Susanna Prieb Greenwald (1838-1923)

Early Life

Susanna Prieb was born on 9 April 1838 in Mittelstrimmig, a small Catholic farming village on the Hunsrück plateau in the Rhineland. She was the daughter of Petri Josef Prieb and Sybilla Peifer and grew up among siblings and extended family in a community where agriculture, church, and family shaped daily life.

When Susanna was ten, her father died.

His death changed the circumstances of the household. Her widowed mother, Sybilla, was left to support and care for her children in a rural economy where opportunities were limited.

By the mid-1850s, economic difficulties and poor harvests were encouraging many families from the Hunsrück region to leave for America.

Sybilla decided that her family would be among them.

Why She Left

Susanna apparently did not make the decision to emigrate herself. She was seventeen when her widowed mother took Susanna and several of her siblings to America in 1855.

That distinction is important.

For Susanna, immigration began as a family strategy led by her mother. The loss of her father had left the household more economically vulnerable, and emigration offered the family a possibility of rebuilding elsewhere.

Sybilla did not send her children ahead. She went with them.

That experience would become especially significant later in Susanna’s life, when she too would face the challenge of sustaining a family after the death of her husband.

Journey to Illinois

Sybilla, Susanna, two brothers, and a sister departed from Antwerp aboard the George Hurlbert. They arrived in New York on 25 June 1855.

The precise details of their journey from New York to Chicago have not been documented. Once there, however, the family entered a city with a substantial German immigrant population and established German Catholic communities.

It was in Chicago that Susanna met Andreas “Andrew” Gruenewald.

Andrew had been born near Oberfell in the Rhineland, not far from Susanna’s home region, but no evidence has been found that they knew one another before immigration.

Two separate journeys from neighboring German communities had brought them to the same American city.

Building a Life in Illinois

Susanna and Andrew married about 1859. By 1860, they were living in Chicago’s Tenth Ward with their first child, Peter John. Andrew worked as a laborer, and the couple reported owning $600 in real estate.

Their family continued to grow. Susanna later reported that she had given birth to nine children, six of whom survived.

By 1870, the family was living in Chicago’s Seventh Ward. Andrew had become a saloon keeper, and the couple appeared to be establishing greater economic stability. Then their circumstances changed abruptly.

Andrew died on 30 September 1872, at only forty-one. Susanna was thirty-four years old and had several young children.

After Andrew’s death, Susanna and her children moved to 1049 30th Street. By 1880, four children were still living with her. The household increasingly depended upon their combined labor.

The destruction of the 1890 census leaves a gap in Susanna’s story, but by 1900 she was still living at the house on 30th Street—and she still owned it. Her daughter Anna and Anna’s husband, Frank, were living with her, along with their young daughter, Emma.

In 1907, Anna’s husband Frank died. Once again, a husband’s death disrupted the household economy. Susanna eventually sold the house on 30th Street. By 1910, she, Anna, and Anna’s children were living in a rented home on Mosspratt Street, now Aberdeen Street.

Anna supported the household by working as a dressmaker.

By 1920, Susanna was eighty-two years old. She was living with family at 2952 Bonfield Street in another rented home. Remarkably, the census recorded Susanna as still working—as a laundress for a private family. Other members of the household worked as well. Emma was a bank stenographer, Edmond was a stenographer for a manufacturing company, and Francis worked as a stock clerk in the stockyards.

Nearly sixty-five years after Susanna had arrived in America as a seventeen-year-old traveling with her widowed mother, she was part of another multigenerational household in which family members pooled their labor to support one another.

Susanna died in Chicago on 27 September 1923 at the age of eighty-five.

She was buried beside Andrew at Saint Boniface Cemetery.

Why This Story Matters

There is an extraordinary symmetry in Susanna Prieb’s life. When she was ten, her father died. Seven years later, her widowed mother took her children across the Atlantic and began again in America.

Then, at thirty-four, Susanna lost her own husband and faced a similar problem: how could a family continue when the person who had provided much of its economic support was suddenly gone?

The answer, in both generations, was the family itself.

Susanna’s story allows us to see the household functioning as something much more than a place where relatives lived together. It was an economic safety net.

Susanna Prieb’s life shows us how families repeatedly reorganized themselves when circumstances changed. Over nearly seventy years in Chicago, she moved from dependent daughter to wife, mother, widow, property owner, grandmother, and wage earner—but throughout those changes, family remained the safety net.

Source Documents

The research documents for the Greenwald 1851 migration story:

• Biographical Sketch (PDF)
• Migration to Illinois (PDF)
• Genealogical Summary and Children (PDF)
• Legacy (PDF)

Related Reading

• Gruenewald (Greenwald), Andreas Andrew
• Gruenewald Migration Story
• Paths to Illinois, Volume I The Jepson Family Story
• Migration Timeline of all sixteen families
• Ancestors & Surnames index

• Gruenewald Migration Story
• Paths to Illinois, Volume I The Jepson Family Story

My Blog and Newsletter have additional stories and research related to the Gruenewald family.