Luise had an interesting story which I’ve pieced together through reading German and American records and information from my mother. She was born to Franz Xaver Bötzle and Luise Blessing on 17 May 1866 in Bartenbach, Germany. Her father was Catholic from Goppertsweiler, Germany and her mother was Protestant from Bartenbach. It was not unheard of for Catholics and Protestants to marry, but it was rare. (I once calculated the number from the marriages in my database, and mixed marriages were 1% of the total marriages.) Franz Xaver was a Bürger (citizen) and day laborer and later a factory worker. They weren’t wealthy, but not dirt poor either. I have a copy of the inventory of goods that they were required to submit when they married. The terms are archaic German, so I can’t read everything (anything), but the point is that they had possessions when they married. He was also listed as a Bürger or citizen. That wasn’t an automatic right in Germany as it is here in the US. You had to have a certain income and standing in the community to be a Bürger.  
There were 4 children born of the marriage, 2 boys and 2 girls. A girl, also named Luise Katharine died at 4 months and a boy, named Xaver Wilhelm died at age 2. Only Luise and her brother, Gebhard, lived to maturity. 5 days after Luise was born, her father committed suicide by hanging and his body was sent to Tübingen. I’m sure it was sent to the medical school located there. I guess he couldn’t be buried in the cemetery because he committed suicide and was Catholic. 6 months later, her mother married Wilhelm Adolf Höll from Birkenfeld. Her mother died when Luise was four and she stayed in Birkenfeld and lived with her step-family. Evidently, they did not treat her very well. She told my mother that she had to eat in the kitchen with the old grandmother and wasn’t allowed to eat with the family. 
Luise emigrated to America in 1882 at age 16. Her passage to America was probably paid by the village. Villages sometimes paid for poor people to emigrate, rather than have them stay and be an ongoing cost to the village. Her older brother, Gebhard, stayed in Germany and joined the military. I have a picture of him in a blue and yellow uniform. I ‘ve never found him in any records, so I don’t know if he died in the military, or if he married in another part of Germany. I’ve never found any trace of him in the Göppingen area. This means that we have no direct ancestors left in Germany. (We are distant cousins to almost everyone else in the Göppingen area, though.)
When Luise emigrated to America, I heard that she first lived in Nebraska and then moved to Leavenworth, Kansas where she appears in the census and city directories. In Kansas, she worked at the City Hall restaurant. There she met and married my great-grandfather, John Kellum on 2 Sep 1886. He was a miner and he was also black. I’ve always thought it interesting that a young German girl would marry a black man. And that there was a black population in Kansas in the 1880s. From what I’ve read, after the Civil War there was a migration of black people to Kansas because of the mining industry.  According to Luise, John was born in 1861 in Baltimore, Maryland. This means that he was possibly born into slavery. I’ve never been able to trace his family, but evidently, he was trying to pass as white. On the 1910 California census his race is listed as “W” which is crossed out and “other” written next to it. He probably told the census taker he was white and the census taker went outside, crossed it out and said “no way”. He also said that he was a steamboat captain, which I thought was pure fabrication since he was a miner in Kansas. When we were cleaning out my brother’s house after his death, I came across a very faded certificate for some type of steamship certification for Leonhard Kellum, so it was at least partially true.  I tried to put it in a safe place, but the place is so safe I’ve never found it again. (My brother lived in an old log cabin in American Fork that Luise purchased in the 1940s, so it was originally her house.) Several family members have had their DNA tested and we are part West African (specifically Senegal). 
Only two children lived to maturity from that marriage, my grandfather, Percy, and his sister Helen (who died childless). About 1910, Luise moved to California with her two children. My great-grandfather, John, followed, and died in December 1910. Eight years later she married a German emigrant, Martin Brandt. Martin arrived in the US through the port of San Francisco and was naturalized in 1911. On the intent to naturalize certificate, he gives his place of birth as Derschau, Russia. My father said that the town was near Gdansk, Poland. I’ve searched, but have never located the exact town or records for Derschau.
 Martin was a merchant marine and worked on the docks in San Pedro, California. There were no children from this marriage and as far as I know, Martin had no previous marriages or children. According to my father, Robert Brandt, Martin orginally spelled his last name as “Brant”. However, there was a family on the same street named Brant and the mail kept getting mixed up, so Martin started spelling it “Brandt”.
The story of Luise’ chidren, Percy and Helen is somewhat sketchy also. According to my mother, Helen wanted to be in the movies, but the only records I’ve been able to locate is a certificate of graduation from the eight grade in 1911 and a certificate of graduation from hair dressing school also in 1911. Someone told me that she married a man called Charley Francieon, but I’ve never been able to confirm that. I’ve never found any official marriage or death records for her. Evidently she died childless.
Percy had a somewhat checkered past. He also entered the hair profession becoming a barber. He registered for World War I and stated that he was a barber employed by Folsom Prison. I recently found out that he was actually an inmate of Folsom prison working as a barber. He was arrested in 1914 at age 27 in San Bernardino County for forgery. The sentence was for 8 years and he was paroled in 1917. He was listed as 5 feet 6 ¾ inches, fair complected, blue eyes, brown curly hair, protestant, and poorly educated. Even though he is listed with blue eyes and fair complected, there is a notation on his record of “negro”.
In 1922 he married Daisy Fallon, who had been previously married to Joseph Pedro and had one daughter by him. The daughter remained with her father, Joseph. 
Daisy and Percy had five children, although the oldest child, Thomas, was born before their marriage. Percy was not the father of this child. Luise told my mother that the father was Joseph Guthrie, the man that Daisy lived with after her divorce from Percy.
In 1926, Percy and Daisy divorced and at age 60 Luise took in my father as a six-month old infant. She never formally adopted my father and he used the last name Kellum until about high school when he was known as Bob Brandt. The other children remained with their mother. Reportedly their life was hard and Daisy worked as a migrant farm worker, moving frequently. In the 1930 census, the children were living in a Children’s home. At least one child, Blanche, got tired of that life and she found a family to live with. She helped the family and lived with them at least through high school. Her daughter, Candy, knows more details about that period of her mother’s life. 
Luise lost contact with her son and about 1948 she decided to collect on a life insurance policy she had on Percy. The life insurance company found him living in California. He visited Utah and this was the first time my father met his father. Bob was married and my oldest brother was about 9 months old.
When Luise lived in California, she worked as a washerwoman. Martin and Luise moved back and forth from California to Utah, living in San Pedro and Fresno.  After Martin’s death, Luise moved permanently to Utah. Luise was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1941 in Utah. She remained in Utah until her death on 30 Jan 1951, five days after an operation to remove a gangrenous gastrointestinal obstruction. She is buried in the American Fork City Cemetery.