My Heritage Site
by Robert Henry Wieking
INTRODUCTION
I am Robert Henry Wieking, Professor Emeritus, Builder, Designer, and Genealogist. I live in Ellensburg, WA and am married to Nancy (Keathley) Wieking. I have spent a good deal of time collecting and researching my family histories and will present this collection in four major sections:
1) SECTION 1: Histories of my parents' lines, Wieking and Huttmann. These will be delineated in terms of the histories of my grandparents' lines(PARTS 1 through 4): Wilhelm Wieking, Christine Gerdes, Hugo Huttmann, and Frieda Grote.
2) SECTION 2: My connection to German Immigration to Hawaii-C.W. Grote and August Bomke.
3) SECTION 3: My immigrant German connection to the Yukon Gold Rush-Martin and Lucy Itjen
4) SECTION 4: The German immigrant community in Oakland, CA
I am going to share my knowledge by primarily by writing in the first person " I ". I do hope that all of my cousins and other relatives will excuse this but it will be fare easier for me.... And my cousins can use "my" framework in order to sleuth their historical locations in terms of my historical relationships.
Another point to be made in this introduction is that all of my ancestors are very closely aligned with Germany and its history. As I am fond of saying, "three of my grandparents were born in Germany and the fourth, it could be said, was born in German Kauai."
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Histories of my Parents' Lines
SECTION 1: Histories of my parents' lines
PART 1
The Wieking Family Story-a tale of my father's father's family
Friedrich Christian Wieking was born in the early 1800's. and died February 19, 1857. He was married to Marie Elisbeth Engleking, from Diersdorf, Germany. Their son was named Heinrich Johann Friedrich Wieking. He was born on March 22, 1835. He was married to Marie Sophie Dorothea Schäfer ((b. May 17, 1837, d. April 5, 1870). H.J.F. Wieking died in December 14, 1881. After Marie Sophie died, HJF Wieking married Caroline Wilkening. The Wieking relatives that are known of today are settled in Leese/Stoltzenau, nearby Minden, Germany. The little towns of Leese and Stoltzenau are on the Weser River and Stoltzenau takes its name from the two German words Stoltze and Aue, which means "peaceful area."
Friedrich Henrich Wilhelm Wieking was a son of HJF Wieking and Marie Sophie(mentioned above). And so, Caroline Wilkening was the stepmother to FHW Wieking. In addition, HJF Wieking and Caroline and Wilkening had three young offspring together: Wilhelm, Heinrich, and Wilhelmina Wieking. Wilhelm, Heinrich and Wilhelmina ("Minna"), then, wee half brothers/sister to FHW Wieking. It may appear, then, that FHW Wieking felt some a amount of competition with these half siblings and their mother, a step mother to FHW Wieking!
In any event, FHW Wieking and his stepmother, Caroline Wilkening, came to a formal legal agreement on February 15, 1886 that Caroline Wilkening and her three children must vacate the Wieking family home in Leese/Stoltzenau and receive certain adjustments in return (documentation possessed by Bob Wieking). She received 800 Marks of German currency, one bed, a dresser, mirror, two chairs, and clothes cabinet. Of course, she also attained custody of her three children by her husband. So, where were Caroline Wilkening and her three children to go, having basically been evicted from their home? (Caroline was a great grandmother of Darien(Wieking) Ceremony, Pat (Wieking) Horton, Gordon Blunck and Jan(Blunck) Millar, and Bob and Rich Wieking).
Well, we can pick up the story in the San Francisco Bay Area. According to stories told by Henry Charles Wieking(a son of William and Christine(Gerdes) Wieking) to Bob Wieking(his son), a Mr. Henry Wilkening was in the Bay Area, working as a saloon keeper(documented in the voter registration records of Oakland, CA). Henry may have been that connection in the USA that Caroline and children needed since Caroline and Henry Wilkening were brother and sister. We find in the Oakland Business Directory, Oakland Public Library, that Henry Wieking(one of Caroline's sons) was the proprietor of the Oakland Casino Saloon. It is interesting to infer that he gained that employment by way of his uncle, Henry Wilkening! Several years later, the Oakland Business Directory shows Henry still as a proprietor of the Oakland Saloon, with William (the other son of Caroline) now serving as a bartender there. What do we know of Wilhelmina Wilkening, the only daughter of Caroline Wilkening? HC Wieking's anecdotes told me that she was a maid and caterer for most of her working life. In the 1920 US Census Keith Horton, the husband of Pat (Wieking) Horton, located Wilhelmina (Minna) as a boarder, living with her mother in a boarding house, run by Caroline. Minna is shown as age 45 years old. Her mother Caroline Wilkening(she is often listed as "Lena") is shown as being age 72. The only knowledge that is available of Minna is that she suffered from very severe arthritis and was bed-ridden at quite an early age (Bob Wieking vaguely remembers visiting her in a hospital in a large white bed with white sheets and bed cover. Cousin Dee Ceremony tells of a relative with whom "one had to be very gentle").
During this time, what is happening with Henry Wilkening, the brother of Caroline Wilkening? Other verbal anecdotes of Henry Charles Wieking described Henry Wilkening as owning a farm on 80th Avenue near East 14th Street in Oakland. It may be that it was Henry Wilkening who provided the linkage of Heinrich(Henry) and Wilhelm(William) Wieking to the Sunol and Livermore areas. Henry Charles Wieking told stories of Henry Wilkening's daughter, Martha (Wilkening) Keegan making trips to Sunol purportedly to visit the summer homes of both Henry and William Wieking, in the lovely canyon of Kilkaire Woods. The road to Kilkaire Woods leads right out of Sunol. In any event, Martha was said to "have rodeo friends" in Livermore. She was said to have taken Henry Charles Wieking to those rodeo's. It seems to me that my father, HC Wieking, honed some of his early interest in western life/cowboys/hunting through these early forays to Livermore and its rodeo's. So we now have Caroline Wilkening and her children settled in Oakland and connected to Henry Wilkening and his daughter. What do we know about the Wilkening name back in Germany? Bob Wieking has traced the name "Wilkening" via the internet back to the region of the Steinhüder Meer (Lake Steinhude), which is just east of Leese/Stoltzenau. No direct links to Caroline or Henry Wilkening have been found, however.
PART 2
The Gerdes Family Story-a tale of my father's mother's family
Let's start our story of our family, Gerdes, and work backward to the flat lands of Northern Germany. Most of our Gerdes family was uprooted from their hard life in Sievern, leaving only Emma(Gerdes)Eggers and Berta Gerdes. Their father, Hanke Gerdes, stated in his Last Will and Testament, that the Sievern farm was to remain with Emma, who was to evermore look after Berta. Berta was a little slow in mental function but remained a strong, and loving spinster through her life.
I (Bob Wieking) still remember both Emma and Berta peeling small, puny potatoes with their be-knuckled, arthritic hands. They had always prepared a noon meal that included these potatoes prepared in one sort or another. My parents and I had joined up in Frankfurt, Germany in the summer of 1967. They landed at the Frankfurt airport for a 4-week tour of Germany and regions nearby and I had taken off in April of that year on a motorcycle/train/hitch-hike tour of Western Europe. We traveled north from Frankfurt to Bremerhaven and then to Sievern just north of Bremerhaven. As a side light, it should be noted that my brother, Richard, had preceded both my parents and me in these travels. He had stayed a full year in Germany, working at a grinding wheel factory and getting to know all of our Germany relatives there!
While Emma and Berta remained in Sievern, on the farm, the rest of the family left Germany and arrived in New York via Ellis Island. They arrived in Ellis Island throughout the 1890's. Those émigrés were: Lizzie, Minna, John, Anna, Johanna, Christine, and Henry. The last four went on to the San Francisco Bay Area-specifically, Oakland, CA. There they became integrated with the local German community that was strong and thriving at that time. At this time I should emphasize that I will concentrate on the family of Christine Gerdes. Christine married Wilhelm Wieking and they had four children together: Henry, Elmer, Roy, and Aline. Christine and Wilhelm's grandchildren include: Bob and Richard Wieking(Henry), Darien(Wieking) Ceremony(Elmer), Pat(Wieking)Horton(Roy), and Jan and Gordon Blunck(Aline and Walter Blunck). It is for this present group of grandchildren, my cousins, that I am attempting to pull our Gerdes family story together! I guess it is also for any of our offspring who would care to listen....
Now that we have the immigrant Gerdes's settled in New York and California, we can step backward to northern Germany where Emma and Berta had stayed The parents of the "Sievern Two" and "the Immigrant 7" were Hanke Gerdes and Sophie Friederika Itjen.
Let's first follow the Gerdes line back in time. My cousins' great grandfather was Hanke Gerdes, born May 28, 1851. His father was Johann Gerdes (b.Oct 30, 1819; d. Aug 22, 1875). Johann was married to Margrete Catharine Von Glahn on May 9, 1851 in Langen, Germany. They had three births but only Hanke lived past three years of age!
Going further back, we find that Johann's father was also named Hanke Gerdes (b. Nov 28, 1792 at Fleetse, Germany; d.Nov 27, 1840k). Hanke Gerdes was married to Becke Adelheid Haase in Loxstedt (b. 1782; d. Dec 28, 1835). Hanke's occupation was that of Kötner. "Kötner" means Cottager or Farm Laborer.
PART 3
The Huttmann Family Story-A tale of the history of my mother's father
My mother's father was Hugo Huttmann. In Germany, the name was spelled with an umlaut over the "u". Hugo came to the USA, as did two of his brothers, Johann Hinrich Gustav and Walter Leo Huttmann. All that we really know, up to now, of these two brothers is that they settled in Denison, Iowa and operated "Huettmann Bros." At the Old Hub corner". They advertised that they sold "clothing and gents furnishings". Bob Wieking does possess three letters from Walter Leo to Hugo Huttmann.
It is informative now to note that my mother had sisters and one brother: Dora, Doris, Bertha, Louise, and Bill.
Dora: husband Ray Butler and children Donna, Vance, and Frank
Doris: husband Roy Walley, and daughter Rita(Gifford)
Bertha: husband Walter Beck and children Carol and Cynthia
Louise: husband Bob Wright and children David and Patricia
Christine: husband Henry Wieking, and children Robert and Richard
Bill: wife Audrey Hendrickson and children Beverly, Dean, and Linda
And now, back to Hugo! Hugo had immigrated to the USA via Ellis Island. He sailed to the US on the ship "Dania". His arrival to Ellis Island was on April 04, 1894, 15 years of age. Further information from the Ellis Island archives note that he sailed from Hamburg harbor, in northern Germany. He eventually settled in the city of Oakland, CA and was, before long, introduced to Frieda Grote. They lived in the Fruitvale district of Oakland, then the hub of German immigrant life.
The promise of land and abundant water drove Hugo and wife, Frieda, to homestead property in Aguila, Arizona. They moved into a small house and soon added on to it. Before long Christine was born, and then Doris/Dora(twins), then Louise, and then Bertha. Dora wrote in her life story that 'it was hot, there were snakes and we had a donkey that Christine and Bill rode to school on".
It was in this hot, undeveloped landscape that the Huttmann family lived until Hugo severely injured one eye while working in a mine. This accident, combined with the promise of water never fulfilled, drove the family from their Aguila homestead back to the Fruitvale area of Oakland. On a rather somber note, it has been related to the family by Dora that the only evidence of the Huttmann having been there in Aguila is a well in town that is labeled "The Huttmann Well."
Now, with the Hugo Huttmann's settled in the Bay Area, Hugo's oldest brother, Julius Herman Heinrich Huttmann, was operating the family community grist mill which he had inherited. As the eldest, he was the owner of the mill. However, he was drafted as a soldier in 1914 and died in Russia, in 1915, during World War One. Ownership of the mill then flowed to Julius Herman Heinrich Huttmann's elder son, Heinrich Huttmann, who was born in May 31, 1907. Heinrich Huttmann is the first cousin of my mother, Christine, and her siblings.
"The Hüttmann Family in the Kaltenkirchen Parish"
from the Segeburger Zeitung newspaper
Old documents and records lead to several interesting interpretations. A Hinrich Hüttmann first appeared in the old Segeberg official records in the area of Henstedt in 1542. Twenty-five years later the name appears with two owners: Jürgen and Hinrich. Since in the same year, in what is today Hüttblek (which dates back to 1567), three people were listed with that name: Marten, Jürgen, and Hanss, it can be assumed that Henstedt is the ancestral seat of this family, now widely expanded. From this point on, through acquisitions and marriages, the family spread out over the whole parish of Kaltenkirchen and into bordering areas.
This assumption gains even more probability by the fact that there was, in Hüttbleck, until the time of the 30 Years War, a large glassworks (Glashütte). This not only gave the place its name, but probably also the family which had settled there. If this conjecture is accurate, then it follows that the family must have had something to do with the glassworks, which was rented to the Segeberg magistrate. They must have been glassmakers and glassblowers.
Since there is a Jürgen Hüte Man also listed in the record of 1656/57 under Hüttblek, next to Hanss and Thiss Hüttmann, it might also be assumed that this person worked there as a shepherd. Whether one or the other of these assumptions is correct cannot be proven. It is much more likely that it is a purely a matter of there being another way of spelling the same name. In later years this latter spelling does not reappear.
Hanss Hüttmann first appears, as a landowner, in Lentforden in 1665. In the same year there is listed a cottager, Hinrich Hüttmann, in Kisdorf. Also in Wakendorf II and Schmalfeld, Carsten and Hinrich first appear as bearers of the family name.
From this it can be determined without question, that the family spread out from Hütbleck after the closing down of the glassworks. It is indeed an unfortunate loss that the old record books only hold the names of those persons who paid taxes. Not even the cottagers are listed in the parishes. This lack is, however, not terribly difficult, since all the families who were tied to their land and property, and from which all the others stemmed, could be registered. Therefore, it certainly follows that all the families new to the area in later years ordinarily felt at home in the communities. The settling of brand new families was very uncommon in earlier centuries in the villages. Therefore, it must also be assumed that those people in Nahe(which was once a part of ____) were Hüttmanns, who had settled there and became well known as builders, brickworkers, farmers, and for the last 150 years, millers, and that they belonged to the Hüttbleker family.
Proof of the references and assumptions made here remains somewhat tentative. The transition from the church records, which go back to 1648, to the old official records and registers of earnings, is not easy to find in the parish of Kaltenkirchen.
"A Family History of the Hüttmann Family"
Nahe, Germany (North of Hamburg)
In 1753 the Huttmann family settled in Nahe. In this year the carpenter Jochim Huttmann married the widow Anna Wrage (born Burmeister), who was born in Duvenstedt. He came from Wilstedt and was born there on January 28, 1726, the son of Tim and Cathrin Huttmann. After the death of his wife, who died in about 1764, he married for the second time on January 11, 1765<>
From the first marriage, there was one daughter, Anna Catharina, born on September 29, 1754. She married the smallholder, Hans Stoffers on November 13, 1773 in Itzstedt, and their descendants still live there. From the second marriage there were 6 children, which all outlived their parents. However one son, Claus Hinrich, died shortly after his mother at the age of 16. A daughter, Catharina Marie died 2 years after her father on March 22, 1805 at the age of nearly 24. The oldest daughter<>
Of the two sons, we will now concentrate on the younger, Marx Huttmann: he was born on March 17, 1776, married Anna Catharina Steenbuck, the daughter of a small holder in Nahe, Sievert Steenbuck, and later became a smallholder himself. He lost his wife in 1842 and on September 8, 1844, he lost his only son, Hans Jochim Huttmann, who married Catharina Maria Pohlmann, a daughter of the landlord of the Wrage property, Hinrich Pohlmann. Marx Huttmann married again at the age of 78. In fact he married a niece, the widowed Catharina Maria Steenbuck, the daughter of his half sister Stoffers in Itzstedt.
The wedding was on May 29, 1854. Marx Huttmann moved to Wilstedt and is said to have died there at the old age of about 96 years.
We now turn to the eldest son of Jochim Huttmann. His name was Hans Jochim Huttmann, born December 2, 1771. Like his father, he too was a carpenter. On august 9, 1797 he married Catharina Dorothea Wrage, who was born on October 10, 1766 and died on April 18, 1838. He, himself, died on February 15, 1841. The couple left 3 children behind, two sons and a daughter. This daughter was the youngest, born on January 17, 1806. On September 27, 1828 she married Claus Finnern, a smallholder in Nahe and died on December 4, 1884. This marriage produced a pair of twins, Hans Hinrich and Christina, born on April 23, 1829. The daughter married the smallholder, Caspar Harms and moved to Wakendorf. The marriage of the son will be discussed later in another context. Worth noting is the remark in the marriage register, that the parents of the groom refused to consent to the marriage. It necessitated unique negotiations.
2061 Nahe, July 12, 1970
"The Family Hüttmann from the Mill in Nahe"
The founder of the miller's family, Huettmann from Nahe, was Hans Heinrich Huettmann. He was born Sept. 7, 1802. In Dec. 1, 1839 he married Margareta Sophia Dorothea Hartz, a farmer's daughter from Schlamersdorf. She was born in Schlamersdorf on July 19, 1814 and died Sept. 23, 1888. Her husband(founder Huettmann) had passed away Oct. 20, 1853 at the age of 51. He was owner of the Mill of Nahe which is still in possession of his descendants.
The couple had four children, two sons and two daughters. The oldest daughter Catharina Maria Dorothea born April 17, 1840 died Sept. 4, 1908, was married to her cousin Hans Heinrich Finnern in Nahe who was a 3/4 smallholder. The younger daughter Ida Margareta Dorothea, born June 20, 1853, got married on Sept. 1, 1882 to Jochim Biehl from Wakendorf, a tradesman(owner of a small store).
Of the two sons, the older one, Marx Jochim-Claus Hinrich Huettmann, received his father's inheritance, the Mill. He was born April 23, 1841 and was married to Christine Foelster who died March 18, 1909. Out of his 6 children, 3 sons emigrated to America, Johann Heinrich Gustav, Hugo, and Walter Leo. His oldest son, Julius Hermann Heinrich(Huettmann)born february. 26, 1874 married to Emma Diedrichs, a farmer's daughter from Elmenhorst, became a miller and managed the Mill at Nahe. He was drafted as a soldier in 1914 and died in Russia in 1915 (WWI).He had 4 children. Of the sons, the second Emil Karl, born 1913, died in the last war (WWII). The oldest daughter Hertha, born May 30,1909, is married to the teacher Erwin Minke in Hamburg-Sase. The younger daughter Annemarie, born May 5, 1914, is not married and has a restaurant in Hamburg-Bergstedt. The oldest son, Hans Heinrich Huettmann, presently owns the Mill at Nahe.
He was born May 31, 1907 in Elmenhorst and married Oct. 25, 1932 to Elfriede Louise Feddern, a farmer's daughter from Rethwischfeld. They took over Nov. 1, 1932. They have 4 children, one son and 3 daughters. The oldest daughter Elke, born Sept. 30, 1937 is married to tailor and restauranteur Wolfgang Daniel. They live in Lueneburg and have 2 sons. The youngest daughter, Annegret, is not married. She has a daughter. The son, Hans Heinrich, was born May 18, 1936. He will be the next heir to the Mill from Nahe. On Oct. 23, 1962 he married the stenotypist Elke Knoop from Gnissau. They have 2 sons and 1 daughter. The girl, Marlen, was born April 1, 1970, son Hans-Heinrich May 8, 1963 and son Kai Sept. 5, 1965.
