Old proverb: "To speak the names of the departed is to make them live again."

Thursday, August 30, 2012

The Autobiography of Aunt Millie Part Five: School Days


     In 1911, [the Old Timer] graduated from High School. She was second highest in marks and so she was class historian. The Pickwick Club chipped in for 6 dozen red and white carnations, and what a test for a girl's popularity it was to receive a lot of flowers! The Old Timer held a few roses on her lap during the commencement exercises, only to hear in a loud whisper from Julia Murphy, "Hold those carnations!" So she did, and how lovely they were and what a token of affection.

     The Pickwick Club was modeled on the one in Little Women, and they all took names in the news.... Hazel was Henry Van Dyke, Mabel was Zim, the Old Timer Richard Harding Davis, Clara Wolfe was Homer Green. They met mostly at Katherine Barclay's home, it was so large, and they ended always with a Virginia Reel with Bess Armstrong at the piano. The Old Timer wrote a play and they performed it at Clara's home, where her brother Ernest manipulated the double doors for a stage curtain. Vera Ryman was the male lead, and Mrs. Struthers of Lincoln's time loaned them a red male wig. The Old Timer was the maid, Lizzie, but what the play was about is lost in the mist of time.
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     Interestingly, according to Poconohistory.com, "The thirty-six star American flag which was used to cradle President Abraham Lincoln’s head as he lay mortally wounded in Ford's Theatre is now a part of the Pike County Historical Society. The blood-stained flag descended into a family of prominent actors, the Gourlay family, who were appearing in the play 'Our American Cousin,' in Ford’s Theatre on the night the President was assassinated. The 'Lincoln Flag' was donated to the Pike County Historical Society in 1954 by V. Paul Struthers, the son of Jeannie Gourlay Struthers, an eyewitness to the tragic event." Perhaps Mrs. Struthers was the mother of V. Paul Struthers?
     Lousa May Alcott's classic book Little Women was published in 1869. It was the story of the March family consisting of four girls, Meg (a teacher at age 16), Jo, Amy, Beth and their mother, whom they call Marmee, in New England in the mid-nineteenth century. The family is "comfortable" and always ready to share their meager possessions, not unlike the Fiegs in Milford.
     The Pickwick Club is first described in chapter 10 of Little Women: "Gardening, walks, rows on the river, and flower hunts employed the fine [spring] days, and for rainy ones, they had house diversions, some old, some new, all more or less original. One of these was the `P.C', for as secret societies were the fashion, it was thought proper to have one, and as all of the girls admired Dickens, they called themselves the Pickwick Club."
     The characters whose names the Milford girls adopted were newsmakers of their time. Henry Van Dyke was an American educator, author and clergyman born in Pennsylvania; Richard Harding Davis was an author and journalist, the first American war correspondent to cover the Spanish-American War, the Boer War and World War I; there was an author and lawyer named Homer Greene who was born in Pennsylvania and was a district attorney in neighboring Wayne County, but who Zim was is a mystery.
     As a testament to Millie's love of literature, on April 4, 19__ the Emilie Case Children's Library was dedicated in Milford. Her nephew, Henry (called Hank by his family), a former president of the library's board of trustees, said, "The most important things in Emilie Case's life were people and books.... It could be said of Emilie that she never met a man or woman she did not like." A memorial plaque was placed in the children's library.
     In another strike by the knobby club, a torrential rain fell outside the library during the ceremony but, as reporter Cynthia Van Lierde wrote, "The warmth and love generated by the family, friends and fellow workers, for Emilie and her work in the library, permeated the rooms in the Community House.
     "Emilie was a volunteer in the library for many, many years. When she had trouble with her eyes and could no longer drive, she would hitch hike the six miles from Oak Tree Farm to the library in Milford. Fortunately, she was well known and never lacked for a 'lift' to town.
     "Books created a world apart for Emilie. they were an escape from the monotony and drudgery of housework. She gained great pleasure by just being in the library, surrounded by books.... She enriched the lives of children and adults by guiding them to this special world...."
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     Only five girls were in that 1911 graduating class. How important they all felt, and how the oldest sister and her mother labored over that graduating dress. How dressed up they felt with those black silk stockings, just come into fashion.

     Later that summer a written examination by Lucida Westbrook, the county superintendent of schools, and held in Matamoras, was passed by the Old Timer with adequate marks. Grammar, history, arithmetic, geography and spelling. The Old Timer missed demonetize - she had no idea what it meant - and that old problem about the hired man and the rainy day. A dollar a day was the salary. She was granted a certificate to teach -- sixteen years old! -- and with Miss Lizzie Rochette drove to the home of the school director Julius Kiesel, was interviewed and hired to teach the Franklin School. Miss Rochette gave her a piece of sound advice, "Always make a fuss over the baby," as the Old Timer, never having seen a baby, ignored the Kiesel baby, Julius A. -- "Junie" -- (now seventy-one!).
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    In "Milford to the Minisink Valley," Susan Mickley notes, "The Milford High School was the pride and joy of the town. Its central location made it the heart of community events and meetings. Built in 1904, it served as a high school and then as the elementary school (grades one through six) until it was sold to become a merchant center and commercial offices." A picture of the building appears on page 67 of the book.
     Milford served as setting for a number of silent films directed by D.W. Griffith in the early 1900s, including The Informer starring Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish and Lionel Barrymore. In fact there is a photo of Mary Pickford in Mickley's book.
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     The next four years were spent teaching the Franklin and Union schools. The first year had a disturbing incident when the fourteen-year-old Levi La Bar threw a book that struck [the Old Timer] in the back as she stood at the black board. She sent him home -- and twenty years later at the Ed Gebhardt home at a party he apologized humbly!

