Angrieta Latīnis was born in 1863 to Indriks Latīnis and Dore Abolins. She was born, along with her six siblings (Andarte, Anelize, Andrejs, Kriss, Magreete and Minna), at Annuse manor just outside the town of Talsi in north-western Latvia. Her father, Indriks, was the manager there for many years. Angrieta’s mother, Dore Abolins, was born in Riga around 1829. I would love to know the circumstances of a young Latvian woman going from cosmopolitan Riga to the countryside at that early date. My research so far has not found any answers. It is a mystery yet to be solved but there must be a story there.
In 1887, Angrieta married Jannis Kristapsons. At the end of that year the newlyweds welcomed a son into the world, Andrejs. During Andrejs’s first year, the family lived at Okten farm near the village of Nurmuižas. In December of 1888, there was a tragic accident in the distillery attached to the farm. The distillery exploded and Jannis and two other men were killed. Angrieta was left a widow with her very young son to care for.
Curiously, in Jannis’s death record he is listed as using an alias: Blezurs. It was not uncommon for someone to change their surname for a variety of reasons. The name ‘Blezurs’ is very unusual and we have never figured out why this change was made. Jannis’s brother, Kriss, also changed his name to Blezurs. Angrieta would use this name for the rest of her life. Her son, Andrejs, would use either ‘Blezurs’ of the hyphenated ‘Blezurs-Kristapsons’.
I believe Angrieta must have relied heavily on her siblings and elderly mother for the rest of her life. She was obviously devoted to her son and when Andrejs was married to Olga Rozentals/Rozenvalds in 1927 she moved into the Rozenvalds apartment at Karlīnes Street in Riga. She had also spent time in the early 1920s at Krūmkalni farm in the village of Valtaiķi with her sisters. In the 1935 census she is listed as being a gardener but by 1941 she is listed as being unable to financially support herself.
She must have been devastated by the sudden death of her only son, Andrejs, in 1929. She was probably instrumental in helping Olga take care of her and Andrejs’s son Valdis – Angrieta’s only grandchild and last link to her son. Unfortunately, we don’t know how or when Angrieta died. She was still alive after the Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1945. The daughters of David Voldemars Pudze, Angrieta’s grand-nephew, remember her at Krūmkalni farm when they were children.
Angrieta is one of the longest-lived and most tragic figures in this family story. The photograph that I have posted here is most likely her, but we cannot be 100% sure of that. It shows the family around the dinner table at their Karlīnes St. flat probably in 1928 or 1929 when Olga was pregnant with Angrieta’s grandson, Valdis. I hope one day to know Angrieta’s fate and where she was laid to rest.