things. Thanks, Kermit and Debbie. It was blessed to have met Julie.

14.   I realized at some point that there would be a chance of my mom reading this note on Facebook, and then I was worried about some of what I was going to write. Then, I realized that there could be a hundred close and not-so-close friends reading it, so why should it matter?  Sheesh, I’m 33 years old after all!

15.   I literally thank God that I got away with so many of the things I did when I was young without hurting myself or anyone else too badly. I hope the reason is so that I can teach my kids and others to do better than I did.

16.   I still don’t know whether my parents were naïve of my actions, but I suspect that they were either self-involved in their own problems or just unsure how to confront my behavior when I was a teen ager.

17.   Lisa and I plan to be the parents that will host our kids and their friends at our home…

18.   …and, since I know what I got away with… there isn’t a chance on earth that I’m NOT going to confront them when they try to get away with things.  Things will be stopped before they ever start!

19.   It was only once I admitted that I was a sinner, that I also started to get over my perfectionism. Once I realized my need for forgiveness, it made it possible for me to forgive others. And once I admitted that I was (and still am) a sinner, it also helped eliminate my self-righteous need for perfectionism.

20.   After being raised as a work-righteous Catholic, it was almost hard to understand the simple Biblical truth that God grants us forgiveness freely; that salvation is a Gift and that Jesus did the work for us!  Wow!  Once I grasped that, a true gratefulness came over me and defines the reason that I want to live life as a good person. But now that I’m forgiven, I want to live that way.

21.   My business passion is toward modern, energy efficient, Green design and construction. I love what I do. I love changing people’s lives by changing their homes. I love helping them, by helping to reconcile their needs to their desires. I love delivering something different… something better than they expected, but in a way that ultimately meets their needs.

22. If I have any ideas of becoming wealthy, it is only because in the course of things I’ll be able to give even more money away for charity and philanthropy.  That's the reason I enjoy doing so many things like Extreme Makeover Home Edition and the Green Built Home Makeover.

23.   I seem to teeter precariously between humility and self-promotion. I worry that I still often pass over humility in favor of the temptation of selfish-promotion.

24.   I’ve been secretly hoping for someone to tag me for this list for a while. I really enjoy reading the lists that other people post.

25.   I have the most fun with Facebook when there are reasons to comment on other people’s pictures and postings, and when there is reaction back and forth.