     The summers of those years were spent earning money -- waiting table at the Villa Madeline, where the cooking was suberb, (delicious rabbit stew with blood in the gravy -- the flakiest pie crust ever seen) and one summer, as office help for the Hyatt Roller Bearing Company in Harrison, NJ. At the time she was "going steady" with her future husband -- and how he did flatter her when he was told she was going away for two months! He sat with her and tears rolled down his cheeks in a steady stream! The office work was good experience and she and her sister boarded with their cousin Mrs. Anna Rothfuss. The two cousins Walter (10) and Clifford (17) were at home and once for some reason the 17-year-old gave the Old Timer's face a resounding slap! Why?
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     Crisco was introduced in 1911 and advertised as "a Scientific Discovery Which Will Affect Every Kitchen in America," though it was met with skepticism at first by housewives used to cooking with butter and lard. Jewish housewives embraced Crisco, which contained neither milk nor meat products, helping to propel its sales. Undoubtedly this ingredient contributed to the "flakiest pie crust" mentioned above!
The cousin Anna Rothfuss mentioned above could have been Helen Griffith's sister.


1920s advertisement for
Hyatt Roller Bearings Company
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     Back in September to teaching, and boarding in winter weather at her "intended's" sister's, Mrs. Lottie Momeaux. She got a good lesson in minding your own business when she got that awful idea that a teacher should be an elevating influence and she told her host not to eat with his knife! What a laying out he did give her, so that she shed bitter tears!

     To save all that board money ($3.50 a week) they decided to get married, Feb. 28, 1915, and what a bright sunshiney day it was. The groom, Arthur Case, hired an automobile, and as she was only twenty and her mother too far away to sign the marriage license, the minister Levi McMickle said he could perform the ceremony anywhere in the U.S. So to the Methodist Church in Port [Jervis?], with Hazel and her sister Martha as witness[es] -- they were married. Didn't he have any friend to stand with him? A wedding supper with mayonnaise on the salad by special request of the bride, and a four-mile drive to her future home with his parents, was the honeymoon drive. [ed. note:  Hellman's Blue Ribbon Mayonnaise was first marketed by a New York deli owner in 1912. Until that time mayonnaise was usually made at home. What a treat to be able to enjoy this condiment without the labor of making it!]

     Teaching school again the next day -- a very rainy one! -- and a skimulton that evening by seventeen of his friends -- so they could be treated to drinks. (A skimulton or shivance is a serenade on tin pans, shotgun fire to a newly married couple.)

Thursday, August 23, 2012

The Autobiography of Aunt Millie Part Four: The Early Years in Schocopee


     Her oldest [brother], Victor, began to grow vegetables and sell them in the village. Her [father] brought many of his colleagues from Shearer's, the supply house for Tiffany's, and the mother had to cook for them all. A tent was placed on the lawn where at least four of the boarders could sleep.

