Josephine Agnes "Jo" Grupenhoff

Josephine Agnes Grupenhoff, known to family and friends as "Jo" or "Granny Jo," depending on when you were born and how you're related to her.

Granny Jo had flaming red hair and was an excellent horsewoman. She was a single mother in an era when mothers didn't often have to be single. She raised one of the best men I know and I am proud to be related to her. She was full of spunk her entire life: when she was eighty-six, she dared to water ski, and at another point in her eighties, she broke her wrist while jumping over a bar stool for a game of leap frog that she was playing. She also chased down some cat-nappers in her younger years. What a woman!

Birth date: March 13, 1910 in Cincinnati, Ohio
Marriages:

1. July 27, 1929 to Clifford Winspear "Cliff" White; Jo was 19 years old.
2. October 17, 1986 Edwin C. "Ed" Sutton; Jo was 76 years old.

Death date: October 14, 2009 in Columbia, Maryland. Granny Jo lived to be 99 years old.

Her children were my grandfather, Gerald Lee "Jerry" White and Roger Thomas White, who passed away when he was only 16.

Records of Josephine A. Grupenhoff:

1910 Census

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1920 Census

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There are several interesting similarities and differences found between these two censuses. The similarities are that Frank worked as a trunkmaker in both. You can also see that he owned his house, but was paying back a mortgage at the time of both censuses.

The differences are what are really interesting, though. The most striking difference is that in the 1910 census, it shows that Frank's mother was born in Germany, but the 1920 census says she was born in Ohio. There are several sad differences, too. As you can see, the family is considerably smaller for the 1920 census. Jo's mother and her two sisters Rosella and Clara are missing from the 1920 census. It looks like Frank's mother, Mary, came to help with the house and children after Jo's mother passed away.

Censuses after Jo's marriage to Cliff White:

1930:

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As you can see, the 1930 census was taken soon after Jo and Cliff's marriage. They were renting their place for $35.00/month. One thing that you don't see here is that their neighbors (the rest of the census page) were mostly all renters and small families, as well. Several of the other small families are also newlyweds. Cliff worked as a book keeper and I think Jo was working as a sales lady at a department store. I'm not sure, though, because the image is really hard to read.

Interestingly, one of the questions asked by the census taker was if they had a radio set. This modern couple sure did!


1940:

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In the 1940 census, you see that Jo is no longer working outside the home, but is a home maker (that's what that long line of "no's" followed by an "H" means). They have two fine boys, aged 5 and 3 years old. Cliff is still working at the brokerage, but now is working as a margin clerk (whatever that is). I included the next family on the census, because I happened to know that that is the family that Cliff came from. How awesome is that?

One thing that I didn't see to make note of in the picture of the census is that Cliff and Jo were renting at $25/month and were living on a farm (this information is in the columns preceding their names). G-G-Granddad Cliff (Cliff, Sr.) was also living on a farm, but he owned his house. I'm guessing that this is White Acres. His house was valued the highest of all the owned houses on this census page.