Every family has a story that doesn’t quite follow the expected path—and for Gertrude “Gertie” Hostetter, that story is hers.

Gertrude Helen Hostetter

Happy Birthday Gertie! (By Kerri Fawcett)
​Gertrude Helen Hostetter, the fourth daughter of Fred and Charlotte Hostetter, was born on Tuesday, January 16, 1917 in Jersey City, NJ. She joined her older sisters Anna, Charlotte and Millie most likely at 221 Winfield Avenue where the family was living in June of 1917. They remained at this residence until at least 1920 when the census was taken. By this time the family were joined by another daughter, Mertie. Margie would come along 3 years later and complete the family.
Gertie was baptized at the Lafayette Reformed Church in Jersey City on April 15, 1928 when she was 11 years old. The Hostetter family kept the Reverend Earle V.A. Conover busy that day as Mertie and Margie were also baptised on the same day!
In 1930 the family were living at 103 Ocean Avenue in Jersey City. There were eight of them living in the apartment and it must have been very crowded. The girls ranged in age from 21 to 7 and with both of their parents working, the oldest three were often in charge of looking after the youngest three.
The next ten years were full of change in the Hostetter household. Fred and Charlotte separated, there were marriages and babies being born. There is a story in the family that our Gertie had a baby girl in a home for unwed mothers and placed the child for adoption when she was three years old. I do not know the details but assume this happened in the mid to late 1930s. Does anyone know about this story?
Gertie did get married on May 14, 1939 to Walter Joseph Popielarczyk. They tied the knot at the parsonage of the church where she was baptized. The witnesses were her sister Charlotte and her husband Daniel Curtin. Walter was born on January 30, 1914 in Jersey City.
The newlyweds settled into married life. In April of 1940 they were living at 730 Ocean Avenue as lodgers and by October, when Walter filled out his World War Two draft card, they were living at 106 Manning Avenue. Walter was a steam railroad laborer.
It was not just the two of them on Manning Avenue. They were joined by their newborn daughter, Gladys Lorraine Popielarczyk. Gladys was born on September 9, 1940 in Jersey City. She would be the only child Gertie and Walter would have together.
Ten years later, in 1950, the trio were living on Barbara Place in Jersey City. Walter was out of work while Gertie was working 48 hours a week in the hospital. Gladys was 9 and going to school.
We lose track of Walter and Gertie until a legal notice appears in The Jersey Journal in August of 1967 which announces that Gertie wishes to divorce Walter. We do not know much about Walter after the divorce, only that he passed away in March of 1979 in Orange County, New York.
Gertie became a bride again on April 19, 1975 when she married widower Gerardo J. Mossuto, more commonly known as Jerry. He was born in Italy on June 26, 1907 and had two daughters and one son with his first wife, Mary.
Gertie retired from work in February of 1987. She was a nurses aide in Pollack Hospital in Jersey City for 39 years. Sadly her retirement only lasted a few months as she passed away from bone cancer at Christ Hospital in Jersey City on Monday, June 29, 1987. She was 70 years old. Her funeral took place on July 4, 1987 and she was entombed at Woodbridge Memorial Gardens in Woodbridge, NJ. Jerry went on to live to the age of 88 and he passed away on March 16, 1996 in Jersey City.
At the time of her death, Gertie left behind not only her husband Jerry, but daughter Gladys, son-in-law Bruce Benz and their two daughters, Diane and Gina. Today, both granddaughters have two daughters of their own and Gina recently became a grandmother with the birth of Gertie's great-great-granddaughter, MacKenzie. I am sure Gertie would be so proud with the newest addition to the family tree.
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Before my father died in 1983, he would go to Jersey City to pick up Gertie and Jerry and bring them over for dinner about twice a year and then drive them home again. These were always joyous events with a lot of laughing. Gertie was very chatty then and my grandmother Anna liked seeing one of her younger sisters for an afternoon. I will remember Gertie smiling, laughing and having fun. Wishing Aunt Gertie a very Happy Birthday.

A new name in our family tree and… It’s a girl.

(Written by Christine Applegate and posted on private Facebook group on July 2 2025.)