     The house was very small, and a Peter de Roos [one of the boarders?] bought the eight-year-old a doll dressed in long, long clothes -- the fashion then for babies.
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     Pike County, Pennsylvania, where Schocopee is located, lies on the westernmost edge of the Greater New York metropolitan area and so the train trip there was not a very long one, compared to the trip made by Millie's Uncle Herman who had emigrated to Australia. The farm was located on Schocopee Rd. and is now the site of the Black Walnut Inn in Milford.
     Doris Holm, Millie's niece, has shared much information about the farm in Schocopee, having had the privilege of visiting there often in her youth to visit her grandparents Carl and Emilie and all the aunts, uncles and cousins.
     She writes, "That farm was a typical old self-sufficient place....they raised everything. Milk cows, plow horses, their own hay, pigs, chickens, corn, vegetables, etc.  Aunt Millie sold eggs, milk, butter.  There was a milk house, smoke house for their own hams, an ice house, corn crib, pig pens, several chicken houses.  Before there was electricity, milk and butter [were] kept in a natural cold spring pool across the road.  The spring served a little pond.  My father [Max] built a rowboat they put on the pond. It was named the Cas-mack, for Casey and Max.  Pop also helped build the barn, and laid new flooring in the living room of the house.  Later, a new owner tore up the replacement flooring and restored the old pine boards like the original.....hooray! ...On one of our last visits to Oak Tree Farm, there was a freak tornado that took the whole Oak Tree away, leaving a stump about eight feet tall, and I can remember Aunt Millie and her visiting sister Bertha, standing and staring at the sight, and shaking their heads in disbelief. The house was dated 1859, I think, and the tree had been there from the beginning, hence the name. The rest of the tree was nowhere to be seen....just gone. The twister did not touch the house, nor the barn, but left the corn in the garden lying in circles, as if if had headed toward the barn and changed its mind."
     Susan Titus Mickley describes the area in her book "Milford to the Minisink Valley" (Arcadia Publishing, 2005): "By the early 1900s, Milford had grown into a well-planned, Victorian-style hamlet nestled between the Delaware River and the Pocono Mountains." Gifford Pinchot, first director of the United States Forest Service, governor of Pennsylvania from 1922 to 1927 and a friend of the Case family -- Aunt Millie's third son was named Gifford in his honor -- had constructed a family estate called Grey Towers in Milford in 1886 in the Medieval French style, designed by Richard Morris Hunt who also designed the stone base of the Statue of Liberty. (In 1962, just two months before his assassination, President John F. Kennedy visited the site to dedicate the Pinchot Institute for Conservation Studies.)
     Tiffany and Company began to focus on making jewelry in 1902 and evidently Carl Fieg's background as a jeweler helped him find work at a company called Shearer's near Milford. The tents set up in the yard for fellow workers belies the fact that boarding houses were big business in Pike County at the turn of the last century, especially in the summer months. Mickley notes, "Summer visitors to the boardinghouses were very loyal and would come back year after year.... All ages were welcome, but many boarders were young eligible workers from the cities who came to escape the heat." Probably the Shearer's employees were not able to afford a room at a boardinghouse, prompting Millie's kindhearted father to offer them a place to stay, however rudimentary.
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     In 1903 [began] a life long friendship, as on what is now Malibu: L. Harvey Myers and his six children -- Norman, Otto, Lillian, Walter, Hazel and 4-year-old Ada -- came to live. It was a half mile walk on [a] rough wood road for the Old Timer to walk, and what good times those youngsters had. They made it their boast that they climbed every roof of that farm, with the four-year-old given a boost up the ladders. [There is currently a Malibu Dude Ranch just to the north of Milford. It is the oldest working dude ranch in the eastern United States. Could this be the area where the Myers family lived?]

     Rattlesnakes abounded, and Otto would kill them. One snake that he killed he opened up, and twenty-one young wriggled out.

     From them, too, the Old Timer had her first knowledge of the Bible. (Her father was a philosopher, and expressed his religion in kindness, gentleness and love.) The Myers [family] had prayers every night and morning, as they were Free Methodists. No jewelry was allowed, no trimming of any kind on their clothes, and the mother was not even allowed to wear a wedding ring.

     One weekend, the father hired a surrey and took all his family and the Old Timer to Huguenot, New York where there was a Free Methodist church. It was a long boring ride, with a slow team of horses, but the Old Timer endured the long church services [and] admired their Aunt Gussie, with her ten children.

     She remembers a three-foot-high heap of stockings to be darned. What a sweet lovable woman that Aunt Gussie was! Do her children remember her with affection? One son still lives in ( ).
     The [Myers] farm was on Prospect Hill, and Laura worked it with her father [whom] Hazel called cousin Gene. [They held c]hurch services all the time, with no organ.... [One] hot June day, the children asked to go swimming in the pond, and received a flat, "no," [the grown-ups] thus receiving the everlasting hatred of the Old Timer. They tried to convert her to Free Methodism, but she resisted bravely.

     When the Myers family moved from the "Pilman" Farm to Milford, the Schocopee school closed and the Old Timer had to walk 2 miles each day to [and from] school.

     The winter of 1909-10 they lived in the cottage at the Hermitage, while the Ragots lived in New York. Sledding was fine that winter, and a Flexible Flyer that they named Caesar Augustus gave them endless days of riding to school. The Old Timer always had to steer, and Lillian and Hazel managed to squeeze onto the rear. The ride stopped at what is now Hels gas station, and the sleigh was hauled back up [all through the] day. A passing team with bobsleds often gave them a ride up that hill.

     There seems to be no memory of ever feeling tired or deprived because of having to walk. And indeed, as spring came on, those three girls would arise before 5 and take a walk. They were afraid of getting fat!

     Halley's comet appeared in May 1910, and one ... 2 a.m. Hazel and Lillian knocked on the Old Timer's bedroom window, and they walked up the "plateau" for a fine view of the comet and its long luminous tail.

     April of that year was a fine early spring, and the oldest sister was married in the "ballroom" of the Hermitage. The three teenagers gathered bouquets of June berry -- it was the earliest spring in her memory.

