Love Finds a Way

Section of Eva Beer's letter included with Josef's 

On February 11, 1911, the mail arrived in Hermannstadt, Hungary, where my grandmother, Lisi Ebner, worked for Mrs. Jickeli. I can imagine Lisi’s heart quickening when she saw a letter postmarked Cleveland, Ohio. Except for a brief postcard from New York, she hadn’t heard from her sweetheart, Josef, since December 30th--more than a month earlier.

So after she read how eager Josef was for her to come to America, to get all “legalities in order” so they could marry, I wonder how she reacted when she saw that he had also enclosed a letter from Eva Beer, the wife of the Neppendorfer man who helped him get settled in America.

Eva Beer at later date

Mrs. Beer starts by misspelling her name:

Dear friend, Miss Liesse,

Even though I’m an unknown friend, I would like to send you a few lines. Please forgive me if I burden you with my writing.

Then Eva Beer jumps right in with exhortations and advice. She extols Josef’s virtues to such an extent, it makes me wonder if he dictated it to her! I had to laugh.

Now, dear friend, don’t spend a lot of time thinking about whether to come here or not. You will be very satisfied with Josef and make him feel good for your entire lives.

Sepp is an entirely fine and solid young man. I know him perhaps even better than you because he has already lived three months [sic] with us. [note: she must mean weeks. Lisi responds to this letter on February 12, and he just arrived in New York on January 12th.]

He goes diligently to work and when he comes home in the evening, he puts everything in order so that his whole room sparkles.

Sepp is an upstanding young man and you won’t find another like him. He earns very good money and also gets his food at work so he can save everything he earns. He’s already bought fine provisions and dishes/tableware, and everything is certainly gorgeous when one goes into his apartment. He would have been able to marry here already a few times, but he wants no one but his Lisi.

I’m not sure how you would react to this letter, but I, for one, would not be happy with another woman telling me that she knows my sweetheart better than I! Nor to hear that he could have already married several times--in less than a month, even if true. Are the girls crawling over him? I mean, he was a handsome dude, but honestly! I am impressed, nevertheless, that a great-looking, twenty-one-year old man is so neat, orderly and focused. He does sound like a good catch!

Here I come to an end and remain your unknown friend, Eva Beer. Many greetings to you, Lisi, and your sister and brother-in-law and all your friends.

So how did Lisi react to this over-the-top letter? I know Josef didn’t actually write the Eva Beer letter, because the handwriting is distinctly different. Yet I wouldn't be surprised if he told Mrs. Beer how desperately he wanted Lisi to come here, influencing her glowing praise of him. As we’ve seen already, he was a very determined young man.

On Monday, February 14th, I’m going to share a sweet Valentine post card.  It’s neither dated nor signed, but the contents and Lisi's response, which she wrote immediately upon receiving his letter, indicate Josef must have sent it along with the letter shown here (which explains no signature)--to arrive in time to wish his sweetheart a happy Valentine's Day. We'll see how she reacted to his Valentine message as well as to Frau Beer's missive.

Think of love this upcoming Valentine’s Day by enjoying this vintage 100-year-old postcard.

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? 

Love Across 5,000 Miles

No email. No texts. No chats. No tweets. No Facebook. By God! No telephone!

So how does twenty-one-year old Josef Gärtz, my grandfather, persuade the love of his life, Lisi, merely twenty-two, to make a 5,000 mile trek to join him in America? A letter took about two weeks to travel from Cleveland, Ohio, the first city my grandfather lived in after arriving in America, to Hermannstadt/Sibiu, where Lisi worked in what is today Romania.

That left plenty of time between communications for doubts and fears to creep into the mind of a young woman, to question the wisdom of taking on such a fearsome journey--alone.

But we’ve already seen that Josef Gärtz was a single-minded man. When he wanted something badly (like getting to America), he let little stand in his way. (See previous posts: Terror Atop the Train, Threat to the Dream, and Atlantic Crossing in Winter.

We last heard from him commenting on his Atlantic vogage, departing from the port of Bremen, Germany, on December 31, 1910, to New York aboard the steamship, Kronprinz Wilhelm. He had written in his diary:

"We had very stormy weather so that not a single person remained healthy or found any joy or pleasure on the ship. The ship flew up, then down, and made us completely dizzy....To travel over the water in winter is gruesome."