​Dear Family, You may recall that earlier this year—on Gertie Hostetter’s birthday—we first mentioned the story of the mystery baby girl she placed for adoption. Today, we celebrate both Gertrude’s courage and the joyful discovery about that baby girl. Our intention is to honor Gertrude’s bravery, not to reopen old wounds.
This is truly a celebration of life and love.

When the Ancestors Call Out to Be Found
In the quiet hours of genealogy research, when the census pages blur and names seem lost to time, there are moments that stop us cold—moments we can’t explain, but we feel deep in our bones.
A book falls open to the exact page we need.
A sealed or misplaced record suddenly appears, against all odds.
A headstone, half-buried in a cemetery we've never visited before, calls out until we notice the name we've long been searching for.
And often, these discoveries arrive on a birthday, an anniversary, or a date we later realize is filled with significance.
I call this Psychic Genealogy. (Although sometimes I call it Spooky Genealogy!)

It’s not about fortune-telling or spiritualism. It’s about those rare and remarkable coincidences—when it feels as though an ancestor is reaching forward through time, not just hoping to be found, but making sure they are. It's about how they find us, just as much as we find them.

These moments defy logic. They rarely come when we're expecting them. But they remind us that memory is not confined to paper, and that family ties—however distant—may be more powerful than we know.

Sunday was one such moment for Kerri and me. It was the anniversary of Gertrude Hostetter’s passing, and that morning we had paused to honor her life.

Back in the mid‑1930s, Gertie gave birth to a baby girl in a home for unwed mothers. Kerri and I searched everywhere for a trace of that baby—scouring local newspapers, birth records, and homes for unwed mothers in the 1930s. All we found were dead ends…until Sunday evening.
Having discussed a new experimental feature on FamilySearch, Kerri went online to follow a lead about naturalization documents for the Hostetter gal’s grandfather, Frederick. Instead, she was greeted by something no one expected: a fully intact docket page from the Hudson County Surrogate’s Office, dated January 1937— proof of an adoption record that had been thought long since destroyed.

This record provided the date of adoption of that little girl, named like her mother Gertrude Hostetter, on January 22, 1937, when she became Mary Alice Clayton, this was all it told us. Through a newspaper article we learned she was entrusted to Ruth and Rev. Leonard Clayton. Why Gertrude made that heart‑wrenching choice remains unrecorded—other than that she was unwed—but one can imagine a mother’s fierce hope that her daughter would grow surrounded by faith, love, and stability.

We haven’t learned much about Mary Alice yet, as the discovery was so recent, but traditional genealogy has given us a glimpse into her life. In 1940, the Clayton family was living in East Orange, New Jersey. The household included her mother, Ruth; father, Rev. Leonard; big sister, Dorothy, who was 13; big brother, David, age 6; Mary Alice, age 5, and Ruth’s mother, Ida.
The 1950 census show the family had moved to Philadelphia, where they lived with Leonard, Ruth, David, and little Mary Alice.
The New Jersey Marriage Index tells us that in October 1963, Mary Alice married Charles T. Walker.
And the Social Security Death Index tells us that Mary Alice passed away at the age of 62, on May 9, 1998. Her last residence was in Huntingdon Valley, Montgomery, Pennsylvania. FindaGrave tells us she was laid to rest at Sunset Memorial Park in Huntingdon Valley, Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

Between the anniversary of Gertie’s death—June 29th and the anniversary of Mary Alice’s birthday—July 2nd—we felt as though Gertrude and Mary Alice have chosen this day to whisper back to us through time:
“Remember me. Remember her.”
So, today, we honor that whisper. We honor Mary Alice Clayton, born ninety years ago today under a different name, and we take comfort in knowing that Gertie entrusted her little girl to a home of faith.
Sometimes, in genealogy as in life, the most extraordinary discoveries come at the moment when an ancestor’s voice breaks through the static of history, insisting that their story—and their child’s name—be told.
Happy 90th Birthday Gertrude / Mary Alice.
Sources:

• Find A Grave (Mary Alice Walker #262791545) https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/262791545/mary-alice-walker

• 1940 & 1950 US Federal Census, accessed through Ancestry.com

• Jersey Journal, Jan 23, 1937 page 1, via GenealogyBank

• Hudson County Surrogate’s Court, docket #94001 (1937), via familysearch.org

• Social Security Death Index, via Ancestry.com