Letter From Aunt Millie Sheds Light on Fiegs in America

By Judy Kestner


On April 5, 1966 Emilie Fieg Case – known as Millie to her family – wrote a letter outlining our family's history in America. The letter was sent to my father (her nephew), Victor Philip Fieg, upon his request. On first glance it is simply a litany of dates and names but the small, personal details Millie includes make it a page-turner (especially if you are a relative of hers).


In a recent e-mail, Doris Holm, Aunt Millie's niece and daughter of Millie's brother Max, wrote that Millie's nickname in Milford, PA, where she raised her family, was The Old Timer, and that she led the Milford hiking club throughout the woods. Said Doris, "She was so remarkable (in) her memory and knowledge of the woods and wildlife there.  (They) could find their way over all the old Indian trails in the Poconos.  She knew where to find a rare wild orchid." Emilie Case was a renaissance woman!

The original hand-written letter was transcribed by my father on his typewriter. My own comments (some of which now seem like the musings of an old lady -- ok, Phyllis, I am older than you ...) are in italics.


A letter from Emilie (Fieg) Case – Aunt Millie – April 5, 1966
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

1      If I knew how much your father told you of the family history, I'd know where to begin! (The exclamation mark inserted here is, for those who have never used a manual typewriter, created thus: the author typed a period, backspaced and topped it with an apostrophe. Perhaps the exclamation mark was perceived to be an unnecessary emphasis back in the dark ages and therefore not part of the original typewriter's keyboard.)

2      Our father Carl Fieg (According to genealogical research into the lineage of the second wife of his son, Max, Carl was known as Philip.  That may have been a middle name, but the middle name Victor is also attributed to him in other family literature.) was one of four brothers, Herman, Lothar and Frederick. The last (i.e. Frederick) came to America about 1890. Herman went to Australia and illustrated that book, Das Buch von Pferde.

3      I don't know what became of your great uncle Lothar but Frederick worked at publishing in Newark, N.J. and fathered six daughters and two sons. Only one daughter, Helen Griffith, is left. A retired school teacher, she lives in Milford and I wish you could talk to her. Her nephew Frederick Fieg is living in California – retired from the Army. His address: 118 N. Ost, Lombac (sic), Calif. 805-RF6-3661. (There were no ZIP codes back then and also, until the late 1960s, telephone exchanges began with two or three letters as a mnemonic device. The letters represented the exchange, or center, where the phone lines interconnected, such as PEnnsylvania 6-5000 -- i.e. 736-5000.)

4      The other son, Otto, of Frederick, Sr., went to South America under a cloud, did well there for Esso and died not so long ago. He had married a Portugese (sic) girl.

5      No one knows how or where Herman died.

6      Beta (Bertha) says our name was originally Fiegen. I didn't know that, or why they dropped the en.

7      Our father had a crooked partner in Germany, in the jewelry business and he had to go bankrupt – a terrible disgrace in Germany in 1898 or '99. So he slipped away to America ahead of his family and later sent for his family in May of 1899. We sailed on the ship The Pennsylvania, and arrived in New York in July. My mother Emilie Böhler (or alternately "Boehler," and pronounced "bailer."  The umlaut over the o here is hand-written.) was born in Baden Baden on Aug. 23, 1857. My father on July 11, I think also in 1857, or maybe before 1857. They were married in February, I think in 1879. (It is interesting to read that Aunt Millie was unsure about these dates. Birthdays and anniversaries are big business nowadays and people are supposed to make a big deal and spend lots of money on them. Steven Fieg researched the origin of birthdays and found that "when ancient peoples began taking notice of the moon's cycles [they began to pay] attention to the changing seasons and the pattern that repeated itself over and over and so they began to mark and note time changes. That's the start of birthday history." He also mentions that kings and nobles were originally the only people to have big birthday celebrations, "explained by a theory that nobility were the only people wealthy enough to throw such celebrations, and quite possibly were the only ones thought to be important enough to have been written about or remembered." Democracy – or socialism?? – at work!) I have a wedding ring home with the date on the inside. Our father died in 1906 – the year your father was still out west. How much do you know of his riding the rods out west? How did my mother ever let him go? (Millie is here referring to my grandfather Lothar who, as a young man, went west to work on the railroads.)

8      Martha was born May 7, 1885 and died Feb. 5, 1918. Max was born April 3, 1888. I've heard Max say that famous blizzard even occured (sic) in Germany; that when my mother was waiting for him to arrive the narrow streets – die Gasse – were filled with snow.

9      Beta was born May 5, 1890, and I on Dec. 7, 1894, tho people think Beta is younger than I.

10      (Dad was born Aug. 11, 1886 in Pforzheim.) (This parenthetical comment was inserted by my father. "Dad" is his father Herman Lothar Emil Fieg, who was called Lothar. Aunt Millie assumed details about my grandfather were already known by his son and thus she did not include them in her letter.)

