Family Archaeologist

Anger begets anger

2012-03-06T02:30:00.362-06:00

Theresia and Paul Müller, parents to
Therese Woschkeruscha, maternal
grandparents to Luise Woschkeruscha

Last week, we learned that Lil's mother, Louise, was sinking into mental illness just before Lil and Fred's wedding. (See More than I could stand.)
While the origins of Louise's mental illness can't be pinpointed, some facts about her childhood may throw some light the possible origins of her incendiary temper.

Aloisia (in America, Louise) Woschkeruscha's mother was Therese Müller, daughter of a successful miller and farmer, Paul Müller and his wife, Theresia, nee Blaschka. (Couple at left).

Johann Woschkeruscha, father to
Aloisia and John

Paul owned 80 “yokes” of land, the amount of land two oxen, yoked together, could plow in a day, and a flour mill on the Mank River, not far from Vienna, Austria. Neighbors could never figure out how Paul Müller came up with the most creative and innovative approaches to both the skill and business of milling and farming. They didn't know that he sat up late into the night reading a publication called Über Land und Mehr (Over Land and Sea) learning the most up-to-date methods to keep ahead of the curve. At a time when many of his peers couldn't even read or write, it gave him a vital edge.

Therese Woschkeruscha, nee
Müller, Louise's mother

Paul and Theresia's third child was named Therese, (photo left), mother to Aloisia and maternal grandmother to my mother, Lillian. Theresia, Therese's mother, died in childbirth, but it's not clear if she died giving birth to Therese or a later child. Paul remarried, but his second wife died in childbirth too. He then married a third time, to a woman, whom I believe was Anna, based on a funeral card we have in the collection. She was lucky enough to live to age 68.

As a young woman, Theresia met Johann Woschkeruscha, a handsome wagonmaker. Family lore has it that Johann seduced Therese Müller as a way to wheedle his way into her family money. My mother told me that the butcher in town begged Therese not to marry Johann. He, the butcher, loved her and didn’t care if she was pregnant with Johann’s child. It's unclear to me if Therese loved Johann or just felt the child should be raised with her biological father. Whatever the reason for her decision, their differences in class and ethnicity infused their marriage and family life with tension and violence.

Paul Müller's home, about 1900, location described on back:
St. Leonhardt am Forst, bei St. Pelten, Nieder Österreich (lower Austria)

John Miller, about 8, nee
Woschkeruscha. Look at his
eyes and hand. I see a tense
and angry little boy.

Johann apparently seethed over his inferior status. He would get drunk at a local bar and his fellow Bohemians would taunt him, “You let that German woman push you around? You should do something about her!” So he did. Drunk and embittered, he went home and beat his 4' 11" wife. He also beat Aloisia's younger brother, whom I'll call by his Americanized name, John, to keep him straight from his dad. John also trained as a wagon maker, like his father. I knew "Uncle John," my mother's uncle, here in America. Decades after leaving Austria, he could never speak of his father without shaking with rage, his face darkening, his voice quavering. He ran away from home at the age of fifteen, came to America, and changed his name to "Miller," his maternal grandfather's Americanized name, to erase his familial connection to the man who had abused him.

I never heard that Johann beat Louise, but it’s pretty clear that she grew up in a home where violence was common and self-control in short supply. She, too, would develop a volatile temper.

John Miller, center, son of Johann and Therese
Woschkeruscha, in wagonmaker school

Next week we'll learn more about Louise's childhood, her career as a dressmaker, and the disease that scarred her face and psyche.

More than I could stand

2012-02-28T02:30:00.058-06:00

Lil and Fred professed their love to each other on May 17, 1942 ( See He Really Loves Me!) They were happier than ever as they entered that summer. Lil’s parents knew that she would soon be married--that Lillian would no longer be living with them for the first time since her birth. I believe her engagement was a tipping point that unhinged Lil’s Mama’s already unstable personality.

“Mama,” as Lil called her mother, had always had a volatile temper that could be triggered by Lil’s slightest misstep -- like forgetting to return her mother’s comb or accidentally throwing out a scrap of fabric left on the floor. It was like living on an active volcano, never knowing when Mama would erupt.

But it was in June, 1942, that Lil first noticed signs that her mother’s behavior had progressed from mercurial to bizarre. Separate from her diary, Lil created a “Case History,” on August 15, 1942, recording what she had observed since June, 1942.

First indications of abnormality noticed about 2 months ago. Mother would look out the kitchen window in the morning and ask why they made those "doves" fly around in the alley. Actually was paper being blown about. She thought someone made these "doves" fly about to aggravate her....

She refused to cash any more checks or go shopping saying everyone at the bank and the stores was watching her...that the women in her building were "immoral."

Mama manifests no interest in my approaching wedding....

Last week she said I was "Miss America and therefore, Fred is Mr. America and she is Mrs. America." When I explained this was impossible, she counters that maybe I'm ashamed...and should be proud of the honor.

Lake Como, WI, from Lake Como Facebook

That August, Lil arranged a vacation with her papa and mama to the southern Wisconsin resort of Lake Como, hoping the country air and peaceful surroundings would soothe her mother’s nerves. It turned into two nightmarish weeks--a dizzying sense that Lil had fallen down Alice’s rabbit hole where the world was topsy-turvy and no good deed went unpunished. Even as they prepared to leave on Sunday morning, August 9th, Grandma sat sullen and silent in a corner chair as Lil and her Papa scrambled to pack and load the car. When she finally spoke, she said, “If we don’t get out of here soon, I’m going to hit you over the head with something!”

After arriving at their cottage and opening the door, the distinctive odor of gas enveloped them. “They’re trying to kill me!” Grandma screamed, backing out the doorway.

Lil’s heart clutched at her mother’s paranoid conclusion and dashed to the stove to turn the knobs. “No, Mama. It’s ok. The last guests just didn’t turn the burners all the way off.”

Mama often woke at night, demanding that Lil "tell her the truth," but wouldn't explain what she meant. She told her husband, "to get out of her sight, he was crooked to her, etc."

Lil wrote:
One night she woke up and jumped out of bed, yanked on the light and glared at me, saying, "You can't fool me any longer!" She pulled the covers off Papa and accused me of hiding pills in his bed and said to me, "You crrrooook, you!" again for no reason.

Mama often sat morosely in a corner, head in hands, mouth hanging down. Lil and her papa coddled Mama, taking her for walks, car rides, anything to make her happy, but every attempt was fruitless.“I feel as though nothing I can do will please her,” Lil recorded.

If she or Papa tried to make pleasant conversation, she assailed them with “You’d be better off with plaster in your mouth.” Or “Keep your big mouth shut!”

“It was almost more than I could stand,” Lil wrote.

These are just a few of dozens of bizarre incidents Lillian recorded about that "vacation."
“I think she’s having a nervous breakdown,” she wrote to Fred back in Chicago. By the end of the trip, Lil, unable to endure any longer the fourteen stressful days of trying to cope with her mother’s unraveling mind and delusional, baseless accusations, fell into tears, sobbing, “You have made these the most miserable two weeks of my life.”

After returning home, Lillian continued with her wedding plans, but she had no mother to help or support her––nor to show even the least enthusiasm for the most momentous, joyous event of Lil's life. To understand more about Lil's mother, it might help to go back in time, and learn a bit about her childhood and what I know about the family dynamics back in Austria.

Next week: the Müller and Woschkeruscha families.

The Happiest Days of our Lives!

2012-02-21T02:30:00.003-06:00

Fred Gartz, silhouette created at
Riverview Amusement Park, summer 1942

The Summer of '42 was one of bliss for Fred and Lil. They went to Chicago's iconic amusement park, Riverview and had several profile silhouettes cut out. These are two. I'm sure they rode the boat through "The Tunnel of Love." Here's what Lil had to say:

Wed., July 15, 1942

Fred gave me his fraternity pin––Delta Lamba Xi, saying, like the symbol on the pin, I am his guiding star. I gave him my Waller High School ring, which has left my third finger left hand for the 1st time since 1934, Nov. Fits him fine.

Didn’t say, “Will you marry me,” but it’s more or less understood. However, tonite, might be called the nite of his proposal, for he called me “Mrs. Gartz” and said how good that sounded.

Lillian Koroschetz, silhouette created at
Riverview Park, summer, 1942

We had gone swimming at North Avenue beach, then went to the Grant Park Concert. These are without a doubt the happiest days of my life.

After the concert we went to the lake, Fred tossing me over the fences between the sidewalk and street. We lay down on the grassy hill facing the lake, and there under the stars, we exchanged our pledges.

Fred said he will be glad to cooperate 60% in our marriage, and I, too, said the same, the point being where the line of cooperation is drawn too closely, friction in marriage is the result. When we’ll be married, I can’t say.

Should he be drafted and want to get married before he goes, I’ll be happy to do so, so long as he proposed before being drafted.

Lil double-underlined the words "before being drafted." Though madly in love, she had no intention of "giving herself" to someone who may have viewed marriage as either a scheme to avoid the draft or hoped to "get something" before putting his life on the line. Fred passed the test: no draft notice hanging over his head, just pure love.

The "60% cooperation" sounds a little funny. Why not 100%? Well, I understand what they meant. Rather than just a 50-50 partnership, they're talking about giving more than half. Bottom line, they seem to understand each other. At least for now.

This was Lil's last entry about Fred in her diary for many years to come. Wedding plans had to be made, and Mom would leave no detail to chance.

But that summer of 1942, another darker event was occurring simultaneously, and may even have been triggered by Mom's wedding plans. Her mother was plunging into madness.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY-ACROSS THE DECADES

2012-02-14T02:30:00.073-06:00

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY TO ALL ACROSS 70 YEARS.

FROM LILLLIAN KOROSCHETZ TO FRED GARTZ - FEBRUARY 14, 1942
(Scroll down to see all sides.)

See the 1911 Valentine my grandfather, Josef Gartz sent his sweetheart, Lisi, my grandmother, here: Be my Valentine 1911

I love hearing from you. Please click on "Post a Comment" below in red.

Seven Tips to Meet the Family History Writing Challenge

2012-02-08T17:41:00.012-06:00

The Armchair Genealogist

Lynn Palermo over at The Armchair Genealogist is sponsoring the second annual Family History Writing Challenge. Today Lynn has been kind enough to invite me to be a guest blogger on her site.

Given the vast amount of materials I have in my family archive collection, I wanted to write about how to "dig out" the story from one's research and collections. That seemed like an appropriate topic for the Family Archaeologist. Click on "Seven Tips to Meet the Challenge."

Thanks to Lynn's challenge, I've been writing 250-1000 words a day, with a goal of about 5,000 words a week.

Lynn's site is an excellent resource for all sorts of suggestions, recommendations, and guides to write your family history. It's great for newbies or seasoned researchers and writers. She also fills us in on the latest technologies that can help with our research and writing, reviews books, and write a regular feature about heritage recipes.

I hope you drop by to read my post, and then keep checking back to read more of what Lynn has to offer.

He really loves me!

2012-02-07T02:30:00.013-06:00

Just one week after Fred's May 10, 1942, letter to his mother, detailing the trauma of his dismissal from the Kingsbury Ordnance Plant in La Porte, Indiana,(see War & Bigotry & following three posts) he was back in Chicago. Perhaps his raw emotions from that encounter made him appreciate Lil and her support more than ever. It's a turning point. Read on!

May 17, 1942

Fred told me at 2:30 a.m. Sunday, 5-17- really that he loves me and as a matter of co-incidence - one split second before he did so, I murmured, “Je t’aime,” which of course, he did not understand.

Ever since then we have been happier than ever before in our lives. Oh, we’ve been doing some lovin’ since 5-16-42. Fred tells me the nicest things––that he loves me more all the time. I get sweeter as time goes on; that he’s never loved anyone like he has loved me. That he has wanted many things badly in his life, but never anything half so much as he wants me.

I, too, love him as I have never loved anyone before, barring none. He is the first man that could make me feel “excited.” I never tire of kissing him and vice versa.

It’s amazing how much we have in common––

Dancing
Swimming
Walking
Horse-back riding
Hiking
Singing
German

etc. etc. etc.

We have never had an argument since our first date 8-15-41. So if we won’t be happily married, who will?

I love the naive certainty of true love. Surely this list of mutually-shared hobbies should be enough to get them through all the vicissitudes life will throw in their paths!

It takes me back to the letter my grandmother's boss, Mrs. Jickeli (Yuh-KAY-lee), sent to her (Lisi) after Lisi ran off to America to marry my grandfather in 1911. Mrs. Jickeli wanted to warn Lisi against unrealistic youthful expectations. In the post, Your Uncertain Fate, Mrs. Jickeli wrote to Lisi two months after she arrived in Chicago and married my grandfather, Josef. The letter was dated December 10, 1911:

"...you are now a wife and so will be the victim of the painful and changing nature of life."

Not the most positive message to a young bride, but then, as in the Jewish wedding tradition, in which the groom crushes a glass underfoot to remind the happy couple that joy must be tempered, Mrs. Jickeli was sharing with Lisi a dose of realism. Lil, too, would find that even for the happiest of couples, time throws its curve balls.

Perhaps it's better we don't know all the outcomes of so many of life's decisions––or we might be paralyzed with inaction!

Lynn Palermo at the Armchair Genealogist is hosting a month of the "Family History Writing Challenge." If you haven't yet begun, click on latter link to get started writing your family history. Lynn has been kind enough to ask me to write a guest post for her blog for this upcoming Friday, February 10th, so check in at her blog to pick up "Seven tips to meet the challenge."

Next week, to celebrate Valentine's Day, I'll be posting the cute card Lil sent to Fred 70 years ago and a reprise of the 101 Year old Valentine from Josef Gartz to his sweetheart, Lisi.

I-Gene Awards 2012-And the winners are...

2012-02-01T06:00:00.002-06:00

Thanks to Jasia, at Creative Gene for once again hosting the annual I-Gene awards, an opportunity for the genealogy blogging community to look back over the past year and salute each other's best posts in five categories. Here are my choices for Family Archaeologist for 2011 Let the awards begin!

Best Biography: Dress Designer Extraordinaire My maternal grandmother, Aloisia Woschkeruscha, earned a dressmaker diploma in Vienna, Austria. In honor of Women's History Month last year, I posted a brief biography of her, accompanied by this photo of Aloisia posing in her graduation masterpiece.

Best Comedy: Going to the Dogs My trip to Romania in 2007 confirmed my grandfather's warning: It's a bad idea to name a girl "Linda!"

Best Documentary: It has to be the series of my paternal grandmother, Lisi's, journey to America as recorded in her diary from Transylvania to New York. It begins when she ships her trunk to America: Farewell, My Homeland, and continues with her Train Journey (Part I), then onward to the Port of Bremen, Train Journey Part II-To Catch a Ship. On board the steamer, Kaiser Wilhelm II, it's Lisi's Moveable Feast and From Ship to American Soil until, finally: Central Park, NY "I've Arrived!"

Best Screenplay, a love story: Falling in love––70 years ago My mother's diary of meeting and falling in love with my father begins with this post on October 11, 2011, and unfolds in a weekly series over the next several months (it's ongoing even now on this blog), as she pours out her heart in these "engaging, sweet, and vivid entries, full of hope and promise." If you ever were madly in love, this serial "screenplay" will take you right back to that emotional high.

Close up from above photo: Josef Gartz, age 23. 1912

Best Picture: Joe Nelson's Saloon, 1912. Free Sandwich with that Beer! My grandfather, Josef Gartz, finally landed a decent-paying job at this saloon, at Crawford and Madison on Chicago's West Side. And it came with food! This photograph of an early 20th Century saloon, with my grandfather (background, above, and close-up, right) at age twenty-three, is a classic. It's the oldest one we have of Josef after his arrival in America in January, 1911. My grandmother's letter, in which she references this job, is included with the post and brings their monetary struggles to life.

When love and science collide

2012-01-31T02:30:00.064-06:00

North Ave. Beach 8/27/1941

Fred (my dad) sent this amusing "scientific analysis" of two "aquatic species," probably based on a photo (he says "illustration" but I think that's part of the joke) that was enclosed with the letter. He typed it up almost exactly 70 years ago, on January 27, 1942. It was written three months before his job loss at the Kingsbury Ordnance Plant (see War and Bigotry, An FBI Investigation, and Anti-American Hobbies).

The "illustration" or photo wasn't saved with the letter, but based upon the content, my guess is––it is related to this picture, the first photo taken of my parents together, on August 27, 1941, on an early date at a Chicago beach. To read Lil's entry about their date, click on Love is dancing by ourselves.

Dad uses his scientific background to express affection through the back door of humor. The letter is a little faded so I've transcribed it, editing a few typos, to make reading easier.

January 27, 1942

Dear Lillian,

Just to prevent myself from forgetting to bring it up the next time, I'm going to ease my conscience, not to mention your curiosity, and send you this illustration of a hitherto unclassified biological species. According to close observation, it has been concluded that they are aquatic, if not amphibian. This conclusion has been reached by detecting the comparative ease with which they appear to be with a watery background. They must be an industrious genus for although the climatic conditions at the time of discovery were not of a vegetative productive era, neither of the two seemed underfed. This condition of the absence of malnutrition is especially predominant in the case of the male (assumed because of size).

Also, they are definitely not of a hibernating class since they have been observed under a variety of climatically-conditioned activities. Notice also the plumpness of the female's cheeks. Among lower four-footed animals, the well-development of the heavy-muscled jowls reveals much biting and fighting. The male, not being battle-scarred, it can safely be assumed that these two exist in peace, and therefore, such well-developed "muscularis maxillaris" must be intended for domestic uses, such as a highly scientifically developed method of osculation, which has been observed from time to time. It might here be mentioned that the recipient of such outbursts was well satisfied with the results.

Science shall do its utmost in attempting to civilize and domesticate this rare type---but I doubt whether they will be successful. - - - - You had better get a drink, and a good strong one, at this stage, if you're still conscious. I'm sure you'll need it. Be seeing you soon.
Sincerely,

Fritz

Tomorrow, Wednesday, February 1st, I'll be posting to the annual "Carnival of Genealogy I-Gene Awards." For those of you not familiar with the CoG--I-Gene Awards, it's a take-off on the Oscars, appropriate for this prize-frenzy time of year. All entrants post links and brief "award highlights" in five categories from their previous year's posts: Best Screenplay, Best Documentary, Best Picture, Best Biography, and Best Comedy. I won't be sending out an email blast on this one, so as not to clutter your in-box, but do drop by if you want to see my choices from 2011.

