Over time I will add to this page photos of our family lines as far back as I can find.  I hope that this collection of photographs might give a sense of this history to our children, grandchildren, and great, great, great, ….. grandchildren.

The Krasse Family

    Joseph and Anna (Roubice) Krasensky sailed from Bohemia-Austria (Czechoslovakia) in 1904.  Joseph came first to establish a home for his family.  Before he immigrated he served in the Austrian Army as an enlisted soldier.  Anna, her three children Mary, Jeremiah, and Joseph and I believe some other relatives made the journey from Bohemia in the fall of 1905.  My (Thomas') Uncle Rudy (the last son of the family) once told me that his mother had a brother William Roubice and one or two sisters.  During WWI (1914) Anna used to send them clothing and food.

          My mother, Joan Krasse, told us many times that her grandmother, whom she called Bobbi, told the story that her youngest son Rudolph Frank (Uncle Rudy) was born shortly after the boat arrived in New York waters.  This is the reason he is the only one in that family with a middle name and the only natural born citizen of the United States. I later found out after interviewing Uncle Rudy that this was not true.  The family had lived almost six years in America before he was born.

          We know very little about the early history of this family.  Joseph was a butcher (specialized in making bologna) and had a cousin who had already immigrated.  His cousin, Rudolph, had attended a college in New York and he had a very good job with the Westinghouse Company.  It was this cousin who had first changed the family name from Krasensky to Krasse.  Joseph did not change the name until at least after the 1920 census as that census still lists the family as Krasensky.

          Jeremiah (Jarvelov in Czech), my grandfather, was the only one of the family to marry and have children.  He married Edna Holfeld and had two children, Joan Ann and Roy Krasse.  My Grandfather Jeremiah worked in down town NY City for Union Carbine (42nd St. Manhattan) . My mother told me when she was about 15 or 16 her father died in a terrible train accident. 

The third child, Joseph, did marry a woman named Mary (nick named Mae) but did not have any children. He died on July 12, 1968 at the age of 65.  He worked as a foreman for the New York City Parks Department.

The eldest child was Mary whom we called Aunt Mae worked as a secretary most of her life.  She never married.

The youngest, Rudy, is the only one in the family who had a college education.  After college he could not find a job and worked as a runner on Wall Street.  He then worked in "the cage" and with the sales of bonds.  He later (December 1937) was a fire fighter.  He enlisted in the US Navy as a yeoman 2^nd Class on 22 Jan 1942.  He was later commissioned as an ensign on 21 September 1942 and rose to the rank of Lieutenant.  He served under Admiral C. W. Nimitz.  He received many awards and citations including the purple heart.    When he left the service after WWII he rejoined the New York City Fire Department and later retired from the department to care for his aging mother.  He never married and had invested wisely.  He never had to work again.

Lastly, my uncle told me he had three cousins.  He never told me how they were related.  Much of the family information has been a big secret which, I am sorry to say, died with my Uncle.  There names were Rose (Hak - maiden) Holcepel, Joseph Holcepel (I assume Rose's son) and Frank Chabot.  I have always suspected that the family "Secret" was that my great grandfather Joseph was from a Jewish family.  I suspect that he was a secular Jew.  My grandmother Anna was Catholic.  In the early 1900's there was a great deal of persecution against the Jews.  I believe this fear of being known as Jews is what kept my Uncle from telling more of the family story.

The Hofeld Family

I know very little about the back ground of my maternal grand mother's family.  I know that they immigrated from Germany.  My Great Grandfather Gustav Hohlfeld was born in 1887.  He married Elizabeth (Mitz) Wetzler b. 1886.  They had three children Edna Catherine (b. 1906) my grand mother, Elizabeth Helen (b. 1910) and Lillian (b. 1913).  Elizabeth (Betty) married Ted Miller and had one  child Ted.  He married Joan and had two children Ted and Tammy. Lillian married and had one child Barbara Nagy.  She was my mother's closest  friend and cousin all of her life.  She married William (Bill) Roder and had three children, Pam, Bill, and Kurt.

The Snavely Family

  I know even less of the Savely family except that my paternal Grandmother, Anna Snavely, had a lot of bothers and sisters.  I inherited many photos from her a few years before she died.  Unfortunately, I never interviewed her about her family tree.  Also that the family migrated from Germany sometime before my Great Grand Parents.   Henry Snavely married Anna Maria Ruby.  They had Edna, Elizabeth, Albert, Robert, William, Chares, Laura, Anna (my grandmother) and Margaret.

The Eddy Family

           My grandfather, Edward Earl, moved to New York City form Derry New Hampshire and three years later divorced his first wife, Grace M Bartlett.  They had three children together, Edward Lewis, Edger Bartlett (twin of Edward and died at 6 months) and Grace Marion.   In New York he met my Grandmother, Anna Snevely.  There were married on 16 September 1920.  They had three sons, Carl Everett (my father), Marvin Dale, and Harold Earl.  Both my father and his brother Marvin served in WWII.  I know nothing of their adventures there. 

My father was a civil engineer.   He married Helen Pigan and had three children in New York:  Edward Carl, Gary Earl, and Susan.  They divorced in the early 60’s and then met my mother Joan (Krasse) Stark who was also recovering from a divorce from her first husband Robert Stark.  They married in 1961 and my father adopted her two sons Kenneth and James.  I was born in December of 1963 and my sister Cindy was born in August of 1965.

My father had a two year engineering degree from Cooper Union College and graduated in 1942.  He worked for Sperry Gyroscope Company, Great Neck NY from 1956 until Jan 1963 as a tool engineer.  He designed tools such as fixtures for lathes, biometrics, miller, grinder, drill press, etc.  He also designed a dip Solder Machine for printed circuit boards.  From January 1963 until June of 1966 he worked for the Grumman Aircraft Corp, Calverton NY as a Tool and Aircraft design engineer. 

From June of 1966 until September 1967 he worked as a contract engineer for Comprehensive Design Inc. out of Philadelphia PA.  This required him to travel a lot and was contracted for short term jobs.  They sent him from Jun 1966 – Dec 1966 with the Lockheed Aircraft Company in Marietta Georgia as a Mechanical equipment engineer.  From Jan 1967 – April 1967 he worked for the General Dynamics Electronics company in Rochester NY as a design checker of electrical / mechanical assemblies.  April 1967 until September 1967 saw my father work for AVCO out of Nashville, Tennessee as a design checker for the C5A wing and the Grumman Gulfstream II wing.  Lastly, from Sept 1967 until he died in November 1970 he worked as a Reducibility and Value Engineer for Unidex Systems.

Copyright © 2009 by Thomas Eddy. All rights reserved.
Last Revised: July 03, 2009