A Millennium of Germans in Transylvania

This post was originally published on my blog on February 1, 2011

Evangelische (Lutheran) Kirche Neppendorf (near Sibiu)
Historically, the Gärtz family church

TRAVEL TUESDAY
Church as History

On the second day of our 2007 roots-finding trip in Romania, my brother, Bill, and I met up with Renate, church secretary of the Evangelische Kirche Neppendorf, (the Gärtz family church). Her impressive knowledge of the church's, Siebenbürgen, and Gärtz family history opened our eyes to the role Germans had played for nearly 1,000 years Transylvania.

Built in the 14th Century, the Evangelische Kirche was originally Catholic, but as the Reformation swept across Europe (Martin Luther's nailing the ninety-five theses to the church door at Wittenburg in 1517 launched the fight between Protestants and Catholics full force), the residents of Neppendorf, like most Siebenbürgen Germans, chose to become Lutherans.

Pastors of the Church from its

Catholic roots in 1330

That history is on display the moment one steps into the church. Posted at the entrance is this list of pastors (Pfarrer). The first began his tenure about 1330. Further down, it's noted that under Pastor Michael Binder, #13, (serving from 1536-1548), this church of ethnic Germans became protestant.

How the Germans came to Transylvania

How was it the Germans first came to Transylvania, eventually numbering as many as 800,000?  After centuries of invasions by various migrating peoples, Transylvania came under the rule of the  Hungarian crown in the 13th century. The Hungarian king at the time, King Geza II, persuaded Germans, primarily from Luxembourg and the Moselle region (near Alsace) to immigrate to Transylvania. He wanted them to defend the southeastern border of the kingdom from regular and brutal invasions by the Tartars. He also knew that the Germans' industrious nature, mining expertise, and farming know-how could help pump up the economy of his kingdom.

The Germans built cities and churches surrounded by thick walls, behind which locals fled to escape invaders. Hence the region’s German name, Siebenbürgen (Seven Fortresses seems the best translation). The area also became known as “Saxon Land” for its large German population, and is listed so today in tourist guides.

But Renate had more for us than the broad history of the Germans in Transylvania. She presented us with a two-page document of our family's history in the town of Neppendorf, researched by a previous pastor. It was filled with insights into 18th-19th Century Transylvanian life as filtered through the Gärtz family experience. Next up on "Travel Tuesday.”

An odd fellow-missing World War I

World War I trench warfare
photo credit: www.anunews.net/blog

Last week’s photos pictured Josef and Lisi Gartz, with their two young sons, Friedrich and Wilhelm happy and healthy in Chicago about early 1916 (see below) and again in the summer of 1918. (See Family and Dead Dog).


These family photos were taken at the same time that Europe was engulfed in the nightmare of World War I, and most young men of Josef's age (25 in 1914)  would have been covered in lice, crouching and rotting in some trench, being blown up or blowing up other young men. 


My grandmother’s brother, Samuel, was one of those young men (See The Fallen-Part I).

Gartz Family ~ 1915-1916
L-R Lisi, Will, Fred, Josef

Let’s jump back four-six years before these family photos were taken, 100 years ago, to the spring of 1912. Josef and Lisi had married five months earlier and were both working seven days a week, Josef for fourteen hours a day, Lisi for twelve hours a day. They were barely getting by, but they had jobs.

Military Draft Notice, Josef Gartz
Austro-Hungary

Josef most certainly could have been among the dead had he stayed in Siebenbürgen (Transylvania). (See Drafted 100 Years Ago, where Josef's draft notice is translated to English).


But the first year after Lisi and Josef had married in Chicago, my grandmother’s former employer, Mrs. Jickeli, saw only youthful indiscretion in their decision to emigrate to America. Two months after Lisi and Josef married in Chicago on October 13, 1911, Mrs. Jickeli had written Lisi Ebner a letter expressing her dismay at Lisi's hasty departure to join her love, Josef Gärtz. She had chastised them both for their impetuous behavior and a host of issues, even declaring their marriage wouldn't be  considered valid in their homeland Siebenbürgen (because it hadn't been announced in the church).

