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Old Photographs, Recognition, Handwriting Deciphering => Handwriting Deciphering & Recognition => Topic started by: floppyslater on Sunday 10 April 16 21:19 BST (UK)
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Hi All,
I am having trouble with the name of the female listed on this probate record. This is what I have translated so far . . .
Certificate of ______________ Bentz wife of Chas. Bentz, telegraph and telephone messages.
Other records indicate that Charles Bentz's wife may have been Valerie or Valeria. The family was of German extraction living in Reading, Berks County, Pennsylvania.
Any suggestions would be most welcomed.
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Looks like Couviera as the first letter is similar to the C of Chas.
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I think that it is Louviera Bentz
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I think that it is Louviera Bentz
I agree with Louviera. The first letter looks more like an 'L' than a 'C'.
Either way it seems a long way from Valerie or Valeria.
sami
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Hello -
I would read her first name as Louviera.
craggagh.
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Other records indicate that Charles Bentz's wife may have been Valerie or Valeria
What records are they? Perhaps she used an anglicised version of her name but her official name was used on the probate record. Have you got a death certificate?
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I only found out that Charles Bentz had a wife because of these probate records. If anyone has ancestry.com they can look at the actual documents:
http://interactive.ancestry.com/8802/005576570_00639/1090634?backurl=http://person.ancestry.com/tree/53563523/person/27582254338/facts/citation/323807214805/edit/record
It appears that Charles's wife quickly remarried after he was killed in a train accident on May 24, 1882. His brother, Rudolph Benz, is suing his estate for unpaid boarding. The estates of two other deceased brothers, Jacob and John Henry Benz, are also listed in the record as part of the suit against Charles's widow.
I suspect that Rudolph was going after Charles's wife since she remarried very quickly. The name of her second husband is George K. Rebes. What is odd is the choice of words in the suit to describe her new marriage. The lawyer who drafted it didn't use the term re-married or second marriage but instead used the term "intermarried". I wonder if the two may have been related?
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on the first , at first glance it looked like a 'C' but I think its an 'L' now -Louviera... but... that doesn't jive with the second which looks like Valeria in my opinion
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There's a petition paper dated 1884 (accessed via Ancestry) where she renounces her right to administer the estate of Charles Bentz, she signs her mark(x) to the name Laveria K Reber
Add: which was in with the other papers already mentioned. Its spelled about four different ways - my guess would be its meant to be Valeria
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeria_(given_name)
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Hi matthewj64,
I tend to agree with your assessment - her name was probably Valeria. I suspect her new marriage - which occurred only 4 or 5 months after her husband's death, was to a cousin - George W. Reber. There is a possibility that her maiden name may have been Reber too. I suspect that is why my gggrandfather, Rudolph Benz (or Bentz) took legal action to recoup some of the money from the estate.
Charles Benz died in a horrible accident in 1882 when he was run over by a train from the Reading Railroad while walking to work and dragged to his death. The couple never had any children. It is interesting how quickly she remarried.
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They seem to have been George W. Reber and Lovina Bentz upon marriage (14 Oct 1882 Reading, PA).
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That would match up with her intermarriage with George W. Reber after the death of her husband Charles. What I have not been able to locate is the original marriage between Charles and Lovina/Valarie.
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Have you found Charles in the 1880 census to identify his marital status at that time?
I see from his findagrave listing that he was born in Philadelphia in 1846 - is that right?
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That is correct. Charles was born in Philadelphia. The family relocatd to Reading, PA around 1855. Apparently his father John Christian Benz, was unhappy that the church he attended in Philadelphia began holding services in English instead of German. Family members moved freely between Philly and Reading since it was a relatively short train trip. In 1876 the Philadelphia Directory has Charles living with Rudolph Benz. He is listed as a bricklayer. At the time of his death in 1882 he was back in Reading. I am making a guess in trying to determine where Valeria was originally from. Since it appears that her marriage to George Reber involved a family member I assumed that she was originally from Reading, Berks, PA too.
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How do you know that her second marriage involved a family member?
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The word intermarry was used differently in the past, it could just mean married each other without the current connotations of in[ter]breeding.
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I am still digging for additional evidence but it is the only time I have seen the term used in any historical document I reviewed. Considering it was a probate case involving lawyers and a judge I suspect the terminology was deliberately used to convey an underlying rational for the legal claim being leveled by Rudolph Benz.
It does seem odd that a brother-in-law would go after a widow's windfall unless there was some underlying cause.
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For those following our conversation about Charles Bentz and his wife I wanted to include his findagrave.com listing.
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=53694657