In his letter to Lisi, Josef clearly has decided it would be imprudent to use such frightening descriptives if he hopes to persuade her to join him. Instead, he sugar-coats his ocean experience in this letter he writes from Cleveland. It begins thus:

1911, 29. J

Dearest Heart,

The train trip went luckily and well. The trip over the ocean was very good and comfortable, but one day I felt seasick. I was picked up by people from home [Neppendorf]. Now I’m sitting in a cozy room and thinking good thoughts about my destiny and pray to God to show me how to choose.

Except for a postcard he mentions sending from New York (which I don’t have), I’ve surmised this letter is Josef's first to Lisi after arriving in Cleveland because in it he summarizes his trip (strategically leaving out the "gruesome" descriptions of the sea voyage), and because she responds two weeks later, on February 12, 1911, referencing what he says here.

"Father and Mother and All Sister and Brother of Samuel
Beer without him on Pictur. From Neppendorf, Siebenbürgen"

The letter (as well as family lore and records) indicates he's staying with Eva and Samuel Beer, a couple from his hometown of Neppendorf. Like many immigrants, my grandfather depended upon friends from "the old country" to ease his way into America. This photo, now saved for more than a century, attests to the Beer family's importance to my grandparents (I'm labeling it as my grandmother did, with her sometimes fractured grammar and spelling).

Josef continues his letter, encouraging/expecting Lisi to join him and pledging his devotion by declaring he only intends to marry once--to her.

Praise God that he was always standing by me. Because of my longing for you, I got through all this. Now I want you to check into all the legalities and rules so that nothing will get in the way of our getting married quickly, because I’ll only take this step [of marriage] once.

I've mentioned before that Josef was impatient, and his words seem to assume that Lisi is supposed to drop everything and come immediately:

Please advise me when you are coming. I cannot pick you up [when you arrive] even though I would like to, but my boss won’t allow it at all. My boss concerns himself with money and could hire another at any time [to take my job], and you will be able to get here just as well [with other friends] as if I were there.

I’m trying to decide if it’s better to look for a job in order to save some money so I won’t be obligated to anyone else because this trip cost me, including the clothes, almost everything I had saved in the last six years.

Since he already has a job, (see below) I guess he's thinking of looking for another one. And six years of savings for this trip? That means he had to start planning when he was as young as fifteen!

From New York I wrote you a post card and I am now waiting for your answer. A Neppendorf woman helped me find a private home and a good job that pays well -- 60 Gulden per month. [A Gulden was the German name for the coin of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, pictured here]. It’s as I had always imagined, but didn’t believe I could really get that much.

Austro-Hungarian Gulden/Florint

I don't know exactly what a Gulden was worth (he probably explains his wages in Guldens because Lisi will have no comprehension of a dollar's worth at this time), but many years later, my grandmother wrote that when Josef first came to America, he worked seven days a week from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. for $7 per week, so about $30/month for 400 hours of work, or about 7.5 cents an hour! His letter shows he seems quite satisfied!

And now with the best greetings and kisses from my heart, I greet you and also your brother-in-law, sister and the dear little Mitzi. Please answer quickly. I’m turning my writing now over to my friend, Frau [Mrs.] Beer. Please forgive me if I’ve offended you.

With greetings,
Josef

Was Josef worried that he might have offended Lisi because he couldn’t pick her up when she arrived (assuming she would come right away)? Or maybe because he’s pressuring her to get whatever legalities in order so they can marry? It’s unclear, but after his sweet closing, he has Frau Beer write several paragraphs to Lisi, which he encloses in the same envelope.

Perhaps Josef hoped Frau Beer would communicate with Lisi, woman-to-woman, reassuring her that coming to America was the right choice and Josef was the man for her. When you read what Mrs. Beer wrote, you may wonder, as I do, if it was a wise decision.

In the next non-Travel Tuesday post, we’ll see how Mrs. Beer's words might very well have derailed Josef’s plan to lure Lisi to America.


A Millennium of Germans in Transylvania

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 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.”

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.

The Road to Sibiu- Travel Tuesday

My cousin, Maria and I flew out of Stuttgart on September 16, 2007, and landed in Bucharest as the sunset washed the countryside in an peachy glow. At a nearby hotel, we met my two brothers, Paul and Bill, and Bill’s wife. The next morning, we squished five people and their luggage into a mini-van and took off for Hermannstadt (Sibiu), the big city near the two small towns, Neppendorf and Grosspold, which were the original homes to my grandfather and grandmother, respectively.

Peles Castle in Sinaei, Romania

On the way, we stopped for a few hours in Sinaei (named after Mt. Sinai, of Ten Commandments fame) to view Peles Castle on a perfect blue-sky day, crossing a brook, having wine on a terrace overlooking the castle, laughing and telling jokes and stories about our childhood.

