First, a key document of the Luckert family history, a copy of the Marriage License of John C. Luckert and Julia Dannert. ("L'eau Qui Court," French for "running water," was the original name of Knox County and is still the name of the Niobrara cemetery.) Notable are the birthplaces, Saxony (German province) and Russia, as well as the Miss Dannert when her parents are listed as Witt and I always knew of her as the Widow Dannert; that is, Julia Witt Dannert married John C. Luckert, after he abandoned Cathryn Miller Luckert back East and ended up in Nebraska, after which Cathryn also remarried Albert Hermes, Sr., back in Newark, New Jersey. The data is confusing, because other sources claim a Pennsylvania birth for John Christopher Luckert and a Passau, Germany, birth for Caroline Juliana Witt Dannert. The license, with its apparent falsehoods, seems an appropriate start for the family tree complicated by second large families for John C. and Cathryn, leaving George Washington Luckert, from the original marriage, with many half brothers and sisters to sort through, a task I am not up to, having only my own memories. Maybe it's all about the American Western habit of re-inventing oneself.
In an entry in the Nebraska 1912 Compendium is a biographical sketch of John Christopher Luckert, which has him born in Pennsylvania but growing up in New York, later being in the Civil War, then in the Army in Wyoming and Arizona before settling in Nebraska, marrying Julia Whitt [sic], having 15 children by her, 11 living, with no mention of New Jersey or his first marriage or Grandpa George at all. Just to compound the confusion. This brief biography can be reached through Knox County, Nebraska (I had "Cemeteries" added because that's where I began), the title "Compendium of History, Reminiscence and Biography of Nebraska, 1912." It has information I never knew, growing up, just bare outlines, proving at once interesting and irritating. I had heard often enough the story about Grandpa George standing in the field where his father was plowing and ignoring him, stubbornly determined enough that his father, John C., finally stopped and acknowledged him. And in the following entry is a photo of some of the blended families together, whatever the false Nebraska Compendium biography says.
I will mention here that, if John Christopher Luckert came from Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, and my grandfather came out here to find his father, he must have had family there originally. And so I Googled "Luckert, Newark, New Jersey" and had pages popping up, the first for a Dr. Steven Luckert, the curator at the National Holocaust Museum. Likewise, there is a Hermes Genealogy Forum back there. And there are the John and Caroline Luckert, "Father" and "Mother," buried in the large Luckert section of the Bloomfield cemetery for further mystication.
By the way, John Christopher's father was Andrew Jackson Luckert, so apparently, given my grandfather's name, George Washington Luckert, born on 22 February 1873, Washington's birthday, the family had a presidential name fetish. Andrew's wife, Henraetta (not as spelled on the marriage certificate), is apparently buried in the Bloomfield, Nebraska, cemetery, her stone in my entry of 1 December 2008 marked "Died Jan 20 1898, Age 80 Yrs 4 Mos." But I can't find Julia's grave, though I have family photos of her. Aspirin, please.
On a large piece of butcher paper, the kind grocers used with one side waxed, Mom made a penciled sketch of all the branches of the Luckerts' complicated family groupings, obviously aided by Grandpa Luckert and other relatives. It is self-explanatory and obviously had to be done in sections, so here it is. Right-hand bottom first, the section over it, then the left-hand bottom, the section over it, and finally the upper right-hand corner.
A copy of a 26 April 1886 Deed, "Amasa B. Andrews to East Branch Cemetery Assn," is huge (two scrapbook pages) and hand-written by Great Grandfather Charles W. Jones, as the ending of it attests.
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