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Schlatter Family Photos:
Possibly of Emma Waldner's Family

My paternal grandmother -- my father's mother -- was Emma Waldner.  She came to the U.S. with my grandfather, Adolph Schlatter, in October 1910.  They settled in Shaw, Bolivar County, Mississippi, where they ran a bakery and later a small grocery store.  Adolph died in 1930.  Emma's brother, Louis, was a chef in the Mayflower hotel, Washington, D.C. He came to Shaw to help operate the bakery.  Emma died in 1948 and, as far as I know, Louis returned to either D.C. or New York.  Eventually, he returned to Switzerland, where he died in 1954.

Emma Waldner (Schlatter); Born 26 December 1885, Baden-Baden, Germany; died 1 May 1948, Cleveland, Mississippi.

My mother, Annie Lee Richardson Schlatter, had several photos in her possession when she died in March 2007.  She told me these photos were of Emma's family in Switzerland.  I have no idea of the provenance of these photos, but, this is what I suspect.

•  Adolph and Emma had three sons:  John (b. 1911, d. 1960); Joseph (b. 1915, d. 2005); Fred (b. 1921, d. 2010). 
•  Adolph and Emma spoke German at home and the boys spoke German and English.
•  John, the oldest son, was 19 when his father died and as far as I know, John worked in the family business so his two brothers, Joseph and Fred, could continue in school and later in college (Delta State College, Cleveland, MS).
• Emma died in 1948.
•  John married Nancy Shuster (of Myrtle Beach, SC) in 1952.  After John's death in 1960, Nancy and her two young children returned to Myrtle Beach.
•  The photos below were given to my mother by Nancy, John's wife, sometime between 1995 and 2004.
•  I suspect -- and this is only my guess -- that Emma maintained contact, probably by mail, with her family in Switzerland.  One of these photos is dated 1952 -- four years after Emma's death.  I think John may have contacted the family in Switzerland to tell them of Emma's death and they sent these photos to  him.
•  Or, the two undated photos could have been sent to Emma by her family in Switzerland before her death.
•  Or, these photos could have been sent to John in Mississippi by his uncle, Louis Waldner, after Louis returned to Switzerland in 1950.  Why would Louis have written in German on the back of the photos if he was sending them to John?  Maybe Louis did not write on the photos -- it's possible that a family member in Switzerland gave these photos to Louis, wrote on the back of them, then Louis sent them to John in Mississippi.

Regardless, here are three family photos.  If anyone can read the German inscriptions on the back, please send me an email with the translation.  Thank you.

Front of photo.  Judging by the ages of the people in this photo, and based on the date on the back of the photo -- October 1952 -- I suspect the older lady in the center of the back row is a sister of Emma, my grandmother.   The two younger women are her daughters or daughters-in-law, and the children would be her grandchildren, the children of the young women.  UPDATE, December 2010:  According to the notes on the back of the photo, the people are (L - R):  Manfred (boy in long white coat), Daughter Edith (lady in black hat), Harald (child on Edith's lap), Brigitta (infant in white stocking cap), Wolfgang (infant in white), Daughter-in-law Gusti (lady on right), Ranier (boy with cap and dark clothing in Gusti's lap).  The older lady in the center is not named; I suspect she may be the one who wrote the inscription on the back of the photo.