The early life of Henry Max Andersen(1) is somewhat unclear. At the time of this June 1909 photo, he was working as a laborer on the Fred Hons farm in Liberty Township. On the 1910 census, he reported having emigrated only recently, in 1904, from Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. His parents were Jurgen Andersen and Margaretha Sheunig, about whom records are sparse.
Two years after the photo, on 7 August 1911, Henry married Sutherland resident Meta “Mattie” Wittrock (1890-1968), who also reflected German heritage. Mattie was the third child among nine children of Herman Wittrock (1863-1954), who was born in Schleswig-Holstein, and Alvena Voege (1864-1946), who was born in Iowa but whose parents were from Schleswig-Holstein. The wedding of Henry and Mattie took place in Calumet, but at this time Henry was farming in the Paullina area, also in O’Brien County but a few miles to the west of Calumet. A first child, Burdette Herman (1912-1971), was born to them in August 1912.
By 1915, the couple was farming in Highland Township, to the north of Calumet. Two additional children, both sons, were born: Gerald John (1916-1984) and Laverne Thomas “Andy” (1919-2012). But Henry and Mattie divorced sometime between January 1920 and 4 May 1923, when Mattie got remarried to Clyde Ezra Stubberfield (1873-1944), himself a divorcé. A daughter, Julaine Alvena Stubberfield, was born to Mattie and Clyde in 1926.(2) The family of six — Mattie, Clyde, her three sons through Henry Andersen, and the daughter Julaine — lived in Glenwood, in Mills County, Iowa, where in the 1930 census Clyde is shown as working as a day laborer. In 1931, however, that marriage also failed, and at a later point Mattie married Bernhard “Ben” E. W. Klipp (1887-1966).
After his divorce from Mattie, Henry Andersen relocated to California, and in December 1932 he also got remarried, to Bessie Fyan (1891-1941), who was also a divorcée, having separated from her first husband Raymond Leonard Peck (1892-1949). Bessie and Ray were the parents of a daughter, Frances Elizabeth Peck (1916-1995), and after they divorced, Henry, Bessie, and Frances formed a new family and lived in Los Angeles, where Henry worked as a butcher. Records show that by 1950 he had a retail meat establishment of his own.
Sadly, however, Bessie Fyan Andersen died in 1941, at age 49. Thus Henry had lost one wife to divorce and a second wife to an early death. He continued to live in Los Angeles until his own death at age 69.
Interestingly, all of Henry Anderson and Mattie Wittrock’s three sons went by the nickname “Andy”:
• Burdette “Andy” Andersen married Helen Lucille Goudie (1911-1988), and the couple also lived in Southern California, where Andy worked as a self-employed plumber. The couple had one daughter, Barbara.
• Gerald “Andy” Andersen and his wife Velda E. Elliott (1914-2012) stayed in Iowa for the remainder of their lives. He worked as a postmaster and rural mail carrier and later as a teacher and athletic coach in Gilmore City (Pocahontas County). The couple had two daughters, Linda and Janet.
• Laverne “Andy” Anderson(3) relocated to Cleveland County, North Carolina, where he worked as a chiropractor, and he married Janet Louise Hobbs (1920-2009). The couple had no children.
Frances Peck, step-daughter of Henry Andersen (daughter of Bessie Fyan and Ray Peck), died in 1995 in Hawaii.
Other members of the Wittrock family (siblings of Mattie Wittrock, Henry Andersen’s first wife) remained in northwest Iowa, including O’Brien and Clay Counties, and descendants of the family farmed in the Sutherland area until recent years.
Henry Max Andersen is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California.
Subscribers to Ancestry.com may wish to further explore some family connections of Henry Andersen by accessing an Ancestry profile page (within the context of a “Mugge Family Tree”).
Connection to Other Band Members
At the time of this photo, June 1909, Henry Andersen is not known to be related to other band members. His marriage to Mattie Wittrock in 1911, however, would produce a complex cousin and in-law relationship with bandmate Henry W. Mugge (1891-1967).
Mattie Wittrock was a first cousin of Emiel Wittrock (1884-1970), and following the sudden death of Emile’s first wife, he married again, to Fanny Schierholz (1889-1984). Fanny was a first cousin of Bernhart A. “Ben” Schierholz (1882-1962), who had married Elizabeth “Lizzie” E. Kundel (1888-1969) in 1907. In September 1912, Henry Mugge married Lizzie’s younger sister, Lillian “Lillie” C. Kundel (1892-1960).
This complicated relationship is best illustrated through a schematic, available here.
There is another relationship, more suggestive of the complex associations that these band members’ friendships seemed to foster. Mattie Wittrock’s second spouse, Clyde Ezra Stubberfield, was a brother of band director Ralph Langley’s wife, Bessie Dena Stubberfield (1881-1970).
Connection to the Mugges
Members of the Mugge family may wish to note that in addition to the connection from Henry Andersen to Henry Mugge detailed above, another of Mattie Wittrock’s first cousins, Alma Dora Wittrock (1886-1987, a sister of Emiel), married Hans Ferdinand Matz (1886-1978). The second youngest of Alma and Hans’s six children was Verna Mae Matz (1924-2019), who in 1943 married Dalton Ernest Mugge (1921-2021), son of Elmer Henry Mugge (1895-1968) and Anna Sophie Menke (1897-1935). Dalton was a nephew of Henry Mugge. He and Verna Mae were the parents of four children: Joel, Julaine (who died in her youth), Janelle, and Jay.
See the schematic of the Henry Andersen-Henry Mugge connection for this additional detail.
Footnotes
(1) Henry’s surname appears in some historical records as Anderson rather than Andersen, but these instances appear to be the result of enumerator error. His given names, also, show some inconsistency in that on his World War I draft registration document he reported the names in the reverse order — “Max Henry” — but all other available records order the names as “Henry Max.”
(2) The facts surrounding the life of Julaine A. Stubberfield are incomplete but show an unfortunate life course. Sometime after 1940 she was committed to a state institution for intellectually challenged individuals, the Woodward State Hospital and School in Boone (Boone County), Iowa. The 1950 census reports her as among the hospital population, but information about her life after 1950 is unavailable.
(3) In his case, he adopted the surname spelling of “Anderson” rather than “Andersen”; his obituary and that of his wife Janet use that spelling.