She reiterated her concerns in a second letter, three months later, in what today we might say was “beating a dead horse," even if a stick of a slightly different length!

Merchant's wife, Berta Jickeli
born Henriette Albertine Krasser

March 15, 1912 

My Dear Lisi, 

Are you satisfied with your home (apartment)? Have you been employed long and how does Gärtz like the cooking spoon? [Josef was working in a restaurant when Lisi arrived]. That you live in peace makes me happy. I have certainly never doubted that Gärtz seems like a good man (Mensch). I have always considered him to be a good and respectable/honest/decent man, but a bit of an odd fellow.
 
But you also know that I am too old and have seen too much of life to scream “Hurrah!” A happy marriage is very rare in life and to be sure, even more rare because no one holds his fate strictly in one’s own hands and no one knows what tomorrow brings. Besides that, marriage seems different after 10-20 years than in the first year. That you will experience, just as everyone has. For you and Gärtz it’s just that you went into your marriage so fast and with such impatience. 

You will have to go through double the work and sacrifice and homesickness than you would have endured if you had waited one more year. Even our Lord God cannot reverse your fate. First Gärtz will have to comply with his military duty if nothing changes. Without you coming here, for the time, then the second thing that has to be is that your marriage must also be declared binding here. This is the only way a later happiness can bloom.

Mrs. Jickeli ends her letter with a few paragraphs of local news and heartfelt wishes, for after all, she was like a second mother to Lisi, and sincerely worried for her. 

And now, dear Lisi, I wish you both very well, and don't grow tired before you again have a strong foundation under your feet. We all greet you both from our hearts, and I remain for all time––Your old mother
Berta Jickeli


Berta Jickeli was right in one regard: people certainly don't have complete control over their fates, as all those who've been caught in war know so well. Yet Josef had influenced his fate, and the fate of his family, through his determination to get to America. The letters make it clear that friends and relatives back in Siebenbürgen/Transylvania expected he and Lisi would return. They didn't know Josef very well.

So when another serious problem emerged back in Transylvania after Josef left for America, his swift decision to leave his countryland again appeared to those back home to have been foolhardy. Apparently some local person had taken advantage of Josef’s departure, perhaps in cahoots with a local official, and co-opted from Josef his home and land. Both Lisi's father and Mrs. Jickeli weighed in on what had happened. Coming up next time at Family Archaeologist.

If you love me...

If you’ve ever been young and in love, this post will take you back to those heady days.

I’ve been chronicling the letters I’ve found between my grandfather, Josef Gärtz, at aged twenty-one, (photo left), after he left for America on Christmas Eve, 1910 (see Terror Atop the Train) and my grandmother, Lisi Ebner (age twenty-three) who was still back in Transylvania. Josef was desperate to have Lisi join him, and he pulled out all the stops in a May 25, 1911, letter--exhorting her to come to him.

Lisi Ebner 1910

Unlike today, where instant communication is the norm, in 1910, Josef would have to wait a month to get her response. Would she commit to make the frightening voyage alone to meet him in Chicago? The anxiety in his letter is palpable.

Josef’s letter is clearly in response to a missive he’d received from Lisi, which I have not found in my collection. But I’ve found something else that I now know she sent along with that letter.

Left to Right: Katarina Gärtz (Josef's sister) Lisi
Ebner, Sara Reisenauer, Josef's cousin.

This photo on the left of Lisi (center) with Josef’s sister, Katarina Gärtz, and his cousin, Sarah Reisenauer, has been in our family collection for as long as I can remember. On the back my grandmother wrote the date: May 15, 1911. Katarina and Sarah wear traditional clothing from Neppendorf. My grandmother is dressed in the costume of her home town, Grosspold.

In a recent post, Spilling Secrets, I told you how my brothers and I discovered a copy of this iconic photo, 5,000 miles from our home, at the back of my grandfather’s church in a small museum devoted to Neppendorf (Josef’s home town) life.