Appendix to Hans Heinrich Huettmann born May 31, 1907. His wife Elfriede Louise died May 5, 1955. He remarried 1958 Hertha Behrens, born July 15, 1915.
Appendix to Marx Jochim Hinrich Huettmann, born May 21, 1841. His younger daughter, Emma Olga Gertrud, born May 14, 1886 was married to Rudolf Wilhelm Wrage in Nahe, who is owner of a nursery and is also a gardner. They have 2 sons, Walter and Herbert. His older daughter was married to _______ Runge. After the death of her husband, she was remarried to Hermann Mohr, from Jueteburg.
Signed Hans Heinrich Huettmann(1936)
PART 4
The Grote Family Story- a tale of the history of my mother's mother
“Berta Friedricke (Grote) Huttmann” was the official name of our grandmother, my mother’s mother. She was born in the Hawaiian Islands in 1888. She was the eldest of the family siblings. She had brothers and sisters William, Hermann, Henriette Amali(“Mali”), Dora Lena, and Marie(“Mariechen”). Her parents were C.W. Grote and Ida (Bomke) Grote. Ida Bomke’s parents were August Johann Bomke and Julie Kremin. A.J. Bomke and Julie Kremin were living in West Prussia in the area of Kulm(“Chelmno” in Polish). When Julie Kremin died in childbirth, giving birth to Ida, August Johann Bomke then married Julie’s cousin, Julianne Henriette Draheim. And so, with the sorrow at the loss of his wife, AJ. Bomke took his new wife and young daughter(Ida) to the Island of Kauai, where a total of 3 ship loads of mostly German immigrants were brought to begin work in the embryonic sugar cane fields that were to become a massive staple of the Island economy. They traveled on a bark named the CEDER.
With CW and Ida now married and with family, Berta Friedricke(“Frieda”) went to California where she met Hugo Huttmann. Their life and family can be found described above in the section covering Hugo Huttmann!
Portion of a letter from Shirley Bomke Craddock
"I still marvel at the A.J. Bomke. He was 46 years old(1837-1883) when he moved that whole family to Kauai--he'd already fought (artillery unit) three wars in Prussia, and had toes missing on both feet from frostbite in the trenches. The boat trip included 8 children for 4 months-oldest was 18 years and the youngest was 2! He worked as a field Luna(supervisor) for Lihue Sugar Plantation for 20 years(til 66 years old), then moved to Honolulu in 1903. He finally moved to Los Angeles in 1924, when sons Carl and Paul moved too. He died in 1931, at the ripe old age of 94. His 2d wife must have been a real trooper too--she raised all those children and my Dad said, "she milked the darn cow everyday and kept the garden going."
Ida Bomke, now settled in the island of Kauai, eventually met Conrad Wilhelm Grote, who had also come from Germany on the ship, EHRENFELS.
PART 1
The Wieking Family Story-a tale of my father's father's family
Friedrich Christian Wieking was born in the early 1800's. and died February 19, 1857. He was married to Marie Elisbeth Engleking, from Diersdorf, Germany. Their son was named Heinrich Johann Friedrich Wieking. He was born on March 22, 1835. He was married to Marie Sophie Dorothea Schäfer ((b. May 17, 1837, d. April 5, 1870). H.J.F. Wieking died in December 14, 1881. After Marie Sophie died, HJF Wieking married Caroline Wilkening. The Wieking relatives that are known of today are settled in Leese/Stoltzenau, nearby Minden, Germany. The little towns of Leese and Stoltzenau are on the Weser River and Stoltzenau takes its name from the two German words Stoltze and Aue, which means "peaceful area."
Friedrich Henrich Wilhelm Wieking was a son of HJF Wieking and Marie Sophie(mentioned above). And so, Caroline Wilkening was the stepmother to FHW Wieking. In addition, HJF Wieking and Caroline and Wilkening had three young offspring together: Wilhelm, Heinrich, and Wilhelmina Wieking. Wilhelm, Heinrich and Wilhelmina ("Minna"), then, wee half brothers/sister to FHW Wieking. It may appear, then, that FHW Wieking felt some a amount of competition with these half siblings and their mother, a step mother to FHW Wieking!
In any event, FHW Wieking and his stepmother, Caroline Wilkening, came to a formal legal agreement on February 15, 1886 that Caroline Wilkening and her three children must vacate the Wieking family home in Leese/Stoltzenau and receive certain adjustments in return (documentation possessed by Bob Wieking). She received 800 Marks of German currency, one bed, a dresser, mirror, two chairs, and clothes cabinet. Of course, she also attained custody of her three children by her husband. So, where were Caroline Wilkening and her three children to go, having basically been evicted from their home? (Caroline was a great grandmother of Darien(Wieking) Ceremony, Pat (Wieking) Horton, Gordon Blunck and Jan(Blunck) Millar, and Bob and Rich Wieking).
Well, we can pick up the story in the San Francisco Bay Area. According to stories told by Henry Charles Wieking(a son of William and Christine(Gerdes) Wieking) to Bob Wieking(his son), a Mr. Henry Wilkening was in the Bay Area, working as a saloon keeper(documented in the voter registration records of Oakland, CA). Henry may have been that connection in the USA that Caroline and children needed since Caroline and Henry Wilkening were brother and sister. We find in the Oakland Business Directory, Oakland Public Library, that Henry Wieking(one of Caroline's sons) was the proprietor of the Oakland Casino Saloon. It is interesting to infer that he gained that employment by way of his uncle, Henry Wilkening! Several years later, the Oakland Business Directory shows Henry still as a proprietor of the Oakland Saloon, with William (the other son of Caroline) now serving as a bartender there. What do we know of Wilhelmina Wilkening, the only daughter of Caroline Wilkening? HC Wieking's anecdotes told me that she was a maid and caterer for most of her working life. In the 1920 US Census Keith Horton, the husband of Pat (Wieking) Horton, located Wilhelmina (Minna) as a boarder, living with her mother in a boarding house, run by Caroline. Minna is shown as age 45 years old. Her mother Caroline Wilkening(she is often listed as "Lena") is shown as being age 72. The only knowledge that is available of Minna is that she suffered from very severe arthritis and was bed-ridden at quite an early age (Bob Wieking vaguely remembers visiting her in a hospital in a large white bed with white sheets and bed cover. Cousin Dee Ceremony tells of a relative with whom "one had to be very gentle").
During this time, what is happening with Henry Wilkening, the brother of Caroline Wilkening? Other verbal anecdotes of Henry Charles Wieking described Henry Wilkening as owning a farm on 80th Avenue near East 14th Street in Oakland. It may be that it was Henry Wilkening who provided the linkage of Heinrich(Henry) and Wilhelm(William) Wieking to the Sunol and Livermore areas. Henry Charles Wieking told stories of Henry Wilkening's daughter, Martha (Wilkening) Keegan making trips to Sunol purportedly to visit the summer homes of both Henry and William Wieking, in the lovely canyon of Kilkaire Woods. The road to Kilkaire Woods leads right out of Sunol. In any event, Martha was said to "have rodeo friends" in Livermore. She was said to have taken Henry Charles Wieking to those rodeo's. It seems to me that my father, HC Wieking, honed some of his early interest in western life/cowboys/hunting through these early forays to Livermore and its rodeo's. So we now have Caroline Wilkening and her children settled in Oakland and connected to Henry Wilkening and his daughter. What do we know about the Wilkening name back in Germany? Bob Wieking has traced the name "Wilkening" via the internet back to the region of the Steinhüder Meer (Lake Steinhude), which is just east of Leese/Stoltzenau. No direct links to Caroline or Henry Wilkening have been found, however.
PART 2
The Gerdes Family Story-a tale of my father's mother's family
Let's start our story of our family, Gerdes, and work backward to the flat lands of Northern Germany. Most of our Gerdes family was uprooted from their hard life in Sievern, leaving only Emma(Gerdes)Eggers and Berta Gerdes. Their father, Hanke Gerdes, stated in his Last Will and Testament, that the Sievern farm was to remain with Emma, who was to evermore look after Berta. Berta was a little slow in mental function but remained a strong, and loving spinster through her life.
I (Bob Wieking) still remember both Emma and Berta peeling small, puny potatoes with their be-knuckled, arthritic hands. They had always prepared a noon meal that included these potatoes prepared in one sort or another. My parents and I had joined up in Frankfurt, Germany in the summer of 1967. They landed at the Frankfurt airport for a 4-week tour of Germany and regions nearby and I had taken off in April of that year on a motorcycle/train/hitch-hike tour of Western Europe. We traveled north from Frankfurt to Bremerhaven and then to Sievern just north of Bremerhaven. As a side light, it should be noted that my brother, Richard, had preceded both my parents and me in these travels. He had stayed a full year in Germany, working at a grinding wheel factory and getting to know all of our Germany relatives there!
While Emma and Berta remained in Sievern, on the farm, the rest of the family left Germany and arrived in New York via Ellis Island. They arrived in Ellis Island throughout the 1890's. Those émigrés were: Lizzie, Minna, John, Anna, Johanna, Christine, and Henry. The last four went on to the San Francisco Bay Area-specifically, Oakland, CA. There they became integrated with the local German community that was strong and thriving at that time. At this time I should emphasize that I will concentrate on the family of Christine Gerdes. Christine married Wilhelm Wieking and they had four children together: Henry, Elmer, Roy, and Aline. Christine and Wilhelm's grandchildren include: Bob and Richard Wieking(Henry), Darien(Wieking) Ceremony(Elmer), Pat(Wieking)Horton(Roy), and Jan and Gordon Blunck(Aline and Walter Blunck). It is for this present group of grandchildren, my cousins, that I am attempting to pull our Gerdes family story together! I guess it is also for any of our offspring who would care to listen....
Now that we have the immigrant Gerdes's settled in New York and California, we can step backward to northern Germany where Emma and Berta had stayed The parents of the "Sievern Two" and "the Immigrant 7" were Hanke Gerdes and Sophie Friederika Itjen.
Let's first follow the Gerdes line back in time. My cousins' great grandfather was Hanke Gerdes, born May 28, 1851. His father was Johann Gerdes (b.Oct 30, 1819; d. Aug 22, 1875). Johann was married to Margrete Catharine Von Glahn on May 9, 1851 in Langen, Germany. They had three births but only Hanke lived past three years of age!
Going further back, we find that Johann's father was also named Hanke Gerdes (b. Nov 28, 1792 at Fleetse, Germany; d.Nov 27, 1840k). Hanke Gerdes was married to Becke Adelheid Haase in Loxstedt (b. 1782; d. Dec 28, 1835). Hanke's occupation was that of Kötner. "Kötner" means Cottager or Farm Laborer.
PART 3
The Huttmann Family Story-A tale of the history of my mother's father
My mother's father was Hugo Huttmann. In Germany, the name was spelled with an umlaut over the "u". Hugo came to the USA, as did two of his brothers, Johann Hinrich Gustav and Walter Leo Huttmann. All that we really know, up to now, of these two brothers is that they settled in Denison, Iowa and operated "Huettmann Bros." At the Old Hub corner". They advertised that they sold "clothing and gents furnishings". Bob Wieking does possess three letters from Walter Leo to Hugo Huttmann.
It is informative now to note that my mother had sisters and one brother: Dora, Doris, Bertha, Louise, and Bill.
Dora: husband Ray Butler and children Donna, Vance, and Frank
Doris: husband Roy Walley, and daughter Rita(Gifford)
Bertha: husband Walter Beck and children Carol and Cynthia
Louise: husband Bob Wright and children David and Patricia
Christine: husband Henry Wieking, and children Robert and Richard
Bill: wife Audrey Hendrickson and children Beverly, Dean, and Linda
And now, back to Hugo! Hugo had immigrated to the USA via Ellis Island. He sailed to the US on the ship "Dania". His arrival to Ellis Island was on April 04, 1894, 15 years of age. Further information from the Ellis Island archives note that he sailed from Hamburg harbor, in northern Germany. He eventually settled in the city of Oakland, CA and was, before long, introduced to Frieda Grote. They lived in the Fruitvale district of Oakland, then the hub of German immigrant life.
The promise of land and abundant water drove Hugo and wife, Frieda, to homestead property in Aguila, Arizona. They moved into a small house and soon added on to it. Before long Christine was born, and then Doris/Dora(twins), then Louise, and then Bertha. Dora wrote in her life story that 'it was hot, there were snakes and we had a donkey that Christine and Bill rode to school on".
It was in this hot, undeveloped landscape that the Huttmann family lived until Hugo severely injured one eye while working in a mine. This accident, combined with the promise of water never fulfilled, drove the family from their Aguila homestead back to the Fruitvale area of Oakland. On a rather somber note, it has been related to the family by Dora that the only evidence of the Huttmann having been there in Aguila is a well in town that is labeled "The Huttmann Well."
Now, with the Hugo Huttmann's settled in the Bay Area, Hugo's oldest brother, Julius Herman Heinrich Huttmann, was operating the family community grist mill which he had inherited. As the eldest, he was the owner of the mill. However, he was drafted as a soldier in 1914 and died in Russia, in 1915, during World War One. Ownership of the mill then flowed to Julius Herman Heinrich Huttmann's elder son, Heinrich Huttmann, who was born in May 31, 1907. Heinrich Huttmann is the first cousin of my mother, Christine, and her siblings.
"The Hüttmann Family in the Kaltenkirchen Parish"
from the Segeburger Zeitung newspaper
Old documents and records lead to several interesting interpretations. A Hinrich Hüttmann first appeared in the old Segeberg official records in the area of Henstedt in 1542. Twenty-five years later the name appears with two owners: Jürgen and Hinrich. Since in the same year, in what is today Hüttblek (which dates back to 1567), three people were listed with that name: Marten, Jürgen, and Hanss, it can be assumed that Henstedt is the ancestral seat of this family, now widely expanded. From this point on, through acquisitions and marriages, the family spread out over the whole parish of Kaltenkirchen and into bordering areas.
This assumption gains even more probability by the fact that there was, in Hüttbleck, until the time of the 30 Years War, a large glassworks (Glashütte). This not only gave the place its name, but probably also the family which had settled there. If this conjecture is accurate, then it follows that the family must have had something to do with the glassworks, which was rented to the Segeberg magistrate. They must have been glassmakers and glassblowers.
Since there is a Jürgen Hüte Man also listed in the record of 1656/57 under Hüttblek, next to Hanss and Thiss Hüttmann, it might also be assumed that this person worked there as a shepherd. Whether one or the other of these assumptions is correct cannot be proven. It is much more likely that it is a purely a matter of there being another way of spelling the same name. In later years this latter spelling does not reappear.
Hanss Hüttmann first appears, as a landowner, in Lentforden in 1665. In the same year there is listed a cottager, Hinrich Hüttmann, in Kisdorf. Also in Wakendorf II and Schmalfeld, Carsten and Hinrich first appear as bearers of the family name.
From this it can be determined without question, that the family spread out from Hütbleck after the closing down of the glassworks. It is indeed an unfortunate loss that the old record books only hold the names of those persons who paid taxes. Not even the cottagers are listed in the parishes. This lack is, however, not terribly difficult, since all the families who were tied to their land and property, and from which all the others stemmed, could be registered. Therefore, it certainly follows that all the families new to the area in later years ordinarily felt at home in the communities. The settling of brand new families was very uncommon in earlier centuries in the villages. Therefore, it must also be assumed that those people in Nahe(which was once a part of ____) were Hüttmanns, who had settled there and became well known as builders, brickworkers, farmers, and for the last 150 years, millers, and that they belonged to the Hüttbleker family.
Proof of the references and assumptions made here remains somewhat tentative. The transition from the church records, which go back to 1648, to the old official records and registers of earnings, is not easy to find in the parish of Kaltenkirchen.
"A Family History of the Hüttmann Family"
Nahe, Germany (North of Hamburg)
In 1753 the Huttmann family settled in Nahe. In this year the carpenter Jochim Huttmann married the widow Anna Wrage (born Burmeister), who was born in Duvenstedt. He came from Wilstedt and was born there on January 28, 1726, the son of Tim and Cathrin Huttmann. After the death of his wife, who died in about 1764, he married for the second time on January 11, 1765<>
From the first marriage, there was one daughter, Anna Catharina, born on September 29, 1754. She married the smallholder, Hans Stoffers on November 13, 1773 in Itzstedt, and their descendants still live there. From the second marriage there were 6 children, which all outlived their parents. However one son, Claus Hinrich, died shortly after his mother at the age of 16. A daughter, Catharina Marie died 2 years after her father on March 22, 1805 at the age of nearly 24. The oldest daughter<>
Of the two sons, we will now concentrate on the younger, Marx Huttmann: he was born on March 17, 1776, married Anna Catharina Steenbuck, the daughter of a small holder in Nahe, Sievert Steenbuck, and later became a smallholder himself. He lost his wife in 1842 and on September 8, 1844, he lost his only son, Hans Jochim Huttmann, who married Catharina Maria Pohlmann, a daughter of the landlord of the Wrage property, Hinrich Pohlmann. Marx Huttmann married again at the age of 78. In fact he married a niece, the widowed Catharina Maria Steenbuck, the daughter of his half sister Stoffers in Itzstedt.
The wedding was on May 29, 1854. Marx Huttmann moved to Wilstedt and is said to have died there at the old age of about 96 years.
We now turn to the eldest son of Jochim Huttmann. His name was Hans Jochim Huttmann, born December 2, 1771. Like his father, he too was a carpenter. On august 9, 1797 he married Catharina Dorothea Wrage, who was born on October 10, 1766 and died on April 18, 1838. He, himself, died on February 15, 1841. The couple left 3 children behind, two sons and a daughter. This daughter was the youngest, born on January 17, 1806. On September 27, 1828 she married Claus Finnern, a smallholder in Nahe and died on December 4, 1884. This marriage produced a pair of twins, Hans Hinrich and Christina, born on April 23, 1829. The daughter married the smallholder, Caspar Harms and moved to Wakendorf. The marriage of the son will be discussed later in another context. Worth noting is the remark in the marriage register, that the parents of the groom refused to consent to the marriage. It necessitated unique negotiations.
2061 Nahe, July 12, 1970
"The Family Hüttmann from the Mill in Nahe"
The founder of the miller's family, Huettmann from Nahe, was Hans Heinrich Huettmann. He was born Sept. 7, 1802. In Dec. 1, 1839 he married Margareta Sophia Dorothea Hartz, a farmer's daughter from Schlamersdorf. She was born in Schlamersdorf on July 19, 1814 and died Sept. 23, 1888. Her husband(founder Huettmann) had passed away Oct. 20, 1853 at the age of 51. He was owner of the Mill of Nahe which is still in possession of his descendants.
The couple had four children, two sons and two daughters. The oldest daughter Catharina Maria Dorothea born April 17, 1840 died Sept. 4, 1908, was married to her cousin Hans Heinrich Finnern in Nahe who was a 3/4 smallholder. The younger daughter Ida Margareta Dorothea, born June 20, 1853, got married on Sept. 1, 1882 to Jochim Biehl from Wakendorf, a tradesman(owner of a small store).