Anti-American hobbies

2012-01-24T02:30:00.002-06:00

Der Prozess, The Trial
by Franz Kafka

The last two posts have detailed the anti-German bigotry my father faced in his work at the Kingsbury Ordnance Plant in La Porte, Indiana, where he had begun work on March 30, 1942, as a blasting powder blender.

Similar to the character, Josef K. in Kafka's novel, The Trial, (Der Prozess) who is arrested, but never told why nor who ordered the arrest, my father was summarily fired on May 4th from his job as a blasting powder blender, but no one could tell him why nor who was responsible. Normally non-confrontational by nature, Dad refused to abide this travesty, and doggedly pursued an answer, which boiled down to this: he crossed his sevens, he made his cursive "F" with a flourish the company deemed "too German," and of course, his parents were ethnic Germans––but the family actually hailed from Transylvania (now Romania), not Germany, and had since 1770.

After an intense grilling by the personnel director, Mr. Hibbert, ("I had to answer 1,000 questions and my life was chopped into tiny pieces," Fred wrote), Mr. Hibbert said he was satisfied, and Dad had high hopes to return to work. But alas, it was not to be. Apparently he had two very "un-American" hobbies, as you'll see in the letter below.

Fred wrote the following letter to Mr. Barab, the man who had been given the order to fire Fred with no explanation, but later, after Fred tracked Barab down at his home, arranged for Fred to have meet with Hibbert. Under the circumstances, I find this letter to be extraordinarily gracious.

Fred ends the letter saying he couldn't have left Indiana until he had received an honest explanation of the reasons he was fired and the chance to clear his and his family's name. He thanks Barab for making the meeting with the assistant personnel director, Hibbert, possible so he, Fred, could finally get a straight answer. Fred then asked if he may use Barab as a reference. Hibbert allowed him (Fred) to resign voluntarily so that Fred's opportunities for future employment , weren't jeopardized. Hibbert, too, promised to give Fred good references. In the end, however, Fred still lost the job, even after the lies and suspicions proved unfounded. An employee who enjoyed hunting and taking photos was just too great a risk! No qualms existed, however, a few months hence, in drafting Fred's younger brother to fight in the war.

It's not surprising that a country becomes more paranoid during wartime, but this trip into my father's past has reminded me that we must be on-guard not to let bigotry deny our fellow Americans whatever their ethnic heritage, and even our foreign neighbors, fairness and due course of justice.

Next week we'll return to Fred and Lil's romance, this time with a tongue-in-cheek letter Fred sent to Lil seventy years ago, on January 27, 1942. It's a "scientific analysis" of the two of them a "hitherto unclassified biological species!"

An FBI Investigation???

2012-01-17T02:30:00.004-06:00

Munitions are processed at Kingsbury
Ordnance Plant during World War II. Photo
courtesy of LaPorte County Historical
Society Museum

In last week’s post, "War and Bigotry" I shared a letter from Fred Gartz (my dad) to his mother detailing his summary firing from the Kingsbury Ordnance Plant. No one would tell him why he was fired, or they said cryptic things like, “You know what’s wrong,” or told blatant lies about the quality of his work. We pick up as Fred continues to be shuffled from one office to another, each person telling him to see someone else and making such comments as, “I don’t care to discuss it,” and “I know nothing.”

Fred finally tracked down the assistant personnel director, Mr. Hibbert. “He, too, wouldn’t tell me anything, but he promised that he would have my case re-investigated and I should come back in ten days.” [TEN DAYS!... to cool his heels with no money coming in and a sick feeling in his stomach.]

Fred wrote, “All I wanted was a chance for someone to stand up and accuse me openly. Then I can defend myself and break up their false accusations.”

He was caught in a Kafka-esque world of lies, double-talk, and run-around, with no idea why he was being fired from a job for which he had given up another, moved to Indiana, and now faced the likelihood of a black mark on his employment history. “I had practically no appetite, and spent my days reading the newspaper from cover-to-cover.”

He doggedly pursued anyone who could enlighten him: he met with the head of his lab who said he’d heard Fred was reported for leaving his post and disappearing for an hour, a lie. He told Fred to again see Mr. Barab, who had dismissed him in the first place. Unable to find Barab in his office, Fred went to Barab’s home to plead his case, again asking to be accused directly so he could defend himself. Barab told him to see Hibbert, the assistant personnel director, who, perhaps at Barab's urging, was willing to see him sooner than ten days.

He went to see Hibbert the next day and was grilled in a manner reminiscent of the kinds interrogations usually associated with totalitarian regimes, bizarre questions that seem intended to find some obscure answer to project blame. Fred continues the letter to his mother:

“[When] I saw Hibbert the next day I had to answer about 1,000 questions. Complete history of myself and of Will and Ebner (his brothers), you and Pop. When you came here! Why? What relatives we had back in the old country. How often we get word from them and how often we write. What are my feelings in this war and what are yours? My entire life was chopped into fine pieces and each examined. What are my hobbies. How do I spend my time. Where I eat, what I eat, and why?”

[Who could possibly explain why they eat something! Because I like it? I'm hungry?]

“They knew my every move since I came there and every thing I told them they already knew.” Apparently he’d already been investigated. “I spoke the truth in every instance because there was nothing I had to hide."

Hibbert asked if Fred could prove he was born in the United States (Note: Fred had to produce his birth certificate to get the job!)

“Yes,” Fred, surprised. “Why?”

“Why do you speak with a strong German accent?”

“This surprised me. Then I became conscious that I was nervous, but my mind was clear, and I chose my words to be the most effective. [It resulted] in my speaking in short, quick phrases, pronouncing every vowel, every consonant. I told him I can speak just as good English as he could."

Hibbert wanted to know where Fred learned to write and why he crossed his sevens and made an “F” like a German “F!” Fred responded, “I told him it was plain habit and he and the country had nothing to worry about where our loyalty was concerned.

Will Gartz, Dad's older brother, serving in the
Civil Air Patrol. Photo taken 1943-44 Harlem Airport

“Hibbert asked if I cared if the whole family were investigated by the F.B.I. I said I didn’t care, and told him that the FBI has our records because of Will’s [older brother] membership in the Civil Air Patrol.”

Here one brother was serving the country, already vetted by the FBI, and another brother was soon to be drafted, and this assistant personnel manager was questioning the whole family’s loyalty, primarily because Fred "crosses his sevens," and they are suspicious of his "Germanic" heritage, although the family was not from Germany.)

Hibbert ended the interrogation by saying he was satisfied and that Fred should come see him Tuesday. Fred believed he had saved his job.

He ended the letter to his mother by writing, “I wanted so badly to come home for Mother’s Day, but the honor of the family name comes first. If I was ever homesick and wanted someone to talk to and listen [to me], it was this last week. I was mentally sick and a wreck. My only consolation was the Book of Psalms and therein was my answer."

A few of the Psalms he mentioned include these, for which I've included a key line. Click on and read if you wish:

Psalm 4 "...thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress..."
Psalm 7 (A prayer for vindication) "...save me from all them that persecute me, and deliver me..."
Psalm 27 "...When the wicked advance against me to slander me, it is my enemies and my foes who will stumble and fall..."

Dad was not super religious, but he had been a regular Lutheran church-attendee since childhood, sang in the choir, and apparently was familiar enough with the Bible to take consolation from reading several Psalms. '"It gave me a complete feeling of confidence and self-expression...and gave me the assurance to stand up for my just rights and made me able to take all those questions and drilling unafraid."

After all that, Fred felt confident he had settled any further questions about his loyalty and fitness for his employment, for which he had given up so much. Next week we'll learn the conclusion.

Comments always welcome. Please click on "Post a Comment" in red, below.

War and Bigotry!

2012-01-10T02:30:00.050-06:00

La Porte, IN Courthouse
postcard Fred sent to his family

In the post, Explosive News, we heard that my dad, Fred, a chemist, quit his job with Lanteen to make almost double the salary as a blasting powder blender at the Kingsbury Ordnance Plant in LaPorte, Indiana. He started the job on March 30, 1942.

After Lil’s Easter post on April 5, 1942, she didn’t write for several weeks, until she made this startling entry.

May 16, 1942

Fred lost his job in Indiana through no fault of his. He felt so blue, poor guy, particularly over the injustice of it all. One thing Fred did find out through this experience is that he could fight back against any odds. He didn’t give up until he found out why he was canned.
[Mom also turned to shorthand in this entry, discussing what she understood about the dismissal (revealed below)––but clearly wanting to keep her thoughts hidden, perhaps for the same reasons Fred was fired? Thank you to Sandy Arnone, blogger extraordinaire at Spittal Street, for helping me decipher sections of Mom's shorthand].

This is a tale about being “the other,” during war, even as a United States citizen. Most Americans know about the shameful injustice perpetrated against Japanese-American citizens during World War II. More than 100,000 were rounded up and sent to “internment camps.”

But many are unaware that thousands of German-Americans also suffered this knee-jerk discrimination. Internment camps were set up to hold not only Japanese Americans, but also those with Italian and German heritages.

My father became victim to anti-German bigotry, despite the fact that he and his brothers were natural-born American citizens and both his parents had attained American citizenship around 1920. A further irony is that my father’s parents had no affiliation to Germany: they were from Transylvania, in Romania after WWI, ethnic Germans whose ancestors had emigrated from Alsace in 1770 (my grandfather’s side) or had been driven out of Austria in the 19th century (my grandmother’s side), the latter because of religious bigotry against Lutherans.

Dad had often told the story of how he was fired, without warning, from the Kingsbury Ordnance Plant, just two months after starting, but I recently found a letter that detailed his reaction to this traumatic experience as it unfolded.

On Sunday, May 10, 1942 (Mother’s Day), Fred wrote an eight-page letter to his mother and family, explaining his summary dismissal, the outright lies and run-around about the reasons behind his firing, and how he fought back to get at the truth and clear his and his family’s name. As Lil notes in her diary entry, he tapped a reservoir of confidence he hadn’t realized he possessed.

These are the key events in the story, all culled from that May10th letter.

On Monday May 4th, Fred was in the lab at the Kingsbury Plant when Mr. Barab, one of his bosses, called Fred into his office. With no explanation nor prior warning, Barab told him, “I have a very painful duty to do, Gartz, but I’ll have to let you go.”

“Why?!" Fred was flat-out blindsided.

“I don’t know.”

“How can I find out?”

“Perhaps at the personnel department.”

Barab gave Fred a “termination slip” so he could pick up the pay due to him. A security guard escorted Fred to Personnel, to ensure he turned in his identification badge.

Fred refused to give up the badge until he had a full explanation as to why he was being fired. No one was available in personnel except a Mr. Vail, who “was reluctant to give out any information” and told Fred, “You’ll know what’s wrong.”

“I certainly don’t know what’s wrong!” said Fred. “This entire department is incompetent if I can’t even get the truth!” For my dad, who hated confrontation, this aggressive statement reflected the level of outrage and frustration he felt.

Fred wrote, “Mr. Vail got sore and told me to leave. I said I wouldn’t until I found out who could give me information leading to my dismissal.”

Vail replied that nothing could be done, but implied that the trouble had to do with the quality of Fred’s work, which Fred knew “was patently untrue.”

“My work has always been satisfactory,” he told Vail, who summarily dismissed Fred from his office.

Going back to the Personnel office, the security guard pressured Fred to give up his badge because his day was up and he wanted to go home. “I’m not leaving until I find out why I was fired,” Fred told him. “It may be a little overtime for you, but to me it’s a job."

In my goal to keep these posts readable within a few minutes, I'm breaking up this story into parts. I'll continue the story of how doggedly Fred had to work to track down the real reason for his firing next week with "An F.B.I. investigation of the whole family?!"

Like a bolt out of the blue!

2012-01-03T02:30:00.004-06:00

On March 22, 1942, Lil has written that she felt “like a hussy” kissing both Burt and Fred and four months after dating the two of them was feeling the stress of indecision.

Just a week later, something clicked.

March 28, 1942,

Burt and I went [out]. Had a pretty nice time. Had a flat tire so Burt and I changed tires at 1:30 a.m.

Suddenly like a bolt out of the blue it came to me definitely and decisively that Fred is the one and only for me. Just no shadow of a doubt left. Funny isn’t it?

I saw Mom’s sudden flash of intuition in decision-making repeatedly over the years. Or maybe it’s just typical of true love. In any case, certainty has replaced doubt. Now she just had to be patient for Dad to get around to figuring out––or at least saying out loud––that she’s the one for him.

Time to spend a holiday with Fred's parents––at the crack of dawn no less. This had to be love, because Mom was by nature a night owl and getting up for a sunrise Easter service was assuredly quite a sacrifice.

Sunday, April 5, 1942, Easter

This photo isn't dated, but I'm venturing a guess it's
Easter Sunday, 1942. The outfits look very "Easterish"
and I recognize Bethel Church behind them.

Fred and I went to Sunrise Easter Service at Soldier’s [sic] Field. Had to arise at 4:45 a.m. Came to my house for breakfast, which I made. Then to Fred’s house. His mother had me comb out her curls. Guess she likes me. [It will be years before she finds out how wrong she is.]

We went to Fred’s church––the whole family.

While driving to his house, Fred told a little joke.

“A man wanted to marry a beautiful but dumb girl. Beautiful so he could love her; dumb so she could love him.”

Well, I was looking at the funny side of it,” and said, “Like me, huh?”

“I aint’ committin’ myself,” he replied.
“For a few minutes, that made me angry. We had a wonderful day, though.

Garfield Park Conservatory on Chicago's West Side

After dinner at Fred’s, we went to the Garfield [Park] Conservatory where we met Kenny and Arlyne. Then for a drive and dinner at Olson’s.
At Olson’s, Fred said, “When I finally get settled, I want a room for my library and for studying.”

How will that suit you, Lillian?” Kenny joked.

I laughed it off, then said, “Where will I put my piano?”

I’m sure some day I’ll be Mrs. Fred Gartz. He’s just right for me and vice versa. I know we could certainly make a great success of it.

Dad had a very sensitive nature, and, conditioned by a controlling mother to avoid revealing his feelings out loud, my interpretation is that he feared exposing a heart that might be trampled. But Mom's confident prediction is enough for both of them––for now!

But then there's that "Explosive News" (click to see post) Fred gave Lil that he's been hired as a "blasting powder blender" at the Kingsbury Ordnance Plant in LaPorte, Indiana. Little do they knew that this job will shortly "blow up in his face" when the insidious bigotry of a country at war infiltrates the minds of narrow-minded, frightened men.

Next week: Bigotry Blow-up.

Explosive News!

2011-12-27T02:30:00.127-06:00

We're following along in the diary of Lillian Koroschetz as she dates two guys: Fred and Burt. Her present quandary is whom she will marry. To start at the beginning of her amorous adventure, click on Falling in Love––70 Years Ago and scroll forward. After being "damn mad" at Fred for not asking her out New Year's Eve, he's back in her good graces--and they've dated just about every Saturday night since February, 1942.

Tuesday, March 17, 1942

Marbro Theatre, 4124 W. Madison on Chicago's
West side. Photo credit:
Chicago Architectural Photographing Co.

Fred called me at 5:00 p.m. at work tonite and said he was coming over at 6:30. He certainly had loads of news for me.

He bought a $50.00 Ford––1930 model––from a young draftee. Five brand new tires and in very good condition. He has a new job–––in Kingsbury, Indiana, as a blasting powder blender, at $57.50 per week compared to $30 per week at Lanteen.
[The new tires are worth mentioning. Rubber is rationed during the war and tires are hard to come by.]

Played piano and sang. We had loads of fun. Then went to the Marbro to see “Corsican Bros.” with Douglas Fairbanks Jr.––a marvelous picture. Didn’t get in till two.
[Mom changes to writing in Pitman shorthand again! CENSORED!]
I pray nothing will happen to him on his new job. He’ll come in every weekend.
Sunday March 22, 1942

Burt phoned at 6:00 and asked me out.

[Lil and Burt went to a friend’s house where she drank whiskey highballs. They all went together to a club called "El Rancho," where Lil drank two Cuba Libras and danced the night away. But the drink combos made her so sleepy, Burt drove her home. She was wracked with indecision about her two beaus.]

Got in at 4:30 a.m. Terrible, isn’t it? Burt is so grand––such a gentleman, and I do enjoy being with him and also kissing him. I feel like a hussy, kissing both Burt and Fred, and here I am trying to decide––Burt or Fred? It is awful.

I love that! She feels like "such a hussy" KISSING two guys. A different era--for sure!

I pick up on something in Mom's entries of which she herself seems to be unaware. Burt may be a “gentleman” and a “wonderful dancer,” but he seems like a cardboard cut-out compared to Fred, who's worthy of detail! She's never given Burt the ink she devoted Fred during their glorious summer and fall of dating in 1941. Then there's her concern for Fred's safety as a "blasting powder blender."

On a subsequent date, Lil and Fred take turns making up funny couplets about their lives, and Dad throws out one related to this risky work:

Now Fred is mixing TNT
If he ain't careful, he won't be

His cute sense of humor prompts Lil to write, "Gee, I'm in love with that guy!"

In the next post: "It came to me like a bolt out of the blue..."

(To start at the beginning of Lil's adventures with Fred, see Falling In Love 70 Years Ago and scroll forward in time.)

NOTE: This week marks the 101st anniversary Fred's father, Josef Gärtz, began his harrowing trip to America at the age of twenty-one. He left from Transylvania by train on Christmas Eve, 1911. Destination: the port of Bremen. To read a first hand account of one immigrant's travels click: Terror Atop the Train Threats to the Dream, Out to Sea, and Atlantic Crossing in Winter. Or just scroll forward in time.

To make a comment, click below either on "comments" or "post a comment." Thanks!

Merry Christmas and a look back 101 Years ago today

2011-12-24T23:34:00.001-06:00

Merry Christmas, Everyone -- and Happy Holidays.