The photo shows up again--this time referred to in my grandfather’s 5/25/1911 letter to Lisi. In all the years I’ve seen this picture, it was just a cool old photo. But the letter imbues it with special significance. Lisi had sent it to Josef from Transylvania when he was already in the USA, prompting the following letter he undoubtedly wrote right after receiving it. He had let nothing stand in his way to make it to America. That same single-mindedness fueled his determination to get his gal. (Sometime between sending the Easter post card on April 1, postmarked in Cleveland, and the date of this letter, Josef had moved to Chicago).

Chicago, May 25, 1911

Dearest Love, Precious Sweetheart, Darling Lisi,

I’m letting you know that I received your wonderful, love-filled letter with the greatest thanks. The photographs which you included made me as happy as if I had received the most valuable jewel.

Dear Lisi, I gather from your letter that you were hurt because you believed that I would leave you. How could I do such a thing? After all, didn’t I swear to be faithful? Do you still doubt me? Or has someone written something about me to you, and you believed it?

So don’t make me so crazy any more.

I can’t tell you how thrilled I was when I received the photograph [you sent] and saw my darling Lisi – with her hand reaching for my sister. What great joy I felt! Please trust me. Otherwise you bring me such sorrow. If you had seen me when I opened the photo, you would have certainly said I was a fool. [My] true, true Love, I swear to you with heart and hand until I die, [all that] I am.

Dear Lisi, I’ll tell you that I am in Chicago and also now have a better job. I am in a bakery and always have work and a better salary, and it is not so difficult. Naturally the first year it didn’t go the best in America, but it will come eventually. As I’ve written, I just trust in God.

My mother has written [to me] that I should make money and [then] come home. That is certainly nonsense. It is the thinking of an old woman. I can certainly say that she saw me for the last time Christmas Eve night.

Why should I go from the good to the bad again? Unless I become dissatisfied with what I have undertaken, I am not coming home. Anyone who looks with open eyes sees that whoever goes home, comes back here again. Here it is certainly a very different life. The men work little and the women not at all.

Therefore, dear Lisi, I think it’s better if you, and even my mother and sister, come here. You all would see that it is a different life [in America]. No one over there should wait for me, because it is my conviction that I’m not coming back. If you love me, I hope that you also will come here.

I would greet you with greatest joy and thankfulness, and take you in my arms. You certainly have no idea of the [difference] between the [economic] conditions in America and Europe. Oh, sweet Lisi, please understand me. I have to know where I stand. I really hope that you won’t be doubtful.

If you love me, then you’ll certainly come, even if as many devils as there are tiles on a roof stood in your way. If you come here, you don’t have to work any more. [This prediction was certainly wishful thinking. Both were driven workers throughout their lives.] I know that you can work very hard, but you will see for yourself.

There is no point in writing letters because we should be ready [to make a decision]. We are no longer so young and are of an age ready to marry--like ripe fruit. It can no longer go on like this.

If I would say I would come back [to Transylvania ] in three years, certainly you wouldn’t wait that long. Then someone would come along and my Lisi would change her mind [wouldn’t keep her promise] even though I have always been faithful. Now I hope and expect the sweet word “Yes!” I write [hoping for] only such an answer.

If you don’t want to come, then I also know that you don’t love me. Because if you loved me, then you wouldn’t do anything other than come here, just like Eva Koeber [Beer/Baer] from Neppendorf who is now here and leads a fine life with her darling. [This must be the Frau Beer/Baer who also wrote to Lisi in Josef’s January 29th letter, encouraging her to join Josef in America. See her glowing praise of Josef in the post, Love Finds a Way.)

She was only twenty years old, and he was eighteen when they married, and they are very happy. She has no regrets about [leaving] Neppendorf. Also your sister and brother-in-law—how often have they asked me, when I went over there for a bite to eat, [when he still lived in Cleveland, Ohio] whether or not you would soon be coming here? I avoid going there so as not to have to answer their questions. [Lisi’s stepsister, Maria Schuster, had gone to America before Josef and helped him settle in. Maria ended up staying in Cleveland her whole life].

