Alexander Groenewald

"Alexander was the second of nine children born to Ludwig and Anna ( Kirchner) Groenewald. His father, a Tailor, immigrated from Germany in 1854 and his mother in 1855 before they were united in marriage at Boson in 1857.

On a day when children were accepting small, mostly handmade gifts from their parents and Boston streets were being turned to slush by a cold steady rain, three-year-old Alexander, who had experienced fever, chills, and difficulty breathing over a three-day period, after being infected with Diphtheria, slipped into a final unconscious sleep. At that moment, in a city alive with a festive spirit and filled with hope that a long and bloody war was nearing an end, an invisible chain of sorrow, caused by the loss of a loved one that Christmas day and night, linked the Groenewalds and 19 other Boston families together. “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht, Alles schläft; einsam wacht…”