I'm thinking of all of you celebrating with your families and the impressive posts and research so many in the family history and genealogy community have done over the past year to share their stories and knowledge.

I'm also thinking back to 101 years ago, when my grandfather, Josef Gärtz, boarded a train in Austro-Hungary to start his fateful path to America and the terror he experienced on that journey.

In honor of the 101st anniversary of that trip, I'm adding a link to the post I made on Christmas Eve last year to mark the centennial of his departure.

Click Terror Atop the Train to read the story of this twenty-one year-old's audacious manner of getting to the port of Bremen and my discovery of the diary which allowed me to share his story with all of you.

All the best in 2012.

Whom shall I marry? Indecision is a killer!

2011-12-20T02:30:00.020-06:00

A vintage postcard Lil sent to Fred from her visit to Milwaukee, in
August, 1941--when she and Fred were in the throes of falling in love.

After being "Damn Mad at Fred" for not taking her out on New Year's Eve, Lil doesn't write in her diary for a couple months. I'll tell you a little secret that she doesn't write about, but I happen to know from family lore.

I'm quite sure her "damn mad" really translates to "damn hurt." After all those wonderful dates, all that kissing, all the passionate feelings she had for Fred, I think she just couldn't believe he'd let her down. Isn't anger so often "hurt" by another name, the two emotions so closely intertwined?

So when Fred called the next day, to take her out to Math Igler's, a Chicago German restaurant, she said yes. After they had danced for a while an older couple came up to them and said that every year when they went out to celebrate the New Year, they looked for a couple that they wish they could be if they were young again. That night, they wished they could be Fred and Lil.

Mom picks up her diary again in March, and opens it with a little French and Latin (she had studied French in high school and enjoyed the sound of the language.) Burt, who rescued her on New Year's Eve, is giving Fred some competition. But maybe not as much as even Lil thinks.

Monday - March 16, 1942

Tempus Fugit, n’est ce pas? Here 2 1/2 months have flow by before I got a chance to write in my little diary again.

March 1 (Sunday) Burt took me to El Rancho Grande. We had just a wonderful time rhumba-ing. Stayed out till 3:30––we just didn’t want to go home. Had 6 Cuba Libras and they didn’t faze me a bit.

For a while I just couldn’t decide––did I like Burt or Fred better. Never thought there’d be the faintest doubt about my ever preferring Fred. I still think now that Freddie is my #1 boy. There for about a month (February) Freddie and I went out each Saturday and always had a marvelous time. Never yet had a dull time with him….

I got to feel kind of retrospective tonite. Friendships seems such a temporary thing, even the most permanent ones. You cling to many for the sake of old times, drifting into new groups who have the same interests you do, but I guess that’s life. I’d hate to be without friends….

I wonder whom I shall marry. I’m sure some day I shall for I would not like to be single forever. Up to now I certainly am glad I was single. Have had just wonderful times.

I wouldn’t want to marry Burt. I have always vowed never to marry a traveling man; life would be just too lonesome. Fred would be fine for me, I’m sure. I love him [and] am sure he loves me (although never has he said so). Still, I’d hate never to see Burt again. Some day I shall have to give up one––or perhaps they both will give me up. Who knows? Then I’ll be lonesome.

Her vow to “never marry a traveling man,” will come to have a sadly ironic ring in the next decade––an outcome she couldn’t possibly have predicted when she was dating and looking for Mr. Right.

Next week: "Explosive" News from Fred as he gets a new job and makes an exciting new purchase!

New Year's Eve, 1941 "Damn mad at Fred"

2011-12-13T02:30:00.067-06:00

Lil Koroschetz's diary entry, 12/31/1941

Last week I posted Lil's entries into the new diary she had started on the eve of 1942, three weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and America's entry into World War II. If you'd like to see how the war had already begun to affect every-day Americans, see Lil's ruminations at Pearl Harbor Day-A diarists response to war. If you'd like to start reading Lil's entries of falling hard for Fred Gartz from the get-go, start at Falling in Love 70 Years Ago and just scroll through to the present.

Lil had met a "grand young man", the "Burt" of this entry, in late October, 1941, on a Saturday night when Fred had failed to ask her out (See Trouble in Paradise). Now Fred's got some serious competition, and Burt has stepped in to take out Lil for New Year's Eve.

December 31, 1941 (continued)

I've been damn mad at Fred for not phoning me for a New Year's Eve date which seems very low-down. He has $65.00 saved, so surely he could have spared the few dollars necessary for New Year's Eve. He's so darnn tight he squeaks. Of course, maybe he took out another gal, but somehow I doubt [it]....

Burt, however, came through for me. (Something always turns up so that I go out Halloween and New Year's Eve). He said...he would be in Indianapolis Tuesday and Wednesday and possibly wouldn't get back in time. But at 7:00 he phoned [and] said he made it back. I'm waiting for him now and hope he comes soon for I want to be some place when 1941 leaves us to take its place in history.

He's a grand guy, sort of on the bashful side when it comes to romancing. He didn't kiss me until our last date, Monday, and even then he doesn't put any feeling into it. But it's kinda nice when someone goes with you for your "delightful" company. He's a swell dancer too.

I'm particularly fed up with Fred now and think it's damn cheap he didn't call me up for New Year's....Perhaps this is the end of my "story book" romance with "old stingy" Fred. Too bad. It started out so fortuitously too. But this neglect has killed something in me. I don't care now whether he's drafted or not and whether or not he calls me again.

(Hope Burt comes soon--it's 10:45.) I want to get out in a crowd on New Year's. Well, now to put on my gorgeous green rhumba dress––hand made by Koroschetz [not sure if she means she made it or her mother], with black felt hat and green leaves thereon to match.

Sounds like Lil is lookin' good this first New Year's Eve after America officially entered World War II. She's mad, but I think more hurt, that Fred didn't ask her out. I doubt he went out with another girl. Did he have the money? Were his savings "untouchable?" If he didn't have the money, I know he would have been embarrassed to say so.

Will Burt's attitude that she's "delightful company," but puts "no feeling" into his kisses take precedence over Fred, who knows "all the little innuendos of kissing?"

Whatever prevented the New Year's Eve date, Lil's peevish attitude didn't last too long.

Her next entry: March, 1942, when she's deep into a quandary: Fred or Burt?

To comment, just click on the red word "comments" or "post a comment" below. Thanks for reading.

Pearl Harbor Day-A diarist's response to war

2011-12-07T02:30:00.034-06:00

December 7, 1941

Pearl Harbor was bombed seventy years ago today. My mom, Lillian Koroschetz, started a brand new diary on New Year's Eve, 1941 reflecting back on the previous year and the effects the barely three-week-old war was already having on the every-day lives of Americans.
See this link at Naval History and Heritage for a thumbnail sketch of why the attack in Hawaii was such a surprise and how it enraged and united Americans into a singular resolve to defeat Japan as well as the German Nazi and Italian Fascist regimes.

December 31, 1941 - 10:15 pm

Wreckage of the USS Arizona after attack on Pearl Harbor
Image from Wikipedia "Day of Infamy speech"

By pure coincidence, I am beginning this book practically at the dawn of 1942. What will this New Year bring me––I wonder. For that matter what will it bring the world?

This has been a momentous year for the world, rather sad for the world, and a very good year for me. 1941 gave me great happiness with Fred.

December 7, 1941 brought the momentous bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, that definitely entered the United States in the World War #2 in which, in my opinion, we were destined to enter since the repeal of the Arms Embargo Act. So far the war has not yet touched the great mass of us as much as it probably will have by 12-31-42. We already have a taste of it by the rapidly rising prices in everything, federal tax of 10% on luxuries ($1.65 "Nylons,") which, however give a tremendous amount of wear.

President Roosevelt delivers his "Day of Infamy"" speech
12/8/1941. (Wikipedia image). Within an hour after the
speech, Congress declared war on Japan.

Automobile tires, too, are unobtainable for civilian use, and car production will be eliminated in favor of defense activities by the auto plants. I have a firm conviction there will be a severe depression in possibly 5 or 10 years and I am determined to save some money. I have a start now, $34.00 in postal savings. Also I buy 10 cent defense stamps. When I have saved sufficiently by way of these stamps, I shall buy an $18.75 defense bond.

Ever practical and pro-active, Lil was planning for how she would personally respond to the the war.

Next week: Lil's leaves the topic of war behind to prepare for New Year's Eve and be "damn mad" at Fred for not asking her out!

Trouble in Paradise-- Love and War

2011-12-06T02:30:00.028-06:00

All is not well on the Lil and Fred front. Lil meets another fellow who gets into serious contention with Fred for Lil's affections. (To start at the beginning of Lil's charming diary posts about her budding romance with Fred Gartz, go to Falling in Love 70 Years Ago and follow the weekly posts to the present).

Tuesday October 28, 1941

At the moment I’m plenty mad at Fred. Didn’t take me out Saturday so I went to the Chateau where I met a grand young man named Burt. He wanted to take me to a party next Saturday. Said no thinking Fred would call for that nite. No call yet. He always waits till the last min, damn him. If he doesn’t call, I won’t refuse other dates for him any more, and that’s for sure.

Lil doesn't write in her diary again for a couple months, but then she catches up with what had occurred just after this last entry.

Halloween week I was really a "belle." Managed to go out with Burt Wehlte Saturday, 11-1-41, for he phoned me that day wondering whether I still couldn't go out with him. I said, yes, I could, since the previous "engagement" I told him I had for that evening turned out to be the previous evening. The truth, of course, was that Fred didn't call to take me out as I had expected. I had a lovely time with Burt at a house party.

Friday, Halloween Eve, I went to the Chateau and met Johnny Lynn, a young soldier (draftee) on leave. We went bowling and to some night clubs and had a grand time. He took me out, too, Sunday November 2, and Burt wanted to take me out that Sunday. Fred, too, phoned Saturday evening for a Sunday horseback riding date, and I was so annoyed I couldn't make it. Apparently he was broke for Halloween. So three possible dates for one day ain't bad!

The world had changed by the time Lil caught up in her diary! I'm thinking of today's date, seventy years ago: December 6, 1941. It was the last day that American mothers (and fathers) of young men could rest easy for the next three and a half years. The next day, December 7, 1941, they would never forget just where they were when they heard the shocking news: the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor at 8 a.m. Hawaii time, and America was now destined to enter the war.

Tomorrow, on the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, I'll post Lil's ruminations on how the war had already affected every-day life by December 31, 1941, three weeks after the Japanese attacked, and her thoughts about the future.

Then next Tuesday, we'll view her harsh opinions of Fred for not asking her out for New Year's Eve, 1941! I'm keeping my posts within about 300 words to make them a fast read--just a nugget of history in your busy days.

Please click on the red word "comment" or "Post a comment" below to leave any thoughts.

"If I'm never happy again..." Giving Thanks redux

2011-11-29T02:30:00.009-06:00

Lil turns 24 and parties with her Freddie, and several others. The next day after celebrating with her favorite girlfriends, she reflects on how lucky she is. (See Lil's baby picture on her birthday post at Happy Birthday, Mom. If you'd like to start at the beginning of Lil's diary postings about falling for Fred, go to Falling in Love 70 Years Ago.

Having just celebrated Thanksgiving, this seems like an appropriate post. Mom takes a good look at the wonderful people in her life and is grateful for her good fortune. I'm struck by how unusual it is today (or maybe always has been) for so many people, especially the young, to focus on the positive in their lives.

Sat., Oct. 18, 1941

Got a card from Fred; a darling one from Carl yesterday. Went with Eleanor Stewart to Isabell’s to celebrate our mutual birthday together. Had two whiskey sours and a gentleman treated us to two more because were “obviously such right --five girls -- and we should stay that way.”

Then I had to dash home in the Essie [Lil's name for her car], grab a bite to eat and do shopping for my party tomorrow.

Got home at 6:00 pm, ate supper, got dressed, and wanted nothing quite so much as to have abour four or three hours to take a nap. I did squeeze 15 minutes in for that purpose.

Fred brought me a box of glazed fruits -- I’m so glad he was thoughtful as to remember me in this way.

As usual, I got as many roses as I am years old from good old Carl. [Carl Schodt was a young man madly in love with Mom. She dated him prior to meeting Fred, but always told him she liked him, but couldn't love him. He literally ate peanuts for lunch so he could buy Lil lovely gifts. Each time she said she couldn't accept the gift because she didn't love him, he responded, "If you don't take, it I'll throw it away."]

Went via street car to the Germania Club where Kenny and another gal, (Blondie [a model Ken was dating] couldn’t make it), Bill [Fred's older brother] and a girl, and many others were there to make up the party. Had a lovely evening again, although not up to the kind we have when alone.

Around 3:00 AM Freddie and I got terribly sleepy so we went up to the balcony and slept, his arm around mine.

This time on the way home, no kissing; we had an audience and a very short goodnight kiss since there was a waiting gang in the car.

Ah, propriety! What an old-fashioned concept!

Lil, age 20 at The Bayer Company working for Chicago President,
Mr. Gibney. Spring, 1938. See diary comment below about her raise

Sunday, Oct 19, 1941

Had Gert, Myrtle Haling, Ruth, and Marge Johnson and Lucille Kaye as well as Ceil over to help celebrate my birthday. Had a most enjoyable day - one of the nicest birthdays I’ve had. Though I’d have to arrange to play some games, but the crowd was so congenial that conversation was definitely sufficient entertainment.

Gert gave me a recent picture of herself, a darling little traveling case, and brought a beautiful gardenia corsage with a dubonnet ribbonon it from her pop. [Gert's dad owned a florist shop.] Very thoughtful, I’ll say.

I thought tonight, if I am never happy again I really shouldn’t complain because I’ve had such a very full life already. Good friends, one excellent friend, Gert, of course, romances behind me, and now a young man I’ve been looking for all my days, wonderfully good parents, an excellent job, mein Liebchen, was willst Du noch mehr? [My Dear, what more do you want?]

How could I forget--on Wednesday Gibney [Lil's boss and president of The Bayer Company in Chicago] told me he had authorization from H.M. Manns, Pres, [maybe national president?] for an increase to $130 per month. Not bad, eh -- for a kid of 24, minus college?

Also on Friday we learned that effective Nov. 1 we are to work 8:00 to 5:00 and no Saturday. Ah, life -- how wonderful! Couldn’t resist phoning Fred at his lab to tell him these two good pieces of news.

So here I am--Monday night, Oct. 20, and up to date on my diary. Took me an hour to write...but I think some day these notes will be worth the effort.

Boy! I'll say! I'm having so much fun reliving Mom and Dad's youth. Coming up... Trouble in Paradise. What happens when Fred puts off asking Lil for a date one too many times?

Please click below on the red word "comments" to add your thoughts. Thanks!

Hello, Darling. Hello, Sweetheart.

2011-11-22T02:30:00.015-06:00

Fred & Lil Nov. 9, 1941

Lil and Fred are at it again--this time it’s a date to go horseback riding--if rain doesn’t interfere. These two knew how to party--Lots of kissin’, a good deal of drinking, out till 4 a.m -- and an ambiguous “snack” described near the end.

Sunday, October 5, 1941

Here I am again!

Fred phoned my home yesterday afternoon....Mom relayed on to me the message about Fred so I phoned his house at once and Bill [Fred's older brother] answered the phone. Fred was out so Bill asked me for him to go riding that night with a gang. Of course I said yes, although I’m not very good at it yet.

Further it was raining cats and dogs, but he mentioned we would all go to a house party if it was still raining. I always get such a thrill when Fred calls me!

I did a little shopping, dashed home and was ready when Fred called for me. It was raining all evening so we all went to a house party on the South Side. All the gals were in riding breeches, and, for that matter, so were the men.

Had a simply wonderful time. We had about seven Scotch and sodas, sang many songs to the accompaniment of Hank, who is a wonderful popular-style pianist. Fred and I played billiards, and he won (my first time playing that game.)

Fred and I also danced the Beer Barrel Polka, our theme song, then sank exhausted on the bed they have in the basement for lounging use, by way of explanation. Later someone turned out the lights, so Freddie and I took advantage of the situation. He’s so darned sweet!

We had a lovely “snack” later and got home at 4:00 a.m. Freddie and I kissed just about all the way home. I never seem to tire of kissing that lad. (If I don’t marry him, this sure would make mighty interesting reading to some other spouse. It had better be he --for me!!) If not, this goes in solitary confinement.

Friday, Oct. 10, 1941 [Fred's Birthday]

So having already reported on the eve of October 4, I shall now write about Fred’s birthday celebration.

I had caught another terrific cold Sunday, which took til Tuesday to come out full force. Freddie phoned me last night fo the date. I met him at Lewis Institute - Damen and Madison - and ran into his brother, Bill, in front of the school, who was there to take care of Fred’s books.

We went with Kenny Eggen and his gal friend, Arlyne Hennings - a lovely tall blonde model. Went to the “Glass Hat” cocktail lounge in the Hotel Graemere. Had about six scotch and sodas and really had a grand time. Fred and I soloed again as usual. Danced a waltz and the Beer Barrel [Polka] to the organ music interlude between band sessions.

Fred had their precious car tonite - took a taxi to his house.

When kissing me goodnight, he paused and said, “Hello Darling,” and I for the first time in my life - said “Hello Sweetheart” to a man.

To drop me a note, please click on the red word, "comments" below. Thanks!

Family Archaeologist––First Blogiversary!

2011-11-18T02:30:00.045-06:00

It reads "Heartfelt Good Wishes for your Name Day
Dated November 18, 1910, Josef Gärtz
sent this postcard to his sweetheart, Lisi Ebner
to arrive on her Names Day, Nov. 19th, 1910

One year ago today I posted the oldest missive in my collection, this sweet postcard sent from my grandfather, Josef Gärtz
to his sweetheart, Lisi Ebner. (See: Can Love Last 100 Years?) If you've followed along, you've learned a lot about their long distance courtship as the letters they wrote from fall of 1910-summer of 1911 persuaded them they must be together, and my grandmother made that fateful trip across the ocean.

Josef Gärtz, summer, 1910

Although I officially entered the blogosphere with my first post, introducing Family Archaeologist on November 17th, (click Welcome to Family Archaeologist to see the intro) I like to think of today as the beginning of the story. My goal has been to share my family's letters, diaries, and original documents, dating back over the past century. My hope was that the stories of this one immigrant family, told in their own words, would find resonance with other readers.

