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Committed suicide May have been living in Iowa February 10, 2001 Dear Cousins, I know I have asked all of you, at different times if you knew
why and how Grandpa Schenken committed suicide. Interesting that within a few
days I received separate letters from Anneliese Pfuhl and Dr. Silvia Koch with
the following information. This is not all pleasent to read, but it is
apparently a true reflection of what happened at the time I quote froma letter dated 3 February, 2001, from Dr. Koch: "Concerning your question of your Grandfather Schenken's death I can inform you
by a letter of his sister, Luise Schenken. She was in correspondence with
Gertrud Stoy, nee Krebs, sister of my Grandmother, for many years, until the
1950's. They had met in 1911 in Freiburg when Luise visited Germany. After
the death in 1977 of Anita Stoy, Gertrud Stoy's daughter, we sorted out the
estate and we found several letters to Gertrud from Luise. In one of these
letters Luise wrote about the death of her brother, Rudolf Christian Schenken,
in 1906. He had had a lot of economical problems and went bankrupt. After
this he tried to end his life by gas [gas-cock but he couldn't manage it].
Then he took a glass of spectacles and cut his throat -- so written in Aunt
Luise's letter." Then in a letter dated 18 January, 2001, from Anneliese, she sent me a few
pages from material Helen Pfuhl is translating from notes Hugo Koch, one of
Hermann and Mathilde Koch's 13 children, had written about his brothers. About
Adolph Koch, his eldest brother, Hugo wrote: "As soon as Adolph had established himself in Iowa he asked his fiance to join
him. Johanne Carspecken quit her job in Uruguay and returned to Germany for a
visit. Once arrived in Luzerne she found friendly reception in a intimate
family, so that the wedding could take place soon after in the house of Rudolph
Schenken." The story then continues about how Adolph and Johanne settled into farm life
near Keystone, Iowa, then Hugo Koch wrote: "It was also during this visit [Hugo visited his brother Adolph in Iowa] that
Hugo and his brother [Adolph] visited the farm of Rudolph Schenken, only about
3 miles away, with whom Adolph was close friends and who according to Hugo had
already succeeded in improving his standard of living. This friendship formed
the basis for the marriage between their children. Hugo writes that this friendship with the Schenken family suffered after the
suicide of Minnie Koch's [daughter of Adolph] husband Rudi Schenken [son of
Rudolph]. The Schenken family didn't treat Minnie and her 6 children well, and
after the divorce between Jenny Koch [daughter of Arnold Koch] and her husband
Robert Schenken [also a son of Rudolph Schenken] the situation became worse." How very sad. And I am very grateful we seem to moved beyond those dark days. Our best wishes to you all, Rudy
Wolfgang
Krippendorff
