Day Marks

"In different hours, a man represents each of several of his ancestors, as if there were seven or eight of us rolled up in each man’s skin — seven or eight ancestors at least — and they constitute the variety of notes for that new piece of music which his life is." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

What Happened to Herman Hallen? Herman Hallen was born in 1844 in Spellen, Westfalen, Germany. He was the youngest child of Hermann Hallen and Elisabetha Wink. Hermann and Elisabeth had five other children: Joanna, Theodore, Christina, Godfrey, and Anna. Immigration records show that they all traveled from Spellen to Waterford, Racine, Wisconsin, in 1856. They all show up on the 1860 United States Census. Herman was sixteen years old at the time of the census. The 1860 census is the last record of Herman. In the 1870 census, his name is missing. The names of his parents and siblings appear in the 1870 census. They show up in various church books and civic records thereafter for marriages, christenings, and deaths. The other Hallen relatives have gravestones with dates in the cemeteries of Waterford, Burlington, Lyons, Phillips, or Marinette. Although stoic German parents would refrain from verbal expressions of grief, Herman’s death would certainly ha