Henry's first wife. Born in Kostopil (then 'Kastopol' under Russian Empire, now in Rivne Oblast, Ukraine). They married March 15, 1911 and lived at the 811 Oakland Avenue house Henry built around 1908. Their daughter Lorena was born April 4, 1912. Emma fell ill (the family believed it was TB) starting around 1913; Fannie Mae Shafer, a 21-year-old practical nurse, was hired in 1913 to care for her and Lorena. Emma died March 13, 1917.
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Emma Rodde
Events in this life
- 1911 · marriage
With: Henry August Lorenz
- 1913 · illness-onset
Emma became ill (family believed it was TB). Fannie Mae Shafer, age 21, was hired as practical nurse to care for Emma and infant Lorena.
With: Fanny Mae Shafer
- 1917 · death
Stories
Where Emma was really born
March 11, 1887
Jim Lorenz's family memoir from 1995 records his half-sister Lorena's mother Emma Rodde as having been born in 'Kastopol, Russia.' For decades the family knew Emma simply as 'Russian' — born in a place that wasn't in any modern atlas. In May 2026, a place-name resolution against the GeoNames database identified Emma's birthplace as Kostopil, a town in the Rivne Oblast of modern Ukraine. In 1887 when Emma was born there, Kostopil was part of the Russian Empire — hence 'Russia' in the family memory. After WWI it became part of interwar Polish Volhynia, then was incorporated into Soviet Ukraine, and is today part of independent Ukraine. The phonetic spelling 'Kastopol' has slowly drifted across three different sovereign states without the family realizing it. Emma's descendants could now visit the actual place where she was born.
Source: GeoNames place authority queries for Lorenz family historical place names