A pock-marked resume

Woschkeruscha Family, Leobersdorf, Austria, 1901
 L-R Therese, Alöisia (Louise), Hans (later John Miller)
 Johann

The story of my mother’s family began with my maternal grandmother’s mental breakdown during the “happiest days” of Lillian’s life–as she made wedding preparations for her marriage to my dad in the summer of 1942. (See More than I could stand.) 
I first introduced my maternal grandmother last year at this post for Women’s history month, 2012:  Dressmaker Extraordinaire. There you’ll find cool details which I will summarize here. Alöisia Woschkeruscha, was known casually as Luise in Austria (Louise, later in America).

Louise's Arbeitsbuch

Louise was born on May 4, 1896, in Wiener-Neudorf, Austria. Her family later moved to the small town of Leobersdorf, about twelve miles south of Vienna, where she grew up. Before her brother, Hans/John was born in 1892, Louise had a younger sister. Both girls, I believe under the age of five, contracted smallpox. As they burned with fever, dimpled pustules covering their little bodies, their father, Johann, ran through the night to fetch a doctor, but it was too late for Louise’s younger sister. She died of the disease.

Who knows whether that loss propelled her father, Johann, into a depression, feeding his alcoholism and abusive behavior toward his wife and son, Hans, about whom I wrote in the last post. (Anger begets anger). Louise survived, but her face was pitted with deep pox scars. Louise was painfully self-conscious of her marred appearance and forever thought of herself as ugly because of her facial wounds.

Louise's Arbeitsbuch, pg 1

Even Louise’s Abeitsbuch (literally her “Work-book,” a kind of resume and identification document), was a bitter reminder of her ruined skin. On the first page, left, she’s described to be of medium stature, with grey eyes, and dark-blond hair. Her face is described as "longish," and her nose and mouth are "proportional." 

But it’s the “noticeable marks,” entry that makes me cringe. It's filled in with "pox scars!"  I'm horrified by the casual cruelty of this basic document––the shame Louise must have felt every time she presented her work history/ identification. 

  

Elise Vogel's Dressmaking students, Vienna sometime between
1906-1909; Louise, 4th from right, standing; Frau Vogel, seated

Louise Woschkeruscha, age 20-23
Detail from dressmaking school photo

Louise decided to study dressmaking. Was it her self-perception that drove her to want a career, thinking that no one would marry a woman with a pitted face, and she would need to make her own way in the world? Perhaps she was just ambitious and wanted a career. Whichever is the case, she discovered she had immense talent.  

The Lehrbrief, below, translates to "apprentice certificate," but it actually is like a diploma and recommendation, declaring that Louise has finished her apprenticeship. The translation was tricky because so many words are from another era, so I originally thought it was the start of her apprenticeship. My friends in Germany helped me get it straight.  You can see the beautiful details of this document, including a naked couple in a hot tub (!)(upper right)  at Dressmaker Extraordinaire, where you'll also find photos of her crocheting and embroidery samplers, which Louise created at about age eleven).

Her completion of this first phase of her dressmaking studies was also entered into her Arbeitsbuch. Both the Lehrbrief and Arbeitsbuch are signed by the same woman: Elise Vogel, her dressmaking instructor, for whom Louise worked for another three years before creating her "masterpiece."

Next week:  A peek inside Louise's Arbeitsbuch at the end of her work for Elise Vogel in 1913, the photo of her 1912 Masterpiece, and details of Frau Vogel's recommendation.  

Alöisia Woschkeruscha's Lehrbrief-like a diploma 7/1/1909

Dress Designer Extraordinaire

Dress Designer
Alöisia Woschkeruscha 1912

March is Women’s History Month, and a topic for this month’s Carnival of Genealogy (CoG) is to write about a female relative. Thanks especially to Jasia at Creative Gene for hosting the CoG.

