Ida Hintz Bolan née Lippert, (1860-1938)

Headstone GPS Coordinates: 

Birth: 21 April 1860, Comerung, Germany

Death: 01 January 1938, Bremerton, Kitsap County, Washington

Relatives in Seabeck Cemetery: Julius Carl Frederick Hintz

American Revolutionary War Patriots*: None

Ida Bolan Hintz Bolan née Lippert was born on April 21, 1860, in Comerung, Germany, to William Lippert and Johanna Rassell (also recorded as Reiser). She grew up in Germany and, as a young woman, married Henry Mikal (also recorded as Michel) sometime around 1883.

The couple’s first child, a daughter named Ida Edith, was born on July 1, 1884. Less than a year later, the young family made the difficult decision to leave Germany. They departed from Bremen and arrived in New York City on March 28, 1885. Traveling with them was Ida’s brother, Rudolf Lippert. By May of that year, they had settled in St. Paul, Ramsey County, Minnesota, living next door to Henry’s brother, August Michel, and his family, who had immigrated to the United States the year before.

In September 1885, Ida gave birth to a son, William Frederick. Within just a few years of arriving in America, however, Ida’s life changed dramatically. Sometime between 1885 and 1888, her husband Henry died. Family lore holds that he died in a prison in Minnesota, leaving Ida widowed with two very young children in a new country.

Around 1889, Ida moved west to Seattle with her children. She settled in Ballard, likely traveling with her sister Olga, Olga’s husband Arthur, and their children. It was in Seattle that Ida met Julius Carl Frederick Hintz, a German immigrant who had arrived in the United States several years earlier.

Before Ida and Julius married, they had a son together, Rudolph, who was born on September 2, 1889. The couple officially married in Ida’s Ballard home on May 6, 1890. Ida was either already pregnant at the time of the marriage or became pregnant shortly afterward, as their daughter Selma was born on December 13, 1890.

Over the next decade, Ida gave birth to seven more children: Adelheide “Lyda” (1892), Amil (1893), Paul (1895), Herman (1896), Marie (1899), and Fred (1901). In total, Ida raised ten children—two from her first marriage and eight with Julius—all of whom were born or raised during the family’s years in Ballard and later on the Kitsap Peninsula.

During their Seattle years, Julius worked as a painter for the railroad, painting identifying numbers and letters on train cars. Around 1901, Ida and Julius moved their large family from Seattle to the Kitsap Peninsula. Family stories suggest that Ida wanted to leave the city and its temptations behind, particularly Julius’s heavy drinking, in hopes of creating a quieter and more stable life for their children.

The family settled in the Crosby area, where they established a homestead that would later become known as “Hintzville.” Ida played a central role in building and sustaining family life there. The household raised gardens, chickens, horses, and cows, and relied heavily on self-sufficiency. The family also restored an abandoned boat, which Julius and their son Rudolph used to transport homegrown goods—such as pickled eggs and berries—across Puget Sound to sell at Pike Place Market in Seattle. Fishing supplemented the family’s food supply, with catches smoked, eaten, or used as bait.

Life with Julius was not easy. Family members later recalled his struggles with alcoholism and his volatile temper, and Ida often bore the emotional and physical toll of those years. Despite these hardships, she kept her family together, raised her children, and helped create a lasting homestead that anchored future generations.

Beyond her work within the household, Ida supported Julius’s involvement in the local community. He served on the Crosby School District board and was active in the Crosby Valley Club. The family became well known in the area, and many of their children later built homes near the original homestead, solidifying the name “Hintzville” as a recognized local place.

In the 1920s, tragedy struck when the family home burned to the ground, destroying all of its contents. Rather than being discouraged, Ida and Julius rebuilt. The Kitsap County Herald noted on August 21, 1925, that the couple had constructed a new, more modern home on the site of the old one.

Ida spent decades raising her family in Crosby, watching her children marry and begin families of their own nearby. Julius died on January 23, 1928, leaving Ida a widow for the second time.

As her health declined, Ida moved out of her home in Hintzville and offered it for sale or rent in 1929. In 1930, she was living in Seattle in the household of Louis Jockel and Paula Bradshaw, where she worked as a servant.

On September 8, 1934, at the age of 74, Ida married her third husband, John Bolan, in Olympia. Marriage records list the couple as residents of Port Ludlow.

Ida spent her final years in Washington state, surrounded by family. She died on January 1, 1938, at the age of 77, in the Bremerton home of her son Rudolph Hintz. The cause of death was heart failure. Her obituary was published in the Bremerton Sun. Ida was buried in Seabeck Cemetery beside Julius, beneath a large granite headstone—a lasting marker of a woman whose life spanned continents, hardships, and generations.