Anna Rozenvalds (or Rozenbergs) is my husband’s great-great-great grandmother. She is the also the earliest ancestor that we have a photo of. She was born around 1840 among the villages of the Zemgale region of south-western Latvia. Unfortunately I have not been able to find her baptism record so I don’t know for sure exactly when or where she was born.
Anna was born not long after surnames were standard so her father would have only recently acquired the surname ‘Rudzis’. This name is also written ‘Rudzit’ and ‘Rudzītis’ and in the mid-1800s it seemed to be interchangeable with the similar surname ‘Radzin’ or ‘Radsing’. I have not been able to pin down her parents or siblings either. I have found candidates in the church records but without some kind of further confirmation it will remain a mystery.
At the end of 1857, Anna found herself unmarried but pregnant. This was certainly not uncommon, but no one would have envied her that position. We will probably never know the unfortunate circumstances that put Anna in this position. By March of 1858 she was living at Ragumuiža manor in the village of Jēkabnieki. It was here that she gave birth to her son, Kristaps. This Kristaps would become my husband’s great-great grandfather.
A couple of years after Kristaps was born, Anna married. Her new husband was Geddert Rozenbergs (or Rozentals). He was much older than Anna and was twice widowed with three grown children of his own. His eldest son, Davis, would become the father of famed Latvian poet and playwright, Elza Rozenberga, known by her pen name, Aspazija (please see more about Aspazija in my website dedicated her her family history).
I would love to know the circumstances that led to this marriage. Did he love Anna? Was he a kind man to his step-son? In 1861, Anna and Geddert had a child of their own, a daughter they named Lawize. Sadly, within months of his daughter’s birth, Geddert passed away. His existing death record does not record his cause of death.
Anna was now a young widow with two young children to support. She must have had help and support from extended family, however we don’t see evidence of the family again until Kristaps gets married in 1883. Interesting to note that at this time he is not using his birth name ‘Rudzis’ but has taken on the name of his step-father and is going by the surname ‘Rozentals’.
By the turn of the 20th century, both of Anna’s children had made the transition to the city of Riga. We believe Anna accompanied her children there and lived with her daughter. Sometime between 1905 and 1910 Lawize had a family portrait taken. It includes herself, her husband Karl Vimba, her four step-children and her and Karl’s young daughter, Elza Anna. It also includes Anna, head wrapped in a typical peasant headscarf. It is amazing to look across the decades and see her face there in this photo.
Anna was widowed after only two years and would never remarry. She passed away in 1914 and her death is recorded in St. Martin’s Lutheran Church as ‘Anna Rozenvalds’, peasant’. She is buried in Lāčupes cemetery on the left bank of the Daugava River. This is the same cemetery that her granddaughter, Emilija, and Emilija’s husband, Žanis Zekants, would also lay to rest within only a few years.
Learn more about this family member at my other site: Anna Rudzis