Of the two sons, the older one, Marx Jochim-Claus Hinrich Huettmann, received his father's inheritance, the Mill. He was born April 23, 1841 and was married to Christine Foelster who died March 18, 1909. Out of his 6 children, 3 sons emigrated to America, Johann Heinrich Gustav, Hugo, and Walter Leo. His oldest son, Julius Hermann Heinrich(Huettmann)born february. 26, 1874 married to Emma Diedrichs, a farmer's daughter from Elmenhorst, became a miller and managed the Mill at Nahe. He was drafted as a soldier in 1914 and died in Russia in 1915 (WWI).He had 4 children. Of the sons, the second Emil Karl, born 1913, died in the last war (WWII). The oldest daughter Hertha, born May 30,1909, is married to the teacher Erwin Minke in Hamburg-Sase. The younger daughter Annemarie, born May 5, 1914, is not married and has a restaurant in Hamburg-Bergstedt. The oldest son, Hans Heinrich Huettmann, presently owns the Mill at Nahe.
He was born May 31, 1907 in Elmenhorst and married Oct. 25, 1932 to Elfriede Louise Feddern, a farmer's daughter from Rethwischfeld. They took over Nov. 1, 1932. They have 4 children, one son and 3 daughters. The oldest daughter Elke, born Sept. 30, 1937 is married to tailor and restauranteur Wolfgang Daniel. They live in Lueneburg and have 2 sons. The youngest daughter, Annegret, is not married. She has a daughter. The son, Hans Heinrich, was born May 18, 1936. He will be the next heir to the Mill from Nahe. On Oct. 23, 1962 he married the stenotypist Elke Knoop from Gnissau. They have 2 sons and 1 daughter. The girl, Marlen, was born April 1, 1970, son Hans-Heinrich May 8, 1963 and son Kai Sept. 5, 1965.
Appendix to Hans Heinrich Huettmann born May 31, 1907. His wife Elfriede Louise died May 5, 1955. He remarried 1958 Hertha Behrens, born July 15, 1915.
Appendix to Marx Jochim Hinrich Huettmann, born May 21, 1841. His younger daughter, Emma Olga Gertrud, born May 14, 1886 was married to Rudolf Wilhelm Wrage in Nahe, who is owner of a nursery and is also a gardner. They have 2 sons, Walter and Herbert. His older daughter was married to _______ Runge. After the death of her husband, she was remarried to Hermann Mohr, from Jueteburg.
Signed Hans Heinrich Huettmann(1936)
PART 4
The Grote Family Story- a tale of the history of my mother's mother
“Berta Friedricke (Grote) Huttmann” was the official name of our grandmother, my mother’s mother. She was born in the Hawaiian Islands in 1888. She was the eldest of the family siblings. She had brothers and sisters William, Hermann, Henriette Amali(“Mali”), Dora Lena, and Marie(“Mariechen”). Her parents were C.W. Grote and Ida (Bomke) Grote. Ida Bomke’s parents were August Johann Bomke and Julie Kremin. A.J. Bomke and Julie Kremin were living in West Prussia in the area of Kulm(“Chelmno” in Polish). When Julie Kremin died in childbirth, giving birth to Ida, August Johann Bomke then married Julie’s cousin, Julianne Henriette Draheim. And so, with the sorrow at the loss of his wife, AJ. Bomke took his new wife and young daughter(Ida) to the Island of Kauai, where a total of 3 ship loads of mostly German immigrants were brought to begin work in the embryonic sugar cane fields that were to become a massive staple of the Island economy. They traveled on a bark named the CEDER.
With CW and Ida now married and with family, Berta Friedricke(“Frieda”) went to California where she met Hugo Huttmann. Their life and family can be found described above in the section covering Hugo Huttmann!
Portion of a letter from Shirley Bomke Craddock
"I still marvel at the A.J. Bomke. He was 46 years old(1837-1883) when he moved that whole family to Kauai--he'd already fought (artillery unit) three wars in Prussia, and had toes missing on both feet from frostbite in the trenches. The boat trip included 8 children for 4 months-oldest was 18 years and the youngest was 2! He worked as a field Luna(supervisor) for Lihue Sugar Plantation for 20 years(til 66 years old), then moved to Honolulu in 1903. He finally moved to Los Angeles in 1924, when sons Carl and Paul moved too. He died in 1931, at the ripe old age of 94. His 2d wife must have been a real trooper too--she raised all those children and my Dad said, "she milked the darn cow everyday and kept the garden going."
Ida Bomke, now settled in the island of Kauai, eventually met Conrad Wilhelm Grote, who had also come from Germany on the ship, EHRENFELS.
German Immmigration to Hawai
SECTION 2: My connection to German Immigration to Hawai-C.W. Grote
Conrad Wilhelm Grote
The story of his life, written by him in German and translated by his youngest daughter, Henriette Amalie, and her husband, Paul O.E. Rutsch
I was born at Tonnenheide, district Rahden, County Lubbeke, governmental district Minden, on the 16th of April 1858, at night 1:30, under the constellation Aries, planet Mars, in a house located between sand hills and meadows, near a canal which contained fine fish. My father was a master shoemaker, but also had cows and land enough for the family to live on, and low land for vegetables, rye, wheat, oats, and barley. My father's mother sat most of the time at the spinning wheel and also took care of the children, and usually chewed bread rinds. Evenings we boys had to peel potatoes and when we fell asleep my father, who was working in his shop, threw his cap at us.
I have to mention here that my mother was the second wife and there were three boys by the first wife. My grandmother's name was Elizabeth and my mother's Caroline. Her parents had died early and therefore she had a meager existence in her youth. There were also two sisters, Marie, 51/2 years and Sophia 71/2 years old. They contracted scarlet fever and both died within a week and were buried on the same day. I was accused of having been very nasty to the two sisters. Once I had to pasture two cows and they ran away from me and went into the cabbage patch. My mother gave me a hefty whack on the head. That was the first and the last! I didn't need any more....
Now the story of the fish from the river flowing through our meadows. My father had caught some fine pikes which my grandmother volunteered to clean, and as pikes have very sharp teeth, my grandmother carelessly got her finger caught in the fish's mouth, so that a tailor who happened to be present had to liberate the finger with his scissors.
In those days tailors went from house to house and made men's and women's clothing for the inhabitants of the villages. There were not many inhabitants. Our house was some distance from the main village which lay on the main highway from Rahden to Minden. Minden is a fortress.
One day my parents went to visit their sister and brother-in-law Conrad Behring at Oppenwehe and at the same time they bought a house from a Mr. Wietelman, made a down payment of 800 hard coin dollars and soon we settled in the new home. A canal flowed past near the house and there were pastures for the cattle.
My grandmother soon got sick and died. The pastor came to the house, gave a sermon, and many people went to the funeral. A choir of school children stopped at every house on the road and sang a stanza of the hymn, Jesus Meine Zuversicht. At the church yard the bell was rung, another sermon, three shovels of earth, "From earth did you come, to earth must you return", the grave was filled, and home to a funeral repast.
I was baptized in the church at Rahden, and registered in the Church Book. Oppenwehe belongs to the church in Weden, to which four villages belong.
The first winter in the new house we had a severe storm which blew down the half-finished massive gable and would have blown off the whole roof if the straw had not held it.
My father now bought another meadow and some peat land in addition. That created debt and led to retrogression because interest had to be paid. My father's business did not flourish in this poor region, with houses far apart.
It took me an hour to go to school. When I was eight years old, a rich farmer came to the house and wanted me to go to school with his son, and as my parents had enough children they consented and I was satisfied with the arrangement. In the big farm house I found it good, but the school master was a drinker and therefore hard on the children. His brandy he kept in the corner cupboard and as we had to clean the school every Friday, we boys decided to throw his brandy out and then we pretended to be drunk. However, nothing came of it after that.
When the farmer's boy got into mischief I always had to lie for him, to get him out of it.
After 21/2 years the farmer got sick and died and I had to leave and was then one year at home.
I was about 51/2 years old when my right nostril was filled with a polyp(growth). They took me to Dr. Brill in Wagenfeld, who cut it out with scissors, without anesthetic. (It was not known yet).
When I was 11 years old came Mr. Carl Forster from Oppenwehe and wanted me. Then I was sent there, to my satisfaction, especially as I stayed in the same school, where for 2 years I was the best student in a two-room school.
Mrs. Forster was of the family Hesemeier, of No. 4 Oppenwehe. They had a daughter who went after me with a broom, of course playfully. When I was sent anywhere from the school, I got a piece of bread and butter; that was a pleasure!
Mrs. Hesemeier was a widow and her son Wilhelm managed the property, which was quite extensive.
Mrs. Forster, the daughter of Hesemeier, got sick during my last school year and after about six months illness and the use of very bitter medicine, succumbed to the illness and we had to bury her, and not long after that Mrs. Forster's sister(who was engaged) contacted the black pox connected with stubborn constipation to which she finally succumbed and Mr. Forster and I alone had to bury her. Nobody else would attend. The grave digger ran far away because of fear of infection; and then he got the pox, but survived. During all this sickness I had to take care of the animals on the farm--feed them, etc.
Then came the time for confirmation. Hesemeiers took me along in their wagon to the church in Wehdem. But on the way back home I already felt as though I was flying in the air and the next morning I was full of fever, ran away with the bed covers because I thought the house was on fire. Thus the pox! Although I had been 3 times vaccinated, I still had caught the small pox!
Then they put me on a wagon and brought me to my parents. There they painted me all over with coal tar and then I slowly got better. But that was not the end of it. My mother had already injured her knee in a fall while I was running away with the bed covers; then she caught the smallpox and when she recovered my father got it. By that time I was well enough so that I could take over slowing and planting while my father ran after me in a fever, to tell me how to do it. The crops all grew and we had a good harvest. That was my last year at home. I then went abroad to Dortmund and stayed on a big farm for about 5 months. There it was up at 4 o'clock in the morning, feed animals, eat milk soup with white bread, then out into the fields till noon, then work on a new house. Evenings somebody usually played the harmonica.
At the Union Dortmunder Hutte, A Factory Producing Raw Steel and Finished Machinery
When we started the journey two other men and I left the house at 5 o'clock in the evening, went via Rahden Diesenau to Minden, where we arrived at six o'clock in the morning, had our breakfast, and traveled by railroad via Bielefeld to Dortmund, the old capitol of the former kingdom of Westphalia, where Napoleon's brother was king for a year. Around Dortmund there are many coal mines, therefore the big iron works near by. The river Ruhr flows by. The old fortifications were razed in 1873, except for a small remnant. The nearest railroad station to Dortmund is called "The Red Earth". There still stands the Fehm Linden Tree and the cave where in olden days the people took the law into their own hands. They judged the transgressors and executed the judgment on the spot.
Off to Bremen
I left then to go to Bremen, found employment in a shoemaker business which work was not exactly unfamiliar to me and it helped my to get acquainted in the city of Bremen until I found better employment. In that I was successful with a certain Captain Geerken, for office and everything else. This was Captain Geerken, Bornstrasse 22. As shown by a letter written later, this street does not exist any more. Here now a new life began again. Office work, painting, gardening, serving, traveling interpreter to Bremerhaven to show ships that were for sale. On these occasions I came in contact with many foreign captains and also learned much about ships and harbor arrangements. Captain Geerken lived up to his 85th year. His death came as a result of catching cold at a funeral.
There I had the opportunity to broaden my knowledge, In that I was allowed to attend night school three times a week at "Verein Vorwarts". I studied again penmanship, arithmetic, German, English, and bookkeeping. I was allowed the time but had to pay myself; I also got time to learn book binding, but that was policy. I had then to bind all music, etc. without pay, for Miss Geerken's music instructor, Mr. Krause. I did it gladly, for the experience. Miss Geerken always practiced piano diligently when Mr. Geerken went to the stock exchange from 12 to 1:30. At 2 o'clock we had lunch and at 3:30 coffee. Then we had to work till 5 or 6 and at 9 o'clock. We had supper, but only tea and sandwiches of different kinds--cheese and so on.
In the morning at 6 o'clock we got up. My room was 2 stories up, under the wood and peat attic. That was a practical arrangement, namely, there was a chute where one threw wood and peat down to the kitchen. Coal was kept in a glass grape house. In the spring I had to fix up the flower beds and lawn. Sometimes a load of manure was ordered for the rose beds, namely moss roses. We also had June roses and rhododendrons, and a big Pergamott pear tree. This fruit is best suited for preserving. Some of them were preserved in Arrack and sent to Metanzas in Cuba.
Off to Hawaii
Once when I applied at the bank as "Kassenbote", 99 others had applied at the same time and I was not successful. But as now the time arrived when I had to earn more, Captain Geerken recommended me to Paul Isenberg, who lived in Bremen at the time, and who needed people for plantations on Hawaii. At that time I was 23 years old. A great number of people were hired in contract to go to the different plantations in Hawaii. These were transported on the steamer EHRENFELS from Bremen to Honolulu. In Lihue there arrived at one time a hundred in one lot, and I had to step in as supervisor. Among them were people who seemed never to have had a hoe in their hands. Of course there also were some journeymen in different trades among them.
But it also did not take long until the Germans had all kinds of conflict. In Koloa under Manager Kropp the whole bunch went to Honolulu to complain. Most of them were soon free of their 3-year contract and the manager was glad that he was rid of them. But in Lihue the Germans did pretty well under sensible treatment. I had at that time already learned sugar boiling, for which I had paid $100 to Charles Bishop, who later had the Lihue Store, and made out quite well, and then sold out to the Lihue Plantation. My son Willie H. Grote later was bookkeeper there(now manager in Kealia Store).
Before Mr. Bishop bought the store Mr. Scholz had it. The poor devil sold the store, bought an orange ranch in California, but then the price of the fruit fell so that he couldn't make anything and his daughter had to work in the orchard; and one knows that where there is no money nobody wants to marry the daughters. While he was in Lihue I had the honor of giving violin lessons to his governess, Fraulein Hahn(without payment). She later married Captain Ahlborn, but they didn't live long. I think they lived too high(that is, ate too richly). I now have to return to the plantation. When I arrived I was clerk in the mill and at the same time had to supervise the sugar boiling and take the full sacks into the storeroom, There I mostly had to sew up the bags and lift them because I had only an old Spaniard to help me but he couldn't lift a sack that was heavier that 100 or 125 pounds.
Once when a belt broke on the drying machine I broke my arm because the Chinese working at the drying machine were in too much of a hurry because when the mixer was empty they could go home. Captain Ahlborn treated the arm with pain killer. He thought it was not broken...But the pain would not let me sleep. Luckily Mr. Rohrig still had a few opium pills, which made me dream for 3 days. I then returned to the mill and wrote with the left hand like the Devil.
That went on for 6 months. After that I could after work go and relieve the sugar boiler while I was learning, for which I had to pay $100, but I did it in order to advance myself. That lasted sometimes up to 11 o'clock and at 4 o'clock I started in again and cooked until Mr. Bishop came at 5:30. The next year(or season) I was supervisor in the field and went at 5 o'clock after work in the mill; also ate my supper in the mill and at the same time boiled sugar, that is, substituted for the sugar boiler. I was only No. 2 sugar boiler but worked like a No. 1 and when sometimes a boiler went out of commission I had also to be boiler maker at night.
The Life in the Field
The first time I was in the sugar house and saw the mix-up of the ox carts, which were managed only with whips, tears came to my eyes. Such wildness I had never seen, but later I myself was oxen foreman for a half year because the old oxen foreman had gone away. We had to also do all the plowing with oxen and also the ditching. Then another overseer came on and took over the work. I returned again to the field as overseer. There were all kinds of work to be done, such as planting cane, irrigating, hoeing, and also stripping, which was given up later on. Now they set the cane afire before they cut it, to save time and to avoid hauling all the trash to the mill.
When it's planting time, young cane is cut in pieces about six inches long, placed in the furrows, covered with a little dirt, and then irrigated, then it grows. The fields are now usually given in contract, so much per acre.
My Work As Sugar Boiler
After I had been in Lihue 3 years, Mr. Carl Isenberg sent me to Pokaki, where Captain L'Orange owed the plantation $12,000, to look after the cane with 15 to 20 men. There it was that I married Ida Bomke.
After I had been 2 years in Pokaki, I got the position of sugar boiler in Honokaa through Mr. Dreier in Eleele, on recommendation of Mr. Carl Isenberg, where I successfully boiled sugar for 21/4 years. After that I was called back by Paul Isenberg to Hanamaulu. But as Mr. Christian, my predecessor, did not do well on a ranch in Molokai, the company gave him back the position and I was transferred to Lahaina Mill. There was much dust and rain storms, resulting in many colds in the family. During the vacation the whole family went to Honokaa, where my brother August had a tailoring business in a place I had bought for him while I was boiling sugar there.
When I had finished boiling the season's crop, I followed them there for my vacation. While I was there I met Jim Renton, manager of Pauilo Mill, who had a store man in the mill in order to recover debts from him. Mr. Renton said he lost sugar every day. He persuaded me to get my things from Lahaina. Thus I came to Pauilo, where Mr. Lydgate was field manager. I had at that time taken up a homestead at Kalapaa, built a house and planted 2,600 coffee trees during my vacation. Everything grew very well in the fine black soil, but then there was no rain the whole summer and in addition a sharp wind and everything was ruined. In the meantime I merrily continued to cook sugar at Pauilo mill, until when I had been there 2 seasons, Mr. Von Mangerson came and wanted me at Kukuihaele. I again permitted myself to be beguiled and went. Then it came out that only one grade of sugar was to be produced, therefore the molasses had to be again and again cooked with the juice, which of course was much harder, because the mass did not grain(crystallize) so well.
And just at that time Mr. Von Mangerson got sick. Anyway, he had heart trouble which I had not known before, otherwise I would not have gone there. When the season was over, I went to Lihue reconnoitering and was engaged by Mr. Carl Wolters for Lihue Plantation. It was just planting time and I had to prepare seed cane with the school children.
When it was time to grind again, I had to boil sugar again for the season in Hanamaulu Mill while Mr. Christian was in the field on account of his asthma. After the season I returned into the fields as Field Boss in Lihue and had to substitute here and there when somebody else was missing--cane loading, cane cutting, and once even as mule overseer for nearly six months. That was hard work during rainy weather when the roads were slippery and the cane had to be hauled out of the valleys. Soon a mule Luna came again and so I could return to my old position.
But came again the time when they decided to grind day and night and for some months I had to boil sugar at night.
I hadn't smoked for about 6 months, but then I had to smoke again to keep my eyes open. It is always disagreeable to have to work at night and if one can avoid it, one should not do it. I was glad when the season was over and I could again work with people in the fields, although one had unpleasantness there too.
Off to California
After that, or during the First World War, there came a great upheaval. First Weber, the Manager, had to go, then followed Carls in Hanamaulu, and finally C.W.Grote(that was I). As manager came an American carpenter from Eleele, in Hanamaulu Charlie Christian, and in Lihue the Head Luna a friend of the new manager. After the notice I had three months free housing after a protest to the owners(one of the Cookes) in Honolulu. During the war I had to buy $400 worth of Liberty Bonds which I later in Oakland sold again when I bought the place at 2926 East 17th Street which cost me $7,000. This was at the time when I had to sell the Fruitvale Avenue place to the Western Pacific for enlargement of their freight tracks.
Before I left Lihue I had to sell all kinds of bottled drinks that I had received from people for services on health, because I couldn't take them along on the voyage on account of Prohibition.
