...Edmund and Elsa...

(This is just a test page at the very beginning, a sketch pad, as it were...)

This page will be dedicated to Grandma Hilda's older brother, Edmund L, and his wife, Elsa R. 

(This page has jumped ahead in line because of some amazing old photos that have become available to share.) 

Grandma Hilda's brother was Edmund L, born in 1883.

Here's a great picture of Hilda and Edmund L.  Edmund was soon to be, if not already, a child prodigy violinist.  (Stylin'!)  By the looks of the kids, this photo must have been taken in right around 1890.  What a cool pic, doncha think?!

Edmund made the newspaper(s) in the early 1890s as a child prodigy violinist.  He went to Brussels to study violin and make the most of his talents. 

The following picture appears to be Edmund with his Brussels mentors.  More info to follow in the future as we learn more...

Here is Edmund with his violin as a young man.

Edmund married another world-class musician, Elsa R, who was born in Lucerne, Switzerland, on December 6, 1881.

They played together in the original Detroit String Quartet, as shown in the following photo, circa 1910, perhaps earlier,.

Elsa  was renowned as the greatest female cellist in the world, if not the greatest cellist in the world, as she was sometimes called at the time. 

She was a remarkable woman, not only for pure talent, but because it was rare for women at that time to gain fame in that field at that level.

Unfortunately, she died way too young (43), which obviously broke Edmund's heart, who then reportedly changed his surname, stating, as the legend goes, something to the effect of:  "Never will there be another Mrs. Edmund L." (Sorry about the abbreviations while we work to ensure the security of information on this website...)

Anyway, to our good fortune, Elsa's and Edmund's remarkable collections of old photographs have been made available and can now be more widely appreciated. 

It is a lot of fun to see what everyone looked like when they were very young, etc. Although "only" related to the G's by marriage, the following photos of Elsa are offered with pride and awe.

Elsa was born in 1881, so the followng picture must have been taken about 1890. Here is an amazing portrait of her with her cello at a very young age. 

Here are some more pictures of lovely young Elsa.

These photos seem like they must have been taken close to the year 1900; possibly a little earlier or later.  Next is a picture of Elsa's sister, Wally. (I wonder if Julie B knows how she got to be called Wally!?)

Here is a beautiful portait photo of Elsa as a young woman.  Wonder if she had met Edmund yet?

Here are some photos of Edmund and Elsa together.

The next picture, while on the surface a seemingly typical picture of Edmund and Elsa with the gang in front of a theater, is actually an incredible piece of history.

Take a look at the guy on the right of the next photo and see if you recognize him (then continue to scroll down for additional discussion).

If you blew that picture up, and are a film buff, you may recognize him as one of the greatest actors in film history, although he wouldn't become famous for another 7 years.

If you didn't or couldn't blow it up, following is a blow-up for your review (with more discussion to follow).:

Most people's response when seeing this is that it is or looks much like the great James Cagney (however, this is not yet unanimous, with two notable people disagreeing...).

On the surface it would seem unlikely that it could be him, because this photo could not have been taken after 1924, the year Elsa tragically passed away, about 7 years before James first gained fame in film, in Public Enemy (1931).

Yet, he was in fact living in NYC during the 1920s, trying to get work in the theatre, doing vaudeville, as this appears to be a vaudeville troup,

He may look a little older than 25, but was working hard doing various odd jobs, retired from his once-promising boxing career. 

This picture was taken in front of a theater, The Orpheum, quite possibly in NYC, when "The Little Cottage" was advertised as playing or soon to be playing.

(Research so far has turned up no record of this play... Can you help, Julie?)

It is speculated that the previous holders of this photo, Uncle Paul, Grandma Hilda, and likely Edmund, very well may not have realized who was in this picture with Elsa and Edmund and probably some of their fellow world-class musicians.  But we digress...

Just to hammer home the point, here is a blow-up of the suspect's face, and a confirmed picture of the real Mr. James Cagney, for comparison purposes..

Are you convinced yet?!!  (But does this really have anything to with our family? ...OK; back to the point...)

An interesting thing is that Elsa did perform cello in vaudeville shows, "determined to bring her art to the people", as stated in the below article.

(Elsa did look a little frail in that picture; perhaps it was taken around 1924...)

Here's an actual news clipping, not sure of the year or city, that states that Elsa "is conceded by many critics to be the world's greatest cellist".:

Back to the photos, we see Elsa and Edmund in the great outdoors.  Wonder where this was taken?!

Well, hope you enjoyed those cool pictures.  Not much else to say about these amazing people at this time...

To review, as you may have already noted from Hilda's page, Edmund and Hilda's father was Joe L.  Their mother was Jennie Gr (L).  [Sorry about the abbreviations.  If you want to know what they stand for, shoot me (Steve) an email...]

Following is an amazing picture of Jennie and Joe.  This would seem to have been taken in the 1880s, perhaps the early 1880s, based on how young they look.

Edmund's grandfather was Julius L.  (Julius was the great-great-great-grandfather of Amber, Sam, Emily, Gabriel, Alexis and many others, and the great-great-great-great-grandfather of a growing list of kids already.)  Although Edmund is not in this picture, the following is included because his father, grandfather, sister and first nephew are in it (and it strikes me as a spectacular picture...).  See Julius, born May 20, 1829, with Joe, born on April 9, 1858, and Hilda, and her first of three sons, Robert. This picture was taken on June 2, 1916.  This is a rare four generation picture, taken almost 100 years ago.  You may well see it elsewhere on the website... 

Julius looks like quite a cut-up!  Would loved to have met that guy!  Will have to see what more we can find out about him.  If any L's+ out there know more about him (or anyone else), please contact us!

(The following was cut and pasted to other pages; a test link to an index page for most the pictures of Jennie, Joe, Hilda and Edmund, as they are not really covered by the "Menu" to the left.)

  Click on the picture to the left to go to an index page for pictures of Jennie, Joe, Hilda and Edmund.

(At this point, most of those are not on any other page, and that index has no direct link back to the rest of the website, so you have to click "return" to get back here...sorry...)

WIP