Newspaper Archives - Uncle Teddy

This weekend I did some searching of newspaper archives online. There are quite a few websites now that will let you do full text searches of old newspapers and download the actual pages that you find. I found many fun things so I'll try to post one here each week as I work on adding these documents to my family tree.

One thing I found was the obituary for my grandmothers great-uncle Teddy. I've heard my grandmother talk about her mother's Uncle Teddy often - in fact - here's a quote from my grandmother:

"One of my mother's uncles had an ice cream store right across the street from where the church was. So after church we always went to their house to visit. And he'd always take us into the store and he'd have all these things on the wall - the banana splits, etc - and he'd ask us what we wanted. And he'd make us that. Uncle Teddy. That was my mother's favorite uncle too."

Below is the obituary for Theodore M. VanDerAa. It was published in "The Pointer" (Riverdale, Illinois) on Thursday, March 16, 1939 - and I accessed it through NewspaperArchive - which is a paid website that gives users access to billions of newspapers dating back to the 1700's.



Translation of the text:

Theo. M. Van Der Aa, prominent citizen and business man, suddenly passed away last Thursday, March 9 at 12:15 p.m. His death was caused by coronary thrombosis. In the morning he was very active, enjoying his usual health, and as late as 12:05 p.m. waited on customers in his store. Answering the call for dinner, he lunched and lass than five minutes after he entered death.
Mr. Van Der Aa was born in South Holland on January 23, 1882, son of Mr. and Mrs. Michael Van Der Aa, one of the community's first settlers. On March 20, 1901, he was married to Alice Van Vuren. Passing away on March 9, he attained the age of 57 years, 1 month and 17 days. He leaves to mourn his death his wife; one son, Michael; two daughters, Jennie (Mrs. Wilfred Rietveld) and Leona; two brothers, Harry and Nick; five grandchildren, and a multitude of friends.
Funeral services were held Monday, March 13, at 2 o'clock in the First Reformed church, Rev. J. S. Ter Louw officiating. The body lay in state at the De Young Funeral parlor until funeral time. Internment was at Oaklawn cemetery.
The officers of the South Holland Volunteer Fire Department, of which Mr. Van Der Aa was assistant chief and treasurer for the past twenty years, acted as honorary pallbearers, and the non-ranking firemen were pallbearers. He was a charter member of the local fire company, member of the Community and State Fire associations, and a member of the South Holland Chamber of Commerce. He owned and operated his present business since 1912.
No matter how old or young, Teddy, as he was known, was liked by all. His death is a great loss to the community, to the fire department, to his business associates, to grown school children and the present ones, whom he delighted in serving in twenty-seven years of business.

This newspaper clipping has so many important pieces of genealogical information - it's a great example of how important it is to use historic newspapers when doing family research. From this I learned the following (some of which I already knew - it just confirmed it):

- Teddy VanDerAa's birthdate
- His father's name (the Michael VanDerAa I've written about before)
- Teddy VanDerAa's wedding date and his wife's maiden name
- Teddy's children's names
- The cemetery where Teddy is buried
- Teddy's association with the local fire department
- How long he owned his business

And - of course - it was sweet to read the last paragraph describing how he will be missed by many.