After we left Lihue we stayed for a week in Honolulu at Mrs. Berndt's, who is now already in the other world. During our stay in Honolulu I visited my sister Sophie who, together with my sister Caroline, I had induced to come from Germany after my mother had died. They arrived while I was boiling sugar in Honokaa. Caroline stayed with us and Sophie stayed with my brother August who had a tailor business in Honokaa.
While I was in Honokaa, I was induced to join the Knights of Pythias Lodge, which was very popular at that time. My brother gained many customers thereby, but in spite of that he later made an assignment and I had to help him out with $300 and his creditors lost half.
The Trip to California
On this occasion I was reminded of the song "Die Reise Nach Jutland, Die Fallt Mir So Schwer". In Honolulu I had some interesting experiences; for instance I found at Mrs. Berndt's, among old books "The Riddle of the Universe", by Hackel. I also went swimming in Waikiki and then I also went to Waianae Mill, the hottest place on Oahue, which I reached by railroad, via Oahu Plantation and Ewa Plantation, etc.
Now I must continue on the journey to San Francisco. The first 3 days it was warm like in Honolulu, and then cold set in and then it got colder as we neared the harbor of San Francisco. Luckily I had bought an overcoat in Honolulu at McInerny's for $25. That came in handy. When we arrived in San Francisco our baggage was inspected and we were permitted to land.
The Huttmann family had just returned from Arizona where Frieda Huttmann had been sick but she got well when they were in Oakland, on East 8th Street, opposite 33rd Avenue, in a house which Hugo Huttmann had acquired before they moved to Arizona. There he had a homestead, a cattle ranch, which he sold later for a low price. It is usually very hot in the desert but when I was there in the beginning of April for 3 days it was biting cold and dusty and I was glad to return.
After returning from Arizona I tried to work in Mechano Therapy and Electric Therapeutics in Huttmann's house, but I couldn't do it because there were many inquisitive eyes around the corner. Prospective patients simply went back never to return, and so I had to give up working in that place.
At the Shipyard
Because I had determined to work and not to idle, one morning I dressed up in my work clothes and went looking for work along the Southern Pacific Railroad, came first to Hanlon's. Question "Any yard men here?" No answer, so I also did not answer.
Then I went further and came to Moore's Ship Yard, asked for work as Machinist Helper, because I had worked for 21/4 years in a machine factory in Germany, at the Dortmunder Union Eisenwerk Und Maschinen Werk. The I was asked, "Have you a ticket?" Answer: "No!" as I had been a long time away there. Then they gave me a job as Bolter up, that is, putting bolts in the steel plates, as they have to be close together in order to be riveted, it was quite a hard job.
After a while I was put on the job of cutting out the loose rivets to be re-riveted. Sometimes we had to keep down in the body of the ship compartments. These are for the purpose of putting water in on the high seas for ballast when empty. I say "we" because on most jobs there are two men, one holds the bolt and one screws it on.
Then I changed the job again to work with the Boilermakers, they had piece work and worked and went home. And I had to hammer the bolts out for them, which was very hard as I was alone and nobody to hold the bolt head.
Then came the strike and we all had to stop, leave the tools there and go home. I certainly went home, took a rest. At that time we were living at Frieda's, E. 8th Street. I bought then my first place in Oakland, 1023 Avenue.
Notes
#1 "Tannenheide" Sandy Fir forest(Note from Bob Wieking....In fact, the real name of the town where C.W. Grote came from is Tonnenheide! and the name has been changed by me during this last retype in each instance where it was found. I confirmed this fact during my last trip there in 1994. 1994 BW.
Notes on the Text
#2 "chewed bread rinds" Probably chewing gum had not been invented!
#3 "Jesus Meine Zuversicht" Jesus My Assurance
#4 "Der Union Dortmunder Hutte" The Dortmund Union Iron Works. "Hutte", "Eisenwerk", or "Werk" could be Shop or Works.
#5 "Captain Geerken" For more about him see Damien the Leper, by John Farrow, New York, Sheed and Ward, 1937.
#6 "Verein Vorwarts" Club Forward. Sounds like a kind of YMCA
#7 'Matanzas in Cuba" Captain Geerken had a business there
#8 Kassenbote" Literally, cashier's messenger.
#9 "Die Reise Nach Jutland, die Fallt Mir So Schwere"--The journey to Jutland, it is so hard for me!
Conrad Wilhelm Grote
The story of his life, written by him in German and translated by his youngest daughter, Henriette Amalie, and her husband, Paul O.E. Rutsch
I was born at Tonnenheide, district Rahden, County Lubbeke, governmental district Minden, on the 16th of April 1858, at night 1:30, under the constellation Aries, planet Mars, in a house located between sand hills and meadows, near a canal which contained fine fish. My father was a master shoemaker, but also had cows and land enough for the family to live on, and low land for vegetables, rye, wheat, oats, and barley. My father's mother sat most of the time at the spinning wheel and also took care of the children, and usually chewed bread rinds. Evenings we boys had to peel potatoes and when we fell asleep my father, who was working in his shop, threw his cap at us.
I have to mention here that my mother was the second wife and there were three boys by the first wife. My grandmother's name was Elizabeth and my mother's Caroline. Her parents had died early and therefore she had a meager existence in her youth. There were also two sisters, Marie, 51/2 years and Sophia 71/2 years old. They contracted scarlet fever and both died within a week and were buried on the same day. I was accused of having been very nasty to the two sisters. Once I had to pasture two cows and they ran away from me and went into the cabbage patch. My mother gave me a hefty whack on the head. That was the first and the last! I didn't need any more....
Now the story of the fish from the river flowing through our meadows. My father had caught some fine pikes which my grandmother volunteered to clean, and as pikes have very sharp teeth, my grandmother carelessly got her finger caught in the fish's mouth, so that a tailor who happened to be present had to liberate the finger with his scissors.
In those days tailors went from house to house and made men's and women's clothing for the inhabitants of the villages. There were not many inhabitants. Our house was some distance from the main village which lay on the main highway from Rahden to Minden. Minden is a fortress.
One day my parents went to visit their sister and brother-in-law Conrad Behring at Oppenwehe and at the same time they bought a house from a Mr. Wietelman, made a down payment of 800 hard coin dollars and soon we settled in the new home. A canal flowed past near the house and there were pastures for the cattle.
My grandmother soon got sick and died. The pastor came to the house, gave a sermon, and many people went to the funeral. A choir of school children stopped at every house on the road and sang a stanza of the hymn, Jesus Meine Zuversicht. At the church yard the bell was rung, another sermon, three shovels of earth, "From earth did you come, to earth must you return", the grave was filled, and home to a funeral repast.
I was baptized in the church at Rahden, and registered in the Church Book. Oppenwehe belongs to the church in Weden, to which four villages belong.
The first winter in the new house we had a severe storm which blew down the half-finished massive gable and would have blown off the whole roof if the straw had not held it.
My father now bought another meadow and some peat land in addition. That created debt and led to retrogression because interest had to be paid. My father's business did not flourish in this poor region, with houses far apart.
It took me an hour to go to school. When I was eight years old, a rich farmer came to the house and wanted me to go to school with his son, and as my parents had enough children they consented and I was satisfied with the arrangement. In the big farm house I found it good, but the school master was a drinker and therefore hard on the children. His brandy he kept in the corner cupboard and as we had to clean the school every Friday, we boys decided to throw his brandy out and then we pretended to be drunk. However, nothing came of it after that.
When the farmer's boy got into mischief I always had to lie for him, to get him out of it.
After 21/2 years the farmer got sick and died and I had to leave and was then one year at home.
I was about 51/2 years old when my right nostril was filled with a polyp(growth). They took me to Dr. Brill in Wagenfeld, who cut it out with scissors, without anesthetic. (It was not known yet).
When I was 11 years old came Mr. Carl Forster from Oppenwehe and wanted me. Then I was sent there, to my satisfaction, especially as I stayed in the same school, where for 2 years I was the best student in a two-room school.
Mrs. Forster was of the family Hesemeier, of No. 4 Oppenwehe. They had a daughter who went after me with a broom, of course playfully. When I was sent anywhere from the school, I got a piece of bread and butter; that was a pleasure!
Mrs. Hesemeier was a widow and her son Wilhelm managed the property, which was quite extensive.
Mrs. Forster, the daughter of Hesemeier, got sick during my last school year and after about six months illness and the use of very bitter medicine, succumbed to the illness and we had to bury her, and not long after that Mrs. Forster's sister(who was engaged) contacted the black pox connected with stubborn constipation to which she finally succumbed and Mr. Forster and I alone had to bury her. Nobody else would attend. The grave digger ran far away because of fear of infection; and then he got the pox, but survived. During all this sickness I had to take care of the animals on the farm--feed them, etc.
Then came the time for confirmation. Hesemeiers took me along in their wagon to the church in Wehdem. But on the way back home I already felt as though I was flying in the air and the next morning I was full of fever, ran away with the bed covers because I thought the house was on fire. Thus the pox! Although I had been 3 times vaccinated, I still had caught the small pox!
Then they put me on a wagon and brought me to my parents. There they painted me all over with coal tar and then I slowly got better. But that was not the end of it. My mother had already injured her knee in a fall while I was running away with the bed covers; then she caught the smallpox and when she recovered my father got it. By that time I was well enough so that I could take over slowing and planting while my father ran after me in a fever, to tell me how to do it. The crops all grew and we had a good harvest. That was my last year at home. I then went abroad to Dortmund and stayed on a big farm for about 5 months. There it was up at 4 o'clock in the morning, feed animals, eat milk soup with white bread, then out into the fields till noon, then work on a new house. Evenings somebody usually played the harmonica.
At the Union Dortmunder Hutte, A Factory Producing Raw Steel and Finished Machinery
When we started the journey two other men and I left the house at 5 o'clock in the evening, went via Rahden Diesenau to Minden, where we arrived at six o'clock in the morning, had our breakfast, and traveled by railroad via Bielefeld to Dortmund, the old capitol of the former kingdom of Westphalia, where Napoleon's brother was king for a year. Around Dortmund there are many coal mines, therefore the big iron works near by. The river Ruhr flows by. The old fortifications were razed in 1873, except for a small remnant. The nearest railroad station to Dortmund is called "The Red Earth". There still stands the Fehm Linden Tree and the cave where in olden days the people took the law into their own hands. They judged the transgressors and executed the judgment on the spot.
Off to Bremen
I left then to go to Bremen, found employment in a shoemaker business which work was not exactly unfamiliar to me and it helped my to get acquainted in the city of Bremen until I found better employment. In that I was successful with a certain Captain Geerken, for office and everything else. This was Captain Geerken, Bornstrasse 22. As shown by a letter written later, this street does not exist any more. Here now a new life began again. Office work, painting, gardening, serving, traveling interpreter to Bremerhaven to show ships that were for sale. On these occasions I came in contact with many foreign captains and also learned much about ships and harbor arrangements. Captain Geerken lived up to his 85th year. His death came as a result of catching cold at a funeral.
There I had the opportunity to broaden my knowledge, In that I was allowed to attend night school three times a week at "Verein Vorwarts". I studied again penmanship, arithmetic, German, English, and bookkeeping. I was allowed the time but had to pay myself; I also got time to learn book binding, but that was policy. I had then to bind all music, etc. without pay, for Miss Geerken's music instructor, Mr. Krause. I did it gladly, for the experience. Miss Geerken always practiced piano diligently when Mr. Geerken went to the stock exchange from 12 to 1:30. At 2 o'clock we had lunch and at 3:30 coffee. Then we had to work till 5 or 6 and at 9 o'clock. We had supper, but only tea and sandwiches of different kinds--cheese and so on.
In the morning at 6 o'clock we got up. My room was 2 stories up, under the wood and peat attic. That was a practical arrangement, namely, there was a chute where one threw wood and peat down to the kitchen. Coal was kept in a glass grape house. In the spring I had to fix up the flower beds and lawn. Sometimes a load of manure was ordered for the rose beds, namely moss roses. We also had June roses and rhododendrons, and a big Pergamott pear tree. This fruit is best suited for preserving. Some of them were preserved in Arrack and sent to Metanzas in Cuba.
Off to Hawaii
Once when I applied at the bank as "Kassenbote", 99 others had applied at the same time and I was not successful. But as now the time arrived when I had to earn more, Captain Geerken recommended me to Paul Isenberg, who lived in Bremen at the time, and who needed people for plantations on Hawaii. At that time I was 23 years old. A great number of people were hired in contract to go to the different plantations in Hawaii. These were transported on the steamer EHRENFELS from Bremen to Honolulu. In Lihue there arrived at one time a hundred in one lot, and I had to step in as supervisor. Among them were people who seemed never to have had a hoe in their hands. Of course there also were some journeymen in different trades among them.
But it also did not take long until the Germans had all kinds of conflict. In Koloa under Manager Kropp the whole bunch went to Honolulu to complain. Most of them were soon free of their 3-year contract and the manager was glad that he was rid of them. But in Lihue the Germans did pretty well under sensible treatment. I had at that time already learned sugar boiling, for which I had paid $100 to Charles Bishop, who later had the Lihue Store, and made out quite well, and then sold out to the Lihue Plantation. My son Willie H. Grote later was bookkeeper there(now manager in Kealia Store).
Before Mr. Bishop bought the store Mr. Scholz had it. The poor devil sold the store, bought an orange ranch in California, but then the price of the fruit fell so that he couldn't make anything and his daughter had to work in the orchard; and one knows that where there is no money nobody wants to marry the daughters. While he was in Lihue I had the honor of giving violin lessons to his governess, Fraulein Hahn(without payment). She later married Captain Ahlborn, but they didn't live long. I think they lived too high(that is, ate too richly). I now have to return to the plantation. When I arrived I was clerk in the mill and at the same time had to supervise the sugar boiling and take the full sacks into the storeroom, There I mostly had to sew up the bags and lift them because I had only an old Spaniard to help me but he couldn't lift a sack that was heavier that 100 or 125 pounds.
Once when a belt broke on the drying machine I broke my arm because the Chinese working at the drying machine were in too much of a hurry because when the mixer was empty they could go home. Captain Ahlborn treated the arm with pain killer. He thought it was not broken...But the pain would not let me sleep. Luckily Mr. Rohrig still had a few opium pills, which made me dream for 3 days. I then returned to the mill and wrote with the left hand like the Devil.
That went on for 6 months. After that I could after work go and relieve the sugar boiler while I was learning, for which I had to pay $100, but I did it in order to advance myself. That lasted sometimes up to 11 o'clock and at 4 o'clock I started in again and cooked until Mr. Bishop came at 5:30. The next year(or season) I was supervisor in the field and went at 5 o'clock after work in the mill; also ate my supper in the mill and at the same time boiled sugar, that is, substituted for the sugar boiler. I was only No. 2 sugar boiler but worked like a No. 1 and when sometimes a boiler went out of commission I had also to be boiler maker at night.
The Life in the Field
The first time I was in the sugar house and saw the mix-up of the ox carts, which were managed only with whips, tears came to my eyes. Such wildness I had never seen, but later I myself was oxen foreman for a half year because the old oxen foreman had gone away. We had to also do all the plowing with oxen and also the ditching. Then another overseer came on and took over the work. I returned again to the field as overseer. There were all kinds of work to be done, such as planting cane, irrigating, hoeing, and also stripping, which was given up later on. Now they set the cane afire before they cut it, to save time and to avoid hauling all the trash to the mill.
When it's planting time, young cane is cut in pieces about six inches long, placed in the furrows, covered with a little dirt, and then irrigated, then it grows. The fields are now usually given in contract, so much per acre.
My Work As Sugar Boiler
After I had been in Lihue 3 years, Mr. Carl Isenberg sent me to Pokaki, where Captain L'Orange owed the plantation $12,000, to look after the cane with 15 to 20 men. There it was that I married Ida Bomke.
After I had been 2 years in Pokaki, I got the position of sugar boiler in Honokaa through Mr. Dreier in Eleele, on recommendation of Mr. Carl Isenberg, where I successfully boiled sugar for 21/4 years. After that I was called back by Paul Isenberg to Hanamaulu. But as Mr. Christian, my predecessor, did not do well on a ranch in Molokai, the company gave him back the position and I was transferred to Lahaina Mill. There was much dust and rain storms, resulting in many colds in the family. During the vacation the whole family went to Honokaa, where my brother August had a tailoring business in a place I had bought for him while I was boiling sugar there.
When I had finished boiling the season's crop, I followed them there for my vacation. While I was there I met Jim Renton, manager of Pauilo Mill, who had a store man in the mill in order to recover debts from him. Mr. Renton said he lost sugar every day. He persuaded me to get my things from Lahaina. Thus I came to Pauilo, where Mr. Lydgate was field manager. I had at that time taken up a homestead at Kalapaa, built a house and planted 2,600 coffee trees during my vacation. Everything grew very well in the fine black soil, but then there was no rain the whole summer and in addition a sharp wind and everything was ruined. In the meantime I merrily continued to cook sugar at Pauilo mill, until when I had been there 2 seasons, Mr. Von Mangerson came and wanted me at Kukuihaele. I again permitted myself to be beguiled and went. Then it came out that only one grade of sugar was to be produced, therefore the molasses had to be again and again cooked with the juice, which of course was much harder, because the mass did not grain(crystallize) so well.
And just at that time Mr. Von Mangerson got sick. Anyway, he had heart trouble which I had not known before, otherwise I would not have gone there. When the season was over, I went to Lihue reconnoitering and was engaged by Mr. Carl Wolters for Lihue Plantation. It was just planting time and I had to prepare seed cane with the school children.
When it was time to grind again, I had to boil sugar again for the season in Hanamaulu Mill while Mr. Christian was in the field on account of his asthma. After the season I returned into the fields as Field Boss in Lihue and had to substitute here and there when somebody else was missing--cane loading, cane cutting, and once even as mule overseer for nearly six months. That was hard work during rainy weather when the roads were slippery and the cane had to be hauled out of the valleys. Soon a mule Luna came again and so I could return to my old position.
But came again the time when they decided to grind day and night and for some months I had to boil sugar at night.
I hadn't smoked for about 6 months, but then I had to smoke again to keep my eyes open. It is always disagreeable to have to work at night and if one can avoid it, one should not do it. I was glad when the season was over and I could again work with people in the fields, although one had unpleasantness there too.
Off to California
After that, or during the First World War, there came a great upheaval. First Weber, the Manager, had to go, then followed Carls in Hanamaulu, and finally C.W.Grote(that was I). As manager came an American carpenter from Eleele, in Hanamaulu Charlie Christian, and in Lihue the Head Luna a friend of the new manager. After the notice I had three months free housing after a protest to the owners(one of the Cookes) in Honolulu. During the war I had to buy $400 worth of Liberty Bonds which I later in Oakland sold again when I bought the place at 2926 East 17th Street which cost me $7,000. This was at the time when I had to sell the Fruitvale Avenue place to the Western Pacific for enlargement of their freight tracks.
Before I left Lihue I had to sell all kinds of bottled drinks that I had received from people for services on health, because I couldn't take them along on the voyage on account of Prohibition.
After we left Lihue we stayed for a week in Honolulu at Mrs. Berndt's, who is now already in the other world. During our stay in Honolulu I visited my sister Sophie who, together with my sister Caroline, I had induced to come from Germany after my mother had died. They arrived while I was boiling sugar in Honokaa. Caroline stayed with us and Sophie stayed with my brother August who had a tailor business in Honokaa.