Elisabetha/Lisi Ebner, June, 1910

By entering the genealogy and family history blogging community, I have been amply rewarded with the wonderful blogs I've been introduced to and their creative, prolific, and caring writers. I have met bloggers who have inspired me to write my family history, who have impressed me with their intelligent and thoughtful posts, who have introduced me to technologies and techniques to make blogging and family history research simpler, who have opened my eyes to self-publishing outlets, who have shared so generously their knowledge of genealogy research, and many whose own family histories, documents, and photographs have been beautifully displayed and written about. I've been enriched by all of you.

I don't always get around to visiting as many blogs as I'd like, but I do try to drop by every couple weeks just to see what others are doing and to let them know I appreciate their work. Thanks to all for your wonderful writing and touching stories.

Because I promised myself to post at least once a week, the blog has been my inspiration to look more closely at and really think about the meaning of all these letters and documents my family so carefully preserved over the past century. As E.M. Forster said, "How do I know what I think until I see what I say?" This blog required me to put into words the inchoate thoughts rumbling around in my brain about my family's past. It has enriched my understanding both of my roots and actually introduced me to family members as they were in their youth. Old, careful souls were transformed into the young, rash, passionate people that existed decades before I was born.

Thank you to my family for being such pack rats, for not only saving these treasures, but labeling and carefully preserving just about everything so that my brothers and I can know you as you were -- and can share your story with others.

A little jealousy doesn't hurt

2011-11-15T02:30:00.036-06:00

Lillian Koroschetz, 1937, age 20
about 3 years before meeting Fred

We've been following along with Lillian Koroschetz, my mom, as she writes about the joy of falling in love with my dad seventy years ago, in 1941. To start at the beginning of Lil's diary entries of falling for "Freddie" see Falling in Love 70 Years Ago.

Since her previous entry on September 3rd, Lil has had to wait almost three weeks before she heard from Fred again. What's wrong with that young man?

Mon. Sept 22, ’41

I thought I had been deserted by my Freddie and was becoming angry with him. But he called at work today. He wanted to go swimming, but I was afraid to since I had caught a cold after our last date. It had already started the day we went swimming.
So he came to my new address - 2714 Marshfield--and we sang songs and I played piano -- I’m practicing again and picking up faster than I have in my life.

At 8:00 pm we went to the Vine Gardens, had beer and danced and danced and talked and talked.

Then we walked to the Question Mark Pier where it was "veddy, veddy" dark and embraced each other by our lonesomes.

We waited for a street car quite a while at North Ave. and Ashland. Wow! We just waited an eternity it seemed. Fred gave me his suit coat because I was cold. We were just going to take a taxi when a street car came. I got home at 4:00 and Freddie, I discovered later, got home at 6:00 am. (At the Vine Gardens, several people complimented us on our dancing.)

Lil and Fred's next date is five days later. Maybe she gave him a "talking to," but it's still a day-before invitation. An old boyfriend, Frank, from a year earlier, horns in on Fred's best girl at a Germania Club dance. Lil handles it, but thinks that maybe a little jealousy is in order!

Saturday, Sept 27, [1941]

Freddie phoned me last night for tonite’s date. We went to some “San Verein’s” concert and Dance at the Germania club. Met Frank Schiller, Carl Schodt, and the entire German Club Gang there. Frank danced a number with me and upon returning me to Fred, Frank kept saying, “We ought to see more of each other, etc. etc. And don’t I agree.”

I said I was afraid I had to disagree and was rather embarrassed.

But then Freddie could see at least that I could go out with someone else besides him if I so desired. But I don’t so desire.

We did some crazy things tonite like sliding down the bannisters, dancing in the balcony where we had some room -- and incidentally, Fred could cool off for a moment or so by removing his coat.

We also fixed up a little fencing they had up there into a square enclosure and danced in there.

Around 3 AM Freddie and I left and walked over to his laboratory which he wanted to show me. So we went through the whole thing and I got so sleepy. We took a taxi home and I promptly snoozed off on Fred’s shoulder. Another wonderful time.

Mom would learn over the years that Fred had no end of "crazy" ideas. He definitely thought "out-of-the box." But that's another story.

Coming Up: November 18th: the first anniversary of this blog: Family Archaeologist, and November 19th -- a double date to remember: the 101st anniversary of the oldest missive in my collection: a Names' Day postcard from Josef Gartz, my grandfather, to Lisi Ebner, his future wife and also -- the anniversary of the day my parents met.

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Happy Anniversary, Fred and Lil 1942 - 2011

2011-11-08T02:30:00.010-06:00

Fred and Lillian Gartz, Nov. 8, 1942, outside church

I’m getting a little ahead of myself here, but this post isn’t really a spoiler. After all, you did know my parents would be getting married -- right? So even though I’m posting entries from my mom’s diary from seventy years ago, describing her and my Dad’s courtship, I just couldn’t allow their 69th anniversary to pass without celebrating it on my blog! November 8, 1942, was the big day. After this post, it will still be fun to follow along in Mom's diary to see how they get to this happy ending.

Their invitation tells us the wedding took place on a Sunday, and this article about the event, ("Miss Koroschetz Weds Fred Gartz At Bethel Church") published in the West Garfield Park local newspaper, The Garfieldian, includes wonderful sartorial details:

"The bride wore a gown of egg-shell satin with a fingertip veil held in place with a seed pearl tiara. Her flowers were white chrysanthemums." The matron of honor wore a "gown of fuschia velveteen and net with a Juliet cap and carried pom poms." The bridesmaids' gowns "were of plum velveteen and net." Mom saved small samples of the fabric, labelled as to who wore which.

Mom planned the bridesmaid’s outfits to be practical. It was the war years, after all, and Mom wanted her bridesmaids to get use out of the outfits after the wedding. Remove the net over the skirts, and each had a beautiful velveteen suit.

Of course, being a skilled executive secretary for the president of the Bayer Company, mom created a minute-by-minute run-down of the ceremony and reception, who had to be where at which time.

Speaking of the reception, what do you think that might have cost back in 1942? So glad you asked! Here's the receipt for the Central Plaza Hotel. It appears to include everything. I'm assuming the line item: "32 covers @ $1.50 each" refers to the cost per plate of dinner. If you have a different idea, weigh in. Cake for 32: $12.50. Juke box: $10.00. The rest, including candles, tax, tip, ferns, and a case of ginger ale comes to a grand total of $72.60. I know my parents weren't tee-totalers, so they must have supplied the liquor separately.

Eva Coleman, a voice major and friend of Dad's from church, sang "Because." Everything went without a hitch--except for one. Ken Eggen, Dad's best friend and one of the groomsmen, fainted dead away during the ceremony. Dad immortalized this memorable event in a loving poem he wrote to Mom for their tenth anniversary. Its cadence is reminiscent of "The Raven," written by Edgar Allen Poe about his lost love, Lenore. I’ve included Dad's poem below, just as my dad would have presented it to Mom, handwritten on parchment, carefully laid out to keep each line straight and beautiful. (Just a little note: in stanza 4, "Blitzbuggy," refers to my dad's 1929 Model A Ford. "Blitz" means "lightning." To learn a little more about this special steed, and its role in World War II, see the post, Blitzbuggy––A Car with History.)

When we get back to their courtship in the fall of 1941, we'll see how a little jealousy may have kept Fred on his toes.

Please click below this post on the red word, "comments." Any ideas what your parents' or grandparents' weddings cost? It would be fun to compare notes.

Left to Right, Ken Eggen (who fainted during the ceremony) Frank
Ebner Gartz (17-year old brother to Dad), Lillian, Fred, Will Gartz (Dad's
29-year old brother). Seated: Arlyne Hennings, Myrtle Haling, Gertrude
Nowles, maid of honor.

Love is dancing by ourselves

2011-11-01T04:30:00.001-05:00

Lil and Fred-8/27/1941 This is the
first photo of the two of them together,
and this diary entry confirms the date.
North Ave. Beach, Chicago

Charles Schultz wrote two memorable square-shaped little "Peanuts" books in which each page expressed a single, simple thought about love or happiness. You can click to see these classics on Amazon: Love is Walking Hand in Hand and Happiness is a Warm Puppy.

Well, I think my mom's following diary entries of falling for my dad could add something to those books:

Love is swimming in the lake together.
Love is dancing by ourselves.
Happiness is a farm wagon under the full moon.

Read on to see how Lil and Fred's romance is progressing.

To see my first post about LIl's diary about falling for Fred, see Falling in Love 70 Years Ago, and read on from there. (All past posts can be found on the right -- just scroll down past the Twitter Icon to Blog Archive, and click on the one you want to read.)
Wed., Aug 27, 1941

Went swimming at North Ave. Beach However the water was extremely choppy and we had to stay close to the pier. (I picked up Fred at his place). We had a man take a picture of us after getting our street clothes on again against the lake. (see left) Then I drove Fred to meet his Mom, Pop, and Bill at a real estate office where they are trying to consummate a deal for an apartment.

Then we went to their house for supper and Fred showed me pictures and slides of their vacation. Fred and I fenced in the front room for a few moments too. Then he drove home with me and another nice evening was at a close.

Wed., Sept 3, 1941

Went swimming again, although it seemed very cold out. However, this time the water was just delightful. We swam a great distance and really enjoyed it immensely. Then we drove out to Hapsburg.

Fred is just like me--he can’t resist a polka or a waltz. So whenever the juke box played a number we just left our food and up and danced - a solo. We are quite immune to dancing by ourselves. After our chicken dinner and a few beers we went outside and went for a walk.

Oh, this was just about the most beautiful and gorgeous night we’ve had together. There was a full moon so bright it illuminated the entrire landscape.

We walked arm-in-arm down a side road, then saw a wagon in a farmer’s field and decided this was made to order. Oh boy!

Hapsburg Inn-- Des Plaines, Illinois

Then we walked back to Essie and Freddie fell asleep while I drove home.

Coming up: A little jealousy can't hurt!

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I never thought anything so wonderful could happen to me!

2011-10-28T04:30:00.000-05:00

Friday, August 22, 1941

Well, my Friedrich phoned me again on Tuesday, and wanted to go swimming with me Wed. But I couldn’t make it till Friday so we made our date for tonite.

I picked him up at his office, Locust and Franklin Streets, and we went to the beach - North Avenue. It was a perfect evening for swimming, warm, the water was calm, and I couldn’t go. My visitor came 1 week and 1 day early (Wed.) due, no doubt to my having gone swimming at a beach near Louise’s house in Michigan last month on my 4th day.

So I just said to him, “I no can go,” and let it go at that. He’s a wonderful swimmer -- in fact there were many people watching him from the shore, amazed at the distance he swam.

"It was a perfect evening for swimming..."

We sang German songs and when he came out, and he was explaining some chemistry to me -- and I’m just crazy about him. After another dip, we went to the Vine Gardens and had some barbequed beef and 5 beers. We danced every number they played and he said I was so loose in his arms and followed so well. He dances very well. We had so much fun again.

Then we drove back to our beach. The wind was blowing furiously and whipped my hair about my face. We were all alone on our “Question Mark Pier” and danced a polka to our own tune. We kissed there, with the waves rolling violently below us.

Said my darling, “It’s wonderful to be alive.” And I, of course, agreed wholeheartedly. We also criss-crossed our hands and went around fast in a circle as we did once before. We sat down on a bench there, the whole place deserted, and I sat on his lap and we kissed again. He evidently is very fond of me, and I am positive I love him.

I never thought anything so wonderful could happen to me. It seems that we have known each other so long. It hardly seems possible we have been on only two dates. I hope this goes on and on.

We have a date to go swimming next Wednesday and then out to Hapsburg for dinner. Oh heavenly days! I just haven’t lived before. Also, he’s so solicitous of me.This is the kind of romance I have always dreamed about but never thought would happen.

The 70th anniversary year of Lil's and Fred's glorious dates continue next Tuesday with solo dancing and dinner.

Comments welcome. Just click below on the red words, "Post a Comment." Thanks!

To read all of Lil's diary entries from her first 1941 encounter with Fred, click here and keep scrolling forward in time to catch up.

Dear God, please let it come true!

2011-10-25T04:30:00.001-05:00

We're following the budding romance of my parents 70 years ago. (Click on Falling in Love and Betcha he won't call to see the first diary entries)

My mom, then Lillian Koroschetz, had a fabulous evening of dancing and chatting away  with Fred Gartz on May 11, 1941, but was convinced that he wouldn't follow up: "I'll just betcha he won't call!" she wrote. Well, things were looking more promising about a week later.

May 20, 1941 Tuesday 11 pm

Quite a thrill awaited me when I came home tonite. Fred had sent me a card from Turkey Run, Marshall, Indiana, reading,

“Hy-ya Lil - Have substituted hiking and horsing for the rhumba for the time being. This place is grand, especially the food. Nun, auf wiedersehen. Fritz”

I can remember distinctly only two other occasions when I got such a thrill out of something. (and she relates two other boy-related incidents) I must be in love with the guy and haven’t even gone out with him. Somehow I now have a glimmer of hope he’ll phone. Here’s hoping! Sat.,

July 12, 1941

Just did my nails - Cutex Butterscotch - and having had a most complete week, am so tired I must go to bed without putting down what I intended [in the diary]. “Lil-no-romances-in-the-summer-Koroschetz” -- that’s me! I don’t even have time in the summer and that’s no alibi, believe me!

Thursday Aug 14

Finally - I heard from Fred Gartz. He wanted me to go to some German movie with him tonite. However, I had a date to go to Hapsburg for dinner and teach Ruth how to drive. So changed the date to tomorrow night. Am I glad! Now I have it to look forward to instead of having it all over by now (11:00 pm) I hope and pray this will lead to more and frequent dates!

Friday August 15, 1941

The evening I have been waiting for a long, long time has now been realized. Fritz and I went to a little German theatre on Lincoln near Fullerton, then walked in Lincoln Park on this beautiful night, arm in arm - held hands in the show. Then to Sieben's [a Chicago outdoor brewery with great ham sandwiches] where we had some beer. Then back to the park and I think we both knew why we went back. We sat on a bench hearing the lions roar and the quacking of a duck. Oh it was heavenly! He knows all the little innuendoes of kissing and I ain’t so bad m’self, if I do say so.
[She switches to writing with indecipherable Pitman shorthand for a few lines, clearly wanting to keep this part censored! Then goes back to regular writing]
And he enjoyed it too, I’ll say. We kissed for about an hour and a half. I hope and pray he will phone me again. I can’t really believe it happened!! Tonight was like a page from a story book and he definitely is the man I want to marry. Dear God, please let it come true!!

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"Betcha" -- he won't call! (And...Happy Birthday, Mom!)

2011-10-18T04:05:00.001-05:00

Lillian Koroschetz (Gartz) 1918 ~ 6 months

Before we learn more about my Mom's incipient romance with Fred Gartz, let's take a pause to say "Happy Birthday, Mom!" Lil would have turned ninety-four today. Here's her cute baby picture, and below her Waller High School Graduation photo.

Last week we learned that my mom, Lillian, was pondering in February, 1941, whether or not Fred Gartz, whom she'd met November 19, 1940, would call her. She clearly liked him from the start. Then nearly three months passed from her February, 1941 musings ("My biggest concern is whether Fred Gartz will phone to ask me for a date") to another chance meeting with Fred.

Lillian Koroschetz 1935 age 18

A bit of character background: Esther Schultz, mentioned here in Lil's diary, was Dad's "buddy," not really a girlfriend, which explains her generous sharing of Fred at this dance. She became a life-long friend of the family. Here's Lil's next diary entry on the subject of "Fred Gartz."

Sunday a.m. 3:15 May 11, 1941

Well of all things--I just returned from a dance...at the Moose Hall, 130 N. Dearborn, and by a curious coincidence this diary entry is again caused by meeting Fred Gartz again.

There’s no doubt about it; I’m in love with him after meeting him thrice. He was at the dance with his two brothers and some other friends, each with a girl friend. However, shortly after he saw me there (Fred) he asked me to dance, and we had quite a few numbers together. The first time I met him, (Nov. 19, 1940), I taught him the Polish hop and tonight I taught him the Rhumba. He catches on to all dances miraculously fast. We have so much fun together.

He’s really the first man I’ve met that I think I’d like to marry--intelligent, crazy, fun, and we have no end of things to talk about. In fact, when he first came to me this evening, we started to talk and had so much fun together and were so engrossed, we didn’t even start to dance immediately.

He apparently goes out with quite a number of girls, and this one, viz., Esther Schultz liked me very well and kept urging Fred to dance with me so that she could watch us. I sat at their table practically all evening and we all had a beer and sandwich together.

Hell, I have the worst luck, though. The previous time I met him we seemed to have such a wonderful time too -- and not a phone call from him.

So difficult as it might be, I might just as well put him out of my mind once and for all because he undoubtedly will not call me up and I’m just crazy about him! I’ll probably be a “business woman" all my life or else marry just "lukewarm-about,” who won’t go in for dancing, sports, and all the things I love. The luck of some women! Amen. And now to forget Friedrich Gartz!!

What will have happened by June 1, 1942? With whom will I go out New Year's Eve, 1941? Only time will tell, but I'll "betcha" no more word from Fred. Betcha $5.00 to put in the bank by Sept. 1, 1942.

Just when will Fred get a clue and ask Lil out! "Quite a thrill awaited me...." Coming up!

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Happy 100th Anniversary! 10/13/1911-10/13/2011

2011-10-13T04:30:00.000-05:00

Josef and Elsabetha Gartz-Wedding day October 13, 1911

Friday the thirteenth, a century ago, was a lucky day for my grandparents, Josef Gartz and Elisabetha Ebner, when they became husband and wife.

Given how grand they look in their wedding photos, it's hard to believe that Josef had been at work since 5:30 am that morning, leaving early to get married at 3:00 p.m., and he would once again be at work at 5:30 a.m. the day after the wedding as well.

I first wrote about their wedding in my August 23rd post, The Half Day Honeymoon, where you can read my grandmother's written memories of that day.

