Jennie Smith is 3rd from the right. The handwriting on the photo says “Catherine Mom Smith” and “Aunt Jennie Weeber” and “Jeanette Smith”. Catherine Mom Smith could be Jennie’s grandmother Trientje Vogel Smit, mother of Jacob. Trientje emigrated from the Netherlands in1893, four years after Jakob arrived with wife Agnes, mother-in-law Jantje Alberda, and Agnes’s sister Henrietta. If the woman labeled in the photo is indeed Jennie’s grandmother, she would be in her late 60’s or early 70’s. She lived in the Dutch community in Grand Rapids, MI (1900 Census) with her daughter Rina Knoll and five children, Henry (b. 1894), Klaas (b. 1895), Daulke (b. 1896), Trientje (b. 1898), and Geertje (b. 1899). She died at the age of 74 on February 28 1904 and is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Grand Rapids. Jeanette Smith (Wendt) was Jennie’s younger sister, born March 5 1902 so IF “Catherine Mom Smith” is Trientje, the oldest Jeanette could be in this summer picnic photo would be about 18 months, which is possible but she looks a little bit older to me. The other possibility is that “Catherine Mom Smith” is actually “Catherine” AND “Mom Smith”. That would mean Mom Smith is Agnes and the baby is Jennie’s little sister Catherine, who was born in September 1907, so this would be the following summer. Jeanette would be 6 years old and Jennie would be about 17. It could even be her birthday– I see cake on the table!
Jennie (Alberda) Weeber was Jennie’s aunt who emigrated from the Netherlands with her sisters Agnes and Henrietta, mother Jantje, and brother-in-law Jacob. The 1910 Census lists her living with her husband Henry H.W. Weeber and four children on LaSalle Street in Chicago.