     Every Saturday night when the Hermitage opened for summer boarder business, a dance was held. Myrtle Ryder played solo, "Den spielt des Sie das Ting a ling." Did she get applause? Can't remember!
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     Huguenot, N.Y. is 82 miles northeast of Milford -- what a long distance to travel in a horse-drawn wagon! The route passes the town of Matamoras, Penn., site of the Old Stone Fort on the Delaware River, erected around 1740 by Dutch settler Simon Westfael as a refuge from Indian attacks and the town where Millie took her exam to become a school teacher in 1911.
     Free Methodism was founded in Rochester, N.Y. in 1860 and their fundamental mission, according to their official website, is to "emphasize Jesus’ commission: 'Preach the gospel to the poor.' [Founder B.T.] Roberts said the church should do what Jesus did: Take the gospel to people who are hurting and oppressed; people with no hope."
     The nomenclature "Free" was, according to Wikipedia, adopted to indicate two tenets: first, that the church was anti-slavery and, second, that the pews "were to be free to all rather than sold or rented (as was common), and because the new church hoped for the freedom of the Holy Spirit in the services rather than a stifling formality. However, according to World Book Encyclopedia, the third principle was 'freedom' from secret and oathbound societies (in particular the Freemasons).
     "Early Free Methodists enjoyed a cappella congregational hymns during worship,(a)s a reaction to paid musicians in the Methodist Church...."
     The Schocopee Schoolhouse was originally constructed in the late 1850’s just "out of town" on Schocopee Road. It served as a one-room school until 1907, when it was replaced by the new, "modern," school in Milford. The old structure later served as a meeting and voting place for the community; it witnessed Governor Gifford Pinchot casting his vote in many local elections.
     What the Hermitage was and who the Ragots were, I do not know.
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Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Everybody Loves a Baby!


The statisticians were correct:  August is the most popular month to give birth! 

Two new buds on the Fieg family tree burst into bloom this month and the first to appear was Emilie Elizabeth McGonigal, born at 8:01 p.m. on 8/1 (now those are nice statistics!) to Tyler and Julia McGonigal.  Proud grandparents Bob and Mary McGonigal drove from their home in Rochester to the Hudson River Valley to attend the birth which of course prevented them from attending the recent reunion in Cooperstown. 

Bob is the son of the late Emilie Boehler Fieg McGonigal of Oneonta, NY.

Says Mary, "[Emilie was] 6# 4 oz. and 18" long.  At first we thought she had black hair but, a day later, the hair is lighter and seems straight.  She changes by the minute.  WHAT AN ANGEL!"

This is Emilie VI in the Fieg family.  Keep 'em coming!

Check out some photos at http://www.snapfish.com/snapfish/shareethumbnailshare/AlbumID=8977415009/albumcount=1/p=965131344901509418/l=17644188009/g=53859767/cobrandOid=1000/otsc=SYE/otsi=SAER/first_visit=true/pns/snapfish/share/p=965131344901509418/l=17644188009/g=53859767/cobrandOid=1000/otsc=SYE/otsi=SAER

I think she looks like Julia!

Then, on August 15 at 7:21 a.m., Caleb Josiah Fieg arrived in this world.  Caleb is the son of Brian and Emily Fieg of Acton, GA, and Brian is Doug Fieg's son.

Caleb was born at home, with midwives in attendance and weighed 8# 1 oz. and was 20.5 inches long.  The delivery went well and there were lots of grandparents in attendance.  (There is that 8-1 combination again.  I think I'll go buy a lottery ticket....)

Brian writes in an email, "Emily is so amazing.  She did such a good job today.  I woke up at about 2:30 this morning when the labor was too much for Emily to sleep, the midwives came over around 4ish, and we had the baby in her arms by 7:21.  It went by so fast it seems....  It was so great to be with just her and the 3 midwives/ apprentices in our home.  As a guy, I just have to say that it was so much less stressful of an event, and I didn't have to drive anywhere!  Haha!  Man, God is so good to us.  We do not deserve this incredible gift!!!"  (Ed. note:  Oh yes they do!  And don't you see Uncle Bud in that face????)

What an exciting month for our family tree!

2012 Fieg Reunion a Great Success

The Fieg reunion of August 3 through 6 in Cooperstown, NY is just a fond memory now.  From comments heard throughout the event from various cousins, however, the overall flow was much preferable to that of the prior reunion in 2009.

The use of Cobblescote on the Lake for our meals and meeting place was a stroke of genius on the part of our vice-president, Diana Monaco and though it was a far cry from the rentals at Fry's (now known as Aalsmeer) by our grandparents in the 1950s, it seemed to fit to a T the preferences of our generation.
Cobblescote on the Lake, viewed from the point

The weather was a tad warmer than usual for the area, so most of us got the chance to swim or nap or loll in the warm sunshine, soaking up Vitamin D and forgetting about the rat race at home. 

On Friday night the reunion-goers were treated to a meet-and-greet on the point at Cobblescote, complete with a fire in the fire ring (oopsie), s'mores, swimming away into the gathering darkness by Bill Doyle, his eventual "rescue" by Max Fieg, a visit from Steve, Sharon and Keelin Davie (Steve is the son of the late Ray and Sonja Davie, relatives of Judy and Diana), refreshments and, of course, lots of chatter.

