The Ulrich/Baker Ancestral Lines

Ellen Baker has been a mystery ancestor for everyone.  It is strange because she is not a very distant ancestor.  She is my 2x great-grandmother, grandmother to Ira ‘Bud’ Baker.  We assume a matriarch of the Baker Mennonites in Oregon. 

Yet, Ellen was not a Mennonite, nor was her husband – Eli Baker (see THE HOTELIER).  This is the only non-Amish / Amish-Mennonite ancestral line in the Baker side of the family.  It was her youngest son, the deaf Eli Frederick Baker, who became a Mennonite as a young man, prior to his marriage with Ida Pearl (Hostetler).

At the time of this writing, I believe Ellen Baker to be the last of our immigrant ancestors to arrive to America.  So why so hard to determine her genealogy?  

Her age at immigration and the name change of her mother are the primary reasons.

Lenore Charlotte Castning/Kastning was born July 3, 1827-29 in Schoholtensen, Grafschaff Schaumburg, Hesse-Nassau, Prussia, Germany.  She was the middle child.  Her Father, Carl Ernst Freidrich Wilhelm Kastning – also known as Fred Kastning – died when she was probably 4-5 years old.  Her older sister was likely 3 yrs older and her younger brother 3-4 yrs younger.  A very young family, with the loss of their father.  Their mother, Charlotte Marie Sophie (Gellerman) remarried probably fairly quickly, in 1836 to Johann Conrad Wille. Their first child came quickly in 1836, followed by 3 more children in quick succession. 

The family immigrated with 6 children (one Wille child probably died in Germany) in 1840-41 when Lenore Charlotte (Ellen Baker) was 11-12 yrs old.  She would have been underage on a ships list, and she would have been listed as a child of Johann and Charlotte Wille.  There would be no mention of the Kastnings, other than perhaps the older daughter, Sophie Charlotte.  Nevertheless, the family were “Wille’s”.

In America, Lenore Charlotte began to use the name “Lenora” and “Ellen”.   After her marriage with Eli Baker, her 9 children began to be born in Sioux City, Iowa, then after the disastrous fire of their hotel in 1871, the family continued to move west… California then Oregon.  

Her relationship with her other siblings (both Kastning and Wille) probably was minimal due to the distance and the difficulty of life and communications in the 1800-1900’s.  Ellen Baker travelled with her gypsy-husband, Eli.  While her siblings and mother all seemed to arrive to America and settled in Illinois.  

Interestingly, her mother and two half-siblings were born in Schaumburg, Germany and died in Schaumburg, Illinois.   This is an unspoken confirmation of the German settlement in Illinois that they settled into and did not venture out of.  Ellen did not follow in their mold.  

ALL of the Kastning/Wille children died and are buried in Cook County, Illinois or specifically- Schaumburg, Illinois.  Ellen was buried in Silverton, Oregon.