On this day, I'm going to celebrate with their photos:

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Falling in Love - 70 years ago

2011-10-11T14:33:00.000-05:00

Lillian Koroschetz, December, 1941

1941 was a watershed year in America. War was raging in Europe. Prior to Pearl Harbor, America was embroiled in debate about entering the war. But something else was brewing seventy years ago that didn't make headlines—yet rocked the world of the young man and woman who became my parents.

Just as I've learned about the great love between my grandparents through their century-old letters, I've once again become privy to the workings of the heart in the next generation--this time through the words of my mother recorded in her diary as she experienced the topsy-turviness of falling for a guy—hard!

I only recently uncovered five more of my mother's diaries, and what a find they are! Lillian seems to "talk" to her diary. It's like listening to a favorite girlfriend confiding to just you about her new-found love. What fun is that!2011 marks the 70th anniversary of these engaging, sweet, vivid entries, full of hope and promise. So I decided to celebrate this Seven Decade Anniversary by letting her words speak across the years.

As a young woman, Mom had no dearth of boyfriends, and she seemed to be forever looking for "Mr. Right." Her entries are fresh and honest, a romantic's confidence that true love is found at last. The excitement and joy she relates as she falls deeper and deeper in love will take you for a ride you won't forget.

Fred Gartz and Lillian Koroschetz had first met in November of 1940, and Lil was still thinking about Fred three months later:

From the diary of Lillian Koroschetz:

February 25, 1941

How very quickly time does fly! As I just looked over the preceding pages, it hardly seems possible that an entire year has gone into the closed book of the past. All my problems of last year seem unimportant now. I may as well review the major events of 1940 since I last took time to write in this little book.

After reviewing various boyfriends who have come and gone, her best friend's marriage and its apparent failure, she writes:

My chief concern at the moment is, “Will Fred Gartz phone to take me out?” P.S. I think he will, and I hope this hunch is as correct as my more pessimistic ones.

Will her hunch turn out correct? Tune in next time to see how it plays out.

Happy Birthday, Dad...and G-G-G-Grandpa

2011-10-10T04:30:00.001-05:00

Fred Gartz dob October 10, 1914

Fred Gartz, 1934

If you've ever taken a course in probability, you've undoubtedly learned to mathematically prove the Birthday Problem: if you gather a relatively small number of people in a room, the likelihood that two will have the same birthday is much higher than seems possible without the "proof." (With just 23 random people in a room, there's a 50% probability that two of them will have the same birthday!) See the Wikipedia explanation of this phenomenon (if you care) at The Birthday Problem.

Birth Registration 10 October, 1769 for
Johannes Michael Görz

But what's the probability that my dad and his g-g-grandfather would have the same birthday? That's four men of direct lineage (dad, grandfather, great grandfather, g-g grandfather). We're not talking uncles or great aunts -- but directly back through his dad's side to the guy who started the Gartz (originally Görz) lineage in my grandfather's home town.

I won't do the math, but it seems to me a long shot -- sometimes called an amazing coincidence! So I'll just say HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO my G-G-G Grandpa, Johannes Michael Görz, born OCTOBER 10, 1769 (no photo obviously, but here's his birth registration from Gerstheim, Alsace, before his Dad up and took the whole family (little Johann was just eight months old on this 1,000 mile trek) to Hungary, now Romania.

See Unraveling the Michael Mystery for details on discovering of this 242-year-old document.

And Happy Birthday, Dad: October 10, 1914 (he'd be 97), born 145 years after Johannes Michael.

Left Behind

2011-10-04T04:30:00.000-05:00

Samuel Ebner Sr. my great-grandfather
Lisi Ebner/Gartz's father

Lisi Ebner, my grandmother, made the gut-wrenching sacrifice of leaving behind her family to follow her heart to America, to marry my grandfather, Josef. Or so I thought.

It turns out Lisi’s father, stepmother, Maria, and half siblings (Theresia and Johann (aka, Resi and Hans, born in 1900 and 1904, respectively), had planned to join her!

On our trip to Romania in 2007, we learned for the first time from a relative that Samuel Ebner had never made it to America because of an eye infection, probably Trachoma, or pink eye, incurable and highly contagious at the time, but today easily treated with antibiotics.

For more details on the many inspections culling eye-disease emigrants, see Threats to the Dream.

Since I learned this stunning news, I have discovered the actual letter Samuel Ebner wrote about what happened. It captures in simple, stark words, what was surely a devastating disappointment.

Deciphered from the old German and then translated, here’s the story, one of tens of thousands no doubt, about the immigrant who didn’t make it.

November 3, (year missing)
Probably 1912 or 1913, based on other letters after Lisi left

Dear Children, Sepp and Eliess, [aka Josef and Lisi]

It wasn’t meant to be that we would see you. Mari and Rudolf sent us free tickets 2nd class. [Lisi’s stepsister and husband in Cleveland, Ohio ]

We had our things in two boxes and what you wanted packed into a box. We sent it all, second class, to Bremen on the 11th of October. Then we traveled to Cadca. [a town on the border of Germany that Lisi had also passed through. See post: To Catch a Ship]

There at Cadca they wouldn’t let me go any farther because I needed to have a certificate from the hospital [probably for his eyes]. They took 1600 Kronen from me. It wasn’t only my money. It was also 1,000 Kronen from Mari [probably Maria Wagner, his 2nd wife’s daughter in Cleveland].

They made me turn around, but Mari’s mother [Ebner’s 2nd wife, Lisi’s stepmother] still had 1,000 Kronen and travel money to get her to Bremen, so they let her travel onward to Bremen with the children.

There they [the authorities] wouldn’t let her travel without me. Maria [his wife] wrote me in the hospital in Mühlbach, and I immediately telegraphed them that they should come back.

But they had also sent a telegram to America and waited 12 days in Bremen [probably waiting for word from Mari in Cleveland], where it cost 3 Kronen per day and there were three of them so it cost nearly 9 Kronen per day, and they [still] had to all come back along with the baggage.

Now I’ll unpack your luggage [probably extra stuff he was bringing along for Lisi and Josef] and send to Mari [in Cleveland].

I already paid the transportation charge to Bremen and back. I wasn’t allowed to send [the packages to you] without us accompanying them. Mother came back to me sick and if she can’t get better in a short time, then I’ll have to see what I’ll do. In other things, it’s not going the best. You don’t have to worry about us. Health will come back, if God gives it to us.

Dear Son, [Josef] all the accounting of your money is the luggage. I will send it to you when the opportunity is better.

Sam Ebner Jr., Lisi's brother,
described as "in military" by his dad.

How is it going with you both? Stay healthy. Write back soon. Sam [Lisi’s brother] is in military service and is healthy. [This didn’t turn out so well either, once World War I began. See The Fallen]

I greet you a thousand times as does the whole family

Lovingly, your father,
Samuel Ebner

"Your Uncertain Fate"

2011-09-27T04:30:00.000-05:00

Berta Jickeli, Lisi Ebner's
employer and mentor in
Hermannstadt/Sibiu

We think of our grandparents as venerable and wise, unlikely to be impulsive, reckless, or spontaneous as youth is wont to be. But what if we could see them as they were viewed by the generation older than they -- if we could see them as they really were in their younger days, not the way they present themselves through the foggy, faulty lens of memory.

As I’ve written before, I was stunned to learn of my grandfather’s impatient, risk-laden determination to get to America (See Terror atop the Train). His letters exposed his surprising romanticism and desperate love for my grandmother, Lisi, pulling out all the stops to persuade her to join him in America-- another eye-popper! (see If you love me)

But what about my grandmother, Lisi? I always saw her as a powerful, no-nonsense woman, the antithesis of spontaneity. The opposite of ill-considered action.

But that’s not the way her former employer, Mrs. Jickeli viewed her decision to join Josef in America. Forty-five years old at the time twenty-three-year-old Lisi left, Mrs. Jickeli’s first letters to her peg my grandmother as a foolish girl who acted too impulsively in rushing off to America to join her equally reckless husband. You can feel Berta Jickeli's frustration -- like a mother for her wayward daughter, hoping for the best, but harboring serious doubts that things will work out.

December 10, 1911

Dear Lisi!

I received your letter and the picture, and I am glad that everything goes well for you. With great anxiety, I let you go to your uncertain fate in such a foreign place, and it is good that up to now everything has gone better that we thought.

Nevertheless, the fear and worry about you, who were my greatest problem child, has not lessened. When I see the picture, it proves to me that you are now a wife and so will be the victim of the painful and changing nature of life. From my entire heart, I wish that fate intends for you a gentle future and brings you nothing bad, and if you can write me over the next ten years that you still are satisfied, I will be truly happy and be glad that I was wrong.

The circumstances in America are certainly very different and in many instances they will be difficult to get used to; in other cases, easy. The culture of the wide [world] is certainly an enlightenment, and when you look around you and think of home, everything here will seem small to you.

Above all you must beware that you don’t let yourself become homesick. Because if that happens to you, you are lost. The best would be to strive to forget your old home town and only think about the future. When you next write me, write me what you do the entire day.

What kind of food you cook? Who is your boss, and how she is? How is Mr. Gärtz? His heart will be satisfied because he has you there, where he wanted you. Does the American climate suit him well? And how is he making out with his military duty? Does he want to report for it in March or be forever divorced from his homeland? (See Drafted 100 years ago. It's not clear to me if Josef ignored his draft summons, or signed up but left before he performed his duty)

I often wonder, why [your departure] all had to be so outside the law [or proper way] and form, when in a half year everything could have been worked out in the right and easy way. If now it would only come to good!

Here no one has called you or Gärtz --or have they? Because if [your marriage] hasn’t been announced here, your marriage is not according to law, and you must either marry here again or you must abandon any rights to each other’s families.*

*[Note: In Neppendorf or Großpold the pastor announced an upcoming wedding in the week(s) before the event so community members had a chance to object for any reason. Without the announcement, it wouldn’t be entered into the family book and not been considered legitimate, as Mrs. Jickeli describes.]
I am often with you in my thoughts and we also speak often of you. Our girls were completely crazy with joy when they saw your beautiful picture [undoubtedly the wedding photo].

Berta Jickeli

Of course, Mrs. Jickeli didn’t realize that World War I was just around the bend, that Josef likely would have died in that horrid war, as did Lisi's younger brother, and that the life she knew in Siebenbürgen would soon come to an end. In this case, impetuous youth had made the wise, forward-looking decision.

Celebrating 100 Years in America 9/26/1911-9/26/2011

2011-09-26T14:57:00.000-05:00

"This is my ship which brought me to America in the year 1911.
Landing in NY- Disembarked 7:00 pm 26th September " written on the
back of this post card by Elisabetha Ebner

A century ago this evening, at approximately 7:00 p.m., Elisabetha Ebner, aka Lisi or Eliess, my grandmother, disembarked from her ship, Kaiser Wilhelm II, in New York and started her life in America.

I can see her searching for the train station to make her way to Cleveland, Ohio, where she would meet up with her step sister and brother-in-law before going on to marry Josef in Chicago.

I love to think of these dates in cosmological terms. Just rewind the earth's orbit around the sun 100 times, and there she is: stepping off onto Ellis Island, submitting to the probing and eye-lid lifting health inspections, mailing a postcard of Central Park to her sweetheart, my grandfather, Josef Gartz, to let him know she's arrived safely.

Welcome to America, Grandma!

To learn more about this well-documented immigrant journey, arrival, and the process experienced by immigrants entering in New York, check out the following posts:

An Alien Made Manifest (what's revealed on the ship manifest questions)
From Ship to American Soil; Her arrival in New York

You can follow her diary entries of her 5,000 mile trip from Hungary to New York, see:

Interview with Lynette Benton

2011-09-23T12:29:00.000-05:00

Because of blogging, I've had a great time getting to know more people interested not only in genealogy and family history, but also in writing memoir and family stories, which is the ultimate goal of my research through my family archives.

So I was so thrilled when one of the most active memoir bloggers, Lynette Benton, (See Lynette Benton On Writing) asked if she could interview me about my interest in family history and memoir. If you haven't seen Lynette's blog, check it out. She offers all sorts of savvy advice, from the basics like finding the time to write, and providing writing prompts to get the juices flowing, to analyzing just what makes a memoir resonate for her.

The direct links to the interview in two parts are here (part I) Family History Writing

and here: Family History Writing Part II

Memoirs worth reading (among many) that I recommended include some that were mentioned on Lynette's blog. Here's the list of some of my favorites:

Growing Up by Russell Baker
The Color of Water by James McBride
Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
The Road from Coorain by Jill Kerr Conway
Fierce Attachments by Vivian Gornick
Oh, the Glory of it All by Sean Wilsey
Dry: A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs
Lit by Mary Carr
Lifesaving by Judith Barrington
Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Oh, Beautiful by John Godges
Family by Ian Frazier

The latter two are family histories, which are more comprehensive than memoir, which is intended to focus on a specific time period or theme.

Lynette also asked me to recommend books to guide you through the process of writing your life story, memoir, or family history. Here are some that I've found helpful:

Writing Life Stories by Bill Roorbach
Writing Family Histories and Memoirs by Kirk Polking
You Can Write Your Family History by Sharon De Bartolo Carmack
Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Life by Judith Barrington (a kind of "How to guide," replete with exercises to get those memories flowing
Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir, edited by William Zinsser (several brilliant memoirists, including Kerr-Conway, Baker, and Frazier) discuss how they did it.

Lynette regularly has guest bloggers, published authors who share how they crafted their prose, created their characters, or kept going despite coming to hate their books! We all know that feeling.

Her book, Polish and Publish offers advice on the tools, tactics, and strategies to take your writing to the next level and ultimately get published. Take a look!

Thanks, Lynette. You can follow Lynette on twitter: @lynettebenton

Free Sandwich with that Beer!

2011-09-20T04:30:00.000-05:00

Josef Gartz (rear) working as Sandwich Man in Joe Nelson's Saloon,
Northeast corner of Crawford [now Pulaski] and Madison Street, Chicago

Mr. Offelke put an ad in the Abendpost, a German language paper. The title literally means the “Evening Post.” Josef Gartz, along with several other men, applied. Mr. Offelke picked my grandfather out of a line-up of applicants and gave him the job of “sandwich man,” in this saloon.

In the close-up below you can see the calendar, (I was able to see the whole page in the mirror reflection in full photo above. It was October, 1912. The clock in the background (above his head in the wide shot) shows it’s 2:30. I'm pretty sure that would be in the afternoon). Plenty of men (no women) are drinking. Much of the signage around the place is in German, and they are literal “signs” of the times.

Detail: Josef Gartz with October, 1912 calendar behind him.

One sign says: “First Class Barber Shop and Bath," with an arrow pointing down the stairs in the back. One of the most important aspects of this job for my grandfather was that he could eat all day long, cutting way down on his food expense. It’s also because of this job that he eventually moved his family to Chicago’s West Side, to the neighborhood called West Garfield Park, where my dad, and eventually all his children, grew up.

Here’s how my grandmother described the job:

A year later [after her arrival in Chicago in 1911], my husband got a much better job in a fine place where one could get a glass of beer for 5 cents and with it got a meat or cheese sandwich for free. That was my husband’s job -- to cut the bread and lay ham, beef, or cheese on it and give it to the men with their beer. He earned $15 a week. Then we got a four-room apartment for $12 per month. Now we could save money.

Wow! Josef was earning twice what he made working at his previous job buffet. They were on their way to putting money aside, which became a central value in their lives. Work hard. Save money. It would serve them well as they began to raise a family in tough times.

Unraveling the Michael Mystery

2011-09-13T04:30:00.000-05:00

The first Görz to arrive in my grandparents’ homeland of Siebenbürgen/Transylvania made the 1,000 mile trek from Gerstheim in Alsace in May, 1770, but to Grosspold, not Neppendorf as the Lutheran church records there had stated. It was the baby on this journey that ended up being the first Görz, later Gärtz to populate Neppendorf, my grandfather's home town.

In the last post we found out that my cousin Maria obtained copies of four microfilmed entries from the Gerstheim Evangelical Lutheran Church in Alsace, whence came Johannes Görz my grandpa Josef’s great, great grandfather (my g-g-g-g-grandfather).

19th Century church records from Grosspold. Easy to
read compared to older church records from
Gerstheim in Alsace (see below)

But these documents were much more challenging to make out than the church family books, such as shown at right, which we saw in Lisi Ebner's Grosspold church, laying out birth (der Geburt), marriage (der Trauung), and death (des Todes) in nice neat columns.

Instead, Gerstheim church documents are divided into separate books labeled:

“Marriages”
“Births/Baptisms” [Recorded together as baptism occurred as soon after birth as possible to preclude immediate baby damnation!]
“Deaths.”

Each life event was worthy of at least a paragraph of indecipherable handwriting -- not just a dated entry, which makes them rich sources of family information--if you can find someone to de-code the writing.

First off, Görz, Goerz, Goerz, and Görz all seem to have been accepted spelling of this family’s surname in the Gerstheim records, and all would be pronounced identically. (I never knew about this varied spelling before my trip to Romania in 2007).

Among the four records cousin Maria had received from the Gerstheim, was the marriage, with all the details written out in longhand. Here’s the most important information, as deciphered from the unreadable German script by Meta, my Rosetta Stone in Germany:

MARRIAGE REGISTER FOR 1753

In the upper left corner is the identification, separated from the paragraph of information so one can quickly scan the documents to find a name, it states:

1753
Johannes Görz
and
Maria, born Meyerin

On Tuesday, January 30th, after two prior announcements [a marriage had to be announced ahead of time to allow anyone to object] Johannes Görz, the unmarried son of citizen and inhabitant here, married Maria [Actually Anna Maria], daughter of Martin Meyers, now dead, from Eckbolsheim. God bless them.

Signed:
Johanness Görz, the groom
Maria Meyerin, the bride
Michel Görz, the groom’s father
Bartel Gehl, the bride’s stepfather [her birthfather is dead and her mother remarried]

Witness:
M.Jo. Andreas Wagner P. L. (Pastor loci = pastor of the area)

There’s an important note made on the side:

NOTATION: In May, 1770, this married couple, together with their children, emigrated to Siebenbürgen after they sold their home and grave* and paid all their debts.