For your editor the highlight of the reunion was meeting, for the first time in person, Ed Fieg Sr.'s family and Mark Roman's kids.  What an enthusiastic, beautiful bunch of people, and they are my relatives!  I am always amazed at how easily relatives fall into conversation with each other, even if they have never met before.

Saturday's breakfast at Cobblescote started half an hour early to accomodate those who were driving to Utica for Aunt Dorothy's memorial service at Forest Hill Cemetery there.  The ceremony was well-attended by Fiegs and Romans alike and mercifully we were in the shade the whole time.

The Reverend Dennis Dewey presided and, in a warm and sonorous voice, read "A Remembrance of a Life - Dorothy Marie Fieg Roman"  This lovely memorial will be e-mailed separately. 

Dorothy's niece, Diana, read a moving remembrance written by Dorothy's best friend, Jean Davie Fieg, which appears at Rembrance of Dorothy Fieg Roman.   

A poetry lover all her life, Dorothy left many books that were obviously often read and well-loved and one poem in particular, "Remember" by Christina Rossetti, caught Don Roman's eye.  It was marked with Dorothy's personal thoughts and interpretations and Don chose that poem to read to those gathered around the gravesite.

Following the service, we gathered at the Radisson Hotel for luncheon and then made our way back to Cooperstown.

At that evening's dinner at Cobblescote there were lots of little girls running around in circles, and what is a reunion without lots of little kids running around in circles?? 

IT'S A BUG!!!

A half-and-half cash drawing was won by the Corkery family and the trivia contest was won by the table with John Roman as Head Minutiae Monitor, with support from Doug Fieg, Don Roman, Anne Roman, Jennifer Roman and Jessica Roman.  (Bill Doyle would have won had he know anything about the Fiegs.  He really should read the blog ... LOL)

Sunday's barbeque was delicious (in fact every meal was tasty, ready when we were and served by a staff that was polite and friendly) and afterwards the kids went down to the point for games.  The water proved to be too choppy to take out the pontoon boat, but that didn't stop people from canoeing and tipping over, swimming or playing a water relay game.

The Fieg family albums were much perused.  Even some of the Gen Xers enjoyed looking at photos of their ancestors.

At 4:15 the family business meeting was called to order on the screened veranda. The minutes can be read at 2012 Meeting Minutes.

Monday we enjoyed a farewell breakfast at Cobblescote and parted company, each going in his or her own direction, back to the homes and lives we left behind.  The drizzle of rain was not enough to dampen our spirits at all.


We look forward eagerly to another reunion in three years -- and perhaps a mini-Midwest reunion sooner than that.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

The Autobiography of Aunt Millie Part Three: Flittings


     The family moved from Yonkers to 4052 Park Ave., where the Central Railroad's trains kept thundering by.

     Her Grandpa Fieg died, as did some famous Fleischman.

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

     It must have been a poverty time, because her mother and oldest sister, Martha, made beaded purses to sell.

     The next move was to Washington Ave., where there were bed bugs! The only memory there is playing hopscotch, taking part in a Christmas school play for which the oldest sister gave the six-year-old a beautifully dressed doll to carry in the play [Could this be the doll in the photo in the introduction?]; and a girl whose last name was Lechinsky. When her mother called from the third story window for her daughter, the kid hid in the doorway and called back, "I ain't here, mama!"

     The next move, or "flitting," was to a three-story house on 173rd St. that the father named Igles Loch (pronounced Eagle's Lock)

                "...in the midst of a lovely cherry orchard."

     A French couple lived in the attic apartment, and on Saturdays when we two [Millie and Beta probably] were taking a bath, that French woman would have to call to those girls in the bath tub, "Open ze door." It was the only way she could get upstairs.

     Here too, a Hungarian woman lived on the first floor and she had a large white goose, which she tucked under her left arm. With the forefinger of her right hand she forced whole corn down that helpless animal's throat. It is thus that pâté de foie gras is produced.

     Green pastures belonging to the Astors were nearby, and the older boys used to gather wood there by lantern light, and store it in the second story of a nearby shed.  Max built a pipe to the kitchen window of the Fieg home, and a box full of wood would slide across to his mother's kitchen, thus saving his lugging armfuls up the stairs.

     They owned a goat that the goose-feeding Hungarian could milk, and a large turkey that wandered away never to be seen again.

     There is a memory of many enjoyable evenings with [Uncle] Gustave Boehler, who could write verse and once he had a verse for each member of the family.  Only two can be recalled:

"Jetzt komt Max und die feder fie Max
Und die glis es war ein man
Ein turkey da,
Der is mach valerian (the unknown)."

For Beta:
"Jetzt komt Beta on die rei,
Der is alles einerly,
Die a madele wie der Blitz,
Shonsees wenn sie am esse sits."

