Until recently, I didn’t know much about Frances Streumpf Sendke. Only stories my father and aunts shared–passed down through the generations–about my paternal great grandmother.

One is a memory Dad shared about September 1. Apparently, every year on the morning of this day, his Grandma Sendke (she and Grandpa Sendke lived with them when Dad and his sisters Thelma and Violet were children) walked into their bedrooms, pulled back the covers, and shouted “September morn!”

I don’t know the cultural history behind that, but Dad’s “September morn” memory was cast as a celebratory moment long before Neil Diamond wrote his September Morn song.

Instead, I believe my great grandmother was acknowledging the arrival of September’s light and the nip in the air. It was a harbinger of fall days.

Another favorite bit of folklore about Frances Streumpf Sendke came from my Aunt Thelma. She shared a gauzy story about her grandmother, riding horseback in rural Missouri during the Civil War as union soldiers stormed through the countryside.

Today, on this September morn, I’m learning more about my great grandmother thanks to Ancestry DNA. According to census records, she was born in Westphalia, Missouri, in 1857 (exactly one hundred years before me). She died in the St. Louis area in October 1933.

Along the way, she married Charles Ludwig Sendke. He emigrated from Princelau, Germany. (According to Aunt Thelma, he left Germany as a stowaway on a ship at age 13.)

On October 14, 1884, their daughter Anna Louise Sendke Johnson (she went by Louise) was born. I remember the large floral print dresses she wore, the over-powering scent of her powder and perfume, how much she loved her soap operas, and visiting her in the hospital a few days before she died of a heart attack in April 1968. She was my paternal grandmother.

I’m sure I’ll be writing more about genealogy in the coming weeks. But for now, suffice it to say I’m enjoying learning more about my ancestors, all of whom have contributed to the person I am.

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Incidentally, after submitting my DNA swab several weeks ago, Ancestry DNA says I am comprised of the following heritage:

Sweden and Denmark = 33%

Scotland = 30%

Germanic Europe = 23%

Norway = 14%