Katherine
Kurz
Maier
Murray Family
Descendant Host: Mary Ferm
Mary
Ferm Collection
c:
1885
Katherine
Kurz
1860
- 1909
Parents of Katherine
Kurz
Peter Joseph Kurz
Katherine Bibelhausen
- wife
Katherine Kurz - daughter
|
Katherine Kurz was born October 16, 1860 in Brown County, Wisconsin to Peter Joseph and Katherine Bibelhausen Kurz. She was the couple's third child and their first daughter. As the oldest daughter in a traditional German-American home, Katherine would have started taking on the responsibilities of being "second mother" at an early age. The family owned a farm near the community of New Denmark in northeastern Wisconsin. Her parents were among the first German immigrants to settle among the primarily Danish population of the area. The 1860 US Census lists Peter Joseph as a farmer owning real estate worth $200 in Town of New Denmark, Brown County, WI.
Being Catholic, they would have attended church in Green Bay, where the only congregations met at that early date. By 1870 there were four more children added to the Kurz family and the farm was prospering. With 7 children in the household, Katherine at age 10, was certainly needed for help by her mother.
By the year 1880, the Kurz family had moved, purchasing a farm
and were
living in Belle Plaine, Shawano County, Wisconsin. This was in the same
county where mother Katherine Bibelhausen Kurz's two brothers, Joseph
and
Frank Bibelhausen, were living and her sister Margaret Bibelhausen
Lieg.
Daughter Katherine was not listed as living with the family in the June
1880 census. She would have been 19 years of age at the time of the
census,
and it was not uncommon for young women of that age to be working and
living
outside the family home, or married. In July of that year, her mother
gave
birth to the youngest of her siblings, Vincent Kurz, making daughter
Katherine
now one of 10 siblings.
![]() Maymie Maiers - daughter of the late John Maier and Katherine Kurz Maier Murray. Taken in Polk County, Oregon. Identified by her son Ezra Galloway Ron Kurz Collection c: 1895 |
Little has been discovered about her first husband, John Maier, or their marriage, which is assumed to have taken place in Wisconsin before the census in 1880. The couple had one daughter, Mary Ann whom they called Maymie. She was born March 22, 1884 in Bismarck North Dakota. John Maier died in Bismarck, North Dakota in about the year 1884. To see the Library of Congress website Panoramic Map of Bismarck, North Dakota in 1884 please click HERE . Click "BACK" at the top of your screen to return to this page.
Katherine then married Lindley Byron Murray on July 7, 1885. In Lindley B. Murray's sporadic journal that he was doing some part time work for "Kate Myres" in Bismarck. Lindley was the son of Lindsey Murray and Elizabeth Murray. He was born November 10, 1845 in Oneida County, NY, and died April 03, 1934 in Falls City, Polk County, Oregon. Lindley Byron Murray's parents were Lindley Marsevan Murray and Elizabeth Margaret Moon. (Marsevan was a character in the "Arabian Nights" story called "The Adventures of Prince Camaralzaman and the Princess Badoura".) His great grandfather was captain of a sailing vessel bringing passengers to the US. On one trip he brought his wife to New York.
Their son William Henry Murray, Lindley's grandfather, was born two hours before they reached port of New York. The captain started the return journey to the British Isles but the ship was wrecked and neither he nor any of the crew were heard of again. The mother of William Henry died when he was five years old and he was brought up by an uncle and aunt. The uncle and aunt who brought up William Henry Murray were William and Hannah Johns(t)on of Rensselaer Co, NY. William Johns(t)on's will, recorded March 14, 1810, leaves a bequest to William Henry Murray's oldest son, James Johnston Murray.
Katherine and Lindley Murray remained in North Dakota for some
years
where several children were born to them. Lindley Byron Murray wrote in
his journal that he arrived in Oregon 17 Oct 1889. The family then
moved
to a farm in Falls City, Polk County, Oregon, where the remainder of
the
family was born.
Typed from a sheet of paper found in Lindley Byron
Murray's
hand writing: "Lindley Byron Murray, Born November 10, 1845 in (Ostego County) New York. Removed with his parents to LaCrosse Valley, Wisconsin when 9 years old." "Married in Sparta, Wisconsin, October 1872 to Miss Albina Josephine Roberts. She died at Bismark North Dakota, July 1884. From that union 5 children was born. Only one now living. Mrs Etta J. Spahr, now in Spokan, Washington (Nov. 1919). Married again at Bismark North Dakota in 1885 to Katharine Kurz Myres (Maiers - spelling wrong). She had one child, now Mrs. Maymie Calloway, now at Sand Lake, Oregon." "Second wife died near Falls City, Oregon
September 1909. From that
union 7 children was born, 6 of them now living, Nov. 1919. Namely Mrs.
Margaret E. Trueax, W. H Murray, Carrie A. Harber, Byron A Murray,
Nettie
L Murray and Pearl E. Murray. All now in Polk County, Oregon. Nov 21
1919."
|
Back row standing - Margaret Elizabeth Murray, William Henry
Murray, Carrie Murray Mary Ferm Collection |
.
