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Katherine Kurz
Maier Murray Family

Descendant Host: Mary Ferm

Mary Ferm Collection
c: 1885
Katherine Kurz
1860 - 1909

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.
 
 

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).

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  Mother Katherine Kurz Maiers Murray is missing from this family photograph,  with Pearl appearing to be about age 3-4 on her father's lap. Back row, left to right -Maymie Maier, Byron, Will, Margaret Front row, left to right - Carrie, Pearl, Lindley Murray, Nettie Mary Ferm & Henry Kurz Collections

Above: Mary Ann "Maymie" Maier Henry Kurz Collection

Right: Nettie Murray Henry Kurz Collection