And now I end my writing with best [wishes] and hope for an answer soon. With heartfelt greetings and loving kisses, I remain your faithful treasure. [Schatz=treasure; also used as "Darling or Sweetheart"]

Josef Gartz
1723 North Orchard St.
Chicago, Ill
North America


Please leave comments below. Thanks so much.

Searching for Home

Travel Tuesday

When we took a brief visit to Sibiu (Hermannstadt to the Germans), we marveled at the massive wall surrounding the city, its combination of thirty-nine towers and four bastions a bulwark against invading Ottoman Turks.

But while Sibiu defended the city in the past against those bent on its destruction, it is now dedicated to protect its Saxon German heritage for future generations. Although few ethnic Germans still live in Sibiu (a combination of mass deportations after World War II, brutalization under Ceausescu’s rule, the 1989 Revolution, and other factors, coupled with Germany's generous immigration policy for ethnic Germans), it is still a major cultural center and home to a wealth of Siebenbürgen German history. (Click to get an overview).

 Siebenbürgen German history. Researcher at Teutschhaus, Herr Rehner,
shows brother Bill (far left), cousin Maria, and me (standing)
my great-grandfather's name with his house number

After visiting Grandpa Josef Gärtz’s church in Neppendorf, we drive a scant two miles to Hermannstadt/Sibiu to visit the Friedrich Teutschhaus, a repository of Saxon German history. It’s aptly named for a long-time Evangelische Lutheran bishop, Friedrich Teutsch, who worked tirelessly to preserve Transylvania’s German culture. At Teutschhaus we hope to track down the home in which Grandma Lisi Ebner was raised, called the “Ebner Hof.” The Ebner family lived in the nearby town of Grosspold, about 15 miles from Hermannstadt/Sibiu.

Grosspold, Romania
Archival Records

Cousin Maria had arranged for us to meet the venerable Teutschhaus researcher, Herr Rehner, to help us with our quest to find the Ebner Hof. Over six feet tall, with a shock of white hair and gentle gaze, Herr Rehner leads us to a back room where ancient Saxon records line the shelves.

Using my great grandfather’s name, research assistants efficiently stride to a back room and within ten minutes bring out a worn ledger of former Grosspold residents. Herr Rehner turns the pages to “E” and finds my great grandfather’s house number. “Ebner, Samuel—365.” The town was small enough so that every house had its own number, rather than a number and street name as we’re accustomed to.

Siebenbürgen German history: Detail of Samuel Ebner's name
in book of house numbers.

Family History- Pastor Meitert
shows my brothers, Bill, center, &
Paul, right the Grosspold Church's
 Family Records

Next stop—Grosspold. We meet Pfarrer Meitert, present pastor of my grandmother’s church. Using the house number, he pages through a two-hundred-year old “Familien Buch” in which the birth, death, and marriage dates of each family member are recorded. I initially wrote about this discovery in more detail in an earlier post: Life and Death Abbreviated and the sad truth the Family Book revealed: three of my grandmother’s siblings had died as mere babies. The book recorded the exact death date of my grandmother’s mother, also named Elisabetha Ebner, born Eder. She had died of pneumonia at the age of thirty-four, when my grandmother, (nicknamed) Lisi, was only ten years old.

Family History Book: columns l-r: "Family Member,"
Birth, Marriage, Death (dates: day, month, year)
Maria Eder's maiden name was Feyri

But the book took us even further back into the past. Cross-referencing, we found the page recording the information for my grandmother’s mother’s siblings and parents: the Eders. Johann Eder and his wife, Maria (born and 1835 and 1841, respectively, and married in 1859) were my great-great grandparents. They had seven children, all of whom survived the most vulnerable infant and childhood years, but still, death came relatively early for two of the children: Elisabetha at thirty-four and Samuel, the second youngest, died at eighteen.

