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NAME(s): Alice Cromiller

OTHER WRITTEN INFO: Bay St. Louis, Mississippi

                                      died about 1907 in New Orleans, Louisiana at the hospital

PHOTOGRAPHER: Butler, Bay St. Louis, Mississippi

CARD SIZE: 15 cm x 20.25

WHERE PURCHASED: Winnie, Texas

WHEN PURCHASED: April 27, 2007

RESEARCHED INFO: 

From Peg Blask

     In our family, the story of Alice is always a heartbreaker. None of us ever knew her except through the memories of my grandfather, Alice's son Clarence.

     Alice Rosa is the daughter of William C. Miller of Germany and Caroline Löb (Loeb) of New Orleans. She first married August Gerhard Ehrhardt, my ggrandfather in New Orleans in the year 1895. They had one son, Clarence August, born in 1897. When Clarence was only 2 years old, Alice fled from her domicile with her son and went to live with her sister Josephine and Josephine's husband,  Forest Bangard in Bay St. Louis, MS. Alice and Josephine's mother, Caroline, lived with them also. For the next eight years they all lived together, modestly, but happily as there were many family around. According to Clarence's tales, the adults in the household delighted in their children and a rather up-beat attitude prevailed. In 1906, Alice second married the brother of Forest, John Bangard.
     In October 1907, only a few months after acting as witness to her sister Rose's marriage to Luther Miles Butts, Alice was rushed to Hotel Dieu in New Orleans to have an emergency abdominal hysterectomy. She lost much blood and died of complications. She was 29 years old at her death.

     Clarence was called upon by his father, August, to live with him in New Orleans on Carrollton Ave & Clarence left Bay St. Louis behind forever. August was an angry man, so Forest and Josephine, themselves childless, followed Clarence to New Orleans and lived just a few blocks from his house, so that he could continue to reap the benefits of their love and guardianship. After Clarence came of age, Forest and Josephine moved to Beaumont, Texas where Alice's mother Caroline died.

     Alice's remains are buried in Bay St. Louis in the Bangard family plot at Cedar Rest cemetery. She lies beside her mother. Also buried there are the remains of Josephine, Forest and John Bangard as well as those of other Bangard family. My mother, Mary Alice Ehrhardt, named for Alice Cromiller, remembers visiting Beaumont, Texas with her father Clarence to see Josephine and Forest. She has no memory of John Bangard.

Note: I have not yet discovered the circumstances surrounding the change of the name from "Miller" to "Cromiller", but have found several documents with both names, signatures matching.