     Then they all end with "Tara ra boom de ay!"  How the Old Timer wishes she could remember the rest of the verses!
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  The population of Yonkers in 1900 was about twice that of Pforzheim and the Fiegs were perhaps delighted by the hustle and bustle. Trolleys had replaced horse-drawn coaches for the most part and residents also increasingly travelled by bicycle. Nearby Uniontown, just south of Dobbs Ferry, boasted a Ferris wheel, carousel and beer parlor and was a popular destination. The Hudson River offered a place to swim, fish and picnic and fireworks on the Fourth of July spangled the skies over the water.
     Park Ave. in the Bronx runs north-south along the railroad line. During this time there was talk of converting the railroad from steam to electricity, as had been done in Baltimore. (Can you imagine the noise and fumes as the trains roared along the tracks next to the Fieg home?) Washington Ave. parallels Park Ave. one block to the east. (In Millie's letter to my father she says they moved first to Washington Ave. and then to Park Ave., reversing the order given in this autobiography.)
     When the Fieg family moved to Igles Loch they only moved a few blocks. 173rd St. crosses Park and Washington one block to the south, running from the Grand Concourse in the west to the Bronx River in the east and ending at W. Farms Rd. Three blocks to the east of Washington, 173rd is interrupted by Crotona Park and runs one block north of the smaller Claremont Park, one or the other of which was, perhaps, the location of the cherry orchard.
     The Astor family had emigrated from Walldorf, Germany in the early 1800s and hence the name of their famous hotel, the Waldorf Astoria. (But why did the boys gather firewood by lantern light?)
     The Fieg men had sawdust in their veins - they could build anything! Millie's son, Gifford, built a home from the ground up in 1993 at the age of 74 and her brother, Lothar, went on to become an influential builder in Oneonta, New York, bringing his second son, Frank, into the family business. His third son - my father - hand-built several pieces of furniture for me as well as built-in bookshelves, storage sheds and a beautifully crafted split rail fence for the home where he lived with my mother in Greensboro, North Carolina until his death in 1989.
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     Times were hard from 1900 on -- a coal strike was on and every evening the father would announce an increase in the price of coal.  She remembers talk of gooing to Alaska as the gold strike was on but instead he bought a poor little stony farm in Schocopee [Pennsylvania].  She remembers the train ride in late March [1903], when they stopped at the Halfway House for the driver of the horse stage, Billy McGown, to get a glass of beer (I guess).

     The next morning was a beautiful sunshiny March day -- very mild -- and [the] eight-year-old was very pleased with the rural scenery.  Her mother, though, cried when she was the kitchen, the walls of which were covered with boards from grocery boxes (1903 -- no cardboard boxes then!) placed in haphazard fashion all over.  How her mother ever stood the next few years is still a marvel to the Old Timer.

Monday, August 20, 2012

The Autobiography of Aunt Millie: The Family Comes to America (Take 2)

PREFACE BY LOTHAR FIEG JR.

The OLD TIMER'S MEMOIRS is the autobiography of Emilie Case. It was received from Henry Fieg [Millie's nephew, son of her brother Max] in February 1990. The following preface was derived, deduced and/or approximated from various documents in the archives of the Fieg family.

Emilie Fieg was born December 7, 1894 in Pforzheim, Germany, the daughter (and youngest child) of Carl Victor Fieg and Emilie Böhler Fieg. Her siblings were: Martha, Victor, Lothar, Max and Bertha. The family came to America in July 1899 when Emilie was four-and-a-half years old.

The family moved to Schocopee near Milford, Pennsylvania in 1903.

Emilie Fieg married Arthur Case February 28, 1915. Their children are: Stanley, Thomas, Gifford, Richard, Walter, Hazel and Arthur.

This autobiography was written in 1980 when Emilie Case was 86 years old. She died in Milford, Pennsylvania July 29, 1984 at the age of 89.   
 
Bertha, Victor and Emilie Fieg as children. The picture was probably taken in 1899 or 1900. Could they be standing in their back yard in Yonkers during their first American winter?





GENEALOGY


NAME                            BORN                     MARRIED                                      DIED

Carl Fieg                      July 11, 1857         1906                                                 February 1879
Emilie Böhler               Aug. 23, 1857


Martha                         May 7, 1885           Dorman                                             1917
Victor                           Dec. 1881                                                                         1907
Lothar                         Aug. 11, 1886        Florence Shields Sept. 3, 1914      Aug. 23, 1958
Max                            April 3, 1888           Nettie Newman December 1909
Bertha                        May 5, 1890            Lester Bonardel May 19, 1914
Emilie                        Dec. 7, 1894           Arthur Case Feb. 28, 1915              July 29, 1984


CASE CHILDREN


Stanley                    January 1916           Emily Porter
Thomas                  May 1917                  Alberta Krope
Gifford                     1919                          Susannah Waggoner
Richard                   May 22, 1922            Amelia Thomas
Walter                     1925                           Betty Sittler
Hazel                      May 1927                                                                              Dec. 16, 1928
Arthur                     1930                           Cathy Weeks


THE OLD TIMER'S MEMOIRS
     It's too bad the first memory of the Old Timer is scatological. In her home in Pforzheim, Germany, the privy was attached on the outside of the house, and up about 3 stories. When she was three years old she could wait on herself but for the cleansing process she would stand bent over, clothes withdrawn, and yell "Bo-bo-butze!" Her sister, Bertha, four years older, would come upstairs and clean her, as their mother had her six children, her husband, and her aged mother to care for.