While I was in Honokaa, I was induced to join the Knights of Pythias Lodge, which was very popular at that time. My brother gained many customers thereby, but in spite of that he later made an assignment and I had to help him out with $300 and his creditors lost half.
The Trip to California
On this occasion I was reminded of the song "Die Reise Nach Jutland, Die Fallt Mir So Schwer". In Honolulu I had some interesting experiences; for instance I found at Mrs. Berndt's, among old books "The Riddle of the Universe", by Hackel. I also went swimming in Waikiki and then I also went to Waianae Mill, the hottest place on Oahue, which I reached by railroad, via Oahu Plantation and Ewa Plantation, etc.
Now I must continue on the journey to San Francisco. The first 3 days it was warm like in Honolulu, and then cold set in and then it got colder as we neared the harbor of San Francisco. Luckily I had bought an overcoat in Honolulu at McInerny's for $25. That came in handy. When we arrived in San Francisco our baggage was inspected and we were permitted to land.
The Huttmann family had just returned from Arizona where Frieda Huttmann had been sick but she got well when they were in Oakland, on East 8th Street, opposite 33rd Avenue, in a house which Hugo Huttmann had acquired before they moved to Arizona. There he had a homestead, a cattle ranch, which he sold later for a low price. It is usually very hot in the desert but when I was there in the beginning of April for 3 days it was biting cold and dusty and I was glad to return.
After returning from Arizona I tried to work in Mechano Therapy and Electric Therapeutics in Huttmann's house, but I couldn't do it because there were many inquisitive eyes around the corner. Prospective patients simply went back never to return, and so I had to give up working in that place.
At the Shipyard
Because I had determined to work and not to idle, one morning I dressed up in my work clothes and went looking for work along the Southern Pacific Railroad, came first to Hanlon's. Question "Any yard men here?" No answer, so I also did not answer.
Then I went further and came to Moore's Ship Yard, asked for work as Machinist Helper, because I had worked for 21/4 years in a machine factory in Germany, at the Dortmunder Union Eisenwerk Und Maschinen Werk. The I was asked, "Have you a ticket?" Answer: "No!" as I had been a long time away there. Then they gave me a job as Bolter up, that is, putting bolts in the steel plates, as they have to be close together in order to be riveted, it was quite a hard job.
After a while I was put on the job of cutting out the loose rivets to be re-riveted. Sometimes we had to keep down in the body of the ship compartments. These are for the purpose of putting water in on the high seas for ballast when empty. I say "we" because on most jobs there are two men, one holds the bolt and one screws it on.
Then I changed the job again to work with the Boilermakers, they had piece work and worked and went home. And I had to hammer the bolts out for them, which was very hard as I was alone and nobody to hold the bolt head.
Then came the strike and we all had to stop, leave the tools there and go home. I certainly went home, took a rest. At that time we were living at Frieda's, E. 8th Street. I bought then my first place in Oakland, 1023 Avenue.
Notes
#1 "Tannenheide" Sandy Fir forest(Note from Bob Wieking....In fact, the real name of the town where C.W. Grote came from is Tonnenheide! and the name has been changed by me during this last retype in each instance where it was found. I confirmed this fact during my last trip there in 1994. 1994 BW.
Notes on the Text
#2 "chewed bread rinds" Probably chewing gum had not been invented!
#3 "Jesus Meine Zuversicht" Jesus My Assurance
#4 "Der Union Dortmunder Hutte" The Dortmund Union Iron Works. "Hutte", "Eisenwerk", or "Werk" could be Shop or Works.
#5 "Captain Geerken" For more about him see Damien the Leper, by John Farrow, New York, Sheed and Ward, 1937.
#6 "Verein Vorwarts" Club Forward. Sounds like a kind of YMCA
#7 'Matanzas in Cuba" Captain Geerken had a business there
#8 Kassenbote" Literally, cashier's messenger.
#9 "Die Reise Nach Jutland, die Fallt Mir So Schwere"--The journey to Jutland, it is so hard for me!
Yukon Gold Rush-Martin and Lucy Itjen
SECTION 3: My immigrant German connection to the Yukon Gold Rush-Martin and Lucy Itjen
I (Bob Wieking) am the grand nephew of Martin Itjen. Martin Itjen was a cousin of my grandmother, Christine (Gerdes) Wieking. And even though Martin and Lucy had no offspring, Martin had a large group of "Gerdes family" in the San Francisco Bay Area. Contrary to much of the writing and folk lore regarding Martin, he was actually born in Dorum, Germany. Dorum is north of Bremerhaven and very near to Sievern where my grandmother was born and raised. My father shared his stories of Martin Itjen. Martin's lone trip to the southern US was in 1935 during his infamous tour promoting Ford automobiles and to see Mae West. For one reason or another, only my father(of his siblings) is found in photographs that include Martin and many of his relatives in the Oakland, California Bay Area. Evidently either my father was "recruited" to entertain this guest from the Northland or he was genuinely interested in Martin and his romantic lifetime spent in Skagway, Alaska. My father told me that he rode with Martin, in his Skagway Streetcar, down the streets of San Francisco. This "parade" was to act as a promotional event to advertise Martin's appearance at the Orpheum Theatre. In a large collection of newspaper articles and adverts, Martin was promoted as quite a stand-up comedian and story teller.
Documents exist in my collection that indicate that Martin actually landed in Charleston, South Carolina. My father and I have often puzzled as to why Martin chose South Carolina as his point of immigration. I only recently learned about a possible reason for his choice during a recent visit of mine to Sievern and other points in the north of Germany. It happens that a citizen of Sievern, General John Wagener left Sievern to arrive in the USA and join the Civil War, fighting for the South! Wagener's subsequent history indicates that he became quite a respected citizen of South Carolina, including serving as an "Immigration Coordinator" . It is my hunch that Wagener was instrumental in arranging for Martin Itjen to exit Germany and arrive in South Carolina!
The following is an article written by Frank Norris, of Skagway, Alaska. It was published in the 1986 Skagway Alaskan. The article describes Martin and Lucy's career in the Northland.
"The year was 1935 and the golden days of Hollywood were at their height. Movie stars such as Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Bette Davis, and Mae West sat atop Hollywood's throne. People from all over the world flocked to Southern California's movie colony that year, but one of Hollywood's most well-loved visitors hailed from the far-off gold rush town of Skagway, Alaska. That visitor was once a gold miner himself, but years before he had tossed aside his gold pan in favor of other pursuits.
Martin Itjen was his name, and he warrants our attention today because he, and others like him, have been sorely neglected in the tell of Alaska's history. Itjen was a tour guide, the best and most skilled of that breed. When he rode into Hollywood, he was invited to meet Mae West and to tell the world about the custom-made bus he called the Skagway Street Car. But to a decade or more of Alaskan tourists, he was already well known. He was a warm, fun-loving and humble man, but despite his "aw-schucks" stile of humility, he was a pioneer, a harbinger of a new Alaska. It was Martin Itjen, and those that followed his example, who ushered in today's multi-million dollar Alaska visitor industry....Itjen was and unlikely candidate for fame. He was born in Sievern, Germany, a small village in Germany, north of Bremerhaven, in 1870. He emigrated from Germany to South Carolina in 1890 and then settled in Jacksonville, Florida to set up and operate a grocery store. In 1898 he decided to follow the tracks of perhaps 100,000 others that year---north to the Klondike gold fields. He was engaged at the time, and the idea, as he saw it, was to earn a sizeable nest-egg before returning home. But like the majority of the Klondike tide, he never made it to Dawson; instead, he lingered in Skagway awhile, then joined the Atlin stampede.(Atlin was in British Columbia).
He failed in any attempts he made to get rich quick, but the longer he remained in the north country, the more he loved it. He therefore journeyed to Chicago, where he and Lucy were married, and soon afterwards they returned to Skagway. He worked for the railroad for awhile, but when news broke of the Alsek-Kluane gold strikes, he took Lucy north to seek fortune again. ....Over the years, Itjen engaged in a host of jobs, most of which had nothing to do with tourism. One of his jobs was operating an undertaking parlor, but as he liked to tell his street car patrons, "it was such a healthful place that I could not keep busy at this work." In addition, he was a boarding house keeper, a boat builder, the local Ford dealer, the wood and coal deliverer, and the operator of a small sawmill. He owned a number of homes in town and served as a landlord. But despite his many involvements, he lived frugally. The Itjen home, for instance, was fairly modest in size. It was originally located at the north end of the White Pass wharf, the only dock in Skagway which remained active after the gold rush. The house was moved from the wharf to town after the Army took over the dock in the 1`940's, and it has recently been moved to 1st and Broadway for restoration by the National Park Service.
Tourists who rode Itjen's streetcar saw the best of Skagway. For 50 cents--25 cents each way, it was advertised-- they got a two-hour tour that featured the town's finest points of interest. The most common questions centered around the Klondike gold rush and the many historical buildings in town. Itjen delighted in describing the old Arctic Brotherhood Hall, the railroad depot, the courthouse and other reminders of the Klondike stampede. But even more, people wanted to know about Soapy Smith, so in response he deluged his customers with stories surrounding the bad man's rise and fall.
In reality Smith was in Skagway for a very short time. Soapy arrived in October, 1897, and he was shot to death nine months later on one of Skagway's wharves. But Itjen glorified Smith before the eyes of the visiting public. He drove his streetcar to the house where Smith's rival, Frank Reid, had lived, and he also took them to the spot where Reid and Smith shot it out. In 1935, Itjen restored Soapy's tavern, converted it into a museum and incorporated it into his tour. The museum had a mannequin of Soapy Smith who held a glass of beer in one hand and a revolver in the other. As guests came through the front door, the mannequin raised his glass in salute before shooting "Dangerous Dan McGrew" who was sitting at a nearby card table. He also restored the old gold-rush cemetery at the north end of town, where both Smith and Reid are buried.
If the Skagway visitors had not yet heard enough about Smith during the two-hour tour on Itjen's streetcars, they continued the tour at the Pullen House, perhaps the best tourist hotel in Alaska at the time. Its owner, Mr. Pullen, loved to tell dramatic stories of the gold rush, and one of her favorites revolved around her supposedly eyewitness account of the Reid Smith shootout. Mrs. Pullen was spellbinder, and never let the truth interfere with a good story. Locals were not allowed to sit in on her many presentations to the assembled tourists. In her own museum were displayed a revolver, a roulette wheel and a hat that had once belonged to the bad man.
Aside from historical aspects, Itjen's tour ran the gamut from the beautiful and educational to the odd and curious. It included stops at several of Skagway's flower gardens--Skagway at the time was the Flower City of Alaska --and tourists were able to view the lovely 300-foot Reid's Falls in back of the cemetery. Here Itjen gave a gold-panning demonstration, using a pea-sized nugget that he had mined in Atlin to show how the process worked.
The tour included some more bizarre attractions. Near the dock was a rock painted black and white with the rather far fetched name of "Soapy Smith's skull." Near the railroad yards there was a small pond with trout so tame that tourists could feed them small bits of hamburger. By the cemetery was a large chunk of granite that Itjen painted gold. He painted a label on it, "The largest nugget in the world. To supposedly prevent his massive "nugget" from being stolen, Itjen imbedded a chain into the rock and then hooked the other end onto a nearby sapling. Customers seemed to appreciate his sense of humor.
Itjen was successful because Skagway was not only a major stopping point of the principal tours of Southeast Alaska, but a major transfer point for tourist trips throughout Alaska. After 1920 the Canadian Pacific and International ships stayed in port in Skagway, while passengers headed inland to Lake Bennett, Whitehorse, or Atlin. Of those who took advantage of the extended port stay, Itjen had plenty of customers for his tours.
He further entertained his customers by writing poetry. His verse was witty and homespun; author Archie Satterfield has described him as an "intentionally terrible poet" whose poems were so bad they were good. As an example, Itjen placed the following advertisement for his " Days of '98 Tour" in the 1919 Skagway Alaskan.”
Martin with his streetcar for a fifty cent fare
Will show you when and show you where
The High Spots were, for he was there.
He'll start at nine and takes till noon
To show you Skagway in the Klondike boom.
If you miss this, you have missed it all
And have not seen Alaska at all.
Take a bite if you can't take it all.
The more years he gave his tours and wrote his poetry, the better-known Itjen became. He had a natural flair for publicity and was written up in several publications.
But his most successful advertising coup was his famed Hollywood trip in late February, 1935. He went out to dinner with Mae West, and pictures of the two of them were printed in more than two hundred newspapers. The two made an excellent publicity shot as they posed in front of his streetcar--she the star of stage and screen, he the eccentric, awe-struck Alaskan, sporting his oversized moustache and gold nugget chains.
Itjen wrote his own pamphlet in 1938 entitled, "The Story of the Skagway, Alaska, Street-car", which he sold to tourists. It prominently featured pictures of himself with Mae West standing next to the streetcar, and the words coming out of her mouth are, "come up and see me sometime." Itjen's pamphlet also contains a poem he wrote describing what Mae West told him:
She said to me, "Now Martin,
If it wasn't for your wife
I'd take you and your moustache
For the rest of your sweet life.
But I'm different from other movie gals
For I took a solemn vow
That I would never come between
A husband and his frau."
Itjen continued running his streetcar and museum through the summer of 1941. Pearl Harbor and the onset of World War II forced him to shut down his tourist operations, and just a year later, on December 3, 1942, Itjen died. He was 72.
We have included two of Martin Itjen's more nefarious poems for posterity:
Martin's Glimpse of the Highlights
Martin Itjen
"Come up and see me sometime."
This was the invitation.
I put my street car on the boat
And sailed for the Movie Station.
I will tell the details:
In Ninety-eight one day,
I heard of a great gold rush
Three thousand miles away.
I packed my pack for Skagway,
Where I arrived in June,
Worked at everything worth while
And mined for many a moon.
After my ground got worked out,
I led a different life;
I started to work the tourists
And took unto me a wife.
After many years of labor
I thought I needed a rest,
So I made a man like Soapy Smith
And we headed for the Southwest.
When we got to Seattle
We took in the picture show,
And renewed our old acquaintance
With many a sourdough.
Many of these old-timers
Live near a little town.
they have bought a farm, got married,
And raised kids to make a town.
One old guy advised me,
If I was going to make a trip,
To have my longhorn moustache
Shaved off'n my upper lip.
He said: "If you go to Hollywood
and want to see Mae West,
You should patronize a manicurist
And try to look your best."
I told him I had worn this moustache,
Almost all my life;
And if I had it shaved off
I'd surely lose my wife.
If it is ever taken off
It will be done by force,
For the loss of it will surely
Cause proceedings for divorce.
So I stepped upon the starter,
Sped blithely on my way,
To take in the movie studio
And make a date with Mae.
When I hit the Movietown
Where the lights were all aglow,
I got so flusterated
I didn't know where to go.
I found a place to park my car
And put up for the night;
then browsed around until I found
A place to eat a bite.
Next day I got my bearings,
So I'd know which way to go;
Then bought some chalk to mark the trail
to the Movie Studio.
A big policeman bawled me out,
For marking with the chalk;
But he listened with amusement,
when I began to talk.
I said I'm a Cheechako here
And I know darned blame well
I must use this here chalk to find
My walk back to the hotel.
So, I mushed out to the movie lot
Dressed up in my best,
I tipped a page to take my card
In to my star, Mae West,
I dated her up that very night,
And we went out and dined
In the swellest night-club
A guy could wish to find.
After dinner was over,
We paid a formal call,
On a bunch of Movie notables,
At a celebrated ball.
At this affair we cut some ice,
And cut some champagne capers;
Next day the consequences were,
Our pictures in the papers.
I camped down there a couple months.
And don't regret my stay;
I took in everything worth while,
And made a friend of Mae.
She said to me, "Now Martin,
If it wasn't for your wife
I'd take you and your moustache
For the rest of your sweet life."
"But I'm different from other movie gals
For I took a solemn vow
that I would never come between
A husband and his Frau."
So I started back home to Skagway;
And when I got off the boat,
I found to my amusement
That I was darn near broke.
Then I wandered on up home
And was welcomed by the cat;
And as the door was open
I just throwed in my hat.
I had a great vacation,
I saw the movie side of life;
But, it can't compare with Skagway,
My friends, my home and wife.
Henry Itjen, Martin’s Brother
Henry Itjen, Martin's brother, spent much of a year traveling from Germany to visit with Martin and his wife, Lucy, in Skagway, Alaska. The following three letters were written by Henry Itjen to his Aunt and Uncle who were Hanke Gerdes and Sophie(Itjen) Gerdes, in Sievern, Germany. These letters were located in Germany and mailed to Bob Wieking, in Ellensburg, Washington, USA. The letters then had to be translated into English.
Skagway, Alaska
March 15, 1908
Dear Uncle and Aunt,
I received your recent letter with such pleasure, and I am happy to see that you are all healthy and well, which thank God, we are too. Actually, I am not really all that well, but I should not complain, and even though I am not that strong, I can do my work, because I do eat well, and I live a sedate life. I live quite comfortably. Martin and his wife are very good to me. They do what they can, and I try to do the same for them. She is doing the cooking and maintains the household. She, herself, has several small properties which she leases, and so their life is quite comfortable; not working too hard, even making a little money and getting ahead. She pleaded with him(Martin) to give it up(digging for gold) when he came to visit here during Christmas. He was with us for about six weeks, but did not want to give it up. I tried to speak with him about it too, that he should give it up. But, finally he relented, and promised he would sell it in the fall. Digging for gold really takes hold of some people. It seems they are unable to give it up thinking they get richer and richer, because some days they find $50.00. Many people have found "thousands" and some have found even millions. We have lost more than we have gained. In a short time period I, myself, have lost $2,000 plus a lot of time, as well as two toes. But I thank our Lord that it is finally all over. I have given all my belongings to Martin without charge. He is living happy and content with his darling wife, and I hope he keeps his promise.
We had a mild winter here, little frost really. I just received a postcard from "Christine"(Christine is a cousin of Martin and Henry. She is the grandmother of Bob Wieking). They are all happy. I would like to thank you for the nice photos that Emma and Bertha have sent me.(They are cousins of Martin and Henry back in Sievern). I am busy every day;, and I write in the evening and that tires me. I have to close now and hope this letter finds you I good health. Regards from Martin and his wife and especially from me, your loving nephew.
Henry Itjen
Skagway, Alaska
"Please write again soon.
April 7, 1908
Dear Aunt,
Received your dear letter with great joy. I am here in Skagway now. It's been a hard journey. It took me 23 days. It was cold and the snow was deep, too deep for the horses, and so I had to walk and froze my right foot. I was on the road for an entire month, and the doctor had to amputate two toes. And even though I am in great pain I thank God that it was not worse. But it is bad.
So, dear aunt, I have enough of it and shall stay here this summer. I am in my own home. I can't walk yet. There is a German that lives with me that does little things for me, such as cook and bring in the firewood.
As soon as I am better I can return to my old workplace. I am well known here and have many friends that are very helpful. Martin and his wife remained there. They want to try it for another year. Both were crying when I left them. They don't know yet about my foot.
I have not much news this time. Say hello to your husband, your children, and our mother.
