Category Archives: Locations

posts related to important locations

I do not know why John Barmann decided to come to America in 1886 when he was 21 years old. There was a family story that he came to avoid military service. This could certainly have been true, as it was one of the most popular reasons for young men to emigrate from Germany at that time. Otto von Bismarck, the German Chancellor and former head of the Prussian state, had demonstrated that he would use war to further his political agenda, but the new German Empire, formed in 1871, had been at peace since the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. If John Barmann had been drafted, he would have served for 3 years and then been eligible for recall (part of the active reserve) until middle age.¹

Mecklenburg-Schwerin, 1910

It is possible that John left because of the lack of prospects for the son of a farmhand in Pustohl, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Germany. Mecklenburg was one of the poorest states in Germany. The economy was mostly agrarian. The dissolution of serfdom in 1820 may have seemed like a good idea for the peasants, but, in fact, it was a disaster. Yes, they were free to leave the land they were tied to by serfdom, but the estate owners were also freed of all obligations to the serfs. The land owners no longer had to care for sick and elderly peasants and they could simply evict workers that they no longer needed or wanted. Grinding poverty, desperation and living hand-to-mouth characterized the existence of Mecklenburg’s poorest people. Nearly one third of all Mecklenburgers left the state between 1820 and 1890. It is one of the highest percentage of 19^th century emigration of any European state.

Almost 1.5 million Germans emigrated to the United States in the 1880s, the largest number in any decade before or since. John Barmann’s older sister, Friederike and her husband, Martin Peters, emigrated in October, 1885, one year before John’s voyage. They likely lived in Chicago and so the booming midwestern city was John’s destination in October, 1886. Positive reports John likely received from his sister would certainly have been an important factor in his decision to leave Mecklenburg and come to Chicago.

John boarded the SS Polynesia of the Carr line on October 20, 1886 in Hamburg and docked in New York on November 6. The 17 day passage was one of the slowest of this period because the Carr Line was known as the “budget” ship line. The ships did not have the most up-to-date propulsion systems or the best accommodations. The Polynesia had no first or second class cabins, it had capacity for 950 third class passengers.

It is likely that John stayed with his sister’s family for a short time after his arrival in Chicago. This was likely in the Bridgeport neighborhood near many other German families. John married Albertine Damaschke on 24 March 1889. Six people are recorded as witnesses in the Holy Cross Church marriage register, but it seems odd that John’s sister and brother-in-law are not among them.

Holy Cross Church

I can only hope that John and Albertine were happy in 1889, because 1890 was not a good year for them. The year started on a high note, their first child was born early in the year. However, two weeks after Meta Johanna Friedrike was born in January of 1890, Albertine, her mother and John’s wife, died. John and Albertine’s life together was very short-lived.

John was probably not thinking about buying a cemetery plot when 1890 began, but he did purchase a six burial site on January 31, 1890 at Concordia Cemetery in Forest Park. Albertine was buried that day in Section 4 lot 959. It was an unusually warm day for January, possibly reaching 50 degress, with no precipitation. Horse-drawn carriages would have proceeded from Holy Cross to Concordia. First in line would be a carriage for the pastor and pall-bearers, next the hearse, followed by carriages with family and friends. Well-to-do attendees would have driven in their own carriages, but most people would use a rented carriage provided by the family.

On that day, Concordia records show that John lived at 3113 Wall Street in Chicago, a few blocks away from Holy Cross Church, where Meta was baptized two weeks earlier and where the services were held for Albertine. Wall Street is now called S. May Street.

The next few months would have been very stressful for John. Single men were not expected to know how to raise children, so John was probably very worried about his daughter. He would have relied on the people at Holy Cross and the recent immigrants from Mecklenburg-Schwerin , for help. Only 3 ½ months after Albertine’s death, John was married to Sohia Behning, the oldest daughter of Elizabeth and the late William Behning on 17 May 1890. The Behning family must have known the Barmann family from back in Mecklenburg. Gnemern, the home of the Behnings and Pustohl, the home of the Barmanns, were nearby communities whose residents attended the Church in Behrendshagen, a small town roughly midway between Gnemern and Pustohl. The short courtship and the fact that John and Sophia are second cousins leads me to speculate that this was a marriage of convenience. I can see why John would desire this match, his new wife would help him raise his daughter. It is a little more difficult to understand Sophia’s motivation for accepting this match. Ironically, the likely reason for the marriage, little Meta Johanna Friederike Barmann, died on 1 Jul 1890, 6 weeks after John and Sophia’s wedding.

The year 1890 must surely have been the most memorable year in John Barmann’s life. John Barmann began the year with a wife and a baby due any day and ended the year with no children, a different wife and another child on the way. John and Sophia’s story, which includes 11 children, will be the subject of a future post.

John Barmann and Sophie/Albertine

The middle photo is Sophia Behning (Barmann). I am not sure if the photo on the right or left is Sophie. Please let me know what you think.

¹Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict, Three-Volume Set, Volume 2

Links

Holy Cross Church today

Wikipedia article on Mecklenburg-Schwerin

The Behnings arrive in America

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My earliest German ancestors to emigrate to the New World arrived in New York on October 29, 1883. The Behning (Benning, Bening) family included William Behning and his wife Elizabeth, their 5 children, William’s step-mother, Luise Behning, and Elizabeth’s mother, Marie Schunemann. It is possible that Elizabeth was also pregnant with their 6^th child. Their oldest child, Sophia Behning, became Emma Barmann’s mother.

SS Bohemia
Hamburg America Line

The extended family boarded the SS Bohemia in Hamburg on October 14, 1883. It is likely that they spent a night or two in the Emigration Halls in Hamburg before boarding the single funnel steamship for America. They were issued a metal tag which matched a metal tag on their baggage. Upon arriving in New York City, they would have been taken by a barge from the Bohemia, docked in Hamburg American’s slips in Hoboken, New Jersey to the Castle Gardens pier. Castle Gardens was the immigration processing facility in New York which preceded Ellis Island, which opened in 1892. After passing medical inspections and registering with the immigration officials, they entered the main hall where representatives of railroad companies were selling tickets to all parts of the United States. They used the metal tag to claim their baggage and were likely taken directly to the railroad station from Castle Gardens using transportation provided by the rail company.

Typical steerage accommodations
www.norwayheritage.com

The 24 hour journey to Chicago would have ended at one of several stations in the downtown Chicago area. It is possible that they were met there by agents of the Chicago German Aid Society or even family or friends. We can only hope that they were not met by the unscrupulous characters that preyed on recent immigrants at the train stations, sometimes stealing their luggage or charging outrageous amounts of money for a night’s stay in unsanitary rooms near the train station.

They made their way to their first residence in Chicago, 3016 South Keeley. Many German immigrants were coming to Bridgeport in these days. The Chicago Union Stockyards and Union Rolling Mills, both established in 1865, provided many jobs.

The Behning family was in Chicago for less than a month when tragedy struck them. William Behning, age 36, died of pneumonia after a 5 day illness on November 15, 1883. He had lived in America for 18 days. He left behind his 5 children, Sophia age 13, Friedrich age 9, Johann age 8, Ferdinand age 4 and William age 3, his step-mother, his mother-in-law and his wife, Elizabeth, who may have been carrying their 6^th child at the time of his death. William was buried in Concordia Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois on November 18, 1883. His body was moved to its current location (Section 5, Lot 83) in 1890, when Elizabeth Behning purchased a 6 burial plot. At the same time, an infant was moved to this plot. The infant, named Martin Behning, was born in November or December, 1883 and died 7 months later in June, 1884. In order to say with certainty that this was Elizabeth and William’s son, I will need to find the church or civil records of his birth or death, but there is circumstantial evidence to suggest that he was William and Elizabeth’s son.

Concordia Cemetery Gate, Forest park, Illinois, USA

Concordia Cemetery Lot 83, Section 5 There is no headstone for William and Martin Behning

It is difficult to imagine how Elizabeth felt when her husband died. She was probably planning to spend her time raising her children, but instead, she faced the prospect of supporting her family in this strange, new land, thousands of mile from home. Her experience as a house servant in a rural German manor house could not have prepared her for life and work in Chicago in 1883.

Of course, there was no Social Security or public welfare available at that time, so she probably relied on the local church to get through the early days without her husband. The church she attended was probably the First Lutheran Church of the Trinity, located at Kossuth and Canal Streets. This area is now occupied by the Dan Ryan expressway and the Union Pacific railroad yard (the church is now located at 31^st and Lowe). Then, in 1886, Holy Cross Lutheran Church began operations at 31^st and Racine, a few blocks from where the Behnings lived. This church was started by members of First Trinity in a location where they operated a school. Both of these churches offered German language services.

The Chicago German Aid Society may also have been a source of some aid. This society was formed in 1854 to assist German-speaking immigrants.

It is clear that Elizabeth landed on her feet. By 1900, she owned the building at 3625 S. Lincoln Street (now Wolcott Street), and had 2 tenant families living there. Three of her sons also lived there. She was always listed as a widow in the Chicago City Directories and the US Census records.

Links

Concordia Cemetery – Barmann Behning Burial information

Good article on Castle Garden

My mother was not the only girl growing up in the 1930s and 1940s to keep a movie star scrapbook, and she is not the only 84 year old woman to still keep that cherished, but faded collection of glamorous images. Growing up in Coal City, a small farming, coal mining and light industrial town in Central Illinois, the world of Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Hedy Lamarr and Rita Hayworth must have seemed like another planet to Rose. Movies on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon at the Rialto Theater on Broadway Street in Coal City provided Rose with a glimpse into the glamorous world these stars inhabited. Before People Magazine, Entertainment Tonight and online fanzines, Rose had her scrapbook to inspire daydreams of the glittering and elegant lifestyle of a Hollywood movie star.

1943 – Ray, Nonna and Rose

My mother’s life was a sharp contrast to the images in her scrapbook. Rose’s mother died a couple of days after she was born. Her father could not raise Rose and her older brother, Ray, by himself so Rose and Ray lived with their grandfather and grandmother, Ricardo and Caroline DeCecco. They continued to live in Chicago for a short while after burying their daughter, Matilda, in Mount Carmel Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois but they soon moved back to Coal City, where Ricardo and Caroline had raised their own children and where friends and family were close by. Caroline had already brought up her own children and her brother-in-law’s children and now she took Rose and Ray into her household. Ray and Rose would be the third set of children she raised.

I was lucky enough to know Caroline and I could see the close and loving relationship she had with my mother. When my sister and I were young, Caroline still called my mother “Ninna”, meaning “little one”. It seemed everyone in Coal City called Caroline ”Nonna”, including me, my sister and my mother and father. Of course, she really was Rose’s Nonna, meaning grandmother in Italian and Friulan and she was our great-grandmother. I think her neighbors called her “Nonna” out of respect and admiration for her career as a loving parent to 3 families of children.

Love was one of the few things Nonna could give to my mother and Uncle Ray during the Depression. Caroline and Ricardo did not have much, but what they had, they shared with Rose, Ray and others in need. The fence post in front of their house was marked by the traveling “hobos” to indicate that a man down on his luck could always get a meal at that house.

Farmhouse in Coal City

Ricardo DeCecco

Ricardo worked when he could in the terrazzo industry, as did many of the immigrants from Friula (in northeast Italy), so Rose and Ray did not go hungry, but luxuries were in short supply. A hot bath in the summer meant waiting for the metal bathtub full of water pumped up from the well to warm in the sun. A lazy afternoon was not spent watching TV, instead, Rose would lie on her back, look up at the clouds and try to pick out recognizable shapes from the shifting forms. An orange was often the only gift in the Christmas stocking and there is a rumor that my Uncle Ray received a lump of coal in his stocking one year. There was plenty of coal available, since it was used for heating and cooking, but I still cannot believe this story. My mother had a chalk doll, which did not talk, move or require batteries. And if her doll had any accessories, they were hand-made by Rose.

But my mother had Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons at the Rialto. Her Uncle Emil, he was one of Caroline’s second set of children, traveled a lot to do terrazzo work, but when he was at home, he would take Rose to the Rialto and pick her up on Saturday night. On Sunday, my mother would walk to the theater, maybe meeting one of her friends along the way.

Sometimes, John Roman, the owner of one of the successful terrazzo companies, would visit Ricardo and Caroline. His mother-in-law lived next door. He would reach into his pocket, pull out a handful of coins and throw them on the ground. The children would scramble for the coins, they only needed a dime to see a movie and maybe another dime for popcorn.

At the end of the day, my mother had her scrapbook. Imagine the excitement when Ricardo or Uncle Emil came home with the Sunday Chicago Sun and, for the first time, my mother saw the 11” by 15” color print of Greer Garson or Laraine Day or Captain Clark Gable. Using flour paste sparingly, so as not to warp the paper when the glue dried, she would place it in her scrapbook. Greer and Laraine and Clark are still there today, and they look as glamorous as ever.

Mike Lembke's Family History Page

Category Archives: Locations

Ricardo Dececco’s Memorial Book, April, 1951

Johann Heinrich Fritz Martin Barmann comes to Chicago

The Behnings arrive in America

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