The Snobby Sister Search - part 3

Did you think the story of Alexandra eloping to marry outside of her religion and then disappearing was interesting? 

Or did you prefer Amelia's son Benjamin, who married a woman 40 years younger and promptly died, leaving a 20-something in affluent Manhattan during the Depression who spent 70 years as a widow?

Just wait till you hear the story of Josephine.

 Are these my grandmother Arabella's snobby sisters about 1910? (see Sulzbach Pedigree Chart)

Do you think this describes Josephine on the right?

Recap:  My cousin Ann Smith told me the story of how our grandmother, Arabella Katherine Zoeller Sulzbach, was looked down on by her sisters because her husband, our grandfather Jacob Sulzbach, silk factory owner, didn't make as much money as their husbands.  We have decided that Amelia was a snob and Alexandra wasn't, and that leaves us to examine Josephine, Annie, and Kate.

I found Kate in 1892 living with Arabella, helping take care of the kids.  I hadn't noticed her before because the census taker's handwriting was so bad, and because she was listed as a domestic servant.  Definitely not a snob!  Sadly, she died two years later of meningitis. 

I set out again with my spreadsheet, looking for Josephine Zoellers or Zellers who married between 1860 and 1900.  There had been only 1 Alexandra and 8 Amelias, but there were 15 Josephines.  Josephine's first name was Barbara, and she had been called that when she was a baby.  But I thought, as an adult, would I go by the name I was called as a baby or as an 11-year-old?  That seemed pretty obvious, and come to find out, as the years went by, everyone forgot that there was even a Barbara attached to her name.

I became pretty set on Josephine Wenige, whose husband was Oscar. The big glaring reason is because they named their first 3 children Oscar Theodore Z., Gertrude, and Josephine Gertrude. That looked pretty certain to be after my Josephine's parents, Theodore and Gertrude Zoeller.  (although Josephine spelled her name Zeller).  There were 8 kids total:  the younger ones were Arthur Frederick, Augusta Victoria, Lalla Rookh, and Elsa.  

Josephine's family was crazy!  Oscar was a recent immigrant from Sachsen (Germany).  He was a music teacher, or dealer, or professor.  On 21 February 1869, he played Chopin's Scherzo in B flat minor and Thalberg's "Lucrezia" fantasia at Leiderkranz Hall to critical acclaim.  

Music teacher obviously did not mean the same thing then as now, because my parent was a music teacher, and I did not grow up hob-nobbing with the elite of Manhattan.  They lived at 508 East 82nd Street on the Upper East Side, where the more well-off Germans were beginning to move.  The median house sale there today is $830,000, or $1334 per square foot.

508 East 82nd St.

Josephine and Oscar's first child, Oscar Theodore Z. Wenige, became a farmer, of all things, in Queens.  I guess that didn't work out, because he moved to Asheville, North Carolina.

The next one, (minus of couple of infant deaths), Josephine, became a singer and actress.  I am not sure what the job description is of "prima donna."  Multiple marriages, children, divorces, and travels followed. 

Arthur, a civil engineer and architect, worked his way up through the National Guard to become a major.  He was appointed an engineer to connect the Interboro RR and Long Island RR at Flatbush (Brooklyn).  He later ran for city alderman.  Arthur and family ended up in Asheville also, with a live-in servant married couple.

Augusta Victoria married Hugo F. Huber, who was extremely rich.  A manufacturer, contractor, and interior decorator, Hugo had business interests in Europe that kept him crossing the Atlantic.  After Augusta died, Hugo married widow Lulu Severn, who had been a New York Assemblywoman (in the 1930s!), friends with the governor, and a suffragette.

210 Riverside Drive

Augusta, Hugo, and their daughter Augusta Victoria lived in Manhattan Valley on the Upper West Side.  Now a 4-room, 1-bath apartment there rents for $4000 a month. 

In 1920 they moved to 210 Riverside Drive with a cook and a maid.  Their neighbors were manufacturers, merchants, and exporters with their own servants.  Today an apartment there costs a million dollars, or $1300 per square foot.  If you want to rent, that will set you back $7000 a month.  It advertises as  "210 Riverside Drive is a handsome prewar Co-op built in 1909 by the prolific architectural firm, Schwartz & Gross. With twelve floors and approximately 88 units, 210 Riverside Drive was designed in an ornate Renaissance style with a smooth limestone base and symmetrical brick façade with elaborate decorative plasterwork particularly on the top portion of the building.

The elegant marble lobby has coffered ceilings, beautiful original Tiffany-style stained glass windows, and was featured in the popular 1998 film, You’ve Got Mail, as “Joe Fox’s” (Tom Hanks) building lobby. This building also has a magnificent manned front elevator with the original cab and wrought-iron doors from 1910 which has been carefully restored.

The residences feature generously proportioned rooms, high ceilings, charming arched doorways, and picture frame moldings and vary in size from studios to three bedroom homes."

Their daughter Victoria's engagement announcement shows the high society circles they moved in:

  New York Tribune

November 13, 1921

 

Miss Victoria Hubers

Engagement Announced

Daughter of Mr. and Mrs. H. F.