Your loving nephew
Henry Itjen
Write soon
Nov 4, 1908
Dear Uncle and Aunt,
Received your letter with great joy. I have been very busy this past summer, but right now there is not much to do here. The days are shorter here than in Germany. Daylight from 9-3, but in summer it's daylight almost all day long.
Thank God I am able to walk again, but I am still coughing, but I don't feel bad. I am able to do my work as well as I used to. It is, after all, not as difficult as reading and arithmetic.
Martin's wife has come out here, and we all love together now. Anyway, she is tired now of that lonely life and plans to remain in town for a while. She has a good home here, and even owns a small hotel and many small properties that she leases, and is thus able to make a good living here. Both of them send their regards. Martin is really heavily involved in digging. He takes on more and more, and has a lot of claims. Dear aunt, you ask if there are no women here? Yes, there are some, not many , but most of them are married. There are a lot of unmarred men here.
This location is a small town near the water with many ships landing here. All around us is nothing but mining industry, and lots of high, snow-covered mountains covered the whole year. They leave here by train to the end, and from there by sled over the mountains up to the North Pole, almost, or at least as far as the good Lord lets them get. Dear Aunt, it must be sad for you when all of your children leave the moment they become adults. I hope, at least one or two stay home, but that's how it goes. Everybody wants to go to America.
It is really not so bad here, but in the big cities you find much misery and hunger, and also many poor Germans. It is often their own fault, but not always.
Dear Uncle and Aunt, God has really blessed you with nine(9) children, beautiful and healthy children, and all alive. I send a small gift for all of you. Buy yourself something for Christmas. I thank Emma for the photo she sends me.
Many loving greetings from your Henry, and a happy New Year and merry Christmas to you all.
Henry
I (Bob Wieking) am the grand nephew of Martin Itjen. Martin Itjen was a cousin of my grandmother, Christine (Gerdes) Wieking. And even though Martin and Lucy had no offspring, Martin had a large group of "Gerdes family" in the San Francisco Bay Area. Contrary to much of the writing and folk lore regarding Martin, he was actually born in Dorum, Germany. Dorum is north of Bremerhaven and very near to Sievern where my grandmother was born and raised. My father shared his stories of Martin Itjen. Martin's lone trip to the southern US was in 1935 during his infamous tour promoting Ford automobiles and to see Mae West. For one reason or another, only my father(of his siblings) is found in photographs that include Martin and many of his relatives in the Oakland, California Bay Area. Evidently either my father was "recruited" to entertain this guest from the Northland or he was genuinely interested in Martin and his romantic lifetime spent in Skagway, Alaska. My father told me that he rode with Martin, in his Skagway Streetcar, down the streets of San Francisco. This "parade" was to act as a promotional event to advertise Martin's appearance at the Orpheum Theatre. In a large collection of newspaper articles and adverts, Martin was promoted as quite a stand-up comedian and story teller.
Documents exist in my collection that indicate that Martin actually landed in Charleston, South Carolina. My father and I have often puzzled as to why Martin chose South Carolina as his point of immigration. I only recently learned about a possible reason for his choice during a recent visit of mine to Sievern and other points in the north of Germany. It happens that a citizen of Sievern, General John Wagener left Sievern to arrive in the USA and join the Civil War, fighting for the South! Wagener's subsequent history indicates that he became quite a respected citizen of South Carolina, including serving as an "Immigration Coordinator" . It is my hunch that Wagener was instrumental in arranging for Martin Itjen to exit Germany and arrive in South Carolina!
The following is an article written by Frank Norris, of Skagway, Alaska. It was published in the 1986 Skagway Alaskan. The article describes Martin and Lucy's career in the Northland.
"The year was 1935 and the golden days of Hollywood were at their height. Movie stars such as Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Bette Davis, and Mae West sat atop Hollywood's throne. People from all over the world flocked to Southern California's movie colony that year, but one of Hollywood's most well-loved visitors hailed from the far-off gold rush town of Skagway, Alaska. That visitor was once a gold miner himself, but years before he had tossed aside his gold pan in favor of other pursuits.
Martin Itjen was his name, and he warrants our attention today because he, and others like him, have been sorely neglected in the tell of Alaska's history. Itjen was a tour guide, the best and most skilled of that breed. When he rode into Hollywood, he was invited to meet Mae West and to tell the world about the custom-made bus he called the Skagway Street Car. But to a decade or more of Alaskan tourists, he was already well known. He was a warm, fun-loving and humble man, but despite his "aw-schucks" stile of humility, he was a pioneer, a harbinger of a new Alaska. It was Martin Itjen, and those that followed his example, who ushered in today's multi-million dollar Alaska visitor industry....Itjen was and unlikely candidate for fame. He was born in Sievern, Germany, a small village in Germany, north of Bremerhaven, in 1870. He emigrated from Germany to South Carolina in 1890 and then settled in Jacksonville, Florida to set up and operate a grocery store. In 1898 he decided to follow the tracks of perhaps 100,000 others that year---north to the Klondike gold fields. He was engaged at the time, and the idea, as he saw it, was to earn a sizeable nest-egg before returning home. But like the majority of the Klondike tide, he never made it to Dawson; instead, he lingered in Skagway awhile, then joined the Atlin stampede.(Atlin was in British Columbia).
He failed in any attempts he made to get rich quick, but the longer he remained in the north country, the more he loved it. He therefore journeyed to Chicago, where he and Lucy were married, and soon afterwards they returned to Skagway. He worked for the railroad for awhile, but when news broke of the Alsek-Kluane gold strikes, he took Lucy north to seek fortune again. ....Over the years, Itjen engaged in a host of jobs, most of which had nothing to do with tourism. One of his jobs was operating an undertaking parlor, but as he liked to tell his street car patrons, "it was such a healthful place that I could not keep busy at this work." In addition, he was a boarding house keeper, a boat builder, the local Ford dealer, the wood and coal deliverer, and the operator of a small sawmill. He owned a number of homes in town and served as a landlord. But despite his many involvements, he lived frugally. The Itjen home, for instance, was fairly modest in size. It was originally located at the north end of the White Pass wharf, the only dock in Skagway which remained active after the gold rush. The house was moved from the wharf to town after the Army took over the dock in the 1`940's, and it has recently been moved to 1st and Broadway for restoration by the National Park Service.
Tourists who rode Itjen's streetcar saw the best of Skagway. For 50 cents--25 cents each way, it was advertised-- they got a two-hour tour that featured the town's finest points of interest. The most common questions centered around the Klondike gold rush and the many historical buildings in town. Itjen delighted in describing the old Arctic Brotherhood Hall, the railroad depot, the courthouse and other reminders of the Klondike stampede. But even more, people wanted to know about Soapy Smith, so in response he deluged his customers with stories surrounding the bad man's rise and fall.
In reality Smith was in Skagway for a very short time. Soapy arrived in October, 1897, and he was shot to death nine months later on one of Skagway's wharves. But Itjen glorified Smith before the eyes of the visiting public. He drove his streetcar to the house where Smith's rival, Frank Reid, had lived, and he also took them to the spot where Reid and Smith shot it out. In 1935, Itjen restored Soapy's tavern, converted it into a museum and incorporated it into his tour. The museum had a mannequin of Soapy Smith who held a glass of beer in one hand and a revolver in the other. As guests came through the front door, the mannequin raised his glass in salute before shooting "Dangerous Dan McGrew" who was sitting at a nearby card table. He also restored the old gold-rush cemetery at the north end of town, where both Smith and Reid are buried.
If the Skagway visitors had not yet heard enough about Smith during the two-hour tour on Itjen's streetcars, they continued the tour at the Pullen House, perhaps the best tourist hotel in Alaska at the time. Its owner, Mr. Pullen, loved to tell dramatic stories of the gold rush, and one of her favorites revolved around her supposedly eyewitness account of the Reid Smith shootout. Mrs. Pullen was spellbinder, and never let the truth interfere with a good story. Locals were not allowed to sit in on her many presentations to the assembled tourists. In her own museum were displayed a revolver, a roulette wheel and a hat that had once belonged to the bad man.
Aside from historical aspects, Itjen's tour ran the gamut from the beautiful and educational to the odd and curious. It included stops at several of Skagway's flower gardens--Skagway at the time was the Flower City of Alaska --and tourists were able to view the lovely 300-foot Reid's Falls in back of the cemetery. Here Itjen gave a gold-panning demonstration, using a pea-sized nugget that he had mined in Atlin to show how the process worked.
The tour included some more bizarre attractions. Near the dock was a rock painted black and white with the rather far fetched name of "Soapy Smith's skull." Near the railroad yards there was a small pond with trout so tame that tourists could feed them small bits of hamburger. By the cemetery was a large chunk of granite that Itjen painted gold. He painted a label on it, "The largest nugget in the world. To supposedly prevent his massive "nugget" from being stolen, Itjen imbedded a chain into the rock and then hooked the other end onto a nearby sapling. Customers seemed to appreciate his sense of humor.
Itjen was successful because Skagway was not only a major stopping point of the principal tours of Southeast Alaska, but a major transfer point for tourist trips throughout Alaska. After 1920 the Canadian Pacific and International ships stayed in port in Skagway, while passengers headed inland to Lake Bennett, Whitehorse, or Atlin. Of those who took advantage of the extended port stay, Itjen had plenty of customers for his tours.
He further entertained his customers by writing poetry. His verse was witty and homespun; author Archie Satterfield has described him as an "intentionally terrible poet" whose poems were so bad they were good. As an example, Itjen placed the following advertisement for his " Days of '98 Tour" in the 1919 Skagway Alaskan.”
Martin with his streetcar for a fifty cent fare
Will show you when and show you where
The High Spots were, for he was there.
He'll start at nine and takes till noon
To show you Skagway in the Klondike boom.
If you miss this, you have missed it all
And have not seen Alaska at all.
Take a bite if you can't take it all.
The more years he gave his tours and wrote his poetry, the better-known Itjen became. He had a natural flair for publicity and was written up in several publications.
But his most successful advertising coup was his famed Hollywood trip in late February, 1935. He went out to dinner with Mae West, and pictures of the two of them were printed in more than two hundred newspapers. The two made an excellent publicity shot as they posed in front of his streetcar--she the star of stage and screen, he the eccentric, awe-struck Alaskan, sporting his oversized moustache and gold nugget chains.
Itjen wrote his own pamphlet in 1938 entitled, "The Story of the Skagway, Alaska, Street-car", which he sold to tourists. It prominently featured pictures of himself with Mae West standing next to the streetcar, and the words coming out of her mouth are, "come up and see me sometime." Itjen's pamphlet also contains a poem he wrote describing what Mae West told him:
She said to me, "Now Martin,
If it wasn't for your wife
I'd take you and your moustache
For the rest of your sweet life.
But I'm different from other movie gals
For I took a solemn vow
That I would never come between
A husband and his frau."
Itjen continued running his streetcar and museum through the summer of 1941. Pearl Harbor and the onset of World War II forced him to shut down his tourist operations, and just a year later, on December 3, 1942, Itjen died. He was 72.
We have included two of Martin Itjen's more nefarious poems for posterity:
Martin's Glimpse of the Highlights
Martin Itjen
"Come up and see me sometime."
This was the invitation.
I put my street car on the boat
And sailed for the Movie Station.
I will tell the details:
In Ninety-eight one day,
I heard of a great gold rush
Three thousand miles away.
I packed my pack for Skagway,
Where I arrived in June,
Worked at everything worth while
And mined for many a moon.
After my ground got worked out,
I led a different life;
I started to work the tourists
And took unto me a wife.
After many years of labor
I thought I needed a rest,
So I made a man like Soapy Smith
And we headed for the Southwest.
When we got to Seattle
We took in the picture show,
And renewed our old acquaintance
With many a sourdough.
Many of these old-timers
Live near a little town.
they have bought a farm, got married,
And raised kids to make a town.
One old guy advised me,
If I was going to make a trip,
To have my longhorn moustache
Shaved off'n my upper lip.
He said: "If you go to Hollywood
and want to see Mae West,
You should patronize a manicurist
And try to look your best."
I told him I had worn this moustache,
Almost all my life;
And if I had it shaved off
I'd surely lose my wife.
If it is ever taken off
It will be done by force,
For the loss of it will surely
Cause proceedings for divorce.
So I stepped upon the starter,
Sped blithely on my way,
To take in the movie studio
And make a date with Mae.
When I hit the Movietown
Where the lights were all aglow,
I got so flusterated
I didn't know where to go.
I found a place to park my car
And put up for the night;
then browsed around until I found
A place to eat a bite.
Next day I got my bearings,
So I'd know which way to go;
Then bought some chalk to mark the trail
to the Movie Studio.
A big policeman bawled me out,
For marking with the chalk;
But he listened with amusement,
when I began to talk.
I said I'm a Cheechako here
And I know darned blame well
I must use this here chalk to find
My walk back to the hotel.
So, I mushed out to the movie lot
Dressed up in my best,
I tipped a page to take my card
In to my star, Mae West,
I dated her up that very night,
And we went out and dined
In the swellest night-club
A guy could wish to find.
After dinner was over,
We paid a formal call,
On a bunch of Movie notables,
At a celebrated ball.
At this affair we cut some ice,
And cut some champagne capers;
Next day the consequences were,
Our pictures in the papers.
I camped down there a couple months.
And don't regret my stay;
I took in everything worth while,
And made a friend of Mae.
She said to me, "Now Martin,
If it wasn't for your wife
I'd take you and your moustache
For the rest of your sweet life."
"But I'm different from other movie gals
For I took a solemn vow
that I would never come between
A husband and his Frau."
So I started back home to Skagway;
And when I got off the boat,
I found to my amusement
That I was darn near broke.
Then I wandered on up home
And was welcomed by the cat;
And as the door was open
I just throwed in my hat.
I had a great vacation,
I saw the movie side of life;
But, it can't compare with Skagway,
My friends, my home and wife.
Henry Itjen, Martin’s Brother
Henry Itjen, Martin's brother, spent much of a year traveling from Germany to visit with Martin and his wife, Lucy, in Skagway, Alaska. The following three letters were written by Henry Itjen to his Aunt and Uncle who were Hanke Gerdes and Sophie(Itjen) Gerdes, in Sievern, Germany. These letters were located in Germany and mailed to Bob Wieking, in Ellensburg, Washington, USA. The letters then had to be translated into English.
Skagway, Alaska
March 15, 1908
Dear Uncle and Aunt,
I received your recent letter with such pleasure, and I am happy to see that you are all healthy and well, which thank God, we are too. Actually, I am not really all that well, but I should not complain, and even though I am not that strong, I can do my work, because I do eat well, and I live a sedate life. I live quite comfortably. Martin and his wife are very good to me. They do what they can, and I try to do the same for them. She is doing the cooking and maintains the household. She, herself, has several small properties which she leases, and so their life is quite comfortable; not working too hard, even making a little money and getting ahead. She pleaded with him(Martin) to give it up(digging for gold) when he came to visit here during Christmas. He was with us for about six weeks, but did not want to give it up. I tried to speak with him about it too, that he should give it up. But, finally he relented, and promised he would sell it in the fall. Digging for gold really takes hold of some people. It seems they are unable to give it up thinking they get richer and richer, because some days they find $50.00. Many people have found "thousands" and some have found even millions. We have lost more than we have gained. In a short time period I, myself, have lost $2,000 plus a lot of time, as well as two toes. But I thank our Lord that it is finally all over. I have given all my belongings to Martin without charge. He is living happy and content with his darling wife, and I hope he keeps his promise.
We had a mild winter here, little frost really. I just received a postcard from "Christine"(Christine is a cousin of Martin and Henry. She is the grandmother of Bob Wieking). They are all happy. I would like to thank you for the nice photos that Emma and Bertha have sent me.(They are cousins of Martin and Henry back in Sievern). I am busy every day;, and I write in the evening and that tires me. I have to close now and hope this letter finds you I good health. Regards from Martin and his wife and especially from me, your loving nephew.
Henry Itjen
Skagway, Alaska
"Please write again soon.
April 7, 1908
Dear Aunt,
Received your dear letter with great joy. I am here in Skagway now. It's been a hard journey. It took me 23 days. It was cold and the snow was deep, too deep for the horses, and so I had to walk and froze my right foot. I was on the road for an entire month, and the doctor had to amputate two toes. And even though I am in great pain I thank God that it was not worse. But it is bad.
So, dear aunt, I have enough of it and shall stay here this summer. I am in my own home. I can't walk yet. There is a German that lives with me that does little things for me, such as cook and bring in the firewood.
As soon as I am better I can return to my old workplace. I am well known here and have many friends that are very helpful. Martin and his wife remained there. They want to try it for another year. Both were crying when I left them. They don't know yet about my foot.
I have not much news this time. Say hello to your husband, your children, and our mother.
Your loving nephew
Henry Itjen
Write soon
Nov 4, 1908
Dear Uncle and Aunt,
Received your letter with great joy. I have been very busy this past summer, but right now there is not much to do here. The days are shorter here than in Germany. Daylight from 9-3, but in summer it's daylight almost all day long.
Thank God I am able to walk again, but I am still coughing, but I don't feel bad. I am able to do my work as well as I used to. It is, after all, not as difficult as reading and arithmetic.
Martin's wife has come out here, and we all love together now. Anyway, she is tired now of that lonely life and plans to remain in town for a while. She has a good home here, and even owns a small hotel and many small properties that she leases, and is thus able to make a good living here. Both of them send their regards. Martin is really heavily involved in digging. He takes on more and more, and has a lot of claims. Dear aunt, you ask if there are no women here? Yes, there are some, not many , but most of them are married. There are a lot of unmarred men here.
This location is a small town near the water with many ships landing here. All around us is nothing but mining industry, and lots of high, snow-covered mountains covered the whole year. They leave here by train to the end, and from there by sled over the mountains up to the North Pole, almost, or at least as far as the good Lord lets them get. Dear Aunt, it must be sad for you when all of your children leave the moment they become adults. I hope, at least one or two stay home, but that's how it goes. Everybody wants to go to America.
It is really not so bad here, but in the big cities you find much misery and hunger, and also many poor Germans. It is often their own fault, but not always.
Dear Uncle and Aunt, God has really blessed you with nine(9) children, beautiful and healthy children, and all alive. I send a small gift for all of you. Buy yourself something for Christmas. I thank Emma for the photo she sends me.
Many loving greetings from your Henry, and a happy New Year and merry Christmas to you all.
Henry
German Immigrant Community in Oakland, CA
SECTION 4: The German immigrant community
“The earliest recorded inhabitants were the Huchiun tribe, belonging to a linguistic grouping later called the Ohlone (a Miwok word meaning "western people"). In Oakland, they were heavily concentrated around Lake Merritt and Temescal Creek, a stream which enters the San Francisco Bay at Emeryville. Oakland, along with the rest of California, was claimed for the Spanish king by explorers from New Spain in 1772. In the early 19th century, the area which later became Oakland (along with most of the East Bay), was granted to Luís María Peralta by the Spanish royal government for his Rancho San Antonio.
The grant was confirmed by the successor Mexican republic upon its independence from Spain. The area of the ranch that is today occupied by the downtown and extending over into the adjacent part of Alameda (originally not an island, but a peninsula), included a woodland of oak trees. This area was called encinal by the Peraltas, a Spanish word which means "oak grove", the origin of the later city's name. Upon his death in 1842, Peralta divided his land among his four sons. Most of Oakland fell within the shares given to Antonio Maria and Vicente. They would open the land to settlement by American settlers, loggers, European whalers, and fur-traders.