                "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.

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

     Another memory is going bathing in an enclosure with sister Martha, ten years older, and what a pleasure, splashing and dunking!

     A birthday is remembered because that same sister had put tiny white peppermint candies under each scale of a cone from a Norway pine. A cake with candles was on the table, and when the birthday child was asked, "Which would you rather have, the cake or that pretty pine cone?" she said greedily, "Both!"

     On another occasion she remembers screaming and crying so loud that her father took her from the table and pushed her out the door, and left her there screaming, "Du dow, du dow!" Translated it meant, "You sow, you sow!"

     The next memory is riding in a surrey with her mother and all the rest, riding at a brisk pace -- her hat on the seat -- and the hat flying off into the unknown. They were on their way to go to America on the ship The Pennsylvania
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     In the late nineteenth century, an extensive network of railroads connected Pforzheim to Baden, Wurttemburg, Stuttgart and other large cities of Germany. The area, called the Gate to the Black Forest, sat at the confluence of three rivers and was bustling with industry.
     In 1888, on a visit to relatives, Bertha Benz and her two sons arrived in Pforzheim on the first "long-distance" drive in the history of the automobile in a car manufactured by her husband Carl Benz. I can imagine my great-grandparents Carl and Emilie and three, maybe four, of their children standing by the road waving handkerchiefs and cheering as the vehicle passed by.
     When Carl Fieg married Emilie Böhler in 1879 the city's population was about 25,000. Their six children were born between 1881 and 1894 beginning with Victor and ending with Emilie, who was named after her mother. Since the establishment of a gold and jewelry factory in an orphanage in 1767 the area had become world-famous for its jewelry, a reputation retained even today, and Carl was a jeweler, though probably not a good businessman. (His son Lothar Sr. carried on the tradition of being a "soft touch" in business, though he became a successful builder and did not suffer the humiliation of bankruptcy as did his father.)
     During "La Belle Époque" women were wearing leg-of-mutton sleeves whose size contrasted with the tiny sashed waists and the simple, flared skirts that were the fashion of the day, and the bustle had all but disappeared. The sporty, emancipated (for the day) Gibson Girl set the style.
     Earlier in the 19th century little girls had worn smaller, shorter versions of their mothers' hoop skirts, bustles or empire-waisted dresses but when Millie was born, girls' dresses had taken on a different appearance. They were straight dresses with low waists and big lace collars. The skirts had details such as pleats, scallops, ruffles and shirring and girls commonly wore their hair in bangs.
     What did Millie's hat look like, as it sailed off in the breeze? Was it a small flowered affair, accented with ribbon and pheasant feathers and maybe a cameo brooch? I think it was a "Gainsborough," back in fashion after one hundred years, meant to be loosely tied with a satin ribbon under her chin and tilted slightly to one side, which, lying on the seat of the surrey, caught a current of air and flew off to who knows where, a memento of life in the old country lost to the little girl forever.
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The father's business had gone bankrupt, he went to America, and left his wife and six children to follow after he obtained work. 

                Our father Carl Fieg * was one of four brothers, Herman, Lothar
                and Frederick. The last [i.e. the youngest, Frederick] came to America
                about 1890. Herman went to Australia and illustrated that book, Das
                Buch von Pferde."

              "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."

             "
[Frederick Sr.'s] other son, Otto 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.

              "No one knows how or where Herman died.

              "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 [alternately spelled "Boehler," and pro-
               nounced "bailer."] 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."

              "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 - her brother Lothar - 
              who, as a young man, went west to work on the railroads.]

     The sea voyage was pleasant, as she remembers some men with chocolate bars, tempting her; her ten-years-older sister seasick the whole three weeks; her mother being told by the steward she did not have to make up the berths; she and the four-years-older sister unrolling toilet paper till the roll was empty and stuffing it into a chamber [pot] until it was full.

* Carl was also known as Philip, according to genealogical research into the lineage of his son Max's second wife. That may have been a middle name, or a mistake, as the middle name Victor is attributed to him in other family literature.
** Helen Griffith, née Fieg, is the daughter of Millie's Uncle Frederick of New Jersey.
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     How interesting to read that Aunt Millie was unsure about the dates of her parents' birthdays and wedding anniversary, days which, nowadays, are big business and people are supposed to make a big deal and spend lots of money on them. (Millie's great-nephew 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.")
     By around 1890 ships were almost all built from steel instead of the much heavier iron. Vessels were lighted by electricity in every quarter, including even the steerage; there was room for exercises and games on deck, well-stocked libraries and music-rooms, a piano or organ and a variety of food. The transatlantic passage was probably as comfortable as being at home.
     The fastest of these new ships could make the transatlantic trip in less than a week, but the Pennsylvania, built in 1872, was not in that class of ocean-going vessels, though she and her three sister ships - Ohio, Indiana and Illinois - were the largest iron ships ever built in the United States and the first ships to challenge Great Britain's dominance in the passenger-transport trade since the Civil War.
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     The next memory is living in Yonkers, with a big collie dog named Carlo, who could jump over a high picket fence [shown in the photo in the introduction]. A cousin, Helen Griffith, came from Newark to visit them and for some reason on a hot summer day, they all crawled under the furniture and hid.

