Christian and Maria Weidemann Family Tree
Christian Heinrich Johannes Weidemann
b. February 16, 1837 in Neustadt, Schleswig-Holstein [present day northern Germany]
d. June 22, 1913 in Detroit, Michigan
Maria Sophia Wolff Weidemann
b. Aug. 2, 1841 in Wolkow, Pomerania, Prussia [present day northern Germany]
d. Mar. 14, 1928 in Detroit, Michigan
Christian and Maria, both German immigrants, met in Detroit and married in 1868. They had eight children, born between 1868 and 1885, seven of whom lived to adulthood.
Henry Weidemann
b. Nov. 9, 1868 in Detroit, MI
d. Aug. 10, 1869 in Detroit, MI
Laura Weidemann
b. Dec. 13, 1869 in Detroit, MI m. Edmund C. VonDerHeide
d. Dec. 21, 1941 in Detroit, MI
Oscar Weidemann
b. Aug. 1, 1871 in Detroit, MI
m. Mary Moynahan
d. Feb. 9, 1920 in Detroit, MI
Mathilde “Tillie” Weidemann
b. Dec. 16, 1874 in Detroit, MI
d. Feb. 1961 in Detroit, MI
Alma Weidemann
b. Oct. 1, 1876 in Detroit, MI
d. Jan. 4, 1928 in Detroit, MI
Caroline “Carrie” Weidemann
b. Jul. 23, 1880 in Detroit, MI
m. George Dingeldey
d. Nov. 29, 1962 in Detroit, MI
Emma Weidemann
b. Jan. 12, 1883 in Detroit, MI
d. Jul. 27, 1964 in Detroit, MI
Walter Weidemann
b. Jul. 23, 1885 in Detroit, MI
d. Jun. 2, 1955 in Detroit, MI
Christian and Maria’s seven surviving adult children all attended Detroit schools and continued to call southeast Michigan home. Those who married often, but not always, chose spouses with German roots.
Laura Weidemann married Edmund VonDerHeide, an accountant (and son of German immigrants) in 1899. They had three children.
Mathilde Weidemann studied education and became a schoolteacher and early female principal. She spent over 50 years working in the Detroit Public Schools system at Everett, Washington Normal, Ferry, Hancock, Fanny Wingert, and Chandler Schools.
Oscar Weidemann followed his father into the arts. He trained in New York and Germany before returning to Detroit to work with his father for the Wright Company and may have been on the team that painted the Capitol in the 1880s.
Alma Weidemann worked as a saleswoman in a department store – a burgeoning new career field for women. After the death of Oscar and Mary, she adopted their daughter (her namesake) Alma.
Caroline Weidemann pursued a career as a typewriter and stenographer, working for multiple Detroit companies. She married George Dingeldey, the son of German immigrants, in 1936.
Emma Weidemann was employed as a teacher in Pittsburgh and then the Detroit Public Schools. She taught at Rose, Ferry, and Lincoln Schools.
Walter Weidemann spent his career working in multiple engineering fields. He married twice: Laura Lichtenberg in 1914 (widowed 1947) and Clara Diem in 1950. Both women had German ancestry.
Oscar Weidemann, the third oldest of the children, married Mary Moynahan and had one child, Alma M. Weidemann. Alma would become the eventual heir to - and caretaker of - her father’s and grandfather’s personal and professional artwork.
Alma M. Weidemann
b. Apr. 9, 1904 in Detroit, MI
d. Aug. 26, 2004 in Ann Arbor, MI
Dr. Ewald C. Swanson
b. Jan. 3, 1900 in Au Train, MI
d. Sep. 26, 1987 in Saginaw, MI
Oscar and Mary’s daughter, Alma, met her future husband, Ewald Swanson, via her cousin, Elmore VonDerHeide (son of Laura Weidemann and Edmund VonDerHeide). He encouraged her to pursue a college degree. Alma took his advice, studying education at the Michigan State Normal School (now Eastern Michigan University). Following in the footsteps of her aunts, she found employment in the Detroit Public Schools teaching physical education. In 1928 she married Ewald, with whom she had three children.
After graduating from Alma College and working for the Ford Motor Company, Ewald Swanson studied medicine at Wayne State University. In the 1930s, he and Alma moved to Vassar, Michigan, where Ewald practiced medicine for many years. At one time he made frequent trips to Lansing in his capacity as the Executive Secretary of the Board of Registration for Medicine, with the Michigan Licensing Board. His work sometimes brought him to the Michigan State Capitol, where he attended meetings amidst the art that his wife’s grandfather designed and painted!
Weidemann Family Detroit Residences
Christian Weidemann arrived in Detroit in 1867 and married Maria Wolff in 1868. Christian and Maria Weidemann settled on Russell Street between Highland Park and Hamtramck originally, before moving downtown in the 1870s. From 1870 to 1875, the Weidemanns lived at 182 Clinton Street. In 1876, the Weidemanns moved to Croghan Street (now Monroe Street) into an Italianate townhouse. They headed up Brush Street in 1905 and built a new home on Erskine Street. The family’s Erskine Street home cost $6,000 to build and was designed by Norval Waldrop and Louis Keil. It remained in the family through the mid-1940s then served as the home of the Detroit chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi for the following seven decades.
Several of Christian and Maria Weidemann’s children lived at the Erskine Street home through adulthood. Only four children married. Laura Weidemann VonDerHeide lived at 210 Pingree Street from her marriage in 1912, through her death in 1941. Oscar Weidemann lived at 1394 Belvidere from 1908 through his death in 1920. Walter Weidemann lived at 203 Tennyson Street in Highland Park from 1919 through 1932, when he then moved around until ultimately retiring in Saint Clair County in 1955 before his death. Caroline Weidemann Dingeldey married later in life and resided in Metro Detroit.
The sister of Christian Weidemann, Maria Weidemann Hensler, lived in the same home at 87 Catherine Street from 1867 through her death in 1921. This home and street ultimately ceased to exist when the Black Bottom area of Detroit was razed for the construction of I-375. This was a culturally and ethnically diverse area of the city in which many immigrant groups – like the German Weidemann and Hensler families – settled.