Frank Wanderscheid, (1861-1936)

Headstone GPS Coordinates: 

Birth: 6 December 1861, Luxembourg

Death: 9 April 1936, Port Orchard, Kitsap County, Washington

Relatives in Seabeck Cemetery: Anna Wanderscheid née Reisch 

American Revolutionary War Patriots*: None.

Disclaimer: These lines have not been officially proven by NSDAR standard

Frank Wanderscheid was born on December 6, 1861, in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg to John Wanderscheid and Ann Smith. He grew up in a rural society shaped by agriculture and economic hardship. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, Luxembourg experienced widespread poverty and limited opportunity, prompting mass emigration. According to RTL Today, “In a time of overpopulation and economic change, the newly independent Grand Duchy saw one of the most significant waves of emigration. Between 1841 and 1890, a third of the population left the country, of which nearly 50,000 emigrated to the United States.” Frank was among those who chose to leave in search of a better future.

At the age of twenty-eight, Frank immigrated to the United States in 1889 and settled in Chicago. Like many immigrants of his generation, he worked to establish himself in his new country and became a naturalized American citizen in 1894. Chicago would also become the place where his personal life took shape.

In 1900, Frank married Anna Reisch, who, like him, had been born in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Anna had also immigrated to Chicago in 1889 and was naturalized in 1894. Her family followed her to the United States in stages: her younger brother Christopher likely traveled with her, her brother John arrived in 1902, and her sister Margaret Hipp and Margaret’s husband came in 1908. There is no record that Anna’s parents ever immigrated.

Soon after their marriage, Frank and Anna moved west, eventually settling in Seabeck, Washington. The 1910 census records them living at Lone Rock on Pioneer Road. Frank became part of the developing economy of the Pacific Northwest, first working as a farmer and later as a laborer in a logging camp. He and Anna were both multilingual, able to speak French, German, and English—skills that reflected their Luxembourgish roots and aided their adjustment to life in America.

Although Frank and Anna never had children of their own, they maintained close ties with Anna’s siblings, all of whom eventually left Chicago and settled near them in Seabeck. Frank spent the remainder of his life there, contributing his labor and experience to the local community.

Frank died on April 9, 1936, at the age of seventy-four, after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. He had been hospitalized for five days at Sunnyvale Hospital in Port Orchard. Anna survived him by nearly two years, dying of a heart attack on March 5, 1938, in their Seabeck home.

According to Fred Just’s plot map, Frank and Anna are buried side by side in unmarked graves next to the Rostad family in the southwestern corner of Seabeck Cemetery, near the fence line. Their graves were likely once marked with metal nameplates that have since been lost, but Frank’s life—from Luxembourg to Chicago and finally to the Pacific Northwest—reflects the broader story of nineteenth-century immigrants who reshaped their futures through perseverance and hard work.