Lizette Emilija Rozentals/Rozenvalds was my husband’s great-grandmother. We don’t think she ever really used the ‘Lizette’ part of her name so I will just use ‘Emilija’. Emilija was the eldest daughter of Kristaps Rozentals/Rozenvalds and Anna Smiltnieks. Emilija had two younger sisters, Olga and Anna Zelma. Emilija was born in the summer of 1887 and spent the first several years of her childhood in the countryside of south-western Latvia. Her parents were peasant farmhands but by the turn of the 20th century they followed the growing trend to move from the countryside to the city. By the early 1900s the family had relocated to the Iļģuciems neighbourhood of Riga on the west bank of the Daugava River. This industrial area was teeming with employment opportunities.
At the end of summer 1913, Emilija became the wife of Žanis Zekants. This marriage, at Riga’s St. Martin’s Lutheran Church, was the first documented connection between the Zekants family and the Rozentals/Rozenvalds family. We don’t know where the young couple lived after they were married but we know Žanis must have followed in his brother’s footsteps and trained to be a sailor.
A year after their marriage Emilija’s father-in-law, Jekob Zekants, passed away in Talsi. It was also around this same moment that war was declared between Germany and Russia. Young men started to be called up or were volunteering by late summer. We don’t know the circumstances but Žanis’s sailing skills must have been needed and he made his way to the Gulf of Finland. The Gulf of Finland was being heavily fortified as it was the gateway to St. Petersburg. It was not very common for wives to accompany their husbands but there is no way around the fact that Emilija must have done just that. Was she a cook or a nurse or did she work in some other capacity? When they left she must not have known that she was with child.
The winter of 1914-1915 was incredibly harsh and all shipping and movement stopped for several months. The conditions are unimaginable but neverthless at the end of February, Emilija gave birth to a son. They named him Žanis like his father. My father-in-law grew up with his father telling him that he had been born not in Latvia, but near Helsinki and perhaps even on the frozen Baltic. This was a very puzzling and intriguing story and was the initial impetus for my family history journey.
At some point as spring arrived the new family made their way back down to Riga. Tragically not long after they arrived home, Žanis Sr. died from tuberculosis. His death is recorded at St. Martin’s Church. This must have been unimaginably sad for Emilija, who was now left a widow with a new baby.
The next two years of war took their toll on the people of Riga. The entire city was in a state of evacuation. Emilija’s sister Olga also evacuated with the textile factories in order to find work. Food become scarcer, Germans came ever closer and there was a steady stream of wounded and dead soldiers into the city from the front. I imagine that Emilija spent time volunteering as a nurse. There would not have been much other employment and many women became nurses.
Sadly, Emilija life would also be cut short. Her death is recorded at St. Martin’s Church at the end of August 1917. Another family story involved Žanis Jr.’s parents having died in a carriage accident. We know that is not how his father died because his death record says it was due to TB. The cause of Emilija’s death was listed as ‘peritonitis’. Could this have been caused by an injury from a carriage accident? We will probably never know but it must be a possibility.
Emilija was laid to rest next to her husband at Lāčupes cemetery. Burying her there must have been dangerous. By the end of August 1917, the Germans were on Riga’s doorstep and everyone living west of the Daugava River had moved east, including the Rozenvalds family. They were now living on Karlines St. north of the Old City.
Only a few days after leaving Emilija to her eternal rest, the German’s crossed the river. The Russian troops abandoned the city and chaos ensued. Emilija’s family was facing a horrible set of choices, made harder by the fact that they were all reeling from her tragic death. Emilija’s son, Žanis, was only two and would have had little idea of the gravity of what was coming.
I believe Emilija’s family made the choice to flee north out of the city at this time. With nothing more than they could carry, along with thousands of others, they headed into the unknown.