Regular readers of this blog have met Elisabetha (Lisi) Ebner, my paternal grandmother. This CoG gives me an opportunity to introduce you to my mother’s mother, Alöisia Koroschetz, née Woschkeruscha (VAUSH-ker-UZH-uh). (She was nicknamed Luisa -- or Louise, in America. My middle name is taken from her).

She was born May 4, 1886, in Wiener-Neudorf, Austria, south of Vienna, to Johann and Therese Woschkeruscha. We don’t know much about Johann’s forefather’s, but Therese was the daughter of Anna and Paul Müller (Miller). Paul’s surname was also his profession. He owned and operated a successful flour mill, which will be the subject a future post.

From family lore, I learned that as a young child, Alöisia and her sister had contracted smallpox. Her father supposedly ran through the night to get a doctor when his little girls were burning up with fever. My mother told me the little sister died. Alöisia lived, but her face had been disfigured with pock scars, making her self-conscious of her appearance throughout her life. While her photos show her to be dramatically good-looking, we can’t see the pits that made her feel she was ugly.

Later in life, she felt compelled to have acid applied to her face to smooth out her ravaged skin. But it couldn’t smooth out her psyche. My mom said she was convinced no man would ever fall in love with her because of the scars, and, that may have influenced Alöisia to pursue a career. Nevertheless, her artistic skills were undeniable.

She was “a graduated dressmaker from Vienna,” a mantra she repeated over and over to my mother, Lillian, and which Mom, in turn, repeated to us children. In an era when virtually every girl was required to learn all manner of needlework, there’s no doubt that Alöisia had exceptional talent.

Embroidery Sampler
 A.W. 1897

I have framed two samplers she made when she was quite young. We can see her initials and the date (AW - 1897) on this embroidery sampler she created at the age of eleven. Eleven! I haven’t seen enough samplers that other eleven-year-old girls created as a comparison, but I find the perfection in every detail simply amazing. The other is a sampler of various crochet stitches. Again we can see her initials, but this beautiful forty-two-inch-long stretch of eleven different crochet stitches has no date. At an early age, her talents were visible--and she decided to pursue her gifts beyond just home and hearth. She wanted to have a profession, and that put her ahead of her time.

Crochet Sampler

Among our family documents is her Lehrbrief, which translates to "Apprentice Certificate," proof that she has completed her apprenticeship, which she began three years earlier, July 1, 1906. It comes from the “Association of Clothing Manufacturers in Baden near Vienna” declaring Alöisia “competent to make women’s clothing,” and praising her as "true, industrious, and morally upright!" It’s dated July 1, 1909, and the Lehrbrief is a work of art in itself. As we move around the document, all sorts of cool details emerge.

Apprentice Certificate 1909

At the left of the document are symbols of the dressmaking profession: scissors, thread, and an iron. Near the top are a thimble and needle. My favorite is in the upper right. As we zoom in we can see a drawing of a naked man and woman in a large wooden tub--a seeming precursor to the hot tub! Did someone just slip that in as a joke or does it symbolize the importance of the dressmaker to keep the public decent? Check out the photographic details at the end of the post.

Alöisia had to complete a “Master Work.” The photo at the top is Alöisia posing in the dress she designed and created to get her degree. The photo is dated 1912, so six years passed from the time she began her studies to the date of this photo. It may be hard to see the detail on this blog post, but the dress is stunning. The skirt is splashed with pearls, small satin bows run vertically down the chest, and tiny rosettes edge the high collar. It had always rankled her that she walked away with only second prize, knowing her creation was the finest in the class. Of course, the mayor’s daughter had to take first.

Scissors, thread, iron
Details from Lehrbrief

Maybe that kind of favoritism made her decide she’d be better off finding work across the ocean--because a year after her “master piece” picture was taken, in 1913, she wrote a letter back home to her dress-making teacher, named on the above Lehrbrief--Frau Vogl, about her new job in America. Unlike Lisi, she had no man waiting to marry her. She had set out to make it on her own.

Naked man and woman in "hot tub"
upper right detail in Lehrbrief!