Drafted 100 Years Ago!

This is a repost that first appeared in November, 2010.

The summer before Josef wrote his sweet postcard to Lisi (see Can Love Last 100 Years?), 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?

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!