Eureka! This information confirms what I had seen in another genealogical reference, which states that "Johann Görtz with 5 Persons left Gerstheim and emigrated to Grosspold" (coincidentally, my grandmother's town, more than a century later, in Siebenbürgen/Transylvania).

*Note: Meta said that people would buy a grave ahead of time, holding on to it for 15-25 years for any family members. When they leave the area, they can sell the grave plot.

Next came another new piece of family history:

BIRTH AND BAPTISM RECORD 1763

Tuesday, September 27th at 8:30 pm Anna Maria, born Meyerin, bore her husband, Johannes Görz, a small farmer [one with little land], a little boy, who was baptized on Wednesday and named “Johannes.” May God keep this child in his grace into eternal life.

[note: Anna Maria’s father was “Meyer,” but the “in” ending is added for a woman--feminizing it!]

Little Johannes didn’t last long. Already by 1764, he’s listed in the:

DEATH REGISTER, 1764

Johannes Görz

Tuesday, June 19, [1764] at 9:30 a.m. Johannes Görz, born to small farmers Johannes and Anna Maria, born Meyerin, died and was buried in the Christian manner toward evening. Rest in Peace. Age 8 months, 3 weeks, 2 days.

Johannes and Maria had two other children, whose records I found: Anna Maria Görzin, (again feminine ending, "in" added to end of Görz name) born 12/14/1758 and Johann Georg Görz, born 4/5/1766). But the one that interested me most was our direct ancestor, called Michael in the Neppendorf records. This entry explains why:

BIRTH AND BAPTISM REGISTER: October 1769:

Tuesday, October 10, 1769 at daybreak, Anna Maria, born Meierin (a phonetic spelling of Meyerin) bore for her husband, Johnannes Goerz, [the spelling changes-but pronounced the same] citizen and small farmer, a little boy, who was brought to baptism on the same day at 2 pm and named Johann[es] Michael. God hold this child in his grace to eternal life.

In both births, notice how the mother “bears [the child] for her husband!” It seems she was given little credit for doing all the work!

Then the witnesses all sign, including the father, the baby’s grandfather, so my g-g-g-g-g grandpa, and little Johannes Michael’s Godmother. [The mother of the child isn't asked to sign!]

With this additional information a lot is cleared up:

The Neppendorf Church record states (remember Gerz, Görz, Goerz, and Gärtz are phonetically identical)

From this Michael Gerz from Alsace, who married in Neppendorf, originate all the inhabitants of Neppendorf with the family name “Gerz” [later spelled Gärtz].

This "Michael" in the Neppendorf record was actually "Johannes Michael," probably called "Michael" to differentiate him from his father, also "Johannes." (As we've seen again and again, families repeated names, especially for first-borns, from father to son and mother to daughter generation after generation.)

So...[Johannes] Michael was taken to Grosspold as an eight-month-old baby with his family in May, 1770, but then he married in Neppendorf, and became the patriarch who eventually led to my grandfather, Josef, who also chose to emigrate -- 140 years later--to a much more distant land.

Next week, 9/20, back to Chicago in 1912 -- to see how Josef, Johann Michaels' great grandson, gets a financial footing as a recent immigrant. I welcome your comments, but am without internet at present, but will respond after 9/16. Please email me at lindagartz@gmail.com to explain any problems you might have commenting. Thanks so much for your interest. Next

It Takes a Village

2011-09-06T04:30:00.000-05:00

Cousin Maria Gärtz and Linda Gartz visiting Gerstheim
(May, 2011) a German town and our ancestral home
in Alsace. The original church no longer exists,
but its records have been microfilmed.

So who was the first bold soul who started the bloodline of “Görz/Gerz/Gärtz in Neppendorf (my grandfather, Josef's home town) after trekking the 1,000 miles from Gerstheim in Alsace to Siebenbürgen/Transylvania, where hundreds of thousands of other ethnic Germans had made their home since the 12th century?

He was an eight-month-old baby!

It took a village to make this discovery, and I’ve been lucky enough to have “villagers” come forth to help when I least expected it.

In the last post I described how my brothers and I received a genealogy of the “Gärtz/Gerz” family when we visited my grandfather’s church in Romania (see Churches and Spilling Secrets.

Evangelical Lutheran Church Neppendorf
interior

The Neppendorf Church's genealogy stated that “Michael Gerz,” born in 1771, emigrated from Gerstheim in Alsace and was the guy from whom all others with the name "Gerz/Gärtz -- even Görz/Goerz" in Neppendorf came from. I wanted to learn more about the family's roots in Alsace.

Enter Monica Ferrier, a specialist in emigrants from Siebenbürgen to North America, (Monica helped me find the ship that brought Josef Gärtz to New York. See Mystery of the Missing Manifest).

In an email exchange with Monica about the Gerz/Gärtz/Görz/Goerz family origins in Gerstheim, she sent me this detail from a reliable genealogical reference source known as W & K (for Wilhelm und Kallbrunner, the authors).

Translated into English, it reads:

WK 326.56 Johann Gortz 5 Persons. Farmer left Gerstheim in or around 1770 for Grosspold.

Whoa! Something is amiss!

1. The timing is too close to be coincidental, so some date must be off --either the date of birth of the “first Neppendorfer,” Michael Gerz (listed as 1771), OR the date of leaving Gerstheim (recorded as 1770)

2. What about the name? The Görtz vs Gerz is a no-brainer -- varied spellings on phonetically-identical names. But the emigrant in the above record is listed as Johann -- and he went to Grosspold -- my grandmother’s home town, not Neppendorf, where the Gärtz clan settled.

3. What about “Michael” who was supposed to be the “first” Neppendorfer? The Neppendorf church genealogy noted his father's name was “Johann,” and this record shows: "Johann Gortz - 5 people” went to Grosspold. Could that be Johann, his wife and three children? Was Michael one of the children who then later moved to Neppendorf?

Time to look at the original church records from Gerstheim.

Enter cousin Maria Gärtz who grew up in Neppendorf, in the same house in which my grandfather had lived. Several years back, Maria had hired a researcher to retrieve some family-relevant church documents from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Gerstheim, Alsace. She sent me copies of the four separate print-outs from microfilm files dating back go 1753.

Here’s what one looked like: mostly impossible to read!

Note upper left corner: 1753 Johannes Görz

Time to get my Rosetta Stone, Meta involved. Thanks to my “village” of helpers, I was able to make sense of this mixed up genealogy, learned details of my ancestors’ lives, and discovered how an 8 month old baby became the first of the Goerz/Gärtz clan in Neppendorf, and my g-g-g grandpa.

It takes a village to find an ancestor!

I welcome your comments in the box below. However, I will not have access to the internet for a couple weeks, but I will reply after 9/16. If you have any trouble commenting (it seems some often do), please email me at lindagartz@gmail.com as to what's going on and I'll try to see if there's a pattern to the trouble. Thanks!

A Matter of Faith

2011-08-30T04:30:00.001-05:00

Evangelical Lutheran Church, Neppendorf, Romania
Josef Gärtz's church

It’s time for another Carnival of Genealogy Post - (CoG) where members of the genealogy blogging community share ancestor stories around a common theme. For September we’re writing about “Our Ancestor’s Place of Worship.”

(The promised post on Josef Gärtz's new job will show up in three weeks--on September 20th).

Churches in my family’s past were centers of faith and community, but for me they have been sources of revelations. Not the kind found in the last book of the Bible, but rather as repositories of family secrets that have only recently come to light.

Evangelical Lutheran Church Grosspold, Romania
Elisabetha Ebner's church

Before they came to America, my grandparents each attended an Evangelical Lutheran Church in their respective home towns in Siebenbürgen -- the area we call Transylvania.

Their ties to these churches was represented in the identical hymnals they each thought important enough to bring with them to America. The title on both was "Gesangbuch" literally, “song book”), and the title pages were stamped with the following: “Evangelical Land Church in the Siebenbürgen Section of Hungary,” indicating the area in which both churches resided.

These churches contained a wealth of family history, but my brothers and I had no clue as to these treasures until our 2007 roots-finding trip to Romania.

At the top: Johann and Maria Eder were my grandmother,
Lisi's, grandparents. #2 Elisabetha, died at age 34 from pneumonia,
She was the mother of my grandmother, Lisi, who was 10 at her death.
See Life and Death Abbreviated

My grandmother’s church in Grosspold held a Familien Buch -- Family Book, in which we learned of her parents’ marriage, and the losses my grandmother suffered of her siblings and her mother, and the subsequent remarriage of her father, Samuel. (See: Life and Death Abbreviated).
Even Lisi's grandmother Maria's 1859 marriage to Johann Eder and their children 's lives (see right) had been recorded in that book.

My grandfather, Josef’s, church in nearby Neppendorf, was a trove of surprises. Tucked into the back of this church was a small museum of ethnic German life. There my brothers and I discovered three family photographs, identical to ones we had in our own collection, gracing its walls! (See Spilling Secrets).

A former pastor at the Neppendorf Lutheran Church had researched and created genealogies for many of the members, including the Gärtz family. For the first time, I learned that Josef Gärtz’s ancestors had originally come to Siebenbürgen/Transylvania from a town called Gerstheim in the lower Rhine (Niederrhein) region of Alsace, at that time, as now, a part of France. Gerstheim, like so many towns in this oft-fought-over border area between France and Germany, was populated by Germans. We had known none of this. Could we have faith in the pastor's research?

The Neppendorf church’s genealogy document read, regarding Michael Gerz who was the first ancestor listed:
All people living in Neppendorf with the family name “Gerz” [an alternative spelling for Gärtz] originated from this Michael Gerz who came from Gerstheim.”

That left us with the impression that this “Michael Gerz" which the document noted was born in “1771,” came as an adult to Gerstheim. Yet another Evangelical Lutheran Church, this time in Gerstheim -- came to prove several pieces of the Neppendorf-recorded genealogy, to be wrong!

Faith only goes so far!

In the next few weeks, we'll go back in time, to the 18th Century, to find out what the Gerstheim church records had to say about which of Josef Gärtz's ancestors made the 1,000 mile trek from France to Siebenbürgen, then in Hungary, and why "it takes a village" to find an ancestor.

We'll check back in a few weeks with Josef Gärtz and his new job in a Chicago Saloon, which gave him and Lisi the foundation for their future. But first -- another immigrant family -- Josef's great-great-grandfather, who traveled the prodigious distance from Alsace to Siebenbürgen, and how I teased out the facts with help from my "village."

Friends: I won't have access to my computer for the next two posts, so I hope you'll check in, as usual, on Tuesdays, to see how I unravelled many contradictions I found in the Neppendorf Church records.

The half day honeymoon!

2011-08-23T04:30:00.000-05:00

Friday, October 13, 1911
Introducing Mr. and Mrs. Josef Gartz.

Downright Immoral! Unseemly! Wrong! In 1911 that would have been the reaction if Elisabetha Ebner lived by herself upon arriving in Chicago (only “bad” girls did that), and moving in with her future husband, Josef, in Chicago was out of the question!

But she hadn’t come 5,000 miles to second guess her decision to marry Josef. No. They were married within two days of her arrival in Chicago. But how did it come about?

I found out in a “letter” she wrote to Lisbeth Plattner, née Jickeli, the little girl she had cared for back in Transylvania.The letter was dated September 25, 1972, sixty-one years and a day after Lisi had stepped off her ship, the Kaiser Wilhelm II, in New York.
That little girl was by now a 70-year old woman, with grandchildren of her own, and she and Lisi were still corresponding!

But why did I have a letter that should have already been mailed?

Lisi labeled this “letter.” “An der Rolle.” On the roll? What could that mean? Lisi thanked Lisbeth for an audio tape she had sent to Lisi and her family. “Thank you so much for the 'Rolle' with your voice.” Aha-- now I knew. Lisbeth had sent Lisi a tape so now my grandmother was going to send one in return, but first she had written out a script for herself to be sure to say exactly what she wanted. Hence “on the roll,” the roll of audio-tape.

Lisi's “script” was a brief summary of her life from her arrival in Chicago in 1911 to the time of the letter in 1972. It’s a fascinating insight into the mindset of two immigrants determined to do whatever was necessary to make it in their new land. This is what Lisi wrote about her initial arrival in Chicago (translated into English):

Josef and Lisi's wedding day. I believe that's Mrs. Beer, who wrote
to Lisi about what a wonderful "catch" Josef was, on 1/29/1911
and husband, left. Perhaps George Fleischer, the witness, right, but not sure.

When I first came to Chicago, my husband had a two-room apartment and a Neppendorf [my grandfather’s hometown in Transylvania] man paid him to sleep there. [Josef] made only 7 dollars a week and worked every day from 5:00 in the morning until 7:00 in the evening and also received meals.

On October 11, I arrived in Chicago and rented a bed with a woman neighbor until October 13th, a Friday. In the morning my husband went to work as always at 5:00 am until 3 in the afternoon. Then he came home with the Neppendorf man and we three went to the judge. There was a pastor who blessed us in marriage. George Fleischer [perhaps the Neppendorf man] was witness. On October 14-15, my husband went to work from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 pm as usual. Then on October 16th I began a job as a cook in a restaurant from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 pm for six dollars per week, meals included. We always had work -- even when those born in America didn’t.

Sound familiar? The hardworking immigrant willing to do whatever was necessary to get and keep a job, not so different from what we see today. It wasn’t long before Josef was able to double his salary. A photo of him at his job, coming up.

For Love and Money

2011-08-16T04:30:00.000-05:00

Mrs. Jickeli, Lisi Ebner's former employer, gave Lisi this business card

This business card from my grandmother's employer, Mrs. Jickeli, was among the documents I ignored for a while. I put off finding out what was written on the back (see below) because I was putting my time into deciphering and translating old letters, which seemed so much more important.

I could read the date at the end, 9/14/1911, and figured Mrs. Jickeli must have given it to Lisi just before Lisi had boarded the train from Hermannstadt to the port of Bremen. (See The Train Journey-Part II. To Catch a Ship). I wondered just what Mrs. Jickeli would have written to Lisi on the back of this card, as they said their sad goodbyes. Was it a fond farewell? A "be safe and write?" Actually it was far more practical. It was a promise to safeguard Lisi's hard-earned money--savings she may have to ask Mrs. Jickeli to send to her in America.

Dated at the end, 14/9 1911 (September 14, 1911), here’s what Mrs. Jickeli wrote on the back:

I hereby acknowledge that I have taken for safekeeping Elisabeth Ebner’s bank book of [her] deposits in the Hermannstadt General Savings Bank.
Salzburg on 9/14 1911.

Of course this is “Bad Salzburg,” (Salzburg baths, near Sibiu/Hermannstadt in Transylvania--not Salzburg, Austria), where Mrs. Jickeli had her summer home. As Lisi disembarked from the Kaiser Wilhelm II, she probably carried this card tucked safely into her wallet--knowing her money was in safe hands.

After visiting with her step-sister, Maria Wagner, in Cleveland, Lisi began the final leg of her journey--a train to Chicago to meet up with her sweetheart, my grandfather, Josef. But how would they connect in that big, bustling city? Another business card I had passed over because of its seeming insignificance, ended up being very significant.

I looked at the Albert Von der Lippen Buffet card several times and wondered: Was it a favorite place for my grandparents to eat? (Didn’t make sense -- they were too frugal to eat out). Was it the card of a friend? Was it a landmark of sorts?

The Buffet that smoothed the way to Josef’s arms.
Instead, this little buffet business card turned out to be a major clue to my grandparents’ reunion in Chicago. I wouldn’t know that until I finally sent a scan to my "Rosetta Stone," 90-year-old-Meta, in Germany. She deciphered the short note on the back.

It turned out to be instructions from Josef Gartz to Lisi on how to reach him when she arrived. He either sent this card to Hermannstadt before she left, or perhaps to her step-sister in Cleveland. On the back he wrote:

This is the address where I work: Albert von der Lippen is my boss’s name and above is our telephone number. When you arrive at the train station you can call me at Humboldt 2512.

She arrived in Chicago on October 11th, and two days later, they were married. How do I know? My grandmother wrote a script before tape-recoding the details of her first days in Chicago. Coming up.

Central Park, NY 1911. I've arrived!

2011-08-09T04:30:00.000-05:00

New York Central Park. Lisi sent to Josef after disembarking ship in
New York on Sept. 26, 1911. She continues her message from the back
onto the front, under the photo, as you can see, above.

The ship's manifest (see last post: An Alien Made Manifest) showed us Lisi Ebner, my grandmother, was headed to Cleveland first to visit her stepsister, Maria Wagner, before traveling to Chicago to meet and marry her sweetheart, Josef Gartz, my grandfather. But before she leaves New York, she sends Josef this cool postcard of Central Park, NY, which, we learned from her diary, (see post: From Ship to American Soil she had bought on the ship before even landing in New York.

I've learned one can't always trust the what our ancestors' notes say. For example. Several years later, my grandmother must have been going through all she had saved and saw this postcard. She wanted to make a note as to its significance. Perhaps in her overworked state, she just quickly, without even looking at the card, marked it "Jose[f] Gartz landing in USA Jan 14, 1911." [He actually landed on Jan. 11th]. But the card is postmarked "Sep[tember]." Maybe she was just made a quick note of Josef's arrival on this postcard she had sent, while she thought of it. But this missive is definitely from Lisi to Josef after her arrival in New York on September 26, 1911.

Addressed to Josef Gärtz, Orchart [Orchard] St. No 1550
Chicago, Ill. The postage required (upper right) 1 cent.
Note added writing (darker) near the top.

Dearest Heart,

I had a beautiful and lucky trip over the ocean. I disembarked from the ship on September 26 and I have recuperated [from the journey]. Now I’ll travel to Cleveland and from there I’ll write you more than is on this postcard.
God has helped me well thus far and I pray that he also gives more help to my darling [Josef] in the future. I send you greetings and also to my unknown friend.

I was confused as to who this “unknown friend" was. But ninety-year-old Meta, who decodes the old German script, knew! She referred me back to Josef’s letter to Lisi sent from Cleveland and dated January 29, 1911 (see post Love Finds a Way). The "unknown friend" was Mrs. (Frau) Beer.

