Louisa (Wechsung) Rule was my Great Grandmother on my dad’s paternal side. I know that she has a great story, but I can only find minimal information about her. I did find some great stories about her family, but nothing about Louisa herself. My grandma told me that Grandma Rule (Louise) was raised by her Aunt Sophie Droz in Berlin after the death of her mother, and that she was well educated before she came to the US. In the upstairs bedroom in Grandma’s house on Pine Street, there was a bookshelf that was filled with books in German. Dad said that Louise’s father Fredrick Wechsung was the physician to Kaiser Wilhelm.
The first record that I can find of Louise is in the 1880 Census, listed in the household of Lipman and Fanny Rauh and their 8 children. Louise was listed as cook, and there was also a nurse, Anna Givens. The Lipmans were a prominent Jewish family in Cincinatti, one of their grandchildren was Emily Rauh Pulitzer, the wife of Joseph Pulitzer. Lipman was listed as a Saxton Collector and was born in Bavaria. I am not sure why she was working for another German family, but I do know that she had come to the USA to visit her Uncle Gustavus Bock in Cincinatti when she was 16 and returned to Germany, then came back to the USA and worked for this family when she was 20.
The letter from her daughter Emily is below, it states that she then traveled to Leadville, Colorado with a Mrs. Sailor and a Mrs. Dollar to start a boarding house. She met William Henry Rule Jr. in Leadville, and they married in Meaderville, Montana in 1888.
Louise and William had three children, Emily Rule 1897 – 1981, William Fredrick Rule 1901 – 1967, and my grandfather Ernest August Rule 1903- 1976. On her son William Fredrick’s marriage license, he listed her maiden name listed as Louise Weschung Langerhausen Rule, I have no idea where the Langerhausen came from. There is an 11-year gap between the time that Louise and William were married and the birth of their first child. I wonder if she stayed in Butte, or went back to Germany after they were married. I will have to check the city directories in the Butte Archives and see if she is listed living with William.
Below is a letter from Emily Rule to my mom.