Maria Feissel

Maria Feissel was born in Germany. She married Wilhelm Kappert and they lived in Essen, having 5 known children together: Christina (1868), Gertrude (Gerty; 1874), Anna (1878), Franz Carl (1879), and John (1880).

The family emigrated to the United States in about 1881, where she went by the name Mary.

Her great grandson, Terrence Hurley, relates the following:

Maria was a heavy woman who never mastered English. My Mother, Myrtle Kappert, her grandchild, recalls her wearing a large black frock with side pockets, where she kept candy for herself and her grandchildren. She could be stubborn. Once, when told to retire, she claimed she was too week to climb the stairs. Frank picked her up and carried her. She held her cane on her lap horizontally to make the passage difficult. Maria, Frank and Lotte (Charlotte, Frank's wife) were on the porch of their house when Maria suddenly collapsed. Frank collected a mirror and held it under her nose to determine if she was breathing, while crying "Mutter, Mutter!" Myrtle Kappert observed this.

After the death of her husband, Wilhelm, she lived for a time with her son, Franz, probably until her death. The date that she died is not known.