Josef was staying either with the Beer family, or near enough that Mrs. Beer knew both Josef's habits of neatness as well as his appeal to other women! After Josef finished his message to Lisi, Frau Beer wrote a few words on the same letter, referring to Lisi as her "unknown friend" and exhorting her to come to America to marry Josef.

Mr. And Mrs. Beer must have also moved to Chicago from Cleveland, just as Josef did, sometime between March and May, 1911, first because Lisi asks Josef to greet Mrs. Beer, the "unknown friend" (and he's in Chicago) and also because the Beers will play a role in Josef and Lisi’s future in Chicago.

Coming up:

How I discovered where Josef was working in Chicago when Lisi arrived and how she was able to find him in the bustling city of Chicago.

An Alien Made Manifest

2011-08-02T04:30:00.001-05:00

Every ship entering the port of New York was required to provide customs officers with comprehensive details of its cargo, passengers, and crew. The "List or Manifest of Alien Passengers" (left) is a snapshot of a single moment--a century the the past. It captures salient details of the 800 or so people who arrived on the same ship,
just as they were embarking on their wholly unknown future in a foreign land--the U.S.A.

The manifest allows us to look back upon our ancestors through the eyes of one of the first officials to welcome (and scrutinize) them as they stood before the officer, undoubtedly with heart in throat, wondering if anything they said might provide an excuse to send them back whence they came.

Whoever looked at my grandmother, Lisi, when she arrived on the evening of September 26th, 1911, began filling in the twenty-nine columns on line 19 of the manifest with the details that the U.S. wanted to know about this "alien" prior to her entry into this country.

Line 19 of manifest for the steamer, Kaiser Wilhelm II

Columns 1and 2 -- her full name: Ebner, Erzsebeth (see detail, above)

Never mind what her real name was. They took the Hungarian equivalent, Erzsebeth, from her passport/Dienstbuch [for details of this dual-purpose document, see 6/14 post, When a Resume Worked as a Passport)

The mistaken transcription

Years later, when all this information was transcribed into a searchable database, her name was mistakenly copied as “Ebnor” with an “o” and Erzebeth was miscopied as “Erssebeth,” making my search just a tad more difficult. But because of the detailed information Lisi had written on the postcard of her ship (see last post), I found it. The U.S. wanted further bureaucratic information:

Column Question   Lisi's answers
3 Age 24
4 Gender F
5 Married/single Single
6 occupation Cook
7 Able to read/write yes/yes
8 Nationality Hungary
9 Race/people German
10 Last Permanent
   Residence Hungary, N[agy] Apold [Hungarian for Grosspold]
11 Nearest relative
   In home country Samuel Ebner [father]
12 Final Destination Cleveland, Ohio
Compose
Aha! Question #12, the last question on the first page of the two-page manifest, is how I discovered that Lisi didn’t go directly to Chicago to meet my grandfather. Instead her first stop was Cleveland, where her stepsister, Maria Wagner, lived. I hadn’t known this before.

The questions continued on the second page, allowing us to stand in the interrogator’s place, and imagine how Lisi appeared to him/her:

Height: 5’ 4”
Hair: black
Eyes: grey [I recall deep brown eyes!]
Complexion: fair [not really]
Marks of identification: none

Is she’s a polygamist? No.
An anarchist? No.

(Who would answer “yes” to these two questions?!

Condition of her health, mental and physical: good

Deformed or crippled? No.
In possession of at least $50 and if not, how much? $40

Ticket to final destination? Yes
Who paid for passage? Self
Ever in U.S. before? No

Manifest showing (left) Lisi arrived with $40; Right: the name of
address of her destination: Rudolf Wagner, 4287 St. Clair Avenue,
Cleveland Oh

Going to relative or friend? If so [give] complete address:

Rudolf Wagner [her stepsister’s husband] 4287 St. Clair Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio.

I had seen that name before, and this piece of unknown information on the manifest was a revelation that connected Lisi's arrival to an incident forty years later.

A family of documentarians brings life full circle

I had never met the Wagner family--nor do I recall hearing about them--until I read my father's 1950 diary. During one of his many business trips out of state, he traveled to Ohio and made a side excursion to visit the Wagner family in Cleveland. By 1950 they had grown sons, owned a restaurant where the sons and father switched off to work night and day, and had many American luxuries. Another immigrant family that had fulfilled the American dream. Details to come.

Meantime, Lisi successfully passed inspection, both health and moral (no polygamy or anarchism!). Josef will have to wait a few more weeks to see his darling, but she let him know she had arrived safely.
Coming up: the postcard of New York Lisi sent to him and how a seemingly unimportant business card turned out to be a key clue as to how they connected in Chicago.

From Ship to American Soil

2011-07-26T04:30:00.000-05:00

The Atlantic crossing from Bremerhaven to New York on her ship, Kaiser Wilhelm II, took Lisi a week. Early on, she learned the genre of the types of seafaring craft in which she traveled, and recorded it thus:

The big ship is called a Stimer [German phonetic for "steamer"]. The little boat which brings people to the big ships is called a sailboat. [I don't know whether that was what the boat actually was called in English, but that's how her word, Segel, translates.

Before making its way to the open ocean, the Kaiser Wilhelm II picked up additional passengers, including a little bird, as Lisi noted:

10:00 a.m. Isle of Wight. A swallow travels with us
11:00 a.m Arrive Southampton
12:30 p.m. Depart Southampton

Every day she documented what she ate, which included such delectables as roasted (sometimes stewed) meats and fowl: beef, turkey, goose, and duck. She was served salads, soups, apples and oranges. Desserts like chocolate cream, pastries, vanilla cream custard, compote, a type of bundt cake, or ice cream might conclude the meals.

Lisi found a perfect souvenir to remind her of these savory repasts. On September 21, 1911, she wrote:

I paid 10 Pfennig for a postcard of the lunch menu to send to my sister.

She bought a couple copies of the 9/21/1911 breakfast menu for herself as well. Written in German and English, it was formatted to be addressed, stamped, and mailed--or, in the case of this one, saved--for 100 years. See below.

Check out the death scene at the top -- two wolves or wild dogs bringing down a terrified buck. Nature’s violence is something we twenty-first century sophisticates would rather not have to contemplate--especially at meal time.

Breakfast (Frühstück) Menu (Speisekarte) for 9/21/1911 the top (with photo)
folded over the bottom and could be addressed and mailed as a postcard.

The same date as the menu postcard, 9/21, she made the only note in the whole diary about being seasick:

I threw up a little and didn’t feel well, so I wasn’t hungry.

Besides the postcard menu, she bought other souvenirs on the boat as well:

On September 23, I bought a small teaspoon for 4 marks [German money].
7 cents for 2 postcards for me and one for J.G. of New York.

(See 7/19 post, Lisi's Moveable Feast to view Bremen/Bremerhaven postcards, which may be the ones she bought for herself).

The postcard for J.G. [clearly Josef Gartz] must be this one. It's a scene in New York and addressed to Josef with a postmark of "September," and content that tells him she’s landed safely. Before deciphering and translating her diary, I had assumed she bought the postcard in New York. Now I know its true provenance--from the ship. [Details coming up in a future post].

Lisi's postcard of her ship,
Kaiser Wilhelm II

Welcome to America!

At some time in her life (not clear when), Lisi recorded the details of her arrival in New York on the back of this postcard of the Kaiser Wilhelm II, bought either on the ship or in Bremen.

She wrote on the left side: Landing in N.Y. Disembarked from the ship at 7:00 p.m. on 26/9 (Sept. 26th) Elise Ebner, now Gärtz. (The "now Gärtz" tells me she made this note after her wedding. Another indication is that in her diary she noted the arrival time was 8:00 pm, meaning perhaps she misremembered the time by the time she made these notes. But close enough!).
On the right she wrote: This is my ship that brought me to America in the year 1911.

Lisi's documentation of her arrival on the back of the
Kaiser Wilhelm II postcard, shown above left.

On the next post, Lisi arrives at Ellis Island in New York where the ship's manifest (passenger list) documents the details of the next destination on her journey. It wasn't directly to Josef. To find out where she went first, check back next week.

Lisi's "Moveable Feast"

2011-07-19T04:30:00.000-05:00

Bremen Postcard from 1911

Bremen, Germany, was the gateway for millions of emigrants from Central and Eastern Europe to American. So it was for my grandparents. Josef had already left for America on New Year's Eve, 1910, and now was waiting for his sweetheart, Lisi, to join him in Chicago.

As we saw in the last post, Lisi spent three nights in Bremen before heading to the port and the ship that would take her to America. She wrote nothing of her feelings about this momentous occasion, only the schedule details:

Arrival in Bremen Saturday, 9/16/11
9/19/11 8:00 a.m. Depart [Bremen]

Like Josef did nine months earlier, she was taking a train from the city of Bremen to the Bremen Port, Bremerhaven, about thirty miles south. These two postcards, mementoes in our archives which I assume she purchased during her stay a century ago, are the only clues I have of what she saw in those two days and three nights.

Port of Bremen- Bremenhafen

One depicts Bahnhofstrasse (literally, “Train Station Street”) in the heart of Bremen. The other is of Bremen Port. There she must have seen seagulls for the first time, and writes that “Seagulls look like doves, only bigger.” It’s the only comment she makes about her surroundings or the life-changing voyage she is about to embark upon.

While it doesn’t surprise me that my grandmother, Lisi, didn’t write much of her emotions, (I remember her as an exceedingly practical person), I was struck by the contrast between her diary and that of my grandfather. Grandpa's diary has given me an entirely new view of him. We always saw his joking, teasing, funny side, but through his letters and diary, I have discovered he was also romantic and in touch with his feelings.

As his ship, Friedrich der Grosse, pulled away from shore nine months earlier, on December 31, 1910, he wrote from his heart:

I was moved by sadness, joy, and fear as the mighty colossus pulled us far out over the waves of the great sea. Everyone on land waved after us with their handkerchiefs as they wanted to share with us a last and friendly farewell. They know such a trip deals with life and death, and we’re never certain if we’ll see each other again. (See Out to Sea).

Lisi must have observed a similar scene when she boarded her ship, Kaiser Wilhelm II, but wrote nothing about it. However, she did save this wonderful postcard of KWII, noting details of her arrival on the back (more on that coming up). In the upper left is written: "Norddeutscher Lloyd Dampfer "Kaiser Wilhelm II." Norddeutscher Lloyd (North German Lloyd) was the shipping company that owned the ship. Dampfer means steamer.

Kaiser Wilhelm II - the ship that brought Elisabetha (Lisi) Ebner,
my grandmother, to America, departing Bremenhafen 9/19/1911

Once she was on the ship, Lisi again made no commentary on her experiences: whom she met, what the weather was like, what her fears or hopes were. Instead her diary is dominated by what she eats! As prosaic as that sounds, what these entries do reveal is what I believe is Lisi's amazement at the incredible quantity and variety of food she can choose from. It also shows that her ocean voyage was clearly at a higher class than that of my grandfather, Josef. He had traveled steerage (the cheapest ticket, in the bowels of the ship. No food included).

In his diary he had written:

Another problem on the ship was eating. As long as I had mother’s bread and wurst, it was ok, but when I had eaten all that, I just stood there and didn’t know how to get something to eat because the cost [of food] is miserable on the ship. (See Out to Sea)

In contrast, Lisi’s trip is marked by a bounty of food. The first day she boards the ship on September 19th, 1911, she devotes her entire entry to the menu choices:

Soups:
  semolina
  asparagus [or]
  cauliflower

Main courses:

  Fish baked with lemon and Potato salad
  Steamed beef with horse radish or gravy and roasted potatoes and steamed/stewed cabbage [or]
  Baked duck with apple compote and salad

Dessert
  Ice cream
  vanilla cream (like custard)
  pudding
  apples, oranges [or]
  pastries
  coffee.

Evening meal:
  Veal liver or
  Chopped schnitzel (minced meat -- maybe like hamburger meat) and roasted onions
  Pudding.

Every day, Lisi compulsively recorded the food, drinks, and snacks she consumed. But she also noted several purchases, as she kept track of expenditures. Her desire to record and save details of her and her family's life, even if mundane, has been a boon to my ability to puzzle out my family's history.

On the next post: the records Lisi did keep -- and the clues they provide to piecing together to the provenance of several century-old artifacts and documents.

The Train Journey-Part II - To Catch a Ship

2011-07-12T04:30:00.000-05:00

A century ago this summer, my grandmother, Elisabetha (Lisi) Ebner, was heading to America to meet and marry my grandfather, Josef Gartz. Her diary of the trip is often confusing because she intermixes train schedules, recipes, addresses, and meals. (See The Train Journey-Part I), but the important thing to me is that she actually recorded enough details, that I can follow along on her journey.

Here's an overview map of the route she took, all noted in her diary: through the Austro-Hungarian towns of Budapest, Galanta, Trencin, Cadca; into Oderberg and Ratibor, the border town between Poland and Germany. She chugs along, noting the German towns of Breslau, Berlin, Hannover and finally to Bremen.

Lisi's approximate route from Hermannstadt/Sibiu in today's Romania
to Bremen. From there she'll take a train to the port.

Handwritten note from Mrs. Jickeli's on the back of her
business card. See date at the end: 14/9 1911-
Sept. 14, 1911, a clue Lisi had this note when she left.

Lisi jots down the times she arrives and departs many of the cities as she wends her way to the port of Bremen. The dates she lists indicate that she personally left on the train several weeks after dropping off her luggage on August 22nd. (See that first entry at Farewell, My Homeland).

The first date she lists of the actual train trip is September 15th, departing from Budapest at 6:50 pm.

It's about 267 miles from her home town to Budapest. I believe she started her trip on September 14th, because she brought along with her a business card from her boss, Mrs. Jickeli, dated September 14, 1911. (see photo) That date jives with the length of time it would have taken her to get to Budapest. I'll reveal what I discovered on that card in a future post,

On the right, the border town between Germany and
Poland is large and clearly written: Ratibor

9/15, Friday: 6:50 pm depart from Budapest

9/16 Saturday: 1:00 a.m. arrive Cadca

9/16 Saturday: 2 a.m. arrive Oderberg; 2:30 a.m.
Change trains to a “fast train” on the
Preussische Staatsbahn (The German State Train)

9/16 Saturday 4 a.m. Depart Oderberg (track #3)

9/16 [Saturday] 11:20 am arrive Berlin (at the Friedrich Street Train Station, where the porter takes her to the “Cashier” to exchange her Kroner (Austro-Hungarian money) for German Marks

[9/16 Saturday] 11:52 a.m. onward [from Berlin]

[9/16 Saturday] 5:55 pm arrive Bremen

9/16-9/19 [Sat. - Tues.] overnight in Bremen

Before changing trains in the “German area” (perhaps Oderberg), she writes:

Our tickets are checked and we each receive a little piece of paper, giving us our seat number [on the next train].

Of course Lisi must keep track of expenditures, so she records payments:

-Her tips to every porter at each train station.
-a cup of coffee cost 25 Pfennig (like “pennies”)
-the cost of her room and the money she pays each worker at the "B and B" where she overnights in Bremen.

The room: 15 Taler [coins-of indeterminate worth today]
Waiter 4 taler
Valet 6 taler
Chambermaid 2 taler
Total cost: 27 taler and 15 Pfennig

In Bremen, she records both what she eats and at what time:

1:00 pm -- a coffee
5:00 pm -- 1 soup and 1 schnitzel, 1 compote, 2 glasses of water, and 2 rolls
9:00 am -- 2 coffees, 3 rolls with butter 3 cups of coffee

September 16th - 18th were the last three days she would ever again spend in Europe.

9/19 Tuesday depart from Bremen at 8:00 am

This is it! The final leg of her train journey that will take her from the city of Bremen to the port--and to the ship that will carry her to America.

At some time in these last few days, she learns of the ship on which she'll cross the Atlantic. She enters its name and her cabin number--on the facing page of her diary’s first entry, which she had created on August 22, 1911. It's too important to be buried within.

Her ship name and cabin number, noted left - added to
the facing page, blank when she made her first entry,
the "22nd of August" right.

Elise Ebner
Cabin 731
Bremen
Kaiser Wilhelm II

Coming up: Lisi starts a second diary--of her voyage across the Atlantic to America--closer to Josef’s waiting arms.

The Train Journey-Part I

2011-07-05T13:10:00.000-05:00

Train image from a Budapest Post Card Josef sent to Lisi in
December, 1910, when he traveled toward Bremen.
Lisi's train probably looked similar

It’s a mixed up world in Lisi’s diary. She knew her trip to America would be the a journey of a lifetime, and she wanted to keep track of as much as possible. She wandered freely about her little black book, entering what she could -- often intermixing train schedules, recipes, addresses, and expenses. Nevertheless, with dates and details, the flow of her trip emerges.

As seen in the last post, she dropped off her luggage at the Grosspold train station on August 22, 1911, probably to be shipped ahead to Bremen. She had made a list on that first page, of what she had packed in perhaps that one suitcase--mostly linens, photos, and maps. But that’s not all she brought. She includes the following on other pages, maybe just as it came to her mind:

Bed linens (a gift from her former employer, Berta Jickeli)
2 woolen smocks
1 cotton smock
Rustic clothing, probably meaning traditional costumes
Kitchen dishes
Sewing notions

Lisi's cake recipe

Recipe ingredients were included:

For a cake:
butter
eggs
sugar to taste
flour
baking powder
2 "coffee" spoons vanilla
2 beaten eggwhites

A tomato sauce: 
tomatoes
cinnamon
sugar (to taste, she notes)
onions
paprika

Addresses crop up throughout the book:

Mrs.Jickeli’s (her former employer) summer address in Bad Salzburg. (Here “Bad” means “baths” and Salz means “salt”-- a place near Sibiu/Hermannstadt, where one could enjoy mineral baths.)
(See Mrs. Jickeli's employment recommendation for Lisi at the post: The Highest Recommendation).

Among her hometown contacts I recognize the names of friends who later wrote her letters, which I have in my collection.

Chicago addresses are thrown in throughout -- with phonetic spellings of street names and phone numbers. The latter were back in the day when an operator asked “Number, plee-uhs,” to connect a call. The caller gave her an “exchange” along with only four digits! Like “Kedzie 2500.” Lisi writes it “Ketzi,” as it sounds to her German language ear.

