Aunt Mart, Billy
Bill Palmer
(page from Ruth Holtzman Hey's album)
I can remember only one time that Aunt Mart visited Grandma in her home on 13th Avenue, and they seemed so glad to see one another. Aunt Mart was born in 1886 so Grandma would have been almost 19 years old. When Sue and I visited Aunt Mart in her home in Eldora, Iowa, she remarked that even as a little girl, she can't remember Grandma being in the home. That seems surprising since Grandma did not marry until Mart was thirteen years old.
Mother told me that during World War II Aunt Mart was employed as a cook at a sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan, where wounded soldiers were being cared for. It was there she met and married Gerhard Ilsenius, who was a baker at the sanitarium. Aunt Mart had been married to Bill Palmer, a salesman, and had one son Bill. Gerhard was a German who had come to America some time before World War II. I was told he had worked at Matzingers nursery across the street from our present home on Freeport Road, Sterling. I had visited the nursery only once as a child but did not see any of the help. Mr. Matzinger had a beautifully landscaped area that looked to me like a Japanese garden.
(recollections by Janna Hey Dean)
Bill Palmer
(Aunt Mart's son)
front: W.W., Paul, Billy, Mart;
back: Jen, Grandma Johnson, Hennie (1921)
front: Hennie, Mart;
back: Jen, Grandma Johnson (1921).
Bill Palmer, Aunt Mart's Husband
(on walk in front of Grandma's house)
