This is a photo of my great-grandmother Dorothy Mueller and her grandmother, Wilhelmina Nahrstaedt, after a large snowstorm. This photo was likely taken in Dorothy’s backyard at 1618 Diversey Ave. in Chicago, about 1916. It had apparently snowed so much that the doghouse was nearly covered, and the snow was piled up to the windows in the garage! It looks like Dorothy is having a great time playing in the snow!

Dorothy Marie Mueller was born on December 17, 1908 in Chicago. Her parents were Albert Carl Mueller and Louise Marie Nahrstaedt, and they were active members of the German community in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood. Her father and uncle were involved in the brick making industry in Lakeview, which was waning by this time. Dorothy had two older sisters, Gertrude and Edna. The family attended St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, where the girls also attended school until 8th grade. Dorothy would later marry Erwin Wischmeyer in 1934 and have two children.

Auguste Marie Wilhelmina Kaefermann (who normally went by Wilhelmina) was born in Germany in 1856. She married Ludwig Nahrstaedt in about 1877 in Germany, and their first three children were born there. Sometime in early 1891, Ludwig left for the US to find a new home for them in Chicago. Several months later in August 1891, when she was eight months pregnant, she gathered up the three children and followed him to the US. They settled in Lakeview, just north of Chicago, and Ludwig found a job as a teamster for a lumber company. Their daughter Louise would marry Albert Mueller, and they would live nearby at 1618 W. Diversey Ave. Ludwig would pass away in April 1916, likely just after this photo was taken. Wilhelmine would pass away in March 1929. They are both buried at Eden Memorial Park in Schiller Park, IL.