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Making it successfully across the German border reduced the threat of Josef being sent back to Transylvania, but more threats to his dream of America still lay ahead.

It was from Bremen he wrote the letter to Lisi from which I've been quoting portions. How he began that letter and what happened after its completion will be published on December 31, 2010. He, along with hundreds of others, still had hurdles to jump before boarding the ship to America.

New Year's Eve in 1910 ushered in a new year with a completely unknown and uncharted future for Josef's -- and therefore, Lisi's -- life. Labels: ancestors, border checks, family history, Genealogy, Germans, immigrant eye exams, immigrants, Leipzig, New Year's Eve, trachoma, trains, Vienna


Terror Atop the Train 

The three friends boarded the noon train to Budapest, about 270 miles away and, based on notes he made on a previous trip, a nineteen hour train ride. When they arrived in Budapest, on December 26th, he sent another postcard to Lisi, this one much more upbeat than the one posted yesterday, and signed by all his companions as well: 

In  the next post, scheduled for December 28th,  we'll find out what happened. 


Channeling the Dead to Life 

Tomorrow, Christmas Eve, on the 100th anniversary of his departure, I'll post the beginning of his diary on the centennial of its writing. In 1910 Josef began a second book, this time the notebook in which I found his Military Draft notice handwritten on the first page. (See post, Drafted 100 Years Ago). After making some inquiries with Transylvanian natives, the consensus at this time is that Josef probably copied the contents of the draft letter into this notebook to keep it handy. Such official notices were typically sent by mail.

Despite the serious command with which the notebook begins, Josef changes the tone immediately. On the opposite side of the “Draft Summons” page, he enters the date, followed by a tongue-in-cheek explanation of the notebook's raison d’etre:

July 5, 1910

This book should not be used to teach or as a toy for children, but only for amusement during serious and hard times. It wasn’t because of an excess of money that I purchased this book, but rather unbearable boredom tempted me to do so.
The moral and immoral contents from recited poems and songs which I entered into this book are a remembrance of the fantastic, fun trip I made to Vienna in the most wonderful years of my youth, from 19-21.

In the center of the page he writes in large, bold letters the Vienna address to which the military draft summons had been addressed, followed by a request:

VIENNA VI Mariahilferstrasse Nr. 78
Third Floor (our 4th floor); Door #7

This book is dear to me and whoever steals it is a thief, and whoever gives it back is a good fellow and whoever finds it, in case it is lost, will receive on delivery 5 Kronen. Please send it to my home Neppendorf Nr. 587 near Hermannstadt in Hungary.
Yours sincerely, Josef Gärtz.

The notebook book comprises 57 pages with 95 numbered entries. Most of them are folksongs with multiple, numbered verses, but several are off-color jokes or anecdotes--the “immoral contents” he probably was referring to in his introduction.

This photograph of my grandfather is undated, but Lisi, my grandmother, wrote on the back:  “Josef In Vienna at age 20” (1909).  I always assumed she made a mistake, that he was 21 (1910), and already on his way to America, through Vienna. But the more I look at it, the more convinced I am it was taken in the summer, given the clothes he’s wearing. Also, propped on his trunk is a sign that says “Wien” (Vienna) along with the street address where he was staying in the summer of 1910, as listed in his notebook. Whether it was 1909 or 1910, it records his appearance during the days of his “wonderful fun youth.”

But he still had that draft notice hanging over his head, was in love with Lisi, and undoubtedly surrounded by buzz about America.

Did he respond to the draft summons on September 30, 1910, in Vienna, as ordered? I believe he must have at least registered, for he often relayed a story that he was told he was “too skinny” for the army, a trait that four years later, at the start of World War I, would have been meaningless. But later letters to him from Mrs. Jickeli indicate that he still had some sort of unfinished business with the military.

Whatever the circumstance, in the following few months he had made up his mind.
He was heading for America, and the next time he writes, he will record his harrowing trip, leaving Transylvania on Christmas Eve, 1910. I’ll explain how I made the extraordinary discovery of his diary documenting his trip in my next post, and post the diary 100 years to the date after it was written, December 24, 1910. Labels: American Immigration, ancestors, family history, family tree, Genealogy, Germans, military draft, Vienna, Wien, youth


The Cash and Song Book

When we asked my grandfather why he had come to America he always said, “Nothing from nothing makes nothing.”
A little background may illuminate that statement. Like Lisi, he had lost a parent when very young. His father died when Josef was just four. We were told his widowed mother stood in a frigid stream, beating soldiers' clothes clean with rocks, in order to earn money to raise him and his sister.

Here's the earliest photo I have of Josef with his mother and sister.
He told us that at age six, he was tied onto the back of horse (his little legs couldn't reach the stirrups), guiding the beast to plow fields and earn some extra money for the family. He went on to be a carpenter, but based on several notebooks he kept, employment near home must have been scarce as he often had to travel as far as Vienna (about 470 miles away) to find work.

In 1909, at the age of twenty, he started making notes in a small book labeled “Kasse Buch,” literally a “cash book,” to keep track of earnings and expenditures, apparently for a trip to find work, first in Pressburg (the German name for Bratislava), where he spent two weeks, and then to Vienna. But he ends up finding a much more entertaining use for this book, according to Meta, a ninety-year old Siebenbürgen woman, now living in Germany, who took over Uli’s job of deciphering all the unrecognizable writing in my collection.

Born in 1920, Meta learned to write with the old German handwriting, and for more than a year, she has been my abiding Rosetta stone. Her intelligence, skill, and effort have already unlocked secrets trapped in more than forty inscrutable letters, diaries, and notebooks, shining a light on the lives of people whose first-hand experiences would otherwise have been lost forever. Not only has she decoded the writing, but she’s also made connections between events and often interpreted the intent behind the words and phrases that don’t easily translate to English.

I sent Meta a copy of Josef's Kasse Buch, and she figured out its contents. Josef did some ciphering (calculations are scribbled on the inside of the cover), but despite good intentions, Josef filled almost 50 pages of this “bookkeeping ledger” with the text from well-known folk, children, church and “Fatherland” songs.

My grandparents knew hundreds of songs and often would spontaneously begin singing, in harmony no less. Imagine an era decades before radio existed--never mind television, computers, MP3, I-tunes, podcasts and Ipods. Imagine that all the music that entertained you was self-created. Everyone was his own sort of “American Idol." How thoroughly we have relegated our own musical creativity to “stars" and "celebrities!” This book, and another he created, are testament to the importance of singing in daily life -- and also of my grandfather's overriding cheerful approach to life.
I'm not certain it was common for young men to write down the words to scores of songs.

In 1910, Josef began a second book, this time the small notebook in which I found his Military Draft notice written on the first page (see Post, “Drafted 100 Years Ago" - November 22, 2010), commanding him to appear before the draft board on September 30, 1910.

How did Josef make use of this second book -- and what would his response to his Draft notice be? Labels: family history, Genealogy, Germans, military draft, Siebenbürgen, singing, Transylvania, widowhood

 

Merry Christmas - 2010 



Next: Lisi's third mother. 


Life and Death - Abbreviated

Posted by Linda Gartz at 2:22 PM 3 comments Labels: Austro-Hungary, eastern Europe, family documents, family history, Genealogy, Germans, immigration, military draft, primary documents, Transylvania