     The first day of 1900 was a cloudless icy day, with a fine crust on the snow. There is no memory of not being able to speak English, and the first English words her mother learned were "Hooray for McKinley!"

Sunday, August 19, 2012

The Autobiography of Aunt Millie - Part One

Over the course of the next few weeks, with your indulgence, your editor would like to publish the transcription of Emilie "Millie" Fieg Case.  This transcription was taken from several documents, the most imortant of which is Aunt Millie's own autobiography, "The Old Timer's Memoirs," copies of which are in the possession of several other relatives.

This fascinating memoir reveals details not only about the Fieg family's emigration to America but about life in the earliest years of the Twentieth Century in our country.  I've gathered some tid-bits of trivia to pad the account, and hope you'll enjoy...

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUNT MILLIE
"The Old Timer's Memoirs"

Introduction by Judith Fieg Kestner

Sometimes women marry with the misconception that a golden door will open once the ring is on the finger and that life will be soft and pleasant and enriching. "Wedded bliss," however, is more likely than not a very small object glimmering in the heat at the end of a long, bumpy road. Hard work, give-and-take and emotional experiences high and low all propel us toward that far away light that may or may not be a mirror of our original dream of happiness.

Many women who peruse the autobiography of my Great-aunt Emilie "Millie" Fieg Case will feel an empathy with her expectations for the "knobby club" to strike "in case she ever got to be too happy," for, as we all know, there is no guarantee that that shiny thing just around the next curve in the road is not fool's gold. To quote English author Mary Anne Evans (a.k.a George Eliot), "Having once embarked on your marital voyage, it is impossible not to be aware that you make no way and that the sea is not within sight -- that, in fact, you are exploring an enclosed basin."

Friday, August 17, 2012

Dorothy Fieg Roman's Obituary Appears in Daily Star

August 15, 2012                                                              

Dorothy Fieg Roman


Dorothy Fieg Roman

HILLSBOROUGH, N.J. _ Interment services for Dorothy Fieg Roman were held Aug. 4, 2012 in Forest Hill Cemetery, Utica.

Mrs. Roman died in Hillsborough, N.J., on July 16.  She was 83.
She was born May 24, 1929, in Oneonta to Florence (Shields) and Lothar Fieg.

She attended Hartwick College and later became a legal secretary for Farone & Steidle and then at State Teachers College. She subsequently became a librarian in Willingboro, N.J.
She was predeceased by her husband, Robert W. Roman of Utica.
She is survived by three sons: John of Somerset, N.J., Don of Upper Chichester, Pa. and Mark of Edgewood, Md.; a sister, Maxine Whiteside, Sioux City, Iowa; six grandchildren; and a number of nieces and nephews.

Donations in her memory are being accepted at Hartwick College.

Go to http://thedailystar.com/obituaries/x1344399502/Dorothy-Fieg-Roman to leave a comment and view the photo.



Monday, August 13, 2012

Youngest of Seven, Dorothy Fieg Roman Dies

Dorothy Fieg Roman, 83, youngest of seven brothers and sisters born to Lothar E. and Florence Shields Fieg, died July 16 in Hillsborough, NJ after a long period of declining health.  Her family was at her side.

Dorothy was born May 24, 1929 in the master bedroom of the family homestead in Oneonta.  She graduated from Oneonta High School in 1947.  Her father was the builder of Thornwood, home of the Hartwick College president.

Designing a mouse maze which was built at her direction in her father's carpentry shop, she won a scholarship as first prize in a science fair competition, enabling her to enroll at Hartwick College in 1947.  There she studied nursing for three years.

She worked as a secretary for the Farone and Steidle law firm and later State Teachers College in Oneonta before marrying Robert Roman of Utica, who preceded her in death. She had been a member of the choir at First United Presbyterian Church in Oneonta, where she was married.

At the time of their marriage her husband was manager of the F.W. Woolworth's store in Oneonta, and she supported him as he gradually advanced to regional manager for the Woolworth's chain at various venues in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The couple also devoted themselves to the raising of three sons.

For more than a decade she worked as a librarian until she retired more than 30 years ago.

She is survived by her sons, John of Somerset, N.J., Donald of Upper Chichester, Penn. and Mark of Edgewood, Md.; her sister Maxine Whiteside of Sioux City, IA, six grandchildren and several nieces, nephews and cousins.

Memorial services will be held on Aug. 4 at the Roman family plot in Forest Hill Cemetery in Utica, where her ashes will be interred.  Honorariums may be made in her memory to the Hartwick College Alumni Association in Oneonta.

Van Arsdale Funeral Home in Somerset, N.J., is in charge of preliminary arrangements.