Full-scale settlement and development occurred following California being conquered by the United States during the Mexican-American War, and the California Gold Rush in 1848. The original settlement in what is now the downtown was initially called "Contra Costa" and was included in Contra Costa County before Alameda County was established on March 25, 1853. The California state legislature incorporated the town of Oakland on May 4, 1852.
The town and its environs quickly grew with the railroads, becoming a major rail terminus in the late 1860s and 1870s. In 1868, the Central Pacific constructed the Oakland Long Wharf at Oakland Point, the site of today's Port of Oakland. The Long Wharf served as both the terminus of the Transcontinental Railroad as well as the local commuter trains of the Central (later, Southern) Pacific. The Central Pacific also established one of its largest rail yards and servicing facilities in West Oakland which continued to be a major local employer under the Southern Pacific well into the 20th century. The principal depot of the Southern Pacific in Oakland was the 16th Street Station located at 16th and Wood which is currently (2006–8) being partially restored as part of a redevelopment project.
A number of horsecar and cable car lines were constructed in Oakland in the latter half of the 1800s. The first electric streetcar set out from Oakland to Berkeley in 1891, and other lines were converted and added over the course of the 1890s. The various streetcar companies operating in Oakland were acquired by Francis "Borax" Smith and consolidated into what eventually became known as the Key System, the predecessor of today's publicly owned AC Transit. In addition to its system of streetcars in the East Bay, the Key System also operated commuter trains to its own pier and ferry boats to San Francisco, in competition with the Southern Pacific. Upon completion of the Bay Bridge, both companies ran their commuter trains on the south side of the lower deck direct to San Francisco. The Key System in its earliest years was actually in part a real estate venture, with the transit part serving to help open up new tracts for buyers. The Key's investors (incorporated as the "Realty Syndicate") also established two large hotels in Oakland, one of which survives as the Claremont Resort. The other, which burned down in the early 1930s, was the Key Route Inn, located at what is now West Grand and Broadway. From 1904 to 1929, the Realty Syndicate also operated a major amusement park in north Oakland called Idora Park.
The original extent of Oakland upon its incorporation lay south of today's major intersection of San Pablo Avenue, Broadway and 14th Street. The city gradually annexed farmlands and settlements to the east and north. Oakland's rise to industrial prominence and its subsequent need for a seaport led to the digging of a shipping and tidal channel in 1902, creating the "island" of nearby town Alameda. In 1906, its population doubled with refugees made homeless after the San Francisco earthquake and fire who had fled to Oakland. In 1915, a Chevrolet plant was opened at the southern border of Oakland. By 1920, Oakland was the home of numerous manufacturing industries, including metals, canneries, bakeries, automobiles, and shipbuilding.
1920s
The 1920s were economic boom years in the United States as a whole, and in California especially. Economic growth was fueled by the general post-war recovery, as well as oil discoveries in Los Angeles, and the widespread introduction of the automobile. Oakland grew significantly in the 1920s. According to the Oakland Tribune yearbook for 1925, more houses were built from 1921 to 1924 than in the period 1907 to 1920.[6] Many of the single-family houses still standing in Oakland were built in the 1920s. Many large office buildings downtown were built in the 1920s, and reflect the architectural styles of the time.” (Excerpted from Wikipedi)
A Life Story of Henry Charles Wieking
Henry Charles Wieking (HCW) was one of four children of Wilhelm and Christine(Gerdes) Wieking. He is the father of Richard William Wieking and Robert Henry Wieking. His wife was Christine Amelia(Huttmann) Wieking. His sister was Aline, and his two brothers are Elmer and Roy Wieking. He was born in 1906, in that section of the Bay Area known as West Oakland which was the portion of Oakland that was first settled. Henry has enjoyed being a natural historian all of his life, collecting memorabilia, recollecting historical happenings, and sharing his love of family history, natural events, and the developing history of California and Oakland, specifically. He has done all this with his teasing and playful sense of humor, mixed in with his life-long enjoyment of electronics, science, and things mechanical. It is at his age of 90 years that he might be described by me as being in an advanced stage of wonder. He is still filled with the joy and wonder of connecting with a stranger on his amateur radio transceiver, building a motorized mechanical car kit, or tinkering with a new experiment involving a good number of magnets! All of these are best enjoyed if he has even a semi-willing audience to entertain in the process!
Henry and Christine(Huttmann) Wieking met while attending a dance at the German Club, in Oakland.
Who were the parents of Henry, Aline, Elmer, and Roy? And from where did these immigrant Germans come?
Wilhelm(William) and Heinrich(Henry) Wieking came to Oakland, California with their mother Caroline Wilkening, from Leese am Weser ("Leese on the Weser River"), Germany. Leese is west of Minden, which is west of Hannover. A sister of Wilhelm and Heinrich, Wilhelmina (Minna), also came to California with them. Minna is said to have worked as a maid and caterer, and later as a clerk at Maxwell Hardware. Wilhelm Wieking owned and operated The Oakland Cafe (803 Broadway) and Mint Saloon (1802 7th Street), near the foot of Broadway. His original residence was at 9th and Cypress. His family then lived on Valle Vista, in the area east of Lake Merritt. Later addresses included Hillen Drive, the Montclair area and then in the area north of the Fruitvale District.
Wilhelm Wieking married Christine Gerdes. Christine came from Sievern, Germany, near Bremerhaven. They enjoyed the social life of the immigrant German community, particularly their membership in the Hansa Club and Sons of Hermann. There is a family photograph of Wilhelm, Christine, his brother Heinrich, and his wife enjoying a gala evening in one of the finest night spots of turn-of-the century Oakland,The Forum. Both Wilhelm and Heinrich Wieking often took their families by train to Niles, CA. and then up to Kilkare Woods, where they had summer homes. Large family gatherings were the norm and often business acquaintances related to the saloon and brewing businesses were entertained there. Bob Wieking has a photo of William and Christine Wieking with a large group of Hermann Sons in front of the Altenheim. He also has a large framed certificate showing William being a member of the Altenheim Unterstutzunggessellschaft, the benevolent society, the organization that supported the Altenheim.
Heinrich Wieking first owned the Oakland Casino Saloon at 879 Washington. Heinrich eventually went on to manage the Oakland Malting and Brewing Company, then to rename it the Sanitary Ice and Storage Company. His original residence was at 9th and Grove. Heinrich and his large family lived much of their lives on Longridge Road, in Piedmont, CA. The list of Heinrich's children is presented below. Carl and Hildegard(Wieking) Meyer still live in Stoltzenau, near Leese, and Bob Wieking has been in contact and has visited with them.
During a visit to the Bay Area in 1995, Bob Wieking searched each volume, starting in 1875, of the original "City Directories" available in the Oakland History Room of the Oakland Library. The following information was found:
• Henry Wieking was the employee of Henry Wilkening, who's residence was 508 8th(Husted Directory of 1894). It is believed that Henry Wilkening was the brother of Caroline Wilkening, the grandmother of Henry Charles Wieking.
• Henry Wieking owned the Oakland Casino Saloon at 879 Washington. Residence was 563 10th. William Wieking was the employee of Henry Wieking. Residence was 563 10th (Oakland, Alameda, and Berkeley Directory, 1895)
• Lena Wieking shows up in the 1899 Directory
• Minna Wieking appears in the 1900 Directory. Residence 909 Myrtle
• Henry Gerdes appears in the 1902 Directory, as an employee of the Southern Pacific Company.
• Christine Gerdes appears in the 1904 Directory. Residence 1119 Brush.
• William Wieking operates a saloon at 18021/2 7th. Residence 991 Wood. (1906 Directory)
• William Wieking operates Mint Saloon at 1892 7th. (1907 Directory)
Wieking Family Friends
Emily Putzker was a life-long friend of Christine (Gerdes) Wieking. Emily was sent from San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake to stay with the Wiekings. Grandma Christine and Emily became fast friends, a relatinship that they enjoyed for the rest of their lives. Emily was known for her ready laugh and svelte good looks. It can only be guessed that Emily and Christine were solid bosom buddies and thoroughly enjoyed the laughter and entertaining that were carried on in the Wieking household throughout their lives. Oscar Putzker, Emily's husband, was a sergeant on the Berkeley Police Force.
Louise and Fred Bohle were also friends of Christine and Wilhelm Wieking. Fred had lived with Native American Indians of the Southwest in his early days. Later, he was an engraver and operated a business out of his home. Louise and Fred joined the Wiekings' for Christmas for years. One can still hear Louise's hearty and whimsical laugh. Fred can still be imagined to be dressed in his three-piece suit and savoring a large Cuban cigar. Nancy and Bob Wieking were able to place Fred Bohle’s photo book of early southwest Indians and Mexico in the Archives, Special Collections, of the Library of Northern Arizona University in 2005.
Henry Charles Wieking still remembers two cigar makers, who were also German immigrants and active in Hansa Club and Hermann Sons. They were Henry Gloy and Mr. Frisch. HCW also tells of a Frank Barnett who was a sheriff in Alameda County.
The Jochem's and Reichhold's were not only friends of Wilhelm and Christine Wieking, but their granddaughter, Alycia Elba "Lee" Andress presently lives in Sedona, Arizona and shares an active interest in Oakland German immigrant history. "Lee's" maternal grandfather was Ferdinand Jochem. Lee's mother did mention that there was a 17 year conscription law in Germany enacted that he was escaping from. Perhaps he came from somewhere near the Elbe River since both her aunt's name and Lee's middle name is "ELBA". He worked at a gold smelter in Selby, CA, and it was said that he had a "weakness in his lungs." It may have been asthma which Lee's mother had, and her oldest daughter also has. His health was weakened by his work at the smelter which led to him quitting the smelter and opening a tavern. He died in 1916. Marie Sorensen Jochem was Lee's maternal grandmother.
Marie followed her sister Christina to this country from Denmark amid many promises of comfort and security. They came from an area of Germany known as Schleswig-Holstein. Even though this area often see-sawed back and forth between Denmark and Germany, Marie considered herself a Dane and was reluctant to ever tell her relatives that she had married a German! Marie assisted her husband Ferdinand, known as Fred, in the tavern. The tavern was located at 10th and Kirkham. They had two daughters, Lee's mother, Frieda, and her sister, Hazel. Fred died in 1916 leaving a 7 year old and a 16 year old. they lived on Grand Avenue and Lee's mother also went to Cole School. Marie may have also run a restaurant on, Shattuck Avenue. William Reichhold, Lee's paternal grandfather, came from Germany, by way of Ellis Island and a train trip to stay with cousins in Oakland, CA. When he reached Oakland, the cousins housed him in the barn. He never forgot nor forgave them for this less than pleasant welcome. He was reputed to be a jovial and well-liked man. He and his wife bought some acreage planted to fruit trees in Alamo as a sort of summer home. Little is known about Lee's paternal grandmother, Linda Henken, other than she was a "difficult person".
Lee's father, Clarence T. Reichhold, graduated from Oakland Technical High School and then joined the Merchant Marines. Lee's mother, Frieda, refused to marry him until he resigned from the Merchant Marines. He then opened up a tire and motorcycle shop in Oakland with a partner. The partner disappeared with the business's assets. Clarence and Frieda as newlyweds in 1924 went to live on the fruit orchard in Alamo and manage it for William and Linda. After four years of toiling in the fruit orchard, Clarence began work for the Ford dealership. The Reichholds' had always had a love affair with the automobile. Clarence then was able to purchase the local Chevrolet dealership. Finally, after the depression and war years, the dealership prospered beyond all belief. Frieda, with her 8th grade education, continued as bookkeeper of a very large and successful business with her sister Hazel beside her in the office.
Early Oakland
HCW still remembers the Alaska Packers sailing ships harbored in the Oakland harbor. Another local business was the Alhambra Water Company. As far as recreational activities, there were the German Athletic Club and the German Men's Chorus to provide that sense of community and recreation for the German immigrant men. Idora Park and Shellmound Park were popular outdoor areas also frequented by German immigrant citizens of Oakland. Shellmound Park was so named because that was where the native Indians tossed the remainder of the clams that were often used for food. HCW shot at a rifle range there. Dorothy and Leroy Anton were acquaintances of HCW. Dorothy's father owned Shellmound Park.
HCW's Exploits and Adventures
HCW tells the story of fishing in Sunol when he was walking along with nothing but a fishing rod when he became surrounded by three coyotes. He thought that his life was at an end, for sure. He later was riding with Carl Bertsch in an open Model A Ford on another fishing trip when a big mountain lion jumped off from a side bluff onto the road in front of them. Dad had a pistol and he took a shot but he did not hit the animal. HCW mentioned that he often went deer hunting with Frank Crespi in Sunol, too. Henry Wieking raised pigeons, an idea he got the idea from Harry Morrison.
A fond memory of Bob Wiekings's (he swears that this is not just a figment of his imagination) is when HCW took him out for a picnic where they crawled down to the side of a little creek to eat sandwiches and drink strawberry soda. It is remembered that this "creek episode" occurred during the time that Bob's momther was giving birth to Richard, Bob's younger brother. Later, HCW took a drive to Niles to show Bob Wieking a brand spanking new BB gun that HCW had stored carefully in the trunk of the family automobile. In later years, HCW took Bob Wieking up in the area of Niles Canyon known as "Old Lady Whitlock's" for a fishing expedition. On the way back to the car, they spied a small rattle snake which they quickly dispatched with a rock.
HCW's School and Employment
1. Cole School(where Jack London went)--1912-1920
2. Oakland High School--1920-1924
3. GMC Truck Company--6 months
4. Sanitary Ice--6 months
5. United Iron Works--4 years-- apprenticeship
6. Hoover Dam--1929-1933. He lived in a canvas tent. He worked on "Boulder Dam", officially named Hoover Dam. HCW's remembrances and photographs have been recorded in a display at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Henry actually worked at a restored Mormon Fort, right outside of Las Vegas. He and a team of other men gathered and tested gravel and sand samples from around the region in search of quality and quantity of the correct ingredients from which to make the concrete for the dam.
7. Southern Pacific Railroad--5 years-loading box cars
8. Mint Cafe--2 years--bartender
9. McClelland AFB--3 years--machinist
10. Lorimer Diesel--Oakland-5 years
11. Union Machine Works--Oakland- Machinist
12. S.T. Johnson Oil Burner Co.--1949-1971--machinist
The Wieking's on Longridge Road
the Family of Heinrich, the brother of Wilhelm Wieking
Wieking's on Longridge Road(Piedmont, CA).
Bill
Irene
Henrietta
Anita
Dorothy
Elenor
Bernice
Helen
Evelyn
Some Oakland German Immigrant Features
Tepper’s Gardens
I have photographs of our grandfather and his brother-in-law Henry Gerdes with members of their clubs, the Hansa Club and Hermann Sons. The photographs took place at either Dimond Park or Tepper’s Gardens. “The most famous, the one every old-timer remembers, was Charlie Tepper’s place west of Dimond Avenue on Hopkins’ north side. Tepper came to Oakland from Germany n 1895. …Behind his house was a structure he converted into a dance hall. Around these he put in the tree-shaded gardens where patrons could leisurely pass an afternoon at the tables nursing a house beer from the Brooklyn Brewery on East 14th Street….” (From Douglas Brookes article in the /Fall 1986 issue of the Oakland Heritage Alliance News)
Altenheim
“It was on the March 31, 1890 , that the ”Deutsche Altenheim from San Francisco” (German Old People Home of San Francisco) was included into the Altenheim Association. Germans like Adolph Sutro, Mortimer Fleischacker, Fritz Rosenbaum and other well known personalities realized that it was an absolute necessity to build a retirement home for the elder Germans….Adolph Sutro offered free land in the Sutro Heights in San Francisco. San Francisco, however, did not have the best reputation at that time, mainly because of the Gold Rush and the type of pleasure seekers it brought to that region. Moreover, since 1850 several major fires damaged the city. The weather was not ideal for an older person; the cold and the fog dominated the summer days in Sutro Heights. When Charles Meinecke, president of the German Benevolent Society, joined this group, the decision was made to purchase land in the Dimond District of Oakland for the price of $6,000.”
Heinhold’s First and Last Chance Saloon
Heinhold’s was not only a landmark German immigrant landmark but was a place that my father, Henry Wieking, brought his wife-to-be, Christine Huttmann. They frequented the place not only because my father enjoyed the German nature of its origin but because my ever-learning mother was intrigued by the fact that Jack London, the famous Oakland author, frequented the place in earlier years. And by real circuitous logic, it was interesting because Henry Wieking and Jack London attended the same elementary school, Cole school!
“Heinhold’s First and Last Chance saloon, the historic bar that helped Jack London to fame and gave the square that surrounds it its name, is up for sale. The venerable but creaky establishment, formed from the timbers of a whaling ship more than 110 years ago and since transformed by the great quake of 1906 and the footfalls of millions of tourists, has become a little too much for the last of the Heinholds to handle. The saloon, founded in 1883, was almost sold at the beginning of this year”(from the March 4, 1981 issue of the newspaper The Press)
The Forum Restaurant
“The Forum on Broadway near 14th, managed by Gustav Mann, considered itself one of the handsomest in America and few of its patrons would dispute the claim. The Forum combined Bohemian charm with expert service profiting from Mann’s experience with restaurants in Europe. N. F Schroeder, now 84, who organized the corporation that founded The Forum, still lives here at 493 Crofton Avenue….’The world has changed, and restaurants have changed with it,’ he says. ‘People in those days demanded and got the best. Our New York cut steaks, spareribs, and sauerkraut and fine German-style cooking—where can you find their equal today’?” (from The Oakland Tribune, Sunday, January 12, 1958)
German Pioneer House
I could not complete my heritage tour of the Oakland German community without mentioning the “German House” as my parents use to refer to it. For it is the German House where my parents attended dances and were eventually married. The building that housed the German House had originally been used to house homeless girls and later as site for many social gatherings. In 1932, This “Home Club” eventually moved to Berkeley and sold the building to the German Pioneer House Association. “During the next few years the art gallery was transformed into a gymnasium and the grounds changed to resemble a German garden. Many exhibitions of folk dancing and musical activities were given. By 1935, events in Europe were beginning to be reflected in actions at the House. Dr. August Ponschab, Reich vice-consul in San Francisco, called upon them to support the Hitler regime. But 3 years later Pioneer House board of directors kicked out members of the German-American Bund who had been gathering there.” (from the Oakland Tribune, August 2, 1958). In 1958, after years of dances and complaints about the noise that the late-nights dances produced, the b building was sold to the Oakland Public Schools for an addition to the Oakland High School site.
It should be noted that Mr. Bill Sturm, Librarian at the Oakland Public Library, was most helpful and instrumental in motivating me to research Oakland's German immigrant community. He cannot be too highly praised for his assistance.
“The earliest recorded inhabitants were the Huchiun tribe, belonging to a linguistic grouping later called the Ohlone (a Miwok word meaning "western people"). In Oakland, they were heavily concentrated around Lake Merritt and Temescal Creek, a stream which enters the San Francisco Bay at Emeryville. Oakland, along with the rest of California, was claimed for the Spanish king by explorers from New Spain in 1772. In the early 19th century, the area which later became Oakland (along with most of the East Bay), was granted to Luís María Peralta by the Spanish royal government for his Rancho San Antonio.
