Death Certificate:

Date of Death: July 20, 1937. Record #J-301.  Full name:  Maria Katherina Weiss

Age:  73 yrs, 2 mos 4 days, place of death:  Saginaw.

Cause of death:  Carcinoma of Breast, birthplace:  Michigan,

father:  George Zieroff residence Germany, mother:  Elizabeth Ernst, residence Germany

Obituary, Saginaw News July 21, 1937 -

Mrs. Marie Catherine Weiss, 73, widow of Leonard Weiss died Tuesday night at St. Mary’s hospital, Saginaw.  She was born in Saginaw May 16, 1864 and was married Nov. 10, 1886 to Mr. Weiss, who died in 1925.  She leaves five sons and daughters.  George and Walter Weiss, Mrs. Ernest Daenzer and Mrs John Kueffner of Frankenmuth and Martin Weiss of Rogers CIty.  The funeral will take place at 2 pm Friday at the home in Frankenmuth and at 2:30 pm at St. Lorenz church.  Rev. E. A. Mayer and Rev. A. C. Klammer will officiate and burial will be in St. Lorenz cemetery.

Saginaw county abstracts - naturalization records -

Zieroff, George Adam A - 58, King of Bavaria, 10 April 1854

Marriage Abstract:

Zieroff, George Adam 53, Saginaw County

Eliz. Cath. Schluckenmey (widow) 31, Saginaw County

4th September, 1861, Saginaw county

Martin Guenther, Lutheran minister, Witnesses:  John Zorn, John L. Anschultz  Saginaw County

Research done at Saginaw County Genealogical Socity - 10/19/86 -

- Source Holy Cross Lutheran Church register 1848-76, p 58/9

Zieroff, Anna Kath Marie. B 16 May 1864, Saginaw, MI, baptized 22 May 1864 at Holy Cross.  Father Adam, Mother El. Kath. Schlichenmaier

Sponsors Mres Stelzride & Mrs A. M. Zorn

Florence Parth wrote in 1991:

We don’t know very much about Katherine Zieroff, your great-great-grandma. We know she was either adopted or just lived and worked for someone in Frankenmuth.  We have pictures of Leonhardt and Katie.

Leonhardt worked the farm with Katie and their 5 children.  They had work horses which pulled the wagon and machines that they had, but they had to do a lot of work by hand.  They had cows, pigs, and chickens and geese for their meat, eggs, and milk.  They sold some, too, so they had a little money for sugar etc.  They took their wheat to be ground at the mill so Katie could bake bread, coffee cake and have flour for cooking.  They may have grown chicory for coffee, if they didn’t have money for coffee or tea.  They also grew vermouth from which they made a tea which seemed to be a medication for just about everything - headaches, sour stomach, tooth aches and back aches.  It was such a bitter tasting medicine that no one ever became addicted to it.  They took it because it took most pains away (or you thought the pain was gone just so Ma wouldn’t give you another dose.)  They always called their parents Ma and Pa, not mama, mommy or dad or daddy like they do now.  No one showed a lot of affection, no one even kissed in public!  They also had a neighbor that came from Germany and lived in a very old house about 900 feet east of us here.  He left Germany during the first World War 1914-1918.  They didn’t know much about him, but knew that he had been very rich  at one time.  But evidently something happened in Germany that he left or he was told to leave.  He make his living by digging ginseng which he sold to doctors.  You use only the root of this plant which is pulverized into a powder.  Leonhardt’s boys tried to find the plants, too, but this neighbor, Oscar Berger, kept his ginseng patch secret.