Phonetically she notes “Sirogs Robak” -- perhaps for work in Chicago--or where another immigrant works? My guess is--it's “Sears Roebuck.”

Gärtz Josef, 1550 Orchart (Orchard) St. Chicago Ill
Nord (North) America

Of course, Josef Gartz's address is listed on Orchard Street in Chicago, where she had written to him that she was coming. (See: Are We Going There to Stay? Again the placement of street, state, address in America is totally strange to her.

The train takes her on a journey like she’s never experienced. On the next post, I'll share with you Lisi's route, as she recorded it -- and some of the ways she spent her money.

I welcome your comments. Just click on the word "comments" below. If you're having trouble, please send me an email at lindagartz@gmail.com to let me know.

Seasons of Genealogy

2011-07-01T13:55:00.000-05:00

Welcome to another Carnival of Genealogy (CoG). It’s an opportunity for the genealogy blogosphere aficionados to strut their stuff on a specific topic. July’s topic is “The Seasons of Genealogy.” I’m approaching it metaphorically. See how my garden of "Family History Discoveries" has bloomed.

Assuming spring represents a “beginning,” here’s how I’d lay out the seasons of my family history research:

The Spring of my Family History Discoveries

The crocuses of family archives are just beginning to poke their heads out of the earth.

Early March of my genealogy research, is, sadly, directly related to three deaths: of my grandparents and, later, their eldest son, who had lived with them his entire life.
Uncle Bill died on January 1, 1990, and that’s when my brothers and I emptied out my grandparents’ house, and gave just a cursory look to what we discovered in their basement: plastic bags of letters, miscellaneous notebooks and scraps of paper; photo albums; needlework. We had no time to look at it closely, so we just hauled it all pretty much as we found it to my parents’ attic.

Late March/Early April of Family History Discoveries

Out of the coldness and sorrow of death, my family history came alive. My mother died in August, 1994. That’s when my brothers and I first realized the true extent of the family archives that had lain untouched for two decades and longer in my parents’ attic. We grouped what we found by categories into twenty-five bankers’ boxes, labeled each, loaded the van, and drove them off to storage. The daffodils of family history awareness were emerging.

Mid-April of Family History Discoveries

In 2000 I persuaded my brothers to come to Chicago to spend a week cataloging in greater detail what existed in our massive collection. As brother Bill and I pulled an artifact out of each box, my older brother, Paul, entered it into an Excel spread sheet. Now we had quick access for research. The boxes went into the second story of my heated garage. If each artifact were a daffodil, thousands were in glorious bloom, begging me to look at them.

Early May of Family History Discoveries

For two years those boxes nagged at me. In 2002 I took the plunge and began reading the 250+ WWII letters as well as my parents’ oldest diaries. So began my journey into the past. I spent the next several years, as time allowed, reading and annotating the diaries, and writing chapters of family history. The tulips bloomed in my Family Research Garden.

Late May of Family History Discoveries

Fall of 2007, my brothers and I traveled to Romania (Austro-Hungary when my grandparents lived there). In their hometowns we discovered that the Gartz side of the family had originally come from Alsace, visited the original homes of both Dad’s parents, met relatives--as well as Professor Uli Wien -- who was researching a book about the Siebenbürgen Germans. Showy peonies brightened the family history trail.
Some links: Spilling Secrets. Searching for Home.

June of Family History Discoveries

Of course I “knew” I’d never be able to read the scores of letters written in old German script -- until Uli, the professor, wrote to ask if I had letters he could use for research. He agreed to help me decipher some. I realized I had letters between my grandparents dating as far back as 1910 and 1911. I looked more closely at lots of artifacts in Boxes 1 & 14 and later found Meta, a 90-year-old woman in Germany, who helped me decipher what turned out to be love letters between my grandparents, diaries they each kept, and letters from their homeland revealing the six decades of ties they kept with family and friends. My genealogy research is bursting into full summer bloom! (Read some excerpts of what I found: Terror atop the Train. If you love me.... (my grandfather, Josef's, desperate letter to get my grandmother, Lisi, to join him in America)

It will take a while to move into the fall of my research, but I hope to do so as this year’s summer actually gives way to autumn. I’ve learned nothing can be overlooked, The most obscure business card can hold a treasure of information on the back, hiding its secrets in a scrawl of old German writing -- until I get it to Meta to decipher. The spreadsheet was a good beginning -- but details lurk within or behind every album, wallet, framed photo, and scrap of paper.

Winter will be here when I donate all to a wonderful research library for all the world to access this historical trove.

Farewell, my homeland

2011-06-29T04:30:00.000-05:00

Bags packed. Ready to go. Hugs, and tears and kisses all around. “I’ll write as soon as I can,” Lisi says to her father, sisters and brother.

“Safe journey,” they say. “Come back to us.” “We’ll miss you so.”

I can imagine the scene when my grandmother, Elisabetha (Lisi) Ebner departed to meet her love, my grandfather, Josef, in Chicago--a century ago this summer, but I didn’t know the exact date she actually left her hometown of Grosspold, Austro-Hungary (now Romania) for America. I had the date and time of her arrival in New York as well as the ship on which she arrived -- she wrote those details on the back of a postcard, which I’ll share in a future post.

But then I found the tiny book, just 2.5” wide, 4” tall, with its stark, unlabeled, black leather cover.

When I had first perused the pages, (when? Ages ago!) lined like graph paper, it seemed a record primarily of addresses and unrelated numbers. With scores of letters waiting to be deciphered, I decided decoding the little book wasn’t a priority.

Lisi Ebner's diary. The right side is where I believe she started
the notes of her trip, 8/22/1911, and added details about her ship
on the left, probably after arriving in Bremen.

But recently I looked at it again -- and with an eye more trained in the old writing, I knew I had another example of my grandmother’s amazing compulsion to record her life.

On the first facing page, (which is where I believe she started her notes), I made out the following:

Am 22 August: On August 22nd
Koffer: suitcase
Bahnhof: train station
9 Uhr 1911: 9:00 [a.m.] 1911 in BIG LETTERS
Amerika: The major clue that I was onto something.

It was Lisi’s diary of her train trip from Grosspold to Bremen. I scanned it immediately and sent it off for “decoding" to my ninety-year-old German Rosetta Stone in Germany. I’ve translated as best I could a rather confusing conglomeration of train schedules, addresses, expenses, and, possibly, an early version of networking.

But the first few pages are clear. Here’s what she wrote:

On the 22nd of August, 1911, I brought my suitcase to the Grosspold Train station at 9:00.

Contents:
6 large pillow cases
1 small pillow case
Many photographs
7 matching hand towels,
3 matching hand towels, one red, one white one blue
3 table towels
Two white napkins
6 blue napkins
1 cabinet towel (perhaps like a doily for a dresser?)
1 linen towel - just beginning work on it (perhaps a decorative cover for a dresser or cabinet. Perhaps she had begun to crochet the edges, or embroider a design onto a corner something she did all her life
A city map of Vienna
A map of Austria
A joke book (Could it be the book of jokes and songs that my grandfather, Josef, had created in the summer of 1910 (See the post, Drafted 100 Years Ago).

Elisabetha (Lisi) Ebner
in Grosspold "costume" 1910

A Grosspold Costume without the shirt (probably just the skirt and apron. Here she is in her “Grosspold Costume,” at left.

My guess is that this is only one of several suitcases or trunks she took along, for it's only homemaking or practical items.

But it's the first step in a 5,000 mile journey to meet my grandfather, Josef Gärtz. On the way, she will keep track of every stop the train makes, how much she spends on food, small gifts, and souvenirs.

She writes little of what she sees, and nothing of emotions or impressions. Perhaps it was too hard, at that time, to express herself in writing, having had so little opportunity to practice. I doubt she had written much beyond lists, basic instructions, and the letters to Josef since she had left school after the fourth grade. Her life had been filled with “productive” work. Time to just “write” for pleasure or art was non-existent--and probably never even occurred to her. Yet she was compelled to write, and here began her penchant for recording details and eventually evolving into a prolific correspondent that kept her in touch with loved ones for nearly seven decades.

In future posts we’’ll follow Lisi on her journey, and find out how Mrs. Jickeli, her former employer, even after her departure, took care of important business for Lisi.

The Highest Recommendation

2011-06-21T04:30:00.000-05:00

Mrs. Berta Jickeli, center in black (Lisi's employer who wrote her the
recommendation (Zeugnis-below), and her household help.
Lisi is seated 2nd from left.The little girl she cared for,
Berta's daughter, Lisbeth, is at washtub, right. Dec.,1910.

The above photograph was signed on the back to my grandmother from Mrs. Jickeli, in December, 1910. (For details about what had been unseen for almost a century, written on the back of this photo, see post, Hidden Message Behind Women's Work.) It hung prominently in my grandmother's home for her entire life. I can imagine the immense sadness she felt as she prepared to say farewell to this woman and her little daughter, Lisbeth, both of whom she loved like family.

Mrs. Jickeli had taken Lisi under her wing for four years, and now this young woman of 23 was making what seemed to the forty-six year old Berta, a rash decision--taking off for America without knowing how long she'd stay or if she might return. As she prepared for her journey, Lisi knew she would have to find a job once she arrived in Chicago, married, and settled in with my grandfather, Josef. Besides her Dienstbuch (record of all previous employment - see post: When a resumé worked as a passport, what else could be more important that a personal recommendation?

That’s exactly what she received from Mrs. Berta Jickeli. “Zeugnis" means "recommendation.

It’s a glowing report which must have made my grandmother’s heart swell with pride. She saved it her entire life - and now I have it, this century old tribute to my smart, hard-working grandmother.

Recommendation

The undersigned at the end [of this document] certifies herewith that Eliesabeth [also spelled Elisabetha] Ebner from Grosspold (Nagy-Apold), Hungary, first worked for me as a parlour maid and later as cook from January 8, 1906 to August 15, 1911.

During this time, she has always been honest, upright, industrious, and faithful, and for every duty has earned my fullest satisfaction. She is superbly qualified for childcare and illness duties and is well-trained in all household work, and I can therefore most heartily recommend her.

Berta Jickeli, Merchant’s Wife, August 15, 1911.”

Hermannstadt (Nagy-Szeben), Hungary on August 15, 1911

At the bottom, in purple ink, is an official stamp of Hermannstadt, and the document is countersigned by what is our equivalent of a notary.

I can only imagine the conflicting emotions Lisi must have suffered through as she put all her affairs in order: excitement, fear, anticipation, and sorrow, knowing she may never return to the beloved Jickeli household, her father, her sisters, and brother.

She didn't write about her feelings. Perhaps she thought that was too self-indulgent, but she did record much about her trip, beginning with the delivery of her luggage to the train station in Grosspold--followed by details of her journey. Coming up: Lisi's diary -- from Grosspold to Chicago.

I'd love to hear from any of you who have a document related to your ancestors in which they (or you) would take particular pride.

Please click on the word "comments" below center. Thanks for reading!

When a resumé worked as passport

2011-06-14T04:30:00.000-05:00

Lisi's "Passport"

Traveling sure was different 100 years ago. My grandmother, Lisi Ebner had to get all her papers in order to travel to America. I found her “passport” among the artifacts she left behind. She had actually written on it “My Pass von [from] 1911.”

I can't read most of the lines in the "pass" because all is in Hungarian (In 1911, Siebenbürgen/Transylvania was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), but things like her town (Nagy-Apold -- Hungarian for Grosspold) and dates can be made out.

Her name seemed to be misspelled -- as Erzsébet, instead of Elisabetha. That wouldn’t fly today (literally!). But I was told by my "Rosetta Stone," Meta, who deciphers the old German letters for me that Erzsébet was the Hungarian name for Elisabetha. (And thanks to Nick at Nick Gombash's Genealogy Blog, for providing the correct spelling. See his comment below that translates the details of Lisi's town, district, county, and country--from the Hungarian)

I always assumed (because of her note) it was a true blue passport, but I've learned it was actually a “Dienstbuch,” literally a “service book.” We can consider it a kind of “resume.” In it are listed her various employers, when she started working for them, her job, and even salary. Because of its official nature, (the first page is stamped by the local police!), it appears to have also been used as her passport, per her own note.

Lisi's employment history with the Jickeli family, with
whom she corresponded for sixty years.

This method of keeping track of employers seemed to be pretty common (See my post of May 4th, Happy 125th Birthday). My maternal grandmother, had the same type of book, but in Austria it was called: Arbeitsbuch, literally her "Work-book").

The first entry listed In Elisabetha Ebner's "Work-book" is from January 1, 1903-December 31, 1904, when Lisi was ages 15-17.

The next two pages have been filled out by Dr. Carl F[riedrich] Jickeli, (left) Eisenhändler (hardware store owner). I recently learned this was far more than a hardware story, however. It was a kind of department store in the center of Hermannstadt (Sibiu) where you could buy everything from kitchenware to tools and nails to clothing. Lisi actually worked for Carl Jickeli's wife, Berta, from January 8, 1906, to August 15, 1911, (ages 18-24) as a Stubenmädchen (parlor-maid--a good position). Monthly salary: 12 Kronen. She must have also been given room and board, as she was eighteen miles from her home in Grosspolt, but it still doesn't sound like much. The left page is stamped with the final date of her employment: 1911, Aug. 15. On the right page is hand-written: [Wishing you] complete satisfaction in every path.

For more than five years Lisi was Mrs. Jickeli's right-hand gal. Her role evolved far beyond that of just a maid, as future letters, revealed. Mrs. Jickeli entrusted her with the running of the household when she had to be away on business, and most importantly, entrusted her young daughter, Lisbeth, to Lisi's care.

As she prepared to leave the woman she considered a second mother, Lisi would turn to Mrs. Jickeli for a very important document to help her find work in the far-away land of America. Coming up --"The Recommendation."

I’m curious as to what sort of passports any of my readers may have from their ancestors. Do they seem to be uniquely a passport -- or did you find an "employment book" as well -- that might have been used as a passport?

Are we going there to stay?

2011-06-07T04:30:00.000-05:00

June 7, 1911, postcard from Lisi to Josef. The two love-birds in a heart
of roses, the clasped hands, and the forget-me-not blue flowers
speak of love without saying a word

Lisi has made up her mind! One hundred years ago today, she sat down to write another postcard to Josef, probably in response to his desperate pitch (May 25, 1911) to come and marry him. Read it at
If you love me...

This strange land of America is so confusing: even the addresses make no sense. What part goes where? Despite the fact that she mixes up the street, state, city and house number on the postcard, it still gets to Josef. His heart must soar. Lisi is coming to America to marry him! She writes this postcard from Salzburg, where she has undoubtedly joined her employer, Mrs. Jickeli, at the family's summer home.

Some background notes: Pentecost (celebrated the fiftieth day after Easter and marking when the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus’s apostles) was a holiday in the Evangelische Lutheran church worth mentioning in her letter.

Herrn Josef Gärtz:
Orchard Ill St. 1550
Chicago, North America

Beloved (Dearest) Heart,

I have spoken with Kathi and mother on the 2nd Pentecost day. Am I right -- that you want to marry there [in Chicago]? I should do what I think is right.

How will [the trip] work out in the end? Is there anything I’ve forgotten to ask you in the letter? Please, answer me immediately. I have already spoken with the madam [probably her boss, Mrs. Jeckeli] that I could leave before autumn. But please let me know clearly what I must do. Then I will make all the arrangements.

When will we two return home? Or are we going there to stay? What is your thinking about that? Please answer every question soon.

Yours,

Elisabetha
Salzburg, June 7, 1911

Despite not knowing if she is going to live in America just for a short time -- or for the rest of her life, Lisi is taking the plunge. What she takes on her journey -- coming up.

I look forward to your hearing from you. Please click on the word "comments," centered, below this post and leave me a message. You do not need to sign up for anything or have a URL (website) -- just fill in whatever name you want to use (or anonymous), comment, and click "post comment." Easy!

I will come

2011-05-30T04:30:00.000-05:00

The blue flowers are "forget-me-nots"

Josef’s long, heartfelt letter of May 25th, 1911, (click: If you love me...) could not yet have reached Lisi in Transylvania when she picked out this sweet postcard and wrote to him on May 30th.
For one thing, she chastises him for sending her such a “short” response, making clear she hasn’t yet seen the May 25th letter in which he exhorts her, in determined pleadings, to come to America (“If you love me, you will come here”).

She’s also annoyed that he has told her not to show his writing to anyone else, and yet recently has written to her (prior to May 25th) on a postcard which anyone can read. She, however, sends this postcard in an envelope (the entire back is filled with her writing, with no space for an address.)

Below is an approximate translation.

Note: Sepp is a nickname for Josef (think of the Italian for Josef, GiuSEPPe, and it makes sense):

May 30, 1911

Dearest Sepp,

Thank you for all your letters and also postcards, which I’ve received. But your answer to my long letter is very short. Also, you asked me to keep all the writing from you to me hidden from the eyes of others, but then you send me a post card where everyone can read what you say! That’s the main reason I feel annoyed and am uncertain if I should make the trip to America.

But just like the flowers [bloom] on this card [forget-me-nots], joy blooms in my heart because I know that I love you and that you love me. God knows what is right. I have in mind that I should come.

Picture this:
You are a twenty-three year old young woman--one hundred years ago. You were raised in a small town of all German-speaking people, and now work in the larger town eighteen miles away. You secured an enviable job with one of the most prominent families in the area, a family of merchants, politicians, church luminaries, doctors. You’ve served them well, especially the mistress of the house, been responsible for the vast staff she has to feed and manage, taken care of her little daughter and loved her as your own.

But the love of your life has traveled to a strange land 5,000 miles distant--a land where you won’t understand the language, have no idea of the customs, habits, expectations. He sees the opportunities in America and has made it clear: he will never come back to Transylvania. He wants you to come to marry him…now! He doesn’t want to wait, and “if you love me,” he says, “you will come here to marry me.” (see If you love me...)

The translation is difficult, but it seems Lisi is leaning toward joining Josef in America. But by the time she writes again, she will have received Josef's desperate pitch ("If you don't come here, I know you don't love me." see If you love me...). Her response on June 7, 1911 -- up next.

I look forward to your hearing from you. Please click on the word "comments," centered, below this post and leave me a message.