The grant was confirmed by the successor Mexican republic upon its independence from Spain. The area of the ranch that is today occupied by the downtown and extending over into the adjacent part of Alameda (originally not an island, but a peninsula), included a woodland of oak trees. This area was called encinal by the Peraltas, a Spanish word which means "oak grove", the origin of the later city's name. Upon his death in 1842, Peralta divided his land among his four sons. Most of Oakland fell within the shares given to Antonio Maria and Vicente. They would open the land to settlement by American settlers, loggers, European whalers, and fur-traders.
Full-scale settlement and development occurred following California being conquered by the United States during the Mexican-American War, and the California Gold Rush in 1848. The original settlement in what is now the downtown was initially called "Contra Costa" and was included in Contra Costa County before Alameda County was established on March 25, 1853. The California state legislature incorporated the town of Oakland on May 4, 1852.
The town and its environs quickly grew with the railroads, becoming a major rail terminus in the late 1860s and 1870s. In 1868, the Central Pacific constructed the Oakland Long Wharf at Oakland Point, the site of today's Port of Oakland. The Long Wharf served as both the terminus of the Transcontinental Railroad as well as the local commuter trains of the Central (later, Southern) Pacific. The Central Pacific also established one of its largest rail yards and servicing facilities in West Oakland which continued to be a major local employer under the Southern Pacific well into the 20th century. The principal depot of the Southern Pacific in Oakland was the 16th Street Station located at 16th and Wood which is currently (2006–8) being partially restored as part of a redevelopment project.
A number of horsecar and cable car lines were constructed in Oakland in the latter half of the 1800s. The first electric streetcar set out from Oakland to Berkeley in 1891, and other lines were converted and added over the course of the 1890s. The various streetcar companies operating in Oakland were acquired by Francis "Borax" Smith and consolidated into what eventually became known as the Key System, the predecessor of today's publicly owned AC Transit. In addition to its system of streetcars in the East Bay, the Key System also operated commuter trains to its own pier and ferry boats to San Francisco, in competition with the Southern Pacific. Upon completion of the Bay Bridge, both companies ran their commuter trains on the south side of the lower deck direct to San Francisco. The Key System in its earliest years was actually in part a real estate venture, with the transit part serving to help open up new tracts for buyers. The Key's investors (incorporated as the "Realty Syndicate") also established two large hotels in Oakland, one of which survives as the Claremont Resort. The other, which burned down in the early 1930s, was the Key Route Inn, located at what is now West Grand and Broadway. From 1904 to 1929, the Realty Syndicate also operated a major amusement park in north Oakland called Idora Park.
The original extent of Oakland upon its incorporation lay south of today's major intersection of San Pablo Avenue, Broadway and 14th Street. The city gradually annexed farmlands and settlements to the east and north. Oakland's rise to industrial prominence and its subsequent need for a seaport led to the digging of a shipping and tidal channel in 1902, creating the "island" of nearby town Alameda. In 1906, its population doubled with refugees made homeless after the San Francisco earthquake and fire who had fled to Oakland. In 1915, a Chevrolet plant was opened at the southern border of Oakland. By 1920, Oakland was the home of numerous manufacturing industries, including metals, canneries, bakeries, automobiles, and shipbuilding.
1920s
The 1920s were economic boom years in the United States as a whole, and in California especially. Economic growth was fueled by the general post-war recovery, as well as oil discoveries in Los Angeles, and the widespread introduction of the automobile. Oakland grew significantly in the 1920s. According to the Oakland Tribune yearbook for 1925, more houses were built from 1921 to 1924 than in the period 1907 to 1920.[6] Many of the single-family houses still standing in Oakland were built in the 1920s. Many large office buildings downtown were built in the 1920s, and reflect the architectural styles of the time.” (Excerpted from Wikipedi)
A Life Story of Henry Charles Wieking
Henry Charles Wieking (HCW) was one of four children of Wilhelm and Christine(Gerdes) Wieking. He is the father of Richard William Wieking and Robert Henry Wieking. His wife was Christine Amelia(Huttmann) Wieking. His sister was Aline, and his two brothers are Elmer and Roy Wieking. He was born in 1906, in that section of the Bay Area known as West Oakland which was the portion of Oakland that was first settled. Henry has enjoyed being a natural historian all of his life, collecting memorabilia, recollecting historical happenings, and sharing his love of family history, natural events, and the developing history of California and Oakland, specifically. He has done all this with his teasing and playful sense of humor, mixed in with his life-long enjoyment of electronics, science, and things mechanical. It is at his age of 90 years that he might be described by me as being in an advanced stage of wonder. He is still filled with the joy and wonder of connecting with a stranger on his amateur radio transceiver, building a motorized mechanical car kit, or tinkering with a new experiment involving a good number of magnets! All of these are best enjoyed if he has even a semi-willing audience to entertain in the process!
Henry and Christine(Huttmann) Wieking met while attending a dance at the German Club, in Oakland.
Who were the parents of Henry, Aline, Elmer, and Roy? And from where did these immigrant Germans come?
Wilhelm(William) and Heinrich(Henry) Wieking came to Oakland, California with their mother Caroline Wilkening, from Leese am Weser ("Leese on the Weser River"), Germany. Leese is west of Minden, which is west of Hannover. A sister of Wilhelm and Heinrich, Wilhelmina (Minna), also came to California with them. Minna is said to have worked as a maid and caterer, and later as a clerk at Maxwell Hardware. Wilhelm Wieking owned and operated The Oakland Cafe (803 Broadway) and Mint Saloon (1802 7th Street), near the foot of Broadway. His original residence was at 9th and Cypress. His family then lived on Valle Vista, in the area east of Lake Merritt. Later addresses included Hillen Drive, the Montclair area and then in the area north of the Fruitvale District.
Wilhelm Wieking married Christine Gerdes. Christine came from Sievern, Germany, near Bremerhaven. They enjoyed the social life of the immigrant German community, particularly their membership in the Hansa Club and Sons of Hermann. There is a family photograph of Wilhelm, Christine, his brother Heinrich, and his wife enjoying a gala evening in one of the finest night spots of turn-of-the century Oakland,The Forum. Both Wilhelm and Heinrich Wieking often took their families by train to Niles, CA. and then up to Kilkare Woods, where they had summer homes. Large family gatherings were the norm and often business acquaintances related to the saloon and brewing businesses were entertained there. Bob Wieking has a photo of William and Christine Wieking with a large group of Hermann Sons in front of the Altenheim. He also has a large framed certificate showing William being a member of the Altenheim Unterstutzunggessellschaft, the benevolent society, the organization that supported the Altenheim.
Heinrich Wieking first owned the Oakland Casino Saloon at 879 Washington. Heinrich eventually went on to manage the Oakland Malting and Brewing Company, then to rename it the Sanitary Ice and Storage Company. His original residence was at 9th and Grove. Heinrich and his large family lived much of their lives on Longridge Road, in Piedmont, CA. The list of Heinrich's children is presented below. Carl and Hildegard(Wieking) Meyer still live in Stoltzenau, near Leese, and Bob Wieking has been in contact and has visited with them.
During a visit to the Bay Area in 1995, Bob Wieking searched each volume, starting in 1875, of the original "City Directories" available in the Oakland History Room of the Oakland Library. The following information was found:
• Henry Wieking was the employee of Henry Wilkening, who's residence was 508 8th(Husted Directory of 1894). It is believed that Henry Wilkening was the brother of Caroline Wilkening, the grandmother of Henry Charles Wieking.
• Henry Wieking owned the Oakland Casino Saloon at 879 Washington. Residence was 563 10th. William Wieking was the employee of Henry Wieking. Residence was 563 10th (Oakland, Alameda, and Berkeley Directory, 1895)
• Lena Wieking shows up in the 1899 Directory
• Minna Wieking appears in the 1900 Directory. Residence 909 Myrtle
• Henry Gerdes appears in the 1902 Directory, as an employee of the Southern Pacific Company.
• Christine Gerdes appears in the 1904 Directory. Residence 1119 Brush.
• William Wieking operates a saloon at 18021/2 7th. Residence 991 Wood. (1906 Directory)
• William Wieking operates Mint Saloon at 1892 7th. (1907 Directory)
Wieking Family Friends
Emily Putzker was a life-long friend of Christine (Gerdes) Wieking. Emily was sent from San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake to stay with the Wiekings. Grandma Christine and Emily became fast friends, a relatinship that they enjoyed for the rest of their lives. Emily was known for her ready laugh and svelte good looks. It can only be guessed that Emily and Christine were solid bosom buddies and thoroughly enjoyed the laughter and entertaining that were carried on in the Wieking household throughout their lives. Oscar Putzker, Emily's husband, was a sergeant on the Berkeley Police Force.
Louise and Fred Bohle were also friends of Christine and Wilhelm Wieking. Fred had lived with Native American Indians of the Southwest in his early days. Later, he was an engraver and operated a business out of his home. Louise and Fred joined the Wiekings' for Christmas for years. One can still hear Louise's hearty and whimsical laugh. Fred can still be imagined to be dressed in his three-piece suit and savoring a large Cuban cigar. Nancy and Bob Wieking were able to place Fred Bohle’s photo book of early southwest Indians and Mexico in the Archives, Special Collections, of the Library of Northern Arizona University in 2005.
Henry Charles Wieking still remembers two cigar makers, who were also German immigrants and active in Hansa Club and Hermann Sons. They were Henry Gloy and Mr. Frisch. HCW also tells of a Frank Barnett who was a sheriff in Alameda County.
The Jochem's and Reichhold's were not only friends of Wilhelm and Christine Wieking, but their granddaughter, Alycia Elba "Lee" Andress presently lives in Sedona, Arizona and shares an active interest in Oakland German immigrant history. "Lee's" maternal grandfather was Ferdinand Jochem. Lee's mother did mention that there was a 17 year conscription law in Germany enacted that he was escaping from. Perhaps he came from somewhere near the Elbe River since both her aunt's name and Lee's middle name is "ELBA". He worked at a gold smelter in Selby, CA, and it was said that he had a "weakness in his lungs." It may have been asthma which Lee's mother had, and her oldest daughter also has. His health was weakened by his work at the smelter which led to him quitting the smelter and opening a tavern. He died in 1916. Marie Sorensen Jochem was Lee's maternal grandmother.
Marie followed her sister Christina to this country from Denmark amid many promises of comfort and security. They came from an area of Germany known as Schleswig-Holstein. Even though this area often see-sawed back and forth between Denmark and Germany, Marie considered herself a Dane and was reluctant to ever tell her relatives that she had married a German! Marie assisted her husband Ferdinand, known as Fred, in the tavern. The tavern was located at 10th and Kirkham. They had two daughters, Lee's mother, Frieda, and her sister, Hazel. Fred died in 1916 leaving a 7 year old and a 16 year old. they lived on Grand Avenue and Lee's mother also went to Cole School. Marie may have also run a restaurant on, Shattuck Avenue. William Reichhold, Lee's paternal grandfather, came from Germany, by way of Ellis Island and a train trip to stay with cousins in Oakland, CA. When he reached Oakland, the cousins housed him in the barn. He never forgot nor forgave them for this less than pleasant welcome. He was reputed to be a jovial and well-liked man. He and his wife bought some acreage planted to fruit trees in Alamo as a sort of summer home. Little is known about Lee's paternal grandmother, Linda Henken, other than she was a "difficult person".
Lee's father, Clarence T. Reichhold, graduated from Oakland Technical High School and then joined the Merchant Marines. Lee's mother, Frieda, refused to marry him until he resigned from the Merchant Marines. He then opened up a tire and motorcycle shop in Oakland with a partner. The partner disappeared with the business's assets. Clarence and Frieda as newlyweds in 1924 went to live on the fruit orchard in Alamo and manage it for William and Linda. After four years of toiling in the fruit orchard, Clarence began work for the Ford dealership. The Reichholds' had always had a love affair with the automobile. Clarence then was able to purchase the local Chevrolet dealership. Finally, after the depression and war years, the dealership prospered beyond all belief. Frieda, with her 8th grade education, continued as bookkeeper of a very large and successful business with her sister Hazel beside her in the office.
Early Oakland
HCW still remembers the Alaska Packers sailing ships harbored in the Oakland harbor. Another local business was the Alhambra Water Company. As far as recreational activities, there were the German Athletic Club and the German Men's Chorus to provide that sense of community and recreation for the German immigrant men. Idora Park and Shellmound Park were popular outdoor areas also frequented by German immigrant citizens of Oakland. Shellmound Park was so named because that was where the native Indians tossed the remainder of the clams that were often used for food. HCW shot at a rifle range there. Dorothy and Leroy Anton were acquaintances of HCW. Dorothy's father owned Shellmound Park.
HCW's Exploits and Adventures
HCW tells the story of fishing in Sunol when he was walking along with nothing but a fishing rod when he became surrounded by three coyotes. He thought that his life was at an end, for sure. He later was riding with Carl Bertsch in an open Model A Ford on another fishing trip when a big mountain lion jumped off from a side bluff onto the road in front of them. Dad had a pistol and he took a shot but he did not hit the animal. HCW mentioned that he often went deer hunting with Frank Crespi in Sunol, too. Henry Wieking raised pigeons, an idea he got the idea from Harry Morrison.
A fond memory of Bob Wiekings's (he swears that this is not just a figment of his imagination) is when HCW took him out for a picnic where they crawled down to the side of a little creek to eat sandwiches and drink strawberry soda. It is remembered that this "creek episode" occurred during the time that Bob's momther was giving birth to Richard, Bob's younger brother. Later, HCW took a drive to Niles to show Bob Wieking a brand spanking new BB gun that HCW had stored carefully in the trunk of the family automobile. In later years, HCW took Bob Wieking up in the area of Niles Canyon known as "Old Lady Whitlock's" for a fishing expedition. On the way back to the car, they spied a small rattle snake which they quickly dispatched with a rock.
HCW's School and Employment
1. Cole School(where Jack London went)--1912-1920
2. Oakland High School--1920-1924
3. GMC Truck Company--6 months
4. Sanitary Ice--6 months
5. United Iron Works--4 years-- apprenticeship
6. Hoover Dam--1929-1933. He lived in a canvas tent. He worked on "Boulder Dam", officially named Hoover Dam. HCW's remembrances and photographs have been recorded in a display at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Henry actually worked at a restored Mormon Fort, right outside of Las Vegas. He and a team of other men gathered and tested gravel and sand samples from around the region in search of quality and quantity of the correct ingredients from which to make the concrete for the dam.
7. Southern Pacific Railroad--5 years-loading box cars
8. Mint Cafe--2 years--bartender
9. McClelland AFB--3 years--machinist
10. Lorimer Diesel--Oakland-5 years
11. Union Machine Works--Oakland- Machinist
12. S.T. Johnson Oil Burner Co.--1949-1971--machinist
The Wieking's on Longridge Road
the Family of Heinrich, the brother of Wilhelm Wieking
Wieking's on Longridge Road(Piedmont, CA).
Bill
Irene
Henrietta
Anita
Dorothy
Elenor
Bernice
Helen
Evelyn
Some Oakland German Immigrant Features
Tepper’s Gardens
I have photographs of our grandfather and his brother-in-law Henry Gerdes with members of their clubs, the Hansa Club and Hermann Sons. The photographs took place at either Dimond Park or Tepper’s Gardens. “The most famous, the one every old-timer remembers, was Charlie Tepper’s place west of Dimond Avenue on Hopkins’ north side. Tepper came to Oakland from Germany n 1895. …Behind his house was a structure he converted into a dance hall. Around these he put in the tree-shaded gardens where patrons could leisurely pass an afternoon at the tables nursing a house beer from the Brooklyn Brewery on East 14th Street….” (From Douglas Brookes article in the /Fall 1986 issue of the Oakland Heritage Alliance News)
Altenheim
“It was on the March 31, 1890 , that the ”Deutsche Altenheim from San Francisco” (German Old People Home of San Francisco) was included into the Altenheim Association. Germans like Adolph Sutro, Mortimer Fleischacker, Fritz Rosenbaum and other well known personalities realized that it was an absolute necessity to build a retirement home for the elder Germans….Adolph Sutro offered free land in the Sutro Heights in San Francisco. San Francisco, however, did not have the best reputation at that time, mainly because of the Gold Rush and the type of pleasure seekers it brought to that region. Moreover, since 1850 several major fires damaged the city. The weather was not ideal for an older person; the cold and the fog dominated the summer days in Sutro Heights. When Charles Meinecke, president of the German Benevolent Society, joined this group, the decision was made to purchase land in the Dimond District of Oakland for the price of $6,000.”
Heinhold’s First and Last Chance Saloon
Heinhold’s was not only a landmark German immigrant landmark but was a place that my father, Henry Wieking, brought his wife-to-be, Christine Huttmann. They frequented the place not only because my father enjoyed the German nature of its origin but because my ever-learning mother was intrigued by the fact that Jack London, the famous Oakland author, frequented the place in earlier years. And by real circuitous logic, it was interesting because Henry Wieking and Jack London attended the same elementary school, Cole school!
“Heinhold’s First and Last Chance saloon, the historic bar that helped Jack London to fame and gave the square that surrounds it its name, is up for sale. The venerable but creaky establishment, formed from the timbers of a whaling ship more than 110 years ago and since transformed by the great quake of 1906 and the footfalls of millions of tourists, has become a little too much for the last of the Heinholds to handle. The saloon, founded in 1883, was almost sold at the beginning of this year”(from the March 4, 1981 issue of the newspaper The Press)
The Forum Restaurant
“The Forum on Broadway near 14th, managed by Gustav Mann, considered itself one of the handsomest in America and few of its patrons would dispute the claim. The Forum combined Bohemian charm with expert service profiting from Mann’s experience with restaurants in Europe. N. F Schroeder, now 84, who organized the corporation that founded The Forum, still lives here at 493 Crofton Avenue….’The world has changed, and restaurants have changed with it,’ he says. ‘People in those days demanded and got the best. Our New York cut steaks, spareribs, and sauerkraut and fine German-style cooking—where can you find their equal today’?” (from The Oakland Tribune, Sunday, January 12, 1958)
German Pioneer House
I could not complete my heritage tour of the Oakland German community without mentioning the “German House” as my parents use to refer to it. For it is the German House where my parents attended dances and were eventually married. The building that housed the German House had originally been used to house homeless girls and later as site for many social gatherings. In 1932, This “Home Club” eventually moved to Berkeley and sold the building to the German Pioneer House Association. “During the next few years the art gallery was transformed into a gymnasium and the grounds changed to resemble a German garden. Many exhibitions of folk dancing and musical activities were given. By 1935, events in Europe were beginning to be reflected in actions at the House. Dr. August Ponschab, Reich vice-consul in San Francisco, called upon them to support the Hitler regime. But 3 years later Pioneer House board of directors kicked out members of the German-American Bund who had been gathering there.” (from the Oakland Tribune, August 2, 1958). In 1958, after years of dances and complaints about the noise that the late-nights dances produced, the b building was sold to the Oakland Public Schools for an addition to the Oakland High School site.
It should be noted that Mr. Bill Sturm, Librarian at the Oakland Public Library, was most helpful and instrumental in motivating me to research Oakland's German immigrant community. He cannot be too highly praised for his assistance.
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