Rediscovered Family History - The Maternal / Midwestern Edition
In 1997, the year after my grandmother Ruth Andre Knepp died, my mother and I traveled to her hometown of Burlington, Iowa, and spoke with a lady named Marcella Norling, who'd been both her closest friend in childhood and a rediscovered friend in later years. I grabbed a sheet of paper and scribbled down as many of Marcella's memories of my grandmother--and my grandmother's parents and grandparents--as I could.
Two years later I would begin a series of multiple moves: six over the course of seven years. After the last one I realized I couldn't find that sheet, and in fact hadn't seen it for awhile--not since I started writing my family history page in earnest. And by then Marcella had passed away too. So I spent the next seven years thinking it and the information on it was lost...until yesterday, when it turned up tucked into an old journal notebook. So aside from scanning the page and eventually adding the information to my various family members' pages, I thought I would add some of my favorite reminisces here, in case anyone might like a peek of upper middle class life in an Iowa-Mississippi River town in the early 20th century.
Ruth is at the center of the bottom row. This is her 7th birthday party in April of 1924,
in the yard of her home at 616 Maple Street, Burlington, Iowa.
The baby behind her is my aunt, Bette Andre (Farmer).
Some quick background: My grandmother was born into a small business dynasty in Burlington. Her great-grandfather, P.A. Andre, started a shoe store on Jefferson Street in 1868, and served settlers who were heading west. One of those settlers didn't have money to spare for shoes, so instead bartered an elk horn, which for some reason P.A. painted green, then hung above the store's front door. The store became known colloquially as the "Green Elk Horn Shoe Store", and for decades the newspaper ads said things like "Look for the green elk horn". (I wish I knew whatever happened to that horn.)
My grandmother's grandfather Ed Andre worked for the store, but had been paralyzed in his youth, and so worked as a clerk instead of any administrative capacity. Her grandmother, Anna Romkey Andre, was a painter. Her father, Dale Andre, wasn't interested in the business and had no head for business anyway, and became a prominent lawyer in town. Her mother, Hilda Van Gerpen Andre, was a housewife, though eventually would become a fashion buyer for the Montgomery Ward in Peoria, Illinois. My grandmother grew up in a house that was built in 1915 as a wedding present by her paternal grandparents...who lived across the street...and furnished by her maternal grandparents, who lived in tiny Hartsburg, Illinois.
Some tidbits:
Ruth came from a musical family, and she and Marcella liked to sing duets around the piano. Their favorite was "When It's Springtime in the Rockies".
She had a "Phoebe doll" and a "fully equipped" playroom. During the summers they would throw a blanket on the ground and have picnics at Marcella's house on Locust Street, complete with a little kitchen cabinet, dolls, and dishes. They went to Grandma Andre's house for slumber parties.
Her house had an icebox with a spigot on the side to get ice-cold water out of. Her mother's dressing room included a large closet filled with "bottles and bottles" of perfume.
Extra stock from the shoe store would be stored in Grandma Andre's attic.
There was a drug store on the corner where you could get a sundae for ten cents. Marcella's mother was often broke, or wouldn't give Marcella any money for ice cream, but Ruth's family would treat her, saying in one hundred years Marcella's mother wouldn't know the difference anyway. Sometimes they would also get ice cream cones at Corso's, especially when it was on the ground floor of the building that also contained my great-grandfather's law office. They'd bite off the point at the bottom of the cone first and then suck the ice cream from the top.
Ruth's grandmother, especially living across the street, was a constant active presence in her life, but her grandfather was often ill. For a time he could walk bent over, but often stayed in a wheelchair. Grandma Andre, a "big, stout woman", would bathe him every day, then dress him in a suit and hat. He would sit in front of the house's big front bay window and wave at the kids, especially when they played in his yard. By then he couldn't talk, but would make guttural sounds.
They kept a picture of their daughter Maude, my great-grandfather's sister who was born two years before him and died in infancy.
Grandma Andre grew rhubarb in her yard which she would make pies from, which Ruth and Marcella would eat with green apples and salt. Once Grandma Andre made a four-foot high angel food cake with pink frosting.
Oma, her maternal grandmother, Ruth didn't see much because at that time Hartsburg, Illinois was an all-day drive from Burlington. She also died in 1929, when my grandmother was twelve. But Marcella remembered Oma, who'd immigrated from Germany alone as a teenager in the 1860s, as a "sweet old German lady".
On Sundays my great-grandfather liked to go for drives. He would bring his Studebaker touring car across the street to his parents' house, help the grandparents get to the car, and then off everyone would go.
This isn't from the memory sheet, but it was something my grandmother remembered whenever she missed her youthful energy: As teenagers, she and Marcella would walk to Crapo Park, about 2 1/2 miles from my grandmother's house, play tennis, and then walk home. Unless they stopped for ice cream afterwards first.
