Episode 41. Ignaz and Barbara’s life in Germany

Ignaz [my grandmother Caroline’s grandfather] was born in 1844. We know nothing about Ignaz’ early life until he went to school. Below you can see the report cards for Ignaz for 1855-59 as reported in Jahres-Bericht des Polytechnischen Vereins zu Würzburg, the trade school that he attended. The columns are: name of scholar, birthplace, trade, reading/writing, arithmetic, general knowledge, continuous transition [i.e. passing grades… shown in the heading above the three just mentioned], and in the last far right column “failed visit” presumably meaning absence. “I” is the best grade and “V” is the worst. I haven’t copied the report cards for all of the hundreds of students, but rather copied enough of them to show how Ignaz was doing compared to other students. Grades below are for 1855-56 when Ignaz was about 11yrs; “Oekonom” in the third column from the left [trade] appears to be an archaic spelling of “economics;” presumably what we would now call “business” classes. The four lines below the above table mention the students who received prizes for their work. Ignaz didn’t win any prizes.  Below are his grades for the next year. Below are grades for 1858-9 when Ignaz was serving as an “economics apprentice” [oekonomielehrling]. So by his last year Ignaz was a slightly better than average student with two grades of “I”. At age 24 Ignaz married Barbara Trenkler, age 23. Here is their wedding announcement from their local daily newspaper, the Munich Official Gazette [Münchener Amtsblatt] of 1868. Ignaz was a “maschinenschmied” or “machine smith” who was “v. Sommerach” or “of Sommerach,” and Barbara was listed as a “maurerstochter v. h.” or “mason’s daughter “of here,” i.e. from Munich. Barbara’s father, Johann, had died 29 December 1863 at age 59 yrs and her older brother Georg had died at age 21yrs in 1862. Unlike the Schweinsbergers, the Trenkler family of Munich was relatively large with many branches. Parts of the family had been prosperous enough to afford university education for their children. The result was that by the early to mid 19^th Century, some Munich Trenklers were musicians/music directors, chemists, university professors, biologists, horticulturists, industrialists, physicians, and military officers. This educational advantage made the Trenklers one of the few branches of the family that really prospered before the last third of the 20^th Century.  I’ve collected 56 documents from the 19th Century about the Munich Trenklers, but only a few of Barbara’s close relatives can be identified with certainty.  It is difficult to sort them out given so many possibilities.

For Ignaz and Barbara life was not easy. They lost their first son a little more than a year after their marriage. The item in the news reads “Ignaz maschinenschmiedsohn” or “Ignaz, machine smith’s son;” he was listed as “gestorben” or “deceased” December 9 1869 at 2 month of age. The notice lists the father’s home as Heidingsfeld, (one or the 13 named neighborhoods of Würzburg). Subsequently, Ignaz and Barbara had another son they named Ignaz. He died December 29 1872 at 9 days as recorded in the Münchener Amtsblatt: 1873. The son was listed as “Schlosserssohn” or “locksmith’s son.” This notice shows the father as “from Sommerach.” Ignaz spent part of his early years in Heidingsfeld in south central Würzburg and part in Sommerach about 35km northeast of Würzburg/Heidingsfeld. Sommerach sat on the east side of the river Main.  Sommerach was then, and still is, a very small village.  The “v” or “von” was used just as we use the word “from” now to describe origin. Thus, I am “from St. Louis” or “from Oregon” depending on the context of the discussion. So Ignaz is sometimes listed as ”von Sommerach” or “von Heidinsfeld” or “von München” depending on whether he was describing where he was born or where he was currently living.