After gathering this information, what happens next is extraordinary. Pastor Meitert carefully removes the Ebner pages from the centuries-old Family Book, folds them under his arm, and declares we’re going door-to-door in Grosspold until someone can tell us just where House Number 365, the Ebner Hof, is located!

In my next Travel Tuesday Post, we’ll find out what we discovered in our quest, and the century-old connection this visit made to my grandfather’s objection to naming me “Linda.”

The Road from Alsace

Renate, Neppendorf Lutheran Church
secretary and keeper of genealogical
treasures.

TRAVEL TUESDAY
What's in a Name? 

I had no inkling our  family surname had ever been anything other than Gärtz. But then we visited my grandfather's home town church, the Evangelische Kirche Neppendorf, and met Renate, church secretary and Neppendorfer genealogy and history-maven supreme. She handed us a two-page document chronicling the highlights of Gärtz family history in Neppendorf, researched by an earlier church pastor. For the first time, we learned about our family's German roots in Alsace, and that our Ur-immigrant's name was not Gärtz, but Gerz or Görz.

From Germany to Transylvania

Our family history document stated:

“All the residents of Neppendorf with the family name Gerz [this included Gärtz] originated with Michael Gerz/Görz, (1771-1856) [see correction below]* who came from Gerstheim on the Rhein [River] in Elsass (Alsace) in the French section of Niederrhein (lower Rhine)."

*[8/22/2011 UPDATE: as I researched the family history further, I found out these dates were off. This "Johannes Michael Görtz" was actually born 10/10/1769 and brought to Siebenbürgen by his father in May, 1770. Details to come in a future post.


My guess is that the spelling changed because the names sound so similar in German, they were simply recorded as heard. Eventually, after various iterations, the family became Gärtz.

Gerstheim is about 14 miles (22.4 km) south of Strasbourg.
From there the first Michael Gerz/Görz (1771-1856)
emigrated to Neppendorf in Siebenbürgen/Transylvania

Alsace (Elsaß in German)

We know that Alsace has been fought over by the Germans and French for centuries, so that part “in the French section” stood out. Did Michael leave because of trouble with the French? The French Revolution of 1789 affected Alsace when the French Revolutionary Army of the Rhine was victorious over Prussian/Austrian forces opposed to the new Republic, and tens of thousands (probably mostly ethnic Germans) fled east. Perhaps Michael was among them. We can’t be certain, but the timing makes it a tempting conclusion.

We had also learned that the first Germans to emigrate to Transylvania back in the 12th century came from the area around Luxembourg, and other environs along the Mosel (German spelling) (Moselle) River (a tributary of  the Rhein River), all in the vicinity of my ancestor's hometown of Gerstheim. The original Michael Gerz may have known he’d find people of a similar mindset in Neppendorf. He also had a transportable skill. He was a “Zimmermeister,” or “master carpenter,” like my grandfather, Josef.

Church as History

Not all churches have this level of detail available to family searchers seeking information on their ancestors, but it was a treasure trove for us, and I’d encourage anyone serious about family history to seek out a church your ancestors attended in the old country. No telling what you’ll find.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I learned the approximate date that the original Gärtz/Gerz/Görz had left Germany. By waiting until the 18th century to emigrate, even if under circumstances of war, my ancestors had missed living in Transylvania under the reign of one of the region's cruelest rulers -- the man from whom the Dracula legend most likely originated. Dracul, aka, Vlad the Impaler -- up next Travel Tuesday. Then back to Josef's  Neppendorf church as it spills more of its secrets.

Friday,  2/11, Lisi receives Josef's January 29th letter, including the comments from Eva Beer, the wife of the Neppendorfer who helped him in Cleveland. How would you react if you were Lisi? 

2010 iGene Awards-And the Winners are....

