Peter Edlef (later Alfred) Petersen, seated, and his brother Louis, early 1890s in Chicago; click photo to enlarge. They may have been visiting Chicago for the christening of Alfred's namesake (his sister's son) in 1894.
Catherine and her brother Alfred in Omaha, about 1938.
Peter Edlef Petersen was christened in March 1857 in the village of Tinningstedt, Schleswig-Holstein. There was at least one older brother, Hans Peter Petersen (born in 1844), and probably other siblings as well who didn't emigrate to the USA in 1878. After arriving in this country Peter Edlef remined a life-long resident of Nebraska.
In the 1880s Peter changed his name to Alfred. Perhaps there were too many Peters in the family already---and Edlef was an unusual name as well. Alfred may have been the closest American approximation of it. His sister Catherine paid him the honor of naming her middle son Alfred, after her brother.
Alfred was a laborer and a carpenter in Omaha. Alfred's wife was Mary, originally from Schleswig, and they had at least four children: Henry, Annie, Elizabeth and Hulda or Helga (as she's variously listed in the census records).
Alfred lived with his grown children
after his wife's death in the late 1890s along with a Swedish housekeeper called Hannah Andersen. He may have
married Hannah later; the census records aren't clear on this.
In the 1930 census Alfred is living with his daughter's family in Omaha. Elizabeth was married to Charles J. Hoffmann, and Alfred, still working as a land surveyor, shares their home with his three grandsons Charles, John and Albert. In the photo above are (from left) Alfred, his sister Catherine, John Hoffmann, his mother Elizabeth, Catherine's granddaughter Cathie, unidentified woman behind Albert Hoffmann (another son of Elizabeth), Hannah Petersen, and Walter Breetzke, Cathie's stepfather.
If you have any of these Petersens in your family background we'd be delighted to hear from you.