Jennie Müller Jatho, late 1920s in Chicago.
William Jatho's younger son, George, at the helm of his Chicago grocery store, c. 1950s.
Marie Jatho MacLaughlan, her younger son Alva Jr. At front are her niece Cathie Breetzke (left) and daughter Dolores, 1933.
Three generations of Jathos in Chicago: Ruth Shallanberger Jatho, her daughter Audrey Jatho Bischoff, and granddaughter Connie Bischoff, June 1947.
William, born November 24, 1858, was the third son of G.W. and Elise (Schuchmann) Jatho. He was a member of the German Fusiliers, an honorary militia in Charleston which played a part in the city's centennial in 1881 (William's uncle Philip Schuchmann made the flags for the event).
William married Jennie Juliana Catherina Müller, daughter of Louis Müller (pastor of St. Matthews Church in Charleston) and Caroline Laurent, in 1887. They had six children: a stillborn son (1888), Jennie Ethel (1889), Louis William (1891), Phillip Marcellus Paul (1893), Marie Caroline Elise (1897), and George William (1900). Phillip died in 1903 but the other four children grew to adulthood.
William worked as a clerk at his uncle Philip's fancy-goods store in Charleston and took over the business when Philip died in 1900. He had also been a partner with his brother George as a merchandise broker. At the age of 46, William developed tuberculosis and died at a sanitorium in Summerville, SC on December 24, 1904. He was buried at Bethany Cemetery in Charleston. To support the family Jennie Jatho taught music in Charleston for the rest of the decade and Jennie's older daughter Jennie Ethel (known as Ethel) worked in an art supply store.
Jennie and her children were still listed in Charleston in mid-April 1910 when the federal census was conducted but by July we find Ethel in Chicago, along with (we assume) the rest of her family. What was the reason for this sudden flight? The birth of Ethel's only daughter, Mary Jane Campbell, may be a clue. In July 1910 Cook County issued a birth certificate for the infant girl, whose father was listed as Leonard Campbell, a thirty-year-old salesman.
The 1912 Chicago directory listed Ethel (shown at left in her confirmation photo) as
as the widow of Louis L. Campbell. Worth noting is the fact that we cannot
locate a birth, marriage/divorce or death record for
Leonard or Louis Campbell so it's impossible to document the marriage.
Mary Jane, later known as Margaret, was later adopted by Ethel's second husband, Orrie Crossey, whom she married in 1914. Both Ethel and Margaret were landscape painters.
Ethel's little sister Marie Jatho adventurously eloped at age thirteen with a William R. Aylen, a much-married insurance man fifteen years her senior; the marriage was quickly annulled, probably to everyone's relief except Marie's. Her second (and final) marriage was to Alva MacLaughlan in 1914.
Their brother Louis William, originally a railway worker and later a house painter and decorator, married Martha Kruschke (of the Eau Claire, Wisconsin Kruschke line) in 1918; the settled for a time in Chicago, Eau Claire, and eventually moved to St. Paul, MN. Louis Jatho is at the far right in the photo above next to his wife Martha at a 1940 birthday party and family reunion in Eau Claire.
And Jennie's younger son George William Jatho (who shared the same name with his uncle and grandfather) was a bank messenger and proprietor of a small grocery store. He married Ruth Shallanberger in Chicago in 1921. His sister Marie's elder children, Marie and Tom, were flower girl and ring bearer, respectively, at their wedding.
Jennie returned briefly to Charleston in 1922 to keep house for her brother, W.A.C. Mueller, who was a traveling clergyman after having served St. Matthew's with distinction for a number of years. Jennie returned back to Chicago in 1925 for health reasons. She lived with son George and his family until her death in 1934. She was buried at Bethany Cemetery in Charleston.