Spanish-American War
As I was looking through the list of Osmond veterans, finding mostly World War I and World War II veterans
at the bottom of the first row of names, I was shocked to find another veteran of the Spanish-American War!
Most of those veterans were found in the first 10 or so names on the list, so I thought we were past that generation. Hans Peter Albrecht, however, lived a very long life, from 1873 to 1961, which would account for him being further down on the list.
I was also excited to find a picture of Hans — a very handsome young man!
Hans was born in Germany to Thomas and Doris (Peterson) Albrecht. A list of arriving passengers at New York shows him immigrating to the United States in May 1890 at age 17 on the ship Augusta Victoria.
His parents followed in 1892, first living in Atlanta, IA, where his father died in 1895.
According to his mother’s obituary, he had a sister who remained in Germany, but her name is not known. Two years after the father died, in 1897, his mother moved to Osmond. It is not known whether Hans had been living here the whole time, or if he had been in Iowa with his parents.
The application for his headstone lists Hans’s Army enlistment date as June 15, 1895, and I believe it says his enlistment place was Nebraska, so he apparently was here at that time. He was discharged June 14, 1898.
Hans was a private with Company E, the 2nd Infantry. Before the Spanish-American War, it seems the 2nd Infantry may have been involved during what was called the third Indian War period and remained on the western plains until 1898. According to Wikipedia, the regiment was then deployed to Cuba in 1898 at the start of the Spanish-American war.
I did find a couple of discrepancies: Although it lists Hans as being in Nebraska when he enlisted and his mother moved here in 1897 to live with him here, his marriage license in 1899, to Bertha Albrecht, shows him living in Cass County, Iowa. The 1900 census also shows him in Iowa, as does an Iowa 1905 state census. The 1900 census, by the way, also shows that Hans is a naturalized citizen of the United States.
By the 1910 census, however, Hans and Bertha are living and farming in Plum Grove Precinct east-northeast of Osmond with 6 of their 7 children: John, 10; Willie, 8; Arthur, 7; Dora, 5; Harry, 3, and “Baby” Albrecht, 0 (this would have been Reinhard, who was born that year), as well as Hans’s mother, Doris. A sixth son, Clarence, was born in 1912 to complete the family.
I couldn't find Hans in the 1930 census, but in the 1940 and 1950 censuses, he is listed as living in Hartington. By 1940, he is 67 years old and apparently retired from farming, although under “Income Other Sources” on the census it says “yes.” That may have been a veteran’s pension for his service in the Spanish-American War.
A brief obituary was printed in the Osmond Republican about Hans when he died March 17, 1961. It stated that Hans, age 88, and his family had lived on a farm southeast of Osmond 20 years before (so he probably left shortly before the 1940 census).
Services were held at Hartington, in charge of the American Legion, and Hans was buried in the Osmond city cemetery. Also buried there are his wife, Bertha; his mother, Doris, and his brothers John and Arthur and their wives. The Albrecht plot is several rows up from the main entrance and to the right, about halfway down the row.