Huber To Be Married to

Paul McNamee

An engagement just announced, of

much interest here and in Albany, is

of Miss Victoria Huber, daughter

of Mr. and Mrs. H. F. Huber, to Paul

McNamee. Miss Huber attended the College of Mt.

St. Vincent-on-the-Hudson. Paul McNamee,

who recently returned from a

trip to Brazil, is the younger son of

Mr. and Mrs. Frank A. McNamee, well

known in Albany society and at the

Capitol.

The next daughter is Lalla Rookh.  Both the census takers and I struggled to discern what her name really was and how to spell it.  One day, while enjoying an Edgar Allan Poe-themed escape room in DC with my family, I saw "Lalla Rookh" on the wallpaper!  The wallpaper design was of bookshelves, and "Lalla Rookh" was the name of a book!  Now I knew it was not a made-up name, and how to spell it correctly.  I researched the name to find that it is from a narrative written by Irish Romantic poet Thomas Moore in 1817, later adapted into a cantata, opera, and other music.  Some connection to her music teacher father, I guess? 

Lalla Rookh and her lumber dealer husband Oscar Herrmann lived at 65 Central Park West.  That's right, where the celebrities live.  You want to buy an apartment there?  1650 sq feet will cost you between $2 and $4 million.

If you're not hanging on every word yet, wait till you hear about the youngest, Elsa.  At age 25, she married 40-year-old Otto Schulz in Leipzig, Germany.  "You live in America!" I want to yell.  "Why are you going back to Germany?"  Elsa then had two daughters, named after her sisters, another Lalla-Rookh and another Victoria.  

After Oscar the music teacher died in 1898, Josephine decided to travel the world and live with her various children, in New York, North Carolina, and, yes, Germany.  In 1906, she sailed to Germany for daughter Elsa's wedding, making the trans-Atlantic crossing several times in the next few years. 

In Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, history lovers, what happened?  Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, setting World War I in motion.  On August 3, Germany invaded Belgium on its way to attack Paris.  The next day, England declared war on Germany.  Who was in Hamburg in a country at war?  Josephine, her daughter Augusta, and granddaughter Victoria. They applied for an emergency passport to get home as soon as possible.  "Get out! Get out!" I want to yell at them.  Victoria's engagement announcement recounts that

 "Miss Huber and her mother experienced some thrilling adventures in Europe during the first year of the war , when they were held in the fighting section until extricated by American Consul General Pike." 

What could that possibly involve?  They made it safely home in November, whew!, but Elsa remained.  "What are you doing there?" I try to tell her a century later.  "You're an American!  Take your kids and husband and go home!  Don't you know there's nothing in Germany but destruction and poverty?  You'll probably end up dead!"

Elsa stayed.  Augusta's husband, interior decorator Hugo F. Huber, was busy crossing the Atlantic during wartime.  He left Liverpool in 1915 on the Lusitania for New York.  "Stay off the Lusitania!" I yell some more.  "The Germans are about to torpedo it, bringing the USA into the war!"  Hugo was apparently not on the Lusitania when it sank.

Elsa did come to the US for what appears to be forever, in 1931.  Her husband and children were still in Leipzig.  Did she have to leave them?  What about World War II?  Are they going to be killed or bombed or trapped in Leipzig by the Russians?  

Leipzig 1948

Somehow making it out of East Germany, Elsa's daughter Lalla-Rookh Schulz arrived in America in 1952 with her 4 children.  Her husband was dead, and I'm sure Otto was too.  I don't know what ever happened to Elsa's other daughter.

After all this incredible emotional investment, I still had no proof that these people were really my relatives.  I can't find a death certificate for Josephine, probably because she died while traveling the world.  Then, just by luck, in sorting my mother's keepsakes, I came across my baby book.  My mother had filled out the family tree page.  On my clueless father's side, there is nothing beyond his parents' names.  But then I noticed the name Wainiker off to itself, not in the tree.  That seemed odd, until I realized that was the proof!  My father did know he had an aunt named Wenige, which in German would be pronounced Vain-ih-guh, and was likely Americanized to Wain-ih-guh.  Since my father couldn't spell and my mother couldn't speak German, Wainiker was the spelling they came up with.

Afterwards, I noticed something I hadn't thought important before - the name of my grandfather's silk business.    Josephine's husband Oscar Wenige was in business with Pop Jake!   She would have been in prime position to know how much her sister Arabella's husband was worth.  Certainly a musician wasn't interested in the silk business, so I think Oscar put up the money for Pop Jake to run the business.  They had to deal with violence between strikers and scabs in the beginning of 1890.  By the end of the year, they were bankrupt due to a general depression in the silk business, and $150K in the hole (the same as $4 million today).  I bet that made for some fireworks at the family dinners!

Owning the top real estate in Manhattan, voyaging on the Atlantic, moving in state government circles?  Josephine was definitely the second snobby sister.

What about the last sister, Anna?  There are 36 Anna or Annie Zoellers or Zellers who married between 1870 and 1910 in New York City.  That's a lot to tackle.  Anna will just have to wait.

References:

210 Riverside Drive Building Description Provided by Carolyn Zweben

https://www.liederkranzny.org/history.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jl0emjy8BM