I don’t know whether they tried to name any more sons Ignaz. US Census forms indicate that eventually they had 14 children, 4 of whom survived to adulthood… about average for the pre-antibiotic/pre-immunization era. The dates of their marriage, as well as the death notices in the Munich Official Journal, indicate that Ignaz was already living in, or near, Munich by 1868, although the 1870 Adreßbuch für München still didn’t list them. Perhaps listing was a cost they couldn’t afford at that point. The only Schweinsberger listed in Munich in 1870 was Johann. This Johann Schweinsberger, a carpenter [tischler], is probably Ignaz’ uncle, but there is no strong documentation to support this interpretation. In Munich, Johann and Ignaz lived on opposite sides of the Isar River, about 2km apart. The Adreßbuch für München after 1872 listed Ignaz:   “Schweinsberger Ignaz, Kleinmechaniker” living at 49 Falcon Street. A “little machinist” presumably means a metal worker who specialized in small metal mechanical devises, such as locks. I’m not sure when this picture was taken of them. I suspect it is long after they married. They look to be in their late 40s. There is nothing in these records to suggest any obvious reason for going to America. However, family problems may have played a role. Next episode…Problems for the family patriarch – Johann Baptist Schweinsberger.

Episode 40. Why did Ignaz and Barbara go to Kansas City?

The family of Ignaz and Barbara went to Kansas City, MO after arriving in America. Why there? The answer lies in the fact that on Aug 5, 1881 Lorenz Schweinsberger and his wife Johanna Margaretha arrived in NYC after sailing from Rotterdam aboard the “W A Scholten.” Lorenz was three years younger than his brother Ignaz.   Lorenz and Johanna were in Kansas City for 5 years before Ignaz and family joined them.   Lorenz and Johanna had been married for 8 yrs when they came to America. Their wedding announcement from the Munich newspaper [Munchener Amtsblatt] of 1873 is shown below:

As you can see, Lorenz is a “schlosser” or “locksmith” and Johanna Margaretha Griessmann is a “kutscherstochter” or “coachman’s daughter.” It turns out that for many generations of Schweinsbergers, the family business had been working with metal as blacksmiths, locksmiths, or machinists. The list includes grandma Caroline’s brother Henry, Caroline’s father Heinrich, her grandfather Ignaz, her great uncle Lorenz, and her great grandfather Johann Baptist. There is even a Tobias Schweinsberger in 1671 who was a blacksmith/locksmith, but I can’t directly connect him to the family line by any documents. It’s probably just as well that I can’t connect Tobias, because the record I found is related to his arrest for “attacking and making fun of a Jewish woman, and other foolishness.”

In the wedding announcement, Lorenz was listed as being “v. [abbreviation for “vom” or “of”] Sommerach.”   As noted before, the oral family history until 1955 had indicated the family had come from Munich well to the south of Sommerach [a tiny village about 20mi east of Wurzburg].

Lorenz established himself in Kansas City and undoubtedly sang the praises of life in America to his sibs back home in Germany. Lorenz eventually changed his name to Lawrence Swinsberger, probably to fit in better in his adopted country. Lorenz came initially as a gardener, but by early in the 20^th Century he had developed a business with another German immigrant, Paul Ellensohn. It was called KANSAS CITY LABEL WORKS and was located at 309 E 18th. Eventually Lorenz and Johanna left Kansas City and moved to the area just north of Joplin. Lorenz and Johanna initially chose Kansas City because Kansas and the far western part of Missouri were full of German immigrants. Over the years Kansas has had some 60 newspapers in German. Missouri had towns such as Higginsville and Kansas City with large German communities. This is the reason Kansas City still has German festivals celebrating that heritage. So moving to Kansas City didn’t represent a problem with language. It is not so clear why Lorenz and Johanna later moved to Joplin MO.

Lorenz named his first son John Baptist (1877-1940), a name chosen to honor Johann Baptist Schweinsberger, the name of his father and grandfather. Son John Baptist later changed his name to Swansberger and moved to Oklahoma City to work in the oil industry where his descendents still live. Lorenz and Johanna had two daughters, Emma and Elizabeth. Emma (1884-1945) married Harry Brotherson (1889-1922), a motorcycle mechanic whose parents (Andrew and Helene) had been born in Denmark. After he died, Emma married William Hall.   Elizabeth (1878-??) isn’t easily found in the records, so she may have died early.   Lorenz died in 1891 and Johanna Margaretha died in 1927.