Continuing on to Sibiu/Hermannstadt, the going was slow as the major highway was under reconstruction (roads and streets were ripped apart everywhere in an effort to rebuild a country that had been working for almost two decades   to overcome the neglect and brutalization under Ceausescu).

Scenes along the road were of another era. Passing through one small town near sunset, we yielded to cows on the highway driven home  from the pastures. Old women in their babushkas and long skirts sat at the side of the road, perhaps waiting for loved ones to return from the fields or watching the world go by.

We arrived at 9 p.m. in Sibiu, exhausted after about ten hours of travel, but were rewarded with dinner in a cellar restaurant with ancient brick domed walls, entertained by the musical duo pictured here. Lots of meat and salads of tomatoes and onions were typical menu choices.

We overnighted right next to the Evangelische Kirche Neppendorf, (Lutheran Church in Neppendorf) where the Gärtz family had worshipped for two centuries. In the next few posts, we'll see the  secrets this church yielded to expose unknown family  history.

Travel Tuesday-Transylvania Sights & Family Secrets

Welcome to the first post for “Travel Tuesday.” I plan to use Tuesdays to highlight the roots-finding trip my brothers and I made to Transylvania, Romania, in September, 2007. I’ve suggested this topic to Genea-bloggers as another possible prompt to which others may wish to contribute about genealogy research trips they have taken, and/or to highlight the lands of their ancestors.

Transylvanian Countryside

One of the scores of horse-drawn carts in Transylvania

A Breathtaking Land


The theme of Travel Tuesday is two-fold. One is to introduce my wonderful readers to the not-yet-fully discovered, gorgeous region of Transylvania in Romania. Some of the places we visited are as beautiful, historic, and fascinating as any destination in Europe. Romania is caught in a bit of a time-warp. We saw scenes every day that one would have to go back forty to sixty years to see in Western Europe: ubiquitous horse-drawn carts hauling harvests on the secondary highways, men actually cutting grass with scythes in the fields, cone-shaped haystacks out of another time, parents and youngsters working side-by-side to harvest potatoes. Breath-taking mountains and valleys, dotted with farms and grazing animals, created an unfolding panorama, a new view around each bend.

Ubiquitous cone-shaped haystacks squat throughout
the countryside

Gleaning Genealogical Treasures on a Roots-finding Journey


The second theme is to share the genealogical discoveries such a trip afforded us, which I hope will encourage others to travel to their ancestors’ native lands, if for no other reason than to breathe the air, and be part of the geography in which previous generations lived. In some places, this is no longer possible, so much was destroyed in the wars or built up with 20th century sprawl. But some vestige of the past probably remains that your imagination can latch onto as we all love to envision the reality of our ancestors’ lives.

So I’ve used up most of my words today just introducing this idea, but will begin next week where my my journey to Romania began: in Crailsheim, Germany, where the present-day Gärtz family, my cousins, settled after leaving Romania.

Family Resemblance


In my previous post, I wrote about my 1995 trip to meet these relatives for the first time in my life. The goal of my most recent visit in 2007, twelve years after the first, was to visit again with a part of the family that had actually lived and grown up in interview the elder Gärtz, Hans, and find out what I could about my grandfather and life in Romania.

Hans Gärtz and me. Hans's grandfather
was my grandfather's half-brother

I was struck, as Hans spoke to me, how much his gestures resembled those of my grandfather, Josef. Just like Josef, Hans used his hands, often spreading the fingers wide, palms down, to emphasize a point, leaning back, then forward in his chair, as he shared stories from Neppendorf, the little town he and my grandfather’s called home.

Like Josef, Hans laughed easily and had a quick sense of humor, Hans didn’t know Josef, who had emigrated before he was born, but Hans’s father, knew him. “Josef was always full of silliness,” his father had recalled. Same guy I knew -- always sticking his false teeth out at us grandkids to get a laugh.

Critical Family History Details Revealed in Interview


Hans’s interview, two years before I found Josef’s diary, was the first time I had heard that Josef had left Romania on Christmas Eve, and that he didn’t have the proper papers to leave. “He just wanted to go,” Hans said, “and didn’t want to wait.” When I found the diary, corroborating the Christmas Eve departure, combined with Hans’s story about missing papers (not mentioned in the diary) it was like the click of a lock. I knew I had important details, which explained why Josef had to escape detection at the borders. Without the Hans interview, I would have been left wondering what that was all about.

Lesson: interview your relatives!

So, dear readers, in order to keep these posts brief and readable in everyone's limited time, I’ll continue the Romania story on Travel Tuesdays over the next several months.