Carl Ludwig Grohndorff's Wives

Recently I came across a passenger list from 1882 that apparently has our third great grandfather Grohndorff returning from Hamburg (via Glasgow) with his third wife and step daughter, Wilhelmine and Martha Stezner. I'm reasonably certain it's them. There aren't many Carl Ludwig Grohndorffs in the world, and fewer still who were living in Appleton, Wisconsin. The German purser heard the name as "Abliton, America", but that's close enough for me.

Passenger list for the 22 April 1882 sailing of the North Star out of Hamburg, with Carl Ludwig, Wilhelmine and Martha Grohndorff

It's an intriguing artifact. A transatlantic crossing was an arduous undertaking, even for a young man, and Carl was in his 80's at the time. Wilhelmina was about 40, and I'm guessing she had family business to attend to -- perhaps a dying parent or an estate to settle. I may learn more from their passport applications or emigration papers, if they ever turn up.

We know very little about Wilhelmina, other than that she was born in 1836 to Gottlieb and Eva Mahn, probably in Germany, and that she married a man named Stezner who died sometime before she and Carl Ludwig Grohndorff married in 1876. It's from great aunt Leonor Grohndorff that we learn she was widowed, and that she had a daughter who used to visit at her grandmother's house. That the daughter's name was Martha we get from this passenger list, and the rest we get from Wilhelmina and Carl's marriage record.

Carl Ludwig's first wife, by the way, was our third great grandmother. She died before he emigrated with his his second wife, Caroline Johanne Meyer, and their son, Carl Friedrich (our great-great grandfather) in 1854. Carl Friedrich's emigration papers give his name as Carl Friedrich Wagner/Grohndorff, so I've assumed that his mother's maiden name was Wagner. But it's also possible that Wagner was her name from a previous marriage, which could mean that our second great grandfather was a Wagner by birth and that Carl Ludwig Grohndorff was his stepfather. If that hunch leads me anywhere, I'll be sure to post it.

Carl Ludwig's second wife, Caroline Johanne Meyer, might be related to the Meiers of Zorndorf, which could make for some interesting tangles in our family tree. Currently, I know only that she was born about 1800, that she emigrated with Carl from Cocceji-Neudorf in 1854, and that she died in Wisconsin in 1875. Meyer could be a married name. If she had children by that marriage, and any of her children emigrated, I may be able to learn more from their records.

Carl Ludwig died in 1887, just five years after returning from Hamburg. He was 87. I don't know what became of Wilhelmina and her daughter. Presumably she remarried. Martha, we know, kept in touch with her step-brother, but she, like her mother, hasn't left an obvious paper trail.

I'm still searching.