Welcome to the 2010 iGene Awards, one of the Carnival of Genealogy (CoG) monthly themes. For my readers new to CoG, it offers genealogy bloggers a new topic each month for our blog posts. February is the month to highlight our best posts of the previous year in the categories you'll see below--a fun "Academy Awards" for us family history devotees. I've squeaked into the competition--just like those movies that show up in the theaters at the very end of the year. I started my blog on November 16, 2010, but managed to find winners in each category. Thank you to Jasia at Creative Gene for making this all possible! 

BEST SCREENPLAY
Written by Josef Gärtz
Starring Jake Gyllenhaal as Josef and Natalie Portman as Lisi

Based upon his own diary, a 21-year old Transylvanian immigrant, Josef Gärtz, takes off for America on Christmas Eve, 1910. Too impatient to wait for proper papers, he leaves behind his sweetheart, Lisi Ebner, not knowing if he'll ever see her again. Along the way, he must escape border patrol agents by clinging to the top of a roaring train, endure endless health inspections that could at any time derail his dream, and bid farewell to Europe, wondering if he’ll make it alive across a roiling and frigid Atlantic Sea.

Follow this serial adventure from its start, on December 24, 1910, brought to life again 100 years to the date after he wrote about it. 

Terror Atop the Train 12/24/10

Threats to the Dream: Vienna to Bremen 12/28/10

"I can hardly wait to see what happens next on Josef's voyage." 

Jasia

Out to Sea 1/31/10

"It feels like Josef is writing to me. To have such a wonderful family resource is amazing. Thank 

 you so much for sharing it, 

and your photo choices add so much." 

                             Margel

BEST PICTURE

Jickeli Household help, Elisabeth Ebner, my grandmother
seated 2nd from left

Hidden Message Behind Women's Work

This photo is a winner because it not only shows my grandmother, Lisi Ebner, her employer (center), and co-workers, but also depicts the details of the domestic chores that ruled women's lives when Lisi was a young woman. Equally as thrilling as seeing this photo and the people Lisi held dear (including the little girl at right, Lisbeth, for whom my grandmother was governess), was to find the message that had been hidden for the last century on the back of the framed picture. Find out for yourself by reading more about this Best Picture.

BEST BIOGRAPHY

Another serialized winner, Lisi Ebner's young life is revealed in these three posts which paint a picture of  a young woman dealing with early loss, finding her equilibrium again in a blended family, falling in love, and soldiering on through difficult times.

Remember me in 1910

Life and Death Abbreviated

Blended Family Breakthrough

BEST COMEDY

Last Summer in Europe

Young Josef Gärtz starts a notebook in which he records songs and off-color jokes (“moral and immoral contents” as he describes them.) His tongue-in-cheek reasons for purchasing the book, warning that it is not to be used to “instruct children” shows his cute sense of humor even when writing to himself.

BEST DOCUMENTARY

Can Love Last 100 Years? 

This treasure deserves best documentary as the oldest indecipherable missive found thus far among scores of  letters written in an ancient German script and saved by my grandmother and now me over the past century. I published it on the 100th anniversary of its writing. It turned out to be a sweet love note from my grandfather, Josef, to his sweetheart, Lisi. To discover out how I found a Rosetta Stone to unlock the secrets held within these letters and cards, check out this winner!

ACCEPTANCE SPEECH

Thanks to all the wonderful genealogy bloggers out there who are an inspiration to me to continue sharing my family history. A special thanks to those bloggers who so graciously welcomed me into the fold. I look forward to visiting more of your sites.

Landing the Dream

Today is the 100th anniversary of Josef Gärtz, my paternal grandfather, arriving in America, losing the umlaut over the "ä" and becoming Gartz. My guess is that he didn’t record his first impressions because he was too excited and overwhelmed upon landing to be scribbling in his diary. So without his words to guide me, I’m going to try to briefly reconstruct what he, and all of our European ancestors who entered through Ellis Island, probably endured as initiation into this new land.

Let’s join Josef as he disembarks from his ship, Friedrich der Grosse on January 11, 1911, and get just a little flavor of our ancestors’ arrivals.

