Susanna M Smith was the eleventh child born to James and Susannah (Overly) Smith. She was born on December 25, 1852 in Nine Mile, Indiana. She was the younger sister of my 2 times Great Grandfather James W Smith who was nine years older than Susan. Susan married Henry Rehnen on June 20, 1872 in Fort Wayne, Indiana. They had five children; Katherine M, Edward Bernard, Francis, Elnora, Rebecca.

So by now you must be thinking that, how could Susan (as she was known) be nearly forgotten? Well, let me tell you.

It all started with this picture. It is not one of the pictures that I wrote on for my Grandmother that summer day with all the other pictures.  She obviously continued to try to sort this out well after our picnic. This one she wrote on and it said “Della and her sister.” For the first few years of my research, the woman with the scowl was called Della because that is what Grandma said her name was. I later learned that she was sometime called Ella, Celia, Della and Oella depending upon the census or the record that you looked at. Grandma did not know her, she was her husband, Everett’s, Grandmother. My Grandmother knew that she was James W Smith’s wife but that was all she knew. I think that Grandma assumed her name was Della because she named her daughter Della. In due time I determined she was Oella Denney. I contacted all the Denney family member I could find in an attempt to find out which of Oella’s three sisters this could be in this picture. Each person responded that they did not know her. They said she is not a Denney.

The more I looked at this photo of Oella and her sister, I decided that the Denney family members were right, these two woman were not sisters. They did not look at all alike. I know that all sisters do not look alike but there are always some similarities and these two had none. Oella had a permanent scowl but the other woman had a bright face, maybe she is squinting but what I see is a smile! How could the lady with the scowl and the lady with the smile be sisters…. In my mind it just could not be. Yet this woman was very much apart of the lives of these relatives of mine. This picture is from a family baptism. It is Loydell Malone’s baptism. He is the Great Grandson of Oella Denney Smith and he was born in 1923.

Notice that Oella has the same dress on as in the previous picture. This picture is a four generation photo of Loydell Malone on the lap of his grandmother, Dora Jackson, with her daughter, Ruth Jackson Malone, standing and Oella seated next to her daughter, Dora. This photo was correctly identified, except of course that Oella is called Della. And it clearly stated that this was Loydell’s Baptism. So this told me that once again the smiling woman was invited to family gathering.

She frequented all the Smith Family gatherings it seemed even long after James died in 1913 and Oella died in 1925. In this photo she is seated between Dora Smith Jackson and Della Smith Sparks in the middle of the photo. All of the other family members are Jackson or Sparks family members. I do not know what this family event was but on the back it said “Fort Wayne Smiths”

So who is she? SO I kept looking at her and wondering where she belonged.

I would find clues and not really realize that they were clues. When I found the death record for James’s brother, Joseph, in Chicago, I would get a burial date in Fort Wayne. With that I found an Obit who mentioned a surviving sister, Mrs. Ralhman. I could not find a Ralhman in Fort Wayne. For years I searched for Rahlman, Ralhmen, Ralman, Rehlman, Relman and every version I could think of but no one was found. James and Joseph did have several sisters. All of the sisters which were older than them, had died long ago. They had two sisters who were younger, Susan and Martha. One of these woman must have been Mrs Ralhman I thought. As I continued my search, I found Martha. She had married Henry Hauss and settle in the neighboring county of Huntington where she would die at the age of 21, in 1877. So it is not her. It had to be the sister, Susan, but why can’t I find her.

So I started to search for a woman born between the years of 1850 and 1853 whose first name was Susan or Susanna. Eventually I would add the criteria of a surname (married name) beginning with “r”. After a few weeks of searching, there she was Susanah Rehnen. Could this be her? It would take some time but eventually I would obtain Obits for Susanna, her son Bernard, his son Parnell and Parnell’s son, James who died in Larkspur California in 1994. Eventually I did a search on a website called anywho.com and much to my surprise there was a B. Rehnen who was listed in Larkspur, California. As I recall, this was around 2003. I have used this tool several other time successfully to find children who are still living who had been listed in their parent’s obits. Usually I write down the name, address and phone with a note about who I think they are and how I suspect they are related to me. After finding several, I would write a generic note explaining who I am and that I am looking to confirm information and provide them with information on how they can contact me. Sometimes they do get back to me and sometimes they do not. Not everyone is as interested in their families past as I am.

I had been looking at this photo and getting to know this woman for so many years and I just had to know who she was. She was another lost relative who spoke to me every time I looked at her just begging me to find her. This process of elimination had been so slow that I took a bold step. I picked up the phone one Sunday afternoon and I called the number. A sweet elderly woman answered the phone. I explained to her who I was and how I thought I was related and she quietly listened. Eventually she broke her silence and said, well you know, you are not actually related to me, it was my husband that you were related to and he has been dead for some time. Then she went on to tell me that his sister still lives in the Fort Wayne area and that I should call her. Susan Katherine Brown is her name.

After talking to Susan Brown, I was able to identify this sweet woman as Susanna M (Smith) Rehnen (pronounced Wren like the bird…as she explained), Susan Brown’s Great, Great Grandmother. Susan is named after her. Susan would supply me with several other wonderful photos’ of Aunt Susan and I was able to supply her with a few that she had never seen.

It would be a day that I would solve another one of the “needles in my haystack”. The clue on the photo would have helped if it had said “James W. Smith’s sister, Susan”. She was Oella’s sister-in-law not her sister but as I think of it, that would have made it too easy and I would not have learned so much about this part of my “Haystack”! I thought it was amusing when I received this photo from Susan Brown, there is the Oella scowl and all…

So maybe this post should be about a misprint or a wrong relationship. I have had to solve several of these because my Grandmother was valiantly trying to help me understand who my Grandfather’s family was when he was not really interested in the project. She only knew his family from the current generation not any of them who came before.

So meet Susanna M Smith Rehnen. May she never be forgotten.

Love, Jan

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