Saturday, July 1, 2000
The Western Michigan Genealogical Society databases are back online (they seemed to be coming and going for a while, kind of unreliable, but hopefully they’ve got it sorted out now). The obituary database lists four people with the surname Brandi:
- Amelia Brandi, Grand Rapids Herald article published Wed, 20 Jan 1937
- Clara Brandi, Grand Rapids Press Obit published Wed, 28 Aug 1963
- Joseph Brandi, Grand Rapids Herald Obit published Wed, 11 Dec 1946
- Raymond Brandi, Grand Rapids Press Obit article published Thu, 6 Jan 1921 on page 1
Now I’m really curious what a 23 year old did for his death to warrant a front page article. The WMGS offers a service where they’ll provide photocopies of items listed in their obituary database for $5 a pop, so I’ve sent for all four. Joseph and Amelia are clearly the people who were in Saginaw in 1897 when their son Raymond was born. Clara isn’t quite so clear. If I had to guess, I would say that maybe she was Raymond’s wife/widow.
Adding credence to that possibility is the fact that in the other database available on the WMGS site, that of school records from Kent County, 1903-1925, there is a single person with the Brandi surname, Marie Brandi, who attended Huff School in Grand Rapids in 1925. Maybe she was Raymond and Clara’s daughter? She doesn’t appear in any earlier records, which would suggest that she was born around 1920. And Aunt Lonnie mentioned in her last e-mail that she found a couple of addresses in my grandfather’s things for relatives, and one of them was a Marie Brandi, then living in Saginaw. (She also says she doesn’t remember any relatives in Grand Rapids, but given when most of these people died, that’s not really surprising.)
Anyway, this should all become somewhat clearer when I get the copies of the obituaries, particularly the two that are listed as "articles".
Posted at 10:43:43 AM