Passengers disembarking from barge at Ellis Island ~1910
From Library of Congress collection

After passing the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, steerage passengers (undoubtedly how Josef traveled--the cheapest) are loaded onto barges, transferring them to Ellis Island, where they will undergo a number of inspections before being admitted to the United States.

In many ways, Josef is typical of the immigrants arriving at this time. Like Josef, most of them (68-90%) fall between the ages of 14 - 44. He is 21. About half of the men in this age group are single, like Josef. But his skills aren’t typical: about one fourth of the immigrants, the largest percentage, are “common laborers,” while about 15% are “skilled laborers.” As a master carpenter, Josef belongs to the latter group. That probably bodes well for finding decent work. The others are primarily farm laborers or servants. Only one percent describe themselves as “professionals.”

Eye Inspection at Ellis Island 1913
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

"Doctor's inspection of suspects for skin diseases, etc."
Ellis Island 1902

After all the health inspections, inoculations, and eye examinations, Josef has already endured before arriving in America, he, and everyone else, is once again subjected to prodding, peering, and poking, and all are further questioned as to their ability to support themselves. Failing these tests ends the dream.

Great Hall - Ellis Island

In the twenty years from 1892-1912, 169,312 aliens were refused entry, overwhelmingly for three main reasons: likelihood of becoming a public charge, affliction with “loathsome or dangerous contagious diseases,” or due to being “contract” laborers (why this last one kept out almost 13% of immigrants in 1910, I haven’t a clue.)



It has to be nerve-wracking to wait in these endless lines, to wonder if some small oversight will send you back across the ocean. But all goes well. Josef overcomes the final hurdle and enters the United States of America. I can only imagine the elation and anticipation. (I'd love to hear from any of you, Dear Readers, who has a note, a diary or a memorable story passed down as to what  an ancestor's first emotions were upon realizing he/she was actually starting a new life in America.)

Next stop: Cleveland, Ohio, where a “Landsman” (another Siebenbürgen/Transylvanian German, from his home town of Neppendorf) will welcome him into his home, help him get on his feet, and teach him the ropes.

So it was with so many who sought out friends and relatives from the “Old Country” who could ease their way into the “New Country.”

In the near future, I’ll be posting some of the missives that went back and forth between Cleveland and Romania, and how Josef pulled out all the stops to get his Lisi to join him.

But before we get to those letters and postcards, I want to get back to what I promised to write about in my last post: how I got my German mojo back which allowed me to tackle these letters that allow us to peer into the minds of two young immigrants a century ago.

Note, except where noted othewise, the Ellis Island facts and photos included here come from this site: Gjenvik-Gjønvik Archives. The site provides footnotes at the end of its pages.

The Cash and Song Book

Katarina (Schnell) Gärtz, Josef and his
sister, Katarina. About 1902-03

When we asked my grandfather why he had come to America he always said, “Nothing from nothing makes nothing.” 

A little background may illuminate that statement. Like Lisi, he had lost a parent when very young. His father died when Josef was just four. We were told his widowed mother stood in a frigid stream, beating soldiers' clothes clean with rocks, in order to earn money to raise him and his sister.


Here's the earliest photo I have of Josef with his mother and sister. 
He told us that at age six, he was tied onto the back of horse (his little legs couldn't reach the stirrups), guiding the beast to plow fields and earn some extra money for the family. He went on to be a carpenter, but based on several notebooks he kept, employment near home must have been scarce as he often had to travel as far as Vienna (about 470 miles away) to find work.

Kasse Buch of Josef Gärtz, 1909

In 1909, at the age of twenty, he started making notes in a small book labeled “Kasse Buch,” literally a “cash book,” to keep track of earnings and expenditures, apparently for a trip to find work, first in Pressburg (the German name for Bratislava), where he spent two weeks, and then to Vienna. But he ends up finding a much more entertaining use for this book, according to Meta, a ninety-year old Siebenbürgen woman, now living in Germany, who took over Uli’s job of deciphering all the unrecognizable writing in my collection. 