Neither my grandmother nor Marcella had as idyllic lives as these snippets make them sound. But they did have plenty of happy memories, and I'm more grateful than I can say that I found this sheet of them again.
Two years later I would begin a series of multiple moves: six over the course of seven years. After the last one I realized I couldn't find that sheet, and in fact hadn't seen it for awhile--not since I started writing my family history page in earnest. And by then Marcella had passed away too. So I spent the next seven years thinking it and the information on it was lost...until yesterday, when it turned up tucked into an old journal notebook. So aside from scanning the page and eventually adding the information to my various family members' pages, I thought I would add some of my favorite reminisces here, in case anyone might like a peek of upper middle class life in an Iowa-Mississippi River town in the early 20th century.
Ruth is at the center of the bottom row. This is her 7th birthday party in April of 1924,
in the yard of her home at 616 Maple Street, Burlington, Iowa.
The baby behind her is my aunt, Bette Andre (Farmer).
Some quick background: My grandmother was born into a small business dynasty in Burlington. Her great-grandfather, P.A. Andre, started a shoe store on Jefferson Street in 1868, and served settlers who were heading west. One of those settlers didn't have money to spare for shoes, so instead bartered an elk horn, which for some reason P.A. painted green, then hung above the store's front door. The store became known colloquially as the "Green Elk Horn Shoe Store", and for decades the newspaper ads said things like "Look for the green elk horn". (I wish I knew whatever happened to that horn.)
My grandmother's grandfather Ed Andre worked for the store, but had been paralyzed in his youth, and so worked as a clerk instead of any administrative capacity. Her grandmother, Anna Romkey Andre, was a painter. Her father, Dale Andre, wasn't interested in the business and had no head for business anyway, and became a prominent lawyer in town. Her mother, Hilda Van Gerpen Andre, was a housewife, though eventually would become a fashion buyer for the Montgomery Ward in Peoria, Illinois. My grandmother grew up in a house that was built in 1915 as a wedding present by her paternal grandparents...who lived across the street...and furnished by her maternal grandparents, who lived in tiny Hartsburg, Illinois.
Some tidbits:
Ruth came from a musical family, and she and Marcella liked to sing duets around the piano. Their favorite was "When It's Springtime in the Rockies".
She had a "Phoebe doll" and a "fully equipped" playroom. During the summers they would throw a blanket on the ground and have picnics at Marcella's house on Locust Street, complete with a little kitchen cabinet, dolls, and dishes. They went to Grandma Andre's house for slumber parties.
Her house had an icebox with a spigot on the side to get ice-cold water out of. Her mother's dressing room included a large closet filled with "bottles and bottles" of perfume.
Extra stock from the shoe store would be stored in Grandma Andre's attic.
There was a drug store on the corner where you could get a sundae for ten cents. Marcella's mother was often broke, or wouldn't give Marcella any money for ice cream, but Ruth's family would treat her, saying in one hundred years Marcella's mother wouldn't know the difference anyway. Sometimes they would also get ice cream cones at Corso's, especially when it was on the ground floor of the building that also contained my great-grandfather's law office. They'd bite off the point at the bottom of the cone first and then suck the ice cream from the top.
Ruth's grandmother, especially living across the street, was a constant active presence in her life, but her grandfather was often ill. For a time he could walk bent over, but often stayed in a wheelchair. Grandma Andre, a "big, stout woman", would bathe him every day, then dress him in a suit and hat. He would sit in front of the house's big front bay window and wave at the kids, especially when they played in his yard. By then he couldn't talk, but would make guttural sounds.
They kept a picture of their daughter Maude, my great-grandfather's sister who was born two years before him and died in infancy.
Grandma Andre grew rhubarb in her yard which she would make pies from, which Ruth and Marcella would eat with green apples and salt. Once Grandma Andre made a four-foot high angel food cake with pink frosting.
Oma, her maternal grandmother, Ruth didn't see much because at that time Hartsburg, Illinois was an all-day drive from Burlington. She also died in 1929, when my grandmother was twelve. But Marcella remembered Oma, who'd immigrated from Germany alone as a teenager in the 1860s, as a "sweet old German lady".
On Sundays my great-grandfather liked to go for drives. He would bring his Studebaker touring car across the street to his parents' house, help the grandparents get to the car, and then off everyone would go.
This isn't from the memory sheet, but it was something my grandmother remembered whenever she missed her youthful energy: As teenagers, she and Marcella would walk to Crapo Park, about 2 1/2 miles from my grandmother's house, play tennis, and then walk home. Unless they stopped for ice cream afterwards first.
Neither my grandmother nor Marcella had as idyllic lives as these snippets make them sound. But they did have plenty of happy memories, and I'm more grateful than I can say that I found this sheet of them again.