My great-great-grandmother Elise Steiger grew up in Limburg, a city on the Lahn River, in the Duchy of Nassau which became part of Prussia, and is now in the German state of Hesse. Most of its old timbered houses survived WWII, and are worth a visit. When I was first getting serious about family history in 2010 I made a trip to Germany, flying into Frankfurt, and I stayed a few days in Runkel where my Gerhards were from, just down the Lahn River from Limburg.
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| Elizabeth "Elise" Steiger Gerhard, 1836-1878 |
Allen Holth, the husband of my distant cousin Joan Gerhard, had already written a few books on our Gerhard ancestry, and included an entry about my G2 grandfather Wilhelm Jakob Gerhard from Runkel and his wife, my G2 grandmother Elise Steiger from Limburg. I have a postcard passed down by my great aunt showing this home where her mother Elise grew up, daughter of Dr. H. Steiger:
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| "Our mother's home" – Limburg an der Lahn, Germany |
The blank postcard is an old tourist one from Limburg, the photo probably taken in the early 1900s, and likely included the family living there at the time. Prior to my trip I had sent a scan of the postcard to the tourist office in Limburg looking for a guided city tour, and asked if perhaps that house still survived. They arranged the tour, and on the 5th of August 2010 I met my guide Herr Winfried Prokasky in front of the Limburg train station. He walked me through the Altstadt, and pointed out that the timbered houses had mostly had the exposed timbers plastered over in the 1800s as that looked more upscale in those times, but as the "Fachwerk" came back into style, the timbers were being exposed again in renovations.
Near the end of the tour we came to that house, now under reconstruction. The timbers matched the postcard, but we were unable to enter the building due to the construction; he also mentioned that it was currently owned by the Catholic church – it was on the same square as the Limburg Cathedral, consecrated in 1235. I made a mental note to return at some point and try again.
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| The childhood home of Elise Steiger in Limburg, in 2010 |
We ended the tour at the local historical society where my guide introduced me to Johann-Georg Fuchs, a man who had written a book about the old homes in Limburg. This house was one of those he documented, known as "Haus Staffel" after one of the early owners, and indeed it had belonged to a Dr. Johann Heinrich Steiger who purchased it in 1852, and sold it in 1878. It has belonged to the Diocese of Limburg since 1903. The entry in Fuchs' self-published book Altstadtbauten noted that the property was first documented in 1287, but that "Dendrochronological investigations revealed that the present building was not built until 1515 and the stair tower in its present form until 1522." So it was really only about 500 years old, but still respectable.
Elise Steiger came to America in 1864, so she had lived in the home about 12 years. Her mother had died when she was not quite 4 years old, and so she had been living with her father, a court veterinarian, a step-mother, and some half-siblings. Perhaps emigrating was a good option for her as she was already 27, and so she came to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, and immediately married Jakob Gerhard who was a baker in that town, and who had arrived in America a decade earlier. We don't know if Elise had met Jakob in Germany – she would have only been 17 when he emigrated – or if the match had been arranged. Wilhelm Jakob's younger brother Carl Jacob had married Elise's first cousin Christiane Steiger in 1862, and so there was a close family connection.
I continued on in my genealogy hobby, not giving the Steiger home a lot more thought. A few years later my wife was watching Good Morning America on the TV when she saw a story about a house in Limburg that looked similar to the home I had photographed. The Catholic bishop of Limburg, Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, had spent an astounding amount of money renovating this house and its surroundings as a clerical headquarters, and it was becoming a bit of a scandal. This was at the start of Pope Francis' papacy, and Francis was known for his concern for the poor and was a critic of consumerism. The news stories referred to Tebartz-van Elst as "the bishop of bling"; one renovation that particularly caught the news was a $20,000 bathtub. So, the bishop was recalled, and eventually the hubbub subsided.
In 2018 my wife, sister, and brother-in-law were traveling in Germany, and we spent a couple days in Limburg. The house is part of a compound which includes a museum. The home itself is still a clerical headquarters of some sort, and when we tried to get a peek inside we were quickly rebuffed: I think they are still a bit sensitive about the publicity, and must get a fair number of people who want to see the bathtub. A museum clerk was a bit more empathetic, and gave us a private tour of the grounds outside.
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| Our trip in 2018, what it looks like now |
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| Inside the compound, 2018, house in distant right corner |
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| "Haus Staffel" – early 1900s, 1995, 2018 |
Limburg is a very pretty city, and I would like to return someday, but doubt that I will ever get to see that bathtub; I'm pretty sure that nothing remains of the original insides of the home from Elise Steiger's days anyway. Most of my ancestral homes were poor and have long since vanished, and so I appreciate one that it appears will survive for centuries.
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