Born in 1920, Meta learned to write with the old German handwriting, and for more than a year, she has been my abiding Rosetta stone. Her intelligence, skill, and effort have already unlocked secrets trapped in more than forty inscrutable letters, diaries, and notebooks, shining a light on the lives of people whose first-hand experiences would otherwise have been lost forever. Not only has she decoded the writing, but she’s also made connections between events and often interpreted the intent behind the words and phrases that don’t easily translate to English.


I sent Meta a copy of Josef's Kasse Buch, and she figured out its contents. Josef did some ciphering (calculations are scribbled on the inside of the cover), but despite good intentions, Josef filled almost 50 pages of this “bookkeeping ledger” with the text from well-known folk, children, church and “Fatherland” songs.


My grandparents knew hundreds of songs and often would spontaneously begin singing, in harmony no less. Imagine an era decades before radio existed--never mind television, computers, MP3, I-tunes, podcasts and Ipods. Imagine that all the music that entertained you was self-created. Everyone was his own sort of “American Idol." How thoroughly we have relegated our own musical creativity to “stars" and "celebrities!” This book, and another he created, are testament to the importance of singing in daily life -- and also of my grandfather's overriding cheerful approach to life. 
I'm not certain it was common for young men to write down the words to scores of songs.


In 1910, Josef began a second book, this time the small notebook in which I found his Military Draft notice written on the first page (see Post, “Drafted 100 Years Ago" - November 22, 2010), commanding him to appear before the draft board on September 30, 1910.


How did Josef make use of this second book -- and what would his response to his Draft notice be?

Drafted 100 Years Ago!

The summer before Josef wrote his sweet postcard to Lisi, he had received a written notice not nearly as delightful.

A scan is at the left. It was the first page in a notebook onto the front of which my grandfather had handwritten his name, Josef Gärtz. I had first looked at it closely about four years ago, but the script was impossible.

Must be a diary, I thought, as I carefully turned yellowing pages, still in pretty good shape almost a century later. What secrets might it hold? 

I asked a friend raised in Germany to take a stab at deciphering the old script:

Here’s a translation of what’s on the first page:

Nr. 78

Foreign Draft/service?

Draft Summons

For Mr. Josef Gärtz

Carpenter

Dwelling:  

Bezirk [district] Mariahilferstrasse (the street) 78, 
II. Hof. III/7 bei Frau Sorsky 

probably the 3^rd floor –which would be like our 4^th); room #7. “bei” means he’s living in the home of Frau Sorsky.)

By order of the magistrate of the K.K. [Kaiserlich/Königlich—the Kaiser and King], capital and residence city, Vienna, you are summoned  to appear promptly [“reliably”] before the draft commission in Vienna, 3^rd District, Landstreet/Mainstreet Number 97 (in the back of the courtyard) on Friday, the 30^th of September, 1910 L.J. [Laufendes Jahres, means “this year”] at 8 O’Clock in the morning to avoid the consequences of rule ¶44 of the Military Law.

     From the Conscription Office of the Magistrate, Vienna

I’m not sure what rule ¶44 of the Military Law is, but I can imagine the “consequences” for breaking it weren’t pleasant.

It appears that this conscription notice was sent in a notebook, perhaps to later contain his military record. But Josef used the next 57 pages for his own writing, most of which seemed to comprise folk songs and amusing stories, some rather off-color, according to my German friend. 

If anyone has any other information about the manner of sending draft notices in notebooks at that time, please comment.

Josef was twenty-one. He was in love. Transylvania was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. No democracy, of course. It was “Kaiser and King” that commanded him.

By 1910, the year of Josef’s draft notice, 70% of American immigrants came from southern and eastern Europe, the latter where Transylvania lay. Imagine the visions inspired by that faraway land, firing the dreams of so many millions. 

In the context of the time, what thoughts ran through Josef’s head when he received this notice? What were his options? What were the risks of each?