Notable events on this date

Since I mentioned Gust Johns in my last post, it seems fitting to note that May 19th will mark the 137th birthday of his sister Martha Johns-Bahlert. But there are a few other notable events from this week in May: the immigration of my great-grandfather Pfaff and my great-great grandfather Krueger.

According to family lore, Wilhelm Krüger (later William Krueger) came to America on May 18, 1872 after a two week crossing, and arrived in Wisconsin just six days later. Records also indicate his brother Carl (Charles) arrived at either the same time or within a year of William. Unfortunately the name Krueger is just too common in this region for me to be sure of the correct ship records at this point.

Family legend also says that William came from an area of Germany called Gluetsa. I haven’t found anything similar to this name in my searches, nor have I located the region for his wife Wilhelmina Stern (family lore says the Sterns originated in Gleritey, another non-existent place name).

However, I did locate this information at the Waukesha Historical Society in the “Pioneer Book”:

William Henry Krueger
Born 24 October 1849 in Germany
Mother: Anna
Married: Wilhelmina born 1852
Died: March 20 1937
Buried: German Evangelical Church (now the St. John United Church of Christ Cemetery in Merton, WI)

The Krueger-Stern families are definitely on my “to do” list for further research!

Turning to our other notable immigrant now… my great-grandfather, Peter Pfaff. His voyage occurred 40 years after William Krueger’s, and I often wonder how different their experiences were travelling to the new world.

Peter Pfaff emigrated from his home in Szakadat, Hungary on the ship Campanello, boarding in Rotterdam on May 2nd, 1912. He arrived at Ellis Island on May 17, 1912. He was just 17 years old.

The ship manifest describes him as having a fair complexion, brown hair and blue eyes, and standing at a height of 5 feet 2 inches. He was employed as a stonemason, and listed his final destination as New York, NY. His nearest relative listed is his father Georg Pfaff, who remained in Hungary.

The steamship Campanello (previously known as the Campania) was built in 1902 in Newcastle, England. Renamed the Flavia in 1916, it was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine off Northern Ireland on August 24, 1918.

Records shared with me by a distant Hungarian cousin indicate that the Pfaff family originated in the village of Tevel, in central Hungary on the west bank of the river Danube. Sometime between 1882 and 1887, Gyorgy (George) Pfaff moved his young family to the town of Szakadat, then in Hungary and now a part of Romania, where he worked as a shoemaker.

In 1910, George’s daughter Katalin (Katharina) traveled to America. Katalin Pfaff left her family’s home in Szakadat, Hungary on the ship Carpathia, boarding at the port of Fiume. She arrived at Ellis Island on May 11, 1910. She was just 19 years old, traveling alone to a strange new country.

The ship manifest describes her as standing 5 feet 6 inches tall, with a fair complexion, fair hair, and brown eyes. She listed her final destination as meeting her brother-in-law in New York (I’m not sure yet who this was).

She was followed by her brother Peter two years later. Relatives have continued to emigrate in the years since.

Julius Pfaff, who immigrated to America in 1950 after being sponsored by his uncle Peter (in order to work in the family bakery in Milwaukee), stated that his family was relocated to Germany after World War II. Julius and his family continue the tradition of operating a Pfaff family bakery in Illinois.

 

Happy Birthday to…

April 28th marks Gust Johns’s 130th birthday according to my records. Gust was born in Door County, WI, the first generation to be born in America of German-born immigrant parents. Early records indicate that their name was originally spelled Jahnz, and that this name was “Anglicized” somewhere around the turn of the last century.

Gust’s first marriage didn’t occur until he was 31 years old, but this marked a very sad time for him. His wife, Emma Smith, was just 16 years old when they married in the summer of 1915. Their son Emery was born January 2nd, 1916. Sadly, Emma died just days after childbirth:

From The Sturgeon Bay Advocate – January 06, 1916

Faced with raising a newborn, it appears Gust enlisted the help of his sister Ida for a few months. After this, his sister Minnie (and her husband William Sitte) took Emery into their home. From all accounts, it appears that Emery was raised as one of their own. But sadly, Emery died young from appendicitis. He was the same age as his mother when he died.

From The Door County Advocate – September 22, 1933

Gust remarried a few years later, and raised several children. I bring up these sad events because there are two things I’ve learned in researching Gust’s life, and the tragic events he endured:

First, that Gust’s first marriage, and the son that resulted from that marriage, were previously unknown to my family until researching the Johns family in the archives of the Door County Library, and in particular, their online collection of Door County Newspaper Archives from 1862-1941. I learned of this resource via the Peninsula Genealogical Society, and it is hands-down one of the most accessible archives I’ve discovered. Their search function is greatly effective, saving me many hours of fruitless searches through irrelevant search results… (ask me sometime how depressing it can be to search newspaper archives for the surname Struck!!).

The second reason I note these events is because it is a great demonstration of how the community drew around this grieving father – not just the family members that helped raise his young son, but also the friends that helped celebrate his milestones:

From The Door County Advocate – May 07, 1920

Happy 130th Birthday, Gust!