Mary Drantz Bechtloff

Marie Catherine Drantz was born November 29, 1883 in Heilbronn, Germany. Her father, Friedrich Bernhard Drautz was 26. Mary's mother, Rosine Wilhelmine Braendle, was also 26 years old when Mary was born. Fred changed the name to Drantz when they came to the US and Marie became known as Mary, my mother's namesake. Mary had three elder sisters, Emma, Louisa, Elizabeth and a brother Ernst who did not survive infancy. Marie was baptized in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Heilbronn. More about the Drantz Family. 

The family left Germany via Hamburg in 1885 and they settled in Gilman, Illinois, a small town 90 miles south of Chicago. 

In 1900, at 16 years old, Mary was living and working as a servant for an elderly Martha Fetheringill and her widowed son, William who was a Railroad conductor. Her sisters Emma and Elizabeth were married, but her sister Louisa also worked as a servant for the hotel proprietor in town.

By 1905, Mary had moved to Chicago and married George Becthloff of South Halsted. In 1906, their first daughter Wilhelmine was born. Later, Wilhelmine would be known as Mabel. 

In 1910, George is a Real Estate Broker like his father who lives next door at 7011 S. Halsted. Mary is busy as a homemaker and she and George have twin girls, Louise and Lucille, two years later. 

More about the Bechtloff family.

In 1920, the family is still at the Halsted address and Mary's brother Frank, his wife Mabel, and their little son, Francis, known as Bud, lived next door. Mary's father-in-law, Casper Bechtloff, passed away in 1924 and his wife Minnie Pyne Bechtloff moved to 7000 S. Green St to live with her daughter, Minnie Jutzi. 

The Bechtloff family is still on Halsted in 1930 and George has moved into the Insurance business. Mabel works as a stenographer for an Automobile parts office but Mary's twin girls are 17 and have a very active social calendar which must keep Mary busy as well. 

The depression era was not easy on the Bechtloffs as George lost his insurance business and the next record was his 1940s WWII registration where he is working as a janitor for the Board of Education. (Mabel's husband, Frank Gavin, worked for the Board of Ed so it is likely that he got his father-in-law this job. It must have been hard to get a good job in those days.) George passed away a few years later in 1942 and Mary moved in with her daughter Louise, newly married to her husband Ray Heineman.

Don Heineman recalls that he shared "a bedroom with Grandma Mary," a fact that embarrassed him, but was common in those days. Grandma would take him on neighborhood walks to visit her German lady friends, one being Alice Logeshult. They had to climb the back stairs to the second floor apartment that was filled with African violets. He put up with these visits because he knew he would get an ice cream soda on the way home. Halsted Street was "a world long gone. There was a butcher shop with sawdust on the floor, where they made their own sausages; a soda shop with white tiled floor and along soda fountain counter, a bakery, and other various shops."

Mary Drantz Bechtloff passed away from a sudden heart attack on April 25, 1953. She and George are buried in St. Mary's Cemetery in Evergreen Park. 

Lucille, Mary Drantz Bechtloff, Louise, Mabel

This home belonged to Lucille's mother-in-law Catherine Braun Hannigan