Above left - One
copy of this photo is labeled "(left) Carrie Alice Murray age 2 yrs 8
mo
(right) Byron Albert Murray age 3 mo taken Aug/Sept 1894" another copy
is labeled "Byron and Arron Murray in 1902", so for
now, please
take your choice on this one.
Above right - c: 1908 Niece and aunt are the same age. On the left is Clara Galloway (later married Henry Harold Proctor), she is the niece of Pearl Murray on the right. Both were born in 1906 to Maymie Maier Galloway, and her mother Katherine Kurz Maier Murray. Ron Kurz Collection |
Philipp Joseph "Joe" Kurz, oldest brother of Katherine, came from Kansas to live with the family in 1892. He had been diagnosed with spinal Tuberculosis and slowly lost the use of his legs over the 20 years with the family before he died in 1915. Katherine and her daughters took care of him. After Katherine's death in 1909, the daughters continued his care at their home. The treatment at this time before antibiotic medications, was to expose the infected person to as much fresh air and sunlight as possible and Joe spent much of his time in Oregon in a tent near the house.
![]() Photograph taken in Oregon with second
husband Lindley
Murray. c: 1900 Left to right: Byron Albert Murray (1894), father
Lindley Murray, William Henry Murray (1888), baby Nettie Lorene
Murray (1899), mother Katherine Kurz Maier Murray, Carrie Alice Murray
(1891). |
Henry Kurz Collection |
![]() Katherine Kurz Maiers Murray Louie Oatman Collection |
Son Aaron Carlyle Murray who was born February 21, 1902, died August 21, 1906. Katherine Kurz Maier Murray died from cancer September 29, 1909, in Falls City, Polk County, Oregon. Her youngest daughter, Pearl, was three years old .
Pearl is shown as the only child still living on the farm with father Lindley in the 1920 U.S. Census. By the 1930 Federal Census, at age 23, she was a Laboratory Assistant at Hopkins Marine Laboratory in Monterey, California. She had taken up residence with her older sister Nettie and brother-in-law George MacGinitie. She later married William Wagner.
Nettie Murray worked her own way through college, receiving her B.S. and M.S. degrees from Oregon State College, and became a marine biologist, Nettie being the first female to earn a college degree as such in the United States. Working with her husband, who was also a marine biologist, together they authored "Natural History of Marine Animals" published in 1949 and (2nd edition) 1968. Among other positions, Nettie was a research associate or fellow at the California Institute of Technology, at the Arctic Research Laboratory at Point Barrow, Alaska, and at the US Naval Missile Center, Point Mugu, CA. She was Director of the Kerckhoff Marine Laboratory (a CalTech facility at Corona del Mar, CA) from 1957-1959.The MacGinities worked with Walt Disney on the film "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" (1954), and their research was instrumental in preserving Elkhorn Slough in Monterey Bay, CA. MUGU LAGOON is a precious marine sanctuary along the California coast that is dedicated to the work of George and Nettie MacGinitie.
Husband Lindley Byron Murray died April 03, 1934 in Falls City, Polk County, Oregon.
![]() Family photograph taken for advertising in a mail order tree catalog. C: 1910 Henry Kurz Collection |
![]() William Henry Murray Henry Kurz Collection |
![]() Byron Albert and Nettie Lorene Murray Henry Kurz Collection |
![]() c: 1910
|
![]() Above:
|
![]() Right:
Henry Kurz Collection |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Descendants
of Katherine
Kurz
Researched and contributed by descendant: Mary Ferm
Katherine Kurz Maier was
Lindley’s 2nd marriage. He married 1st Albina
Roberts 27 Oct 1872
in Sparta, WI. She was born 9 Apr 1852 Marcelon, Columbia Co, WI and died 22
Jul 1884 Bismark, Dakota Terr. 4 days after the birth of twins who died in
August, 1884. They had one child who survived infancy: Etta Isobel Murray b 10 Oct 1881 Bismarck, Dakota Terr. Etta married
James William Spahr, and had no
issue. She died 22 Mar 1935 in WA. Lindley & Albina also adopted a child, Lindley Martin Murray b 24 May 1877 in Sparta, Wisconsin, before
the Murrays moved to Dakota Territory. Adopted son Lindley Martin
Murray married Daisy E. Bowles in Nov. 1897 in Oregon, and they had one son,
Lindley Murray. Daisy died in 1901, so after Lindley Martin's death, their son Lindley
Murray was brought up by Daisy's parents, Joshua and Alice
Bowles. He was
renamed "Lindley Murray Bowles" He died 25 Jan 1906 in a train wreck in Oregon. |
Pioneer In Science
and As a
single woman, coming from a modest pioneer homestead background, Nettie Lorene
Murray worked her own way through college at a time when
Victorian Era born women rarely attended university, and female graduates
were not awarded advanced degrees. Nettie did both. |