So the choice of Kansas City as a place to go for Ignaz Schweinsberger and Barbara Trenkler was probably easy. The more difficult question is “Why leave Germany at all?” With some branches of the family it is obvious why they came to America. Grandma Laura Alderson had lost her brother and her fiancé in the trenches of WWI and wanted to get as far away as possible from the stupidity of incessant European wars. For the Bavarian branch of the family the answer to the “why” question is less obvious. There are several potential explanations for the migration of the Schweinsberger families to America during the 1880s. One is that the economy of Germany had been on a roller coaster for many years before they left. The term “Great Depression” was originally the label attached to the worldwide economic depression that began in 1873. Its name was later changed to the “Long Depression” when it was decided that the event of the 1930s merited the appellation “Great”. At any rate, the Great/Long Depression that began in 1873 was most severe in the US and Europe. In England the depression lasted from 1873 to 1896. In the US it began with the Panic of 1873 and, according to some, ended some time after the Panic of 1893. Economists disagree on how long the depression lasted, with some [who noted mixed economic indicators] believing it ended as early as 1875. At any rate, there was a turbulent period of economic uncertainty that lasted about 20 years. The Great/Long Depression was caused in part by the Franco-Prussian War [1870-1871] which Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck had deliberately provoked by “tricking” the French into declaring war. The French declaration of war aided him in creating a unified Germany that included Bavaria and other German speakers in the south. Although Germany won the Franco-Prussian war decisively in less than a year of fighting, the results of that war became key factors in setting the stage for WWI. The war reparations paid to Germany weakened and humiliated the French. On the heels of the Seven Weeks’ War of 1866 in which Prussia had defeated Austria, the rapid defeat of the French in the Franco-Prussian war made it clear that a military powerhouse had emerged. The European balance of power became precarious and conflict inevitable.

So part of the reason for immigrating may have been the chaotic economic and political situation. Although the economy in general may have been uncertain, for a metal worker it should have been a boom time. The Industrial Revolution had arrived late in Germany. In the 1830s there were still about three dozen German states. This made building railroads difficult. By 1850 however railroads had been built joining the major cities. Unification under Bismarck further stimulated progress. For a metal worker employment opportunities should have been abundant. In addition, the Great/Long Depression was particularly severe in the US with 18,000 businesses going bankrupt including hundreds of banks and ten states. There was an investment boom in Germany after the Franco-Prussian war due in part to the money received from France as war reparations. Thus, the economic downturn of the Great/Long Depression was short in Germany compared to the US and Britain. So the obvious reasons for coming to America seem to be lacking for Ignaz and family. To understand why they migrated we need to know more about their lives in Germany.

Next episode…Ignaz and Barbara’s life in Germany

Episode 39. Ignaz, Lorenz, and Kansas City

As noted last time, Ignaz did not come to America with the rest of the family in July of 1887. He came by himself to the US about a year before his family. Although I haven’t found the ship manifest that documents his journey, in the years after immigrating Ignaz twice documented his immigration date as 1886 and Barbara’s as 1887 [on census forms of 1900 and 1910]. They had come from Munich [München].

The history of Munich is interesting. The city grew up north of the Bavarian Alps at the site of a Benedictine monastery that had been established in 1158; for that reason, the city has monks on its coat of arms. For nearly a thousand years Munich has been the most important city in Bavaria. Munich became the capital of a united Bavaria in 1506. The city remained a Catholic stronghold during the Reformation, becoming the center of the German Counter-Reformation. As boundaries shifted, Munich became the capital of the new Kingdom of Bavaria in 1806. Vladimir Lenin moved there to start his newspaper [Iskra or Spark] in 1900 and to write pamphlets. He went to London in 1902. Munich became a hotbed for both left- and right-wing politics. After WWI there was a proclamation of a short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919. Subsequently right-wing extremists gained power and Munich became the “Capital of the Nazi Movement.” An attempt to overthrow the government of the city in 1923 led to the temporary arrest of Adolf Hitler. The city rose to international prominence in 1933 when Hitler and the Nazis finally took power over all of Germany. Neville Chamberlain went to Munich to try to appease Hitler by allowing him to annex the German speaking Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. The hope that Hitler would stop with Czechoslovakia turned out to be unrealistic and war ensued. During the war, nearby Dachau [about 12mi NW of the city] was used as an extermination site. As the home of the Nazi movement, Munich was particularly hard hit during WWII, suffering some 71 bombing raids. After the war the prosecution of Nazi war criminals was in Nuremberg about 70-80mi north of Munich.

One result of the war was that family and official records were lost forever. Many of the records that have survived are found in academic libraries outside Germany. Thus, much of what we can now find out about the family comes from daily newspapers, school publications, police reports, city address books, etc. from the 1800s. Google has made many of these publications available in a searchable format on line at no cost; relevant items can be found by limiting a search to “books” and the time period “1700-1890.” The newspaper sections shown in the next several blogs come from those sources.   Surprisingly, there are tens of thousands of pages of information that are available and searchable in this format. These documents are not as easy to read as one would hope. Unfortunately spelling has sometimes changed since the mid 19^th century with the same word sometimes spelled in two different ways. Many words used then, no longer appear to exist. Also the archaic German printed script is tricky. A capital N and R are identical, capital C, E, and G look nearly identical, a capital B, V, P and Z are nearly identical, capital F, I, and J are nearly identical, small f and s are identical, small b and d are nearly identical, small h and y are nearly identical, small r and x are nearly identical, small l and k are nearly identical, etc. I’ve had to hire a native speaker to translate because Google German to English translation has frequently yielded gibberish. Unfortunately some of her translations have been inadequate.

There are many Schweinsbergers in Hesse but they cannot easily be tied our branch of the family. The advantage of the family being in the far south is that the few Schweinsbergers there were probably all closely related. Johann Baptist Schweinsberger, born in 1796 and father of Ignaz, appears to be the first Schweinsberger to come to the area near Wurzburg. Unfortunately we do not know exactly when Johann Baptist arrived or where he came from.

After coming to America Ignaz and Barbara lived the rest of their lives in Kansas City. Like so many of the family before and after him, Ignaz worked as a blacksmith [according to 1890 Kansas City Directory] or as a machinist [middle back row on photo above].  Ignaz died 26 Apr 1911 at age 66. His grave in Mount Washington Cemetery, Independence, Jackson County, Missouri, lists his birthplace as Munich. This was the oral family story that grandmother Caroline had heard, but it is incomplete. In 1955 Caroline and her brother Henry somehow got the address of a Schweinsberger in Germany. The result was an exchange of letters and a new understanding of family origins. More about the letters will come in a future episode.   Although the family was living in Munich when they left for America, Ignaz had actually been born near Wurzburg far to the north of Munich.

“Find a grave” [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=42056554] lists his children as Hazel, Lawrence, Theresa, and Anna. “Hazel” is incorrect; it should have listed “Heinrich.”   Barbara Trenkler Schweinsberger died 1 Jan 1937 at age 92. She is buried in the same plot as Ignaz. [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=97656191]

There are a number of interesting questions about the family. It’s unclear why their son Heinrich moved to St. Louis with his wife Edith Henke some time before 1900. Other questions persist that may be answerable. Why did they go to Kansas City? The answer to this question will be discussed with the story of Lorenz Schweinsberger in the next episode. A more complicated issue regards the decision of Ignaz and Barbara Schweinsberger to leave Bavaria. What was going on in Germany that made uprooting their families a reasonable plan? I’ll suggest some possible answers to some of those questions in the next episodes.