11     We lived first in Yonkers in America; moved to Washington Ave. (in the Bronx; it runs from north to south between E. Fordham Ave. and E. 163rd St.), then to Park Ave. (which parallels Washington Ave. one block west. It follows the path of the railroad and continues as far south as the Major Deegan Parkway at the Harlem River.), then to Igleslock (Eagles Lock) at 173rd St. in the Bronx in the midst of a lovely cherry orchard. (173rd St. runs across the Bronx east to west from the Bronx River to the the Grand Concourse. Crotona Park interrupts its flow at one point and the street is also one block north of the smaller Claremont Park. Maybe the orchard was located in one of those parks. Interestingly, at the Bronx River, 173rd St. tees into W. Farms Rd.!) In March 1903 we moved to Schocopee in Pike County, Pa. Victor used to raise the most wonderful vegetables. He died in 1907, in March, of a kidney infection.

12     I'm afraid this letter is very disjointed.

13     Martha married George Daumann in April 1910. No children. Max married Nettie Newman at Christmas in 1909. (A hand-written asterisk is inserted here to indicate that Max's children are listed at the end of the letter.) Beta married Lester F. Bonardel May 19, 1914 – two sons, Victor, married Lois Proctor June 30, 1936. Lester Francis (Chick) married Roberta Vollmer in Nov. 1941 – six children: Robin, married to Fred Dunn July 1963, expecting a baby now; Linda, working for Lord & Taylor as a buyer in junior clothes: Diane, working as (a) secretary; Jeffery in high school, an ardent ballplayer; Dale; David.

14     Now my sons. Stanley – married Emily Porter Sept. 1, 1940 – (They) have two daughters, Judy, married to George Smith (teaches history at Whippany, N.J.). (They) have a baby Sharon born Aug. 9, 1965; Patricia, engaged to Rich Paetzold, and Jimmie, a senior in High School, hopes to go to Rider College next fall. Tim – or Thomas, May 10, 1917, married Alberta Krape of Naples, N.Y., July 8, 1944 – one daughter Shelby, 1947, going to York Junior College. Gifford – married Susannah Waggoner Aug. 29, 1940, four children, Richard, Nov. 18, 1941, Gerald, June, 1943, Lorraine, Aug. 11, 1945, Danny, May 3, 1949, in high school. Giff's home is at Maywood, Calif. but just now he is at Niles, Ohio, automating a Fisher Body plant. (Gifford was named after Pennsylvania governor Gifford Pinchot, the first American to be trained in forestry. He served as Chief Forester of the U.S. Division of Forestry under President Theodore Roosevelt and became governor of Pennsylvania in 1922. He was a tireless worker, often making himself available for citizens to walk into his office to speak to him. He established the first state budget and erased the state's debt. Governor Pinchot was a close friend of Aunt Millie's in-laws, the Cases.) All but Danny are married.

15     Richard, my #4 son, married Amelia Thomas in Nov. 1945. Four children: Richard, Sandra, Ronald and Debbie. #5 Walter married Betty Sittler May 15, 1954. Three daughters, Linda, 8; Suzanne, 6 and Beth, 2. My #6 son (Arthur) (named after Aunt Millie's husband) married Cathy Weeks Aug. 16, 1952. Two boys, Michael, 7 and Steven, 4.

16     I married Feb. 28, 1915.

Added in what I presume to be Aunt Millie's hand-writing is the following:

* Max & Nettie had 4 children

EUGENE CARL JAN. 6, 1911

HENRY DAVID MAR. 5, 1913

JANET MAXINE JAN. 3, 1916

EMMA MAY MAY 12, 1920

Nettie died Nov. 1921. Max remarried to Louise Voorhees March 23, 1923.

Born to them DORIS ANNE OCT 1, 1931.

CARL        M.      GERALDINE DALTON – 1936                         EUGENE JR.
                                                                                                         KAREN
                                                                                                         DAVID

HENRY     M.      CAROLINE HANNA – 1935                            (No children)

JANET      M.       RONDOLPH GREGORY – 1936                      RONALD
                                                                                                        DAVID
                                                                                                        GEORGE
                                                                                                        STEVEN

EMMA      M.       FRED WALTER – 1941                                    CAROL
                                                                                                        F. JOSEPH JR.
                                                                                                        NORMA
                                                                                                        TIMOTHY

DORIS      M.        ROBERT HOLM – 1949                                 JANET
                                                                                                       NANCY
                                                                                                       PETER
                                                                                                       ROBERTA
                                                                                                       MATTHEW