In a letter dated June 16, 1977 to Edith (Schweikert) Dunscombe, Lydia states that she lived with her grandfather until he died when she was sixteen. This would have been about 1905, and probably at 511 East 16th Street in New York City. Her family then moved to the Bronx, where they lived for two years.
Correspondence from Lydia (Schweikert) Bender to Edith (Schweikert) Dunscombe, June 1977. The letter starts on page 3 and ends on page 5 with more pages obviously missing:
… lived very far downtown on Manhattan Is. My mother was born when they lived on Second St., New York. She had one sister, Edith & Tillie both knew her.
My grandfather bought a house – 511 – East 16th St., N.Y. He went into the kerosene oil business and had quite a route. Also, he opened a store in that building. My mother & father were married in 1886. My father’s half-brother who was a Methodist minister – Rev. Fred’k Wuster – performed the ceremony. I lived in my grandfather’s house until
I was sixteen – my grandfather died then our family moved to the Bronx. We lived there for 2 yrs, I forgot to tell you that my father’s mother and mother’s mother were both named “Barbara.”
On my father’s side his ancestors lived in Austria. They became Protestants and could not agree with the Catholics, so his family moved to the Northern part of Germany – the Black Forest – and when a young man, he and his mother came to New York, when his father died, and settled…