Page 5 of 53 min readPrint this page

Charles and Caroline's Children and Their Families

Mary Matilda, the eldest surviving child, married George Washington Wesemann in 1907. Her married life and her six children are told in the George and Fredericka's Family, 1860 to 1907 section.

Lydia Pauline married twice. Her first husband, Edward Henry Stopper (1886 to 1912), married her in 1908, and their daughter, Esther Lydia Stopper Yeager, lived from 1910 to 1935. After Edward’s death Lydia married Howard Watson Richardson on 24 December 1919, and they had three children. She died at home, 5912 Bingham Street, on 6 March 1965 and was buried at Hillside Cemetery, Section T, Lot 132.

Frank Benjamin, the paper hanger of 1910, married Hazel I. Kutch in 1924; his marriage record names his parents as Charles and “Caroline Wess”. They had two daughters, Madeline and Helen. A studio portrait in the family album shows “Ben Knoll” in a sailor’s uniform, though no naval service is recorded for him. He later worked as a pipe fitter for the Reading Railroad. He died of coronary artery disease, with hardening of the arteries, on 5 March 1958 at his home, 7723 Beech Lane, Wyndmoor, aged 68, and was buried at Ivy Hill Cemetery, Section O, Lot 642, on 8 March.

Caroline, called Carrie, married three times. She probably married Angus W. Law, Jr., on 29 May 1912, and a son, Angus Ambrose Law, was born on 29 April 1913. Her memorial, under the name Carolina Augusta Held, gives her first husband as Angus Walter Law (1889 to 1921) and lists a baby boy who died in 1915 and Franklin Charles Law (1916 to 1996). The family’s descendant chart remembers the sons as Franklin, who married Marge, and Gus. A family album shows Franklin’s wedding photograph of 1936, captioned with Gus Law as his brother. In August 1925 Carrie probably married Karl Philip Huf (1887 to 1934); the license names her parents as Charles Knoll and Caroline Weiss. Their children were Flora Jean Huf Nowak (1929 to 2009) and Karl Philip Huf, Jr. (1931 to 2013). In 1939 she probably married Frederick William Held (1882 to 1952). The chart gives Fred Held two daughters, Naomi and Miriam. Carrie died on 21 December 1979 and is buried at Greenmount Cemetery, Section Lawn, Lot 592.

Frederick Charles married Mary Anna Dous. Their sons, whom the descendant chart knows as Fred and Bobby, were Frederick Charles Knoll, Jr. (1924 to 2019), a soldier of the Second World War and a Freemason of Hiram Lodge, who married Loretta F. Garson, and Robert F. Knoll (1927 to 2007), a Navy veteran of the same war, a supervisor at PECO, an official of Perkiomen Township and also a Freemason. A daughter, Mary, was probably the girl captioned in the family album “FRED’S GIRL LITTLE ‘SISSIE KNOLL’ MARY”. Frederick died in July 1965.

Wilhelmina, called Minnie, married Elmer Creamer. Esther Lydia Creamer, born in Philadelphia on 1 June 1919, was probably their daughter. In 1940, aged 42 and separated, she worked in a hosiery mill and lived with Esther’s family in Camden, New Jersey. A note on her memorial says she evidently remarried, to a Mr. Sharpe. She worked as a seamstress, spent her last years on Waterman Avenue in San Bernardino, California, and died of cardiac arrest at St. Bernardine Medical Center on 28 July 1992.

Minnie’s Descendants and the Joining of Two Branches

Esther married Sidney R. Jones. In April 1940 the family lived at Camden. Sidney, 32, born in England, managed a service station, and Esther was 21. Their twins, a son and a daughter, Merle L., born in New Jersey, were four months old. An older son, Sidney R. Jones, Jr. (1938 to 1939), is buried at Berlin Cemetery in Camden County. Merle L. Jones Laputka died at West Deptford, New Jersey, on 19 December 2017 and is buried at Woodbury Memorial Park; her obituary names her surviving brother. Esther, later Esther